The sightseeing elevator shot upward rapidly, and Liǔ Cháoquè looked down at a corner of the city.
"Ding." The elevator doors opened, and only when her feet touched the ground did Liǔ Cháoquè feel a sense of security.
This entire floor was dedicated to clothing stores. Liǔ Cháoquè followed behind Biān Chéng in a daze, wondering why she had agreed to go shopping for men's wear with him in the first place.
"Welcome! What style of clothing is the gentleman looking for?"
"We'll just look around on our own first," Biān Chéng said.
The clerk looked from Liǔ Cháoquè to Biān Chéng, wearing an ambiguous smile. "Alright."
She had a lingering feeling that the clerk had misunderstood something... Before her imagination could run wild, Biān Chéng pulled out a brightly patterned floral shirt. "Little smile, what do you think of this one?"
With such a daring color combination, she couldn't think of any other description for it besides a beach shirt.
"As long as you're happy," she forced herself to reply.
"So that's a hard no," Biān Chéng nodded to himself, then pulled out a burgundy garment to hold up against himself.
Liǔ Cháoquè had once gone with her mother to pick out clothes for her father. How should she put it—it wasn't as wildly colorful as what she was seeing now; she could only tell which age group a set of men's clothing belonged to. As for the aesthetics of boys' clothes, she had very little to go on, possessing only a rigid notion of whether something looked good or not.
So when Biān Chéng pulled back the curtain and stepped out of the fitting room, the thought that crossed her mind was: *You know, you can find a whole bunch of shirts just like that online.*
"Does it look good?" Biān Chéng asked.
"It looks good," Liǔ Cháoquè stammered. "Very dashing. It feels like you've gone from a pampered young master straight to a big CEO."
"Should I throw a suit jacket over it?" Biān Chéng asked.
"How about adding a Maserati? Then your valet opens the door and you make a dazzling entrance?" The two of them couldn't help smiling.
After trying on several outfits in a row, Biān Chéng finally figured out smile's preferred style for men's clothing: red shirts, windbreakers, and blue shirts.
In the end, amidst Liǔ Cháoquè's indescribable expression, Biān Chéng chose the floral shirt he had picked out at the very beginning, along with the burgundy shirt.
How to put it—much like the dirty-gold shirt worn by her fiancé, you couldn't outright say it was ugly, but if anyone else were to wear it, it would be a complete disaster.
Is this what they call having a pretty face and doing whatever you want?
Walking down the street, Liǔ Cháoquè would occasionally glance at the bag Biān Chéng was carrying, then twist her face away with a slight grimace, as if her eyes had just been assaulted by harsh light.
"Is it really that hard to look at?" Biān Chéng finally asked, unable to hold back any longer.
"It's not that bad..." Liǔ Cháoquè feared he might be displeased. "Actually, it's not bad once you get used to it, haha."
"If you don't like me wearing this, I simply won't wear it in front of you."
"It's just everyone's freedom to dress how they please, I'm just still not quite used to it..." Liǔ Cháoquè imagined what it would be like if the man had the same personality as President Chá. "For instance, if you're going to wear this shirt, you really ought to pair it with sunglasses, dye your hair in some flamboyant color, and radiate absolute confidence from every pore. That would probably make it work better. But these are just my personal opinions—feel free to completely ignore them."
"That sounds pretty good," Biān Chéng replied earnestly. "Maybe I should give it a try."
"Huh?" Xiaoxiao smiled. "After shopping in the men's section with you, it actually makes me want to buy some clothes myself." Tit for tat—time to subject him to a bit of women's fashion shock.
"Hmm?" Biān Chéng blinked. "Women's wear? Maybe I can offer you some advice. After all, as a photographer, I have quite a bit of experience."
"Oh? Aren't you exclusively a landscape photographer?" Liǔ Cháoquè narrowed her eyes. "I knew it! Someone with thick eyebrows and big eyes like you is bound to enjoy taking pictures of girls to catch people's attention."
"You've got quite the experience, haven't you? Must be a lot of young ladies who like your work," Liǔ Cháoquè teased.
"Oh?" Biān Chéng spread his hands, looking completely unconcerned. "They can like whatever they want; I'm just putting together a well-composed photo. You know, sometimes when you're shooting landscapes, if there's no one around, the picture ends up looking completely empty and monotonous. That's when you need to incorporate a person into the frame."
