Chapter 11: The huge fire
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
A huge fire, huge enough to burn on for one day and one night. When the day came, almost all the residents could see the thick, black smoke rising in the heart of the city.
The towering black fumes, which reached heights of tens of meters struck panic in the people’s hearts.
The fire occurred at the shopping mall at 429 Shachang road. The entire stretch of shops was burnt into black ash. The black ash and debris were still left on the road like scars, and it was horrific.
Some people claimed that when the fire was raging, the entire district was raging with huge flames. Neighboring districts were thrown into panic and no one knew what to do. It was not realistic for anyone to try and put out such a ma.s.sive, raging fire.
The fire devoured the entire mall like a forest fire. It could only be contained, but not be extinguished.
The firefighting department could only try to contain the fire, and to prevent it from getting even bigger.
One of the most-loved malls of the people of Luo Cheng had vanished in one day. To have such a thing happen on the third night of the lunar new year was like giving everyone of Luo Cheng an ominous warning to the approaching year.
Luckily, the mall closed at 7 pm on the third night of the lunar new year, and the fire happened at about 11 pm. As it was one of the first nights of the new year, not many people were out on the streets, or the consequences would have been detrimental.
The governors of Luo Cheng were anxious and drenched with cold sweat. If there were really 100 deaths, they would probably lose their position in the government.
Luckily nothing much happened.
The few neighboring streets were blocked off, and what was weird was that the department that arrived here was the civil defense.
The civil defense was in charge of emergency bomb shelters for the civilians.
Now, some important structures in Luo Cheng with bomb shelters were not some old-fas.h.i.+oned shelters or ideas seen in old movies.
The entrances and exits were for the people and utilities. Everyone had two entrances and exits. At the entrances and exits, there were emergency measures, important ones being a silent shutdown of the area, washes, emergency dial to relevant authorities etc. They were the basis of defending the civilians from probable attacks.
These measures also included doors, secret doors, and anti-chemical agent pa.s.sageways. There were many different capabilities and features of these bomb shelters.
However, with so many capabilities, there was one word to sum all of them up: Secret.
In this generation, many people think that bomb shelters are obsolete, but since last year, there have been new constructions and improvements made to bomb shelters, albeit only at a small scale.
When the civil defense arrived, some people wondered if there was a bomb shelter at the bottom of the mall. How was it unheard of in the past?
There were indeed many constructions here last year. Huge fences blocked off this entire street last year, and what was queer was that the number of constructions at night far exceeded work in the day.
Ultimately, this was just a small detail in the recent fire. The greatest attention placed was not on the fire itself, but how someone claimed to have taken a video of someone setting the fire, using just his hands, in the middle of the night!
This person was standing in the middle, and many people crowded around him. Indeed, late last night, there was a person lighting up the mall using just his hands and nothing else.
The video showed this place very clearly. The videographer was hidden in a corner, and his nervous breathing can even be heard in the video. It was like seeing an act of terror.
If someone claimed that this video was edited, that would be too ridiculous, there was not enough time.
That was why those people around the man chose to believe this video was real.
They, however, did not know how this was accomplished. Could it be that special abilities really existed?
When some things cannot be related to people, you would not care if they exist or not. If Captain America and the Hulk did not exist, it did not seem to matter. After all, those stuff were too far away and unrelatable.
However, after the fire last night happened near these people, they seemed to suddenly feel that this sort of weird occurrences did not seem so far away anymore.
If such things really existed, there was this discussion on the deleted videos by someone recently. Could it be true as well?
With this sort of happenings, some people were afraid as they did not know how to react. Some people were enjoying it too, as they were tired of such a mundane life. They wanted a more colorful and interesting world.
Even if that meant the world becoming more dangerous.
A slight loss of concentration, and the guy who provided the video suddenly disappeared. Everyone wanted to watch the video again but had no leads on it.
Many people wanted that guy to share the video so that they could spread it to their circle of friends.
The talk about special abilities, through word of mouth and daily talk, accelerated and spread like wildfire.
This huge snow in the winter suddenly burnt alive.
Lu Shu was at home watching the news with Lu Xiaoyu. The news only mentioned that there was a fire, and specific details and the source of the fire were still under investigation. It was suspected that flammable and explosive objects were not stored in accordance to guidelines.
If the people at the site of the fire used merely the video to explain everything, Lu Shu felt that he was likely one of the few to know the truth,
Even the black coats and Liang Che did not notice Lu Shu had already deduced so many things.
Lu Shu felt something ominous from this huge flame. He felt that he was a normal person even though he had a special ability to distinguish himself from the rest. It was better to stay low and hidden and enjoy the little things in life. What if that world was too dangerous?
However, he could not help but feel that once that supernatural world arrived, no one would be able to stay out of it.
If it was really like that, he felt that he had to understand and master the secrets in his body as soon as possible.
As soon as possible.
The distress points he had now already reached a high of 2193. Buying a celestial fruit now would already be an easy feat.
Buy two? Or buy one and use the remainder to enter the lottery?
Lu Shu, apart from wanting to know what the celestial fruit would aid him with, wanted to understand the lottery system and what he could get from there.