Li Lucen met the man's eyes, feeling somewhat surprised.
She remained relatively calm.
"The fire dragon was originally kept in a separate room. Usually, after the performance ends, personnel remove the fireworks attachments from the top. But for some reason, certain fireworks weren't dealt with in time and caught fire after falling onto the clothing."
Fortunately, Li Lucen had been keeping this matter in the back of her mind and had taken the time to come and check on it.
Being the first to discover the fire, and knowing how difficult it was to make the dragon skeleton, she called for help and personally joined the rescue efforts.
That was how she ended up getting hurt.
Hearing Li Lucen's words, Huo Zhixu's expression darkened, and Li Lucen did not look too well either.
Such matters had been emphasized time and time again; how could such a low-level mistake happen? Moreover, clothes were right next to those unprocessed fireworks. Even if the fireworks were left unprocessed, they should have been stored elsewhere—how could they possibly be left like that in the room where the dragon skeleton was kept?
And how could a fire start without a fuse?
Everything indicated that this was no accident. There were loopholes everywhere, telling Li Lucen that someone had done this deliberately.
Yet it hardly mattered; all that person wanted was for a fire to start. Even if the fire was put out quickly, it didn't matter, as long as it ignited.
Quite a few people had come here today, including several bloggers with massive fanbases. They all knew about the fire, so whether this event could be kept alive had become a major issue.
No matter how hard Li Lucen tried to suppress the matter, the relevant departments would find out, and even if the official approval had already been granted, it wasn't impossible to revoke it.
Without this event, the promotional impact Li Lucen hoped to achieve by leveraging the traditional festival would be severely diminished.
This incident was targeted directly at Wankou Camp—or more accurately, at Li Lucen.
Huo Zhixu stared at Li Lucen. Despite her young age, she showed no panic when faced with such a situation. She lowered her head, frowning deeply as if pondering a solution.
Once her wound was dressed, Li Lucen stood up.
First, she communicated with the fire department to determine the point of origin. After voicing her suspicions, she temporarily used the authority of the firefighting personnel to calm the people at the scene. She also had someone call the police station and instructed the camp manager to pull the surveillance footage.
She handled these matters methodically. While waiting for the police to arrive, she even walked up to the visiting tourists to offer explanations.
The police officers arrived quickly. Because the camp was newly constructed, surveillance systems were fully installed in every area.
The "arsonist" was quickly identified.
It was someone from the dragon dance team.
The team captain cursed bitterly, consumed by frustration and disappointment, but Li Lucen didn't linger to listen. Instead, she asked the fire and police personnel to help briefly recount the incident to the crowd.
She wanted them to understand that this was the deliberate act of someone, not a failure of the camp's safety measures. Whether this approach was enough, Li Lucen didn't know, but at least on the surface, it quelled the doubts of the crowd.
As for the arsonist, after instructing the relevant personnel to handle matters at the camp, Li Lucen followed the police to the station.
With one thing after another, she had completely forgotten about Huo Zhixu and Meng Yuzhou.
If Meng Yuzhou had merely been impressed by Li Lucen's competence at first, her calm handling of this accident successfully filled him with admiration for her.
Meng Yuzhou found it hard to believe.
"Is she really only twenty-two years old?"
Could someone really possess that kind of composure at twenty-two? Furthermore, even after knowing someone was deliberately targeting her, she was still able to keep her emotions in check.
That was seriously impressive.
Suddenly, Meng Yuzhou slapped his own palm.
"I remember now. Ever since middle school, she's been accompanying Chairman Li to all sorts of events. No wonder—what kind of scenes hasn't she seen?"
It was around that time that the news of Li Lucen being the future successor had leaked out.
Huo Zhixu rare for him, spoke up in Li Lucen's defense.
"When she was little, Chairman Li was by her side, giving her a safety net."
Just now, there was no one beside her. She had just walked out of a burning building, injured, and after a hasty bandage, she went straight to handle the accident.
Huo Zhixu no longer had any doubts as to how Li Lucen had managed, single-handedly, to persuade both of their families to replace Huo Zhizhen with him.
"Let's go."
Meng Yuzhou failed to follow his train of thought.
"Where to?"
Huo Zhixu glanced at him.
"The police station."
It wasn't appropriate for them to interfere earlier, but now that she had gone to the police station, they ought to go keep her company.
......
Li Lucen greeted the officers and went in alone to question the arsonist.
He was the son of a veteran member of the dragon dance team, practically an inheritor of this traditional art form.
"Tell me how much the other party paid you, and I'll give you double. You just need to give me a name."
In truth, if Li Lucen spent the manpower and resources to investigate, she would certainly find out, but that would take too much time. Time waited for no one, especially not her right now.
An incident had occurred at the camp, and she needed to report the situation to the company. Countless people were waiting to see her fail, and she had to produce the most flawless response.
"Whether you talk or not makes no difference to you in the end; I can find out with a little time. The fact that you would do something like this for money means you're short on cash. Right now, I'm handing you money."
Having accompanied her father to various functions since childhood, Li Lucen had long since learned how to project an aura of pressure.
Having obtained the name, Li Lucen walked out.
She spoke a few words to the police personnel, omitting any mention of the person behind the scenes—even if she named them, that person wouldn't end up locked in a cell.
Besides, this was the Li family's dirty laundry.
She would not allow news of internal strife within the Li family to be broadcasted far and wide.
Stepping out of the police station, the tension in Li Lucen's body eased slightly.
Exhausted.
Truly exhausted.
Tonight's results had been wonderful in every aspect, yet something like this had to happen.
Not only did she have to pour her heart into making this project a success, but she also had to reserve energy to guard against the malicious intentions of people within, and now she had to brainstorm solutions to clean up this mess.
She had stayed up quite late the previous night. Li Lucen went to a vending machine and bought a bottle of coffee. As the icy liquid slid down her throat, it didn't make her feel much better.
The wound on her hand was still throbbing with a dull pain.
Li Lucen took a sharp breath, trying to force herself to calm down.
Her father often said that exposed emotions become one's soft underbelly.
She pulled out her phone, intending to call Su Zixi, but worried that Su Zixi would panic and rush back through the night, she abandoned the idea.
Leaning against the wall, she finished the entire bottle of coffee before planning to leave.
That was when Huo Zhixu and Meng Yuzhou arrived.
Li Lucen's state was one of extreme fatigue. Seeing them, she still forced herself to pull off a smile—just looking at her made Meng Yuzhou feel tired.
Huo Zhixu pulled her into the car.
"Take you home?"
Li Lucen hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
She needed to wash up and change her clothes to maintain the mental clarity required to handle this matter.
Meng Yuzhou tactfully refrained from tagging along.
As soon as she got in the car, Li Lucen was already back to contacting people on her phone, as if the exhausted person seen moments ago had never existed.
Huo Zhixu could not articulate the feelings in his heart.
He only thought that such small shoulders were being forced to grow into those of a warrior, and the bitterness of that process was known to her alone.
Yet, wasn't she still just a young girl?