"So you approached me just to compose a perfect photograph?" Liǔ Cháoquè asked bluntly.
Biān Chéng's forward stride came to an abrupt halt, and suddenly he smiled—a brilliant smile. He tapped on his phone for a moment and handed it to her. "If it were just the kind of photo you're talking about, I captured that long ago. Right now, I just want to understand you."
"Oh?" She lowered her gaze to the glowing screen. "And how well do you understand me?"
On the display was a screenshot from a game she used to play back in reality: a silent, bewildered young girl in a hospital bed, fluttering curtains, and a beam of sunlight streaming through the window onto the floor.
"?" When no response came after a long silence, she looked up to find the man's face drawn in close. "Well, how should I put it? The more I understand you, the deeper my fondness grows. I think you're my muse. Can I take a few more pictures of you?"
"Let's go, didn't you say you wanted to help me pick something out?" Liǔ Cháoquè averted her gaze and strode forward, her steady steps carrying a distinct air of making a hasty retreat.
"Weren't you the one who asked?" Biān Chéng muttered with a hint of grievance. The person walking ahead only sped up. She hadn't asked him that to find out if he had ulterior motives—how was she supposed to know he'd end up confessing to her like that? Liǔ Cháoquè's pace quickened even further.
Before they could even step inside the women's clothing store, a series of short, frantic sounds pierced their ears.
They sounded like wails, or cries for help.
"Wuu wuu, wuu wuu~"
This was the exact sound of the occasionally malfunctioning laboratory alarm that one of her friends had once complained about. Liǔ Cháoquè immediately snapped to attention, grabbed Biān Chéng's hand, and tried to run outside.
If she were still in reality, she might have wandered over to investigate, to see if smoke was coming from somewhere and whether she needed to call staff or the fire department.
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In this game, if you don't run, you'll burn to death!
Who knows what kind of Conan-like constitution the female lead has—trouble finds her the moment she steps outside, and she's liable to get hurt.
The surrounding crowd also began to stir, asking those near them with a mix of curiosity and confusion:
"What's going on? What's that noise?"
"Whatever it is, something's definitely happened!"
"That's a smoke detector. Either somewhere is on fire, or someone's smoking in a non-smoking area."
"I ran over from the north exit. The stove exploded over there and the owner is still inside. Does anyone know how to use a fire extinguisher?"
"Where are they kept?"
"Did anyone call the firefighters?"
Amidst the commotion, some people moved along with the crowd to evacuate, while others walked against the current, resolute and fearless.
She didn't know what ordinary people typically thought when confronted with a fire; after all, the biggest fire she had ever encountered in reality had been swiftly handled by Uncle Firefighter.
Yet even ordinary people would rush forward, striving to beat back the flames before the firefighters arrived, picking up extinguishers to combat that ferocious fire dragon.
It wasn't that they didn't fear death; they simply feared witnessing the passing of life.
Liǔ Cháoquè's hurried attempt to escape suddenly faltered. She had once asked herself what she would do if she saw someone drowning: would she jump in and desperately perform CPR, or would she cast a cold glance and run away quickly?
As someone who couldn't swim, her choice would probably be Plan C—she would help, but only by grabbing a pole and letting the person in the water save themselves.
Her grip on Biān Chéng changed direction mid-flight, veering off toward another path.
She followed those heading against the current, but failed to find a single fire extinguisher.
"What are you looking for?" Biān Chéng asked, puzzled.
"A fire extinguisher. Is there really not one on this floor?" Liǔ Cháoquè regulated her breathing. "Ah, why is this cabinet empty?!" No, really—why hasn't the future figured out how to solve this problem yet?!
Liǔ Cháoquè couldn't help feeling a sense of breakdown.
"Shall we go check downstairs?" Biān Chéng asked hesitatingly.
They ran downstairs, only to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the floor plan—how on earth was this mall built so massive?
"Over here!" Biān Chéng called out.
With a loud bang, smoke billowed out through a window like a black demonic dragon roaring toward the outside world.
