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墨書 Inktalez
She suddenly grabbed Jiang Tianxing's sleeve, her grip strong enough to tear a piece of fabric.
Three charred corpses lay side by side in body bags, one of which had its left hand curled tightly, dark red seeping between the fingers. Yan Lan pried open the palm, revealing a half-rusted school badge embedded in her pupil, identical to the one excavated from the site of Ci'an Orphanage.
"The fourth victim, Chen Guohua," she said, tapping on the tablet with her nails, producing a rhythmic sound. "Twenty years ago, after the orphanage fire, he donated three million to rebuild the Children's Welfare Institute."
Jiang Tianxing interjected, "The first three victims were the building materials supplier, the education bureau director, and a foundation board member."
As the night wrapped around them, carrying the scent of formaldehyde, Jiang Tianxing pushed open the iron door of the city archives in the dark.
The fire report from 1998 should have been on the third shelf of files, but now that spot was only a puddle of water. When her fingertips brushed against the damp leather bag, the overhead fluorescent light flickered on with a pop.
"Jiang Tianxing, admitted in 1988, missing since 2000," Yan Lan leaned against the ladder, reading from Jiang Tianxing's incomplete file page. "What a coincidence; the last registered survivor of Ci'an Orphanage shares this name."
She tossed a transparent evidence bag filled with dust extracted from the charred bodies at the funeral home.
"Diatomaceous earth mixed with potassium nitrate—this formula..." She suddenly jumped down from the ladder, her lab coat brushing against Jiang Tianxing's wrist. "It's specifically used for delayed combustion devices and is identical to the accelerants found at the orphanage fire scene."
Jiang Tianxing remained unfazed and was about to speak when a dull thud echoed from outside the archive window.
When they rushed out, they found the night watchman Old Wu lying face up in a holly bush, his right hand tightly gripping half of a burned photograph.
Yan Lan pried open his stiff fingers; blood was written on the back of the photo: "It's your turn." The front showed a charred face that bore an astonishing resemblance to Jiang Tianxing's youthful features.
They exchanged glances as Jiang Tianxing received a notification. "You don’t have any men hiding at home, do you?"
Yan Lan shot him a sideways glance and pulled him towards her apartment. At the end of an old alley in the northern part of town, the entire building was engulfed in thick smoke, resembling an incense stick burned halfway.
When Jiang Tianxing kicked open the warped iron door, a wave of heat rushed at his face along with shards of broken glass. The flames licked at a handmade embroidered tapestry in the foyer that read "Forensic Master."
"Old Tie!" Yan Lan's voice cracked as she stepped on hot porcelain shards scattered across the floor; holes were burning into her lab coat.
Jiang Tianxing followed her gaze and saw a land turtle curled up amidst shattered glass from an exploded turtle tank. He grabbed a wet blanket from the sofa to wrap around his hand and rolled into the fire; pain shot through him as his skin burned.
Old Tie made scratching sounds from inside its shell, seemingly aware enough to cling tightly to a water valve with its front paws.
"With skills like that, why don’t you help me out?" Yan Lan's scalpel plunged into the floor beside Jiang Tianxing's feet.
Ignoring her plea, Jiang Tianxing scooped up Old Tie and dashed out of the inferno. When the fire truck roared onto the scene, Yan Lan was crouched at the alley entrance administering saline solution to Old Tie.
Suddenly, she used tweezers to pry open moss at the edge of its shell and pulled out a brass key stained with brown grime.
Jiang Tianxing stared intently at the blurred inscription "Ci An" on the key's handle; his stomach twisted violently. "A specialized lock for bank safes from twenty years ago—its keyhole has a self-destruct mechanism."
The children at the orphanage all had a key like this one, used to lock the "Confession Box" issued by the headmaster. As the name suggests, it was a place where every child who had made a mistake had to write down their sins and drop them into an iron box at the end of the hallway.
"Click, click." Yan Lan suddenly grabbed my wrist. "You've got a second-degree burn on your left forearm."
Before Jiang Tianxing could react, she dipped a cotton swab in Iodine Solution and jabbed it directly into the wound. Jiang Tianxing gasped in pain, but she leaned closer to his ear and whispered, "The fire started in the study. Someone drew a Countdown on the Window Frame with Phosphorus Powder."
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