Liǔ Cháoquè felt a sudden drop in her stomach. Relying on Biān Chéng's momentum, she ran in the direction he pointed. Mid-run, a mechanical pixie fluttered erratically over to their side, shouting at the top of its lungs: "Beep beep, beep beep! Alert, alert! Fire reported on the fourteenth floor. Requesting backup."
"Pixie, broadcast this: the fire was caused by a gas stove explosion, and there's someone trapped inside who might be unconscious." Although someone must have already called the authorities, she wasn't sure if the pixie was linked to the firefighters, so she repeated the message anyway. Without waiting for the pixie's response, she sprinted toward the fire hydrant station.
Along the way, she bumped into several people who were also searching for fire extinguishers. When they finally arrived... well, emmm, there were fire hoses in the cabinets here, but *only* fire hoses.
You have to hand it to the people in this world—they certainly had a strong sense of responsibility.
"Uh, should we go check downstairs again?" Liǔ Cháoquè asked tentatively. What she actually wanted to say was: what good is a downstairs hydrant? Is the hose supposed to stretch all the way up to the upper floor or something?
Liǔ Cháoquè held the flexible hose with a numb expression while Biān Chéng hooked it up.
She aimed the nozzle at the smoking window upstairs, attempting to spray water inside. Even if the water pressure from the hydrant was ferocious, there was no way it could snake up a ninety-degree turn and then bend another ninety degrees to blast inside; at most, it would just give the ground outside a light drizzle.
So, after multiple failed attempts, Biān Chéng shut off the valve, and the two stood looking at each other in silence.
"It seems this isn't doing any good." She felt her resolve waver again. After trying and finding herself completely unable to help: "There are so many people fighting the fire, the flames might already be out by now."
"Let's go back upstairs and see if we can help with anything else," Biān Chéng said. By now, Biān Chéng's clothes were inevitably spattered with water, and his carefully styled hair looked disheveled. He rolled up his sleeves, coiled the hose back into the fire cabinet, and picked up the garment he had discarded earlier. "The ambulance is still sounding its siren downstairs, and there's no telling what condition the shop owner is in."
Liǔ Cháoquè, however, was preoccupied with other thoughts.
Taking the elevator was out of the question, but climbing fourteen flights of stairs was no joke either.
She wondered if the firefighters' high-pressure hoses could reach this kind of height.
If they were going to put out the fire, would they really have to climb the stairs?
Liǔ Cháoquè couldn't help worrying. With a high-rise fire, the fastest rescue method might be smashing the windows and hauling people out from the inside.
She gazed heavily at the fire hydrant, half-believing she could hear cries for help from within the sea of flames.
"What are you doing with that hose?" Biān Chéng watched as Liǔ Cháoquè pulled a roll of orange-red hose out of the fire cabinet. The roll was so large it pressed right up against her chin.
"Isn't this also a device for putting out fires?" Liǔ Cháoquè patted the hose and shook her head. "Let's go, we're heading up."
"What's the situation inside?" Liǔ Cháoquè asked, clutching the roll of hose as she ran toward the fire scene.
"The owner is still inside. There were three explosions, and we tried to get in, but we couldn't," someone said.
She saw a man whose hair was singed and whose skin bore dark red burn marks—evidently the brave soul who had tried to go in and rescue the owner.
"Where is the kitchen located? Was the owner inside the kitchen at the time?"
"You can see it right as you walk in. The owner went into the kitchen."
In the kitchen... right next to the source of the fire. Could she possibly...
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Liǔ Cháoquè stared at the raging flames, unable to help a bitter laugh rising in her heart. This was far more difficult than making someone who couldn't swim jump into the water for a rescue.
Seeing smile fixate on the direction of the blazing fire, and recalling her questions to the bystanders about the trapped person's location, a dreadful thought flashed through Biān Chéng's mind.
He instinctively grabbed Liǔ Cháoquè's hand as she tried to step forward, his gaze dark and heavy. "Don't do anything foolish."
Liǔ Cháoquè curved the corners of her lips. "I know what I'm doing."
What on earth does she know...
*Damn it, isn't this just reckless?!*
Liǔ Cháoquè ran off clutching a roll of hose, unfurling a stretch of it along the ground as she went. That orange-red trail wound its way into the restroom and extended down beneath the faucet.
It wasn't standard high-pressure water, nor was there a fixed coupling. Liǔ Cháoquè had no choice but to pull out the slender hairpin tucked in her hair, bend it into a tiny arc, and wedge it across both ends of the pipe. Her pretty tassel turned into a lonely little token, left stranded by the water's edge.
Even with the tap turned all the way up, the water flow reaching the fire zone was sluggish at best. Biān Chéng had no idea what she was trying to do, but he still did his best to feed the hose further inward until it could stretch no further. When Liǔ Cháoquè finally came back to him, she was completely drenched, her hair and clothes soaked through with water.
"I'm going in to save someone!" Before Biān Chéng could react, Liǔ Cháoquè covered her nose and mouth and charged back into the interior along the path of the hose.
Sure enough, the kitchen was visible the moment you stepped inside. Positioned directly opposite the door, she could immediately make out the scene within, even though the heat of the fire had warped the structure of the room.
Yet she saw no one. Bending low, she cautiously probed further inside. The crackling of burning timber and the blistering heat made Liǔ Cháoquè feel sweltering despite being thoroughly soaked to the bone.
Her vision grew somewhat blurred. As she walked deeper, only the trail of water spreading across the floor offered her a momentary sense of reassurance.
She remained constantly vigilant against overhead beams and the threat of a secondary explosion, until she felt the moisture on her clothes beginning to evaporate away. Only then did she dimly make out a fallen figure lying on the ground. Regardless of whether this person was the shop owner or not, she had to get them out first.
Unwittingly, Liǔ Cháoquè caught sight of the very window she had looked down at from the thirteenth floor. So she really had made it all the way through.
"Bang!"
Liǔ Cháoquè instinctively threw herself flat. Gas explosions were terrifying; she could only rely on instinct to drag the person along as she made a rapid escape—after all, many people died from carbon monoxide poisoning, let alone exposure to high concentrations of it.
A wave of heat swept her along as she ran, but the air was thin, and she was still dragging an inert body. If Liǔ Cháoquè hadn't previously studied martial arts, she truly wouldn't have had the raw courage to pull off a one-man rescue.
Fortunately, the hose hadn't melted from the heat yet, and the water inside was still faithfully doing its job of cooling the floor beneath them.
Liǔ Cháoquè dragged the person while shouldering the hose, splashing water onto herself and her companion. Drip, drop—she couldn't tell if it was sweat or water mixing with her heavy, ragged breathing, slowing her advance to a crawl.
The blazing fire generated a shimmering haze of heat that distorted the path behind her. She could only maintain a semi-crouched posture, inching forward step by step along the orange-red line.
*Thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump.*
She heard the sound of her own heartbeat. She had never felt a path could be so long—like the eighty-one trials on the journey to the West, fraught with danger at every single moment.
A ceiling beam collapsed, narrowly missing her. Liǔ Cháoquè's heart beat even faster.
Luckily, the distance wasn't infinite. As she crawled forward while hauling the hose, she finally caught sight of the white light ahead.
Biān Chéng was pacing back and forth with anxiety, repeatedly rushing into the restroom to check the tap water Liǔ Cháoquè had left running before she went in.
He didn't know why she had turned on the water beforehand—whether to lower the temperature or to save herself—but if the water stopped or the makeshift plug came loose mid-way, he felt sure smile would be in mortal danger.
He caught sight of a golden object with the same color as the thin stick in the middle of the pipe. While marveling at how scatterbrained she was to casually toss away valuables, he tucked it into his pocket, figuring he would return it to her once she came back out.
He repeated this trip several times, until a dark figure finally emerged from the midst of the flames, moving slowly toward the exit.
"It's smile!" Biān Chéng cried out involuntarily. He grabbed a fire extinguisher, desperate to charge inside.
Someone held him back. Rushing in so recklessly would only hinder her rescue efforts.
"She really managed to pull someone out..." someone murmured.
The surrounding crowd quickly dispersed. Some people had already picked up extinguishers and stood at the ready, while others, wearing soaked clothing, prepared to dash inside.
"Poof."
The figure covered in glowing embers was enveloped by billowing clouds of white mist.
Paramedics gently hoisted the person she had carried onto a stretcher and sprinted down the stairs with them.
The wail of sirens gradually faded into the distance.
Liǔ Cháoquè still didn't see that high-altitude crane rising to the fourteenth floor.