At that moment, I only had a foreboding feeling, but my heart kept telling me that it couldn’t be just a coincidence. The probability of a fire breaking out in an old wooden house in this kind of weather was very high, yet the sense of foreboding grew stronger, almost suffocating me.

I followed the children running towards the fire, and the closer I got, the worse I felt. By the time I reached the front, I could hardly believe what I was seeing: thick smoke was billowing from the high stilt house, the flames were enormous, and the heat was overwhelming. It was impossible to get close; it was clear that the house was beyond saving. The mountain behind the stilt house was also ablaze, the bushes charred black, and the fire was spreading upward.

Villagers were rushing from all directions to the mountain to fight the fire. Having experienced wildfires before, we knew that once a wildfire started, the terrifying consequences were unimaginable. Therefore, prioritizing the mountain fire was absolutely the right choice.

The source of the fire seemed to be on the mountain, and the stilt house was at the foot of the mountain, thus it was affected. However, I stood there knowing it couldn’t be just that. The fire was too intense. We had only been at the creek for a short time, and even if struck by lightning, it wouldn’t have spread this quickly. Most obviously, there was a strong smell of kerosene in the air.

There were no fire hydrants here; all the firefighting equipment consisted of buckets, but their number was limited, and they were drawing water from a cistern. By the time the mountain fire was extinguished, the stilt house would surely be reduced to ashes. In my panic, I wanted to rush in, but the fat guy pulled me back and said it was no use, that going in was too dangerous and not worth losing our lives over.

My mind was in chaos, and I fell to my knees. Suddenly, I saw a shadow flash by, and before we could react, the stilt house owner dashed forward, running towards the burning house and rolling into the space underneath the stilt house.

The fat guy and I were both taken aback. To know that someone would rush into a fire without any protection was tantamount to inviting severe burns; there was no mercy in such a situation. It wasn’t just a matter of avoiding the flames; the temperature at the center of the fire could reach thousands of degrees, and staying inside for even a moment would result in severe burns.

The fat guy immediately yelled for help! He and I rushed over, and as we got within five or six meters of the house, the scorching heat wave hit us. My body hair instantly curled up, and my eyebrows and hair made a sizzling sound. I gritted my teeth to endure the pain in my skin and rushed to the side of the house. Crouching down, I quickly realized it was impossible to get in; the high temperature was like the breath of a fire dragon surging out. I lay down to take a look, and on the ground, there was damp mud. The stilt house owner was covered in wet mud and was trying to crawl inside.

It was no use trying to see any closer; we were being baked by the heat wave and couldn’t even open our eyes. We had to roll and crawl back out. The people nearby who were fighting the fire rushed over to pull us away.

Just as I was helped up, there was a loud crashing sound from inside the fire, and then the stilt house owner rolled out from underneath the stilt house. He was enveloped in white smoke, stumbling as he ran towards us. Someone immediately went up to pour water on him, and someone else shouted that he had gone mad.

I rushed over and saw that he was covered in the muck from under the house. I couldn’t tell if he had suffered burns, but I could see several patches of black ash on his left hand, clearly indicating that he had dug with his hands. I shouted, “Do you want to die?” The fat guy helped him up and asked, “What’s wrong?”

He had a blank expression and coldly said, “It’s all burned up.” He glanced at the people busy trying to put out the fire. “It smells like kerosene; even the floor is burned through.” The meaning of his gesture was obvious. The胖子 also looked at the firefighters and then turned to me with an unfriendly expression: “Xiao Wu, it seems there’s a problem in this village.”

I looked at the gloomy oil bottle, too preoccupied with my own worries to ponder these matters. Someone next to me shouted, “Quick, take him to the village office to find a doctor. Burns can be serious or minor. That house is unoccupied; what good is saving people?”

We found a child among the onlookers to lead the way. After we brought the gloomy oil bottle to the village office, the child told me to wait while he went to call the doctor. I still felt a shiver of fear from earlier and couldn’t help but complain about the gloomy oil bottle. The胖子 told me to stop being a nuisance and to be careful not to be overheard. I fell silent, feeling a bit suffocated inside, unsure of what to say.

The gloomy oil bottle seemed completely unconcerned about his wounds, just staring blankly, lost in thought. The atmosphere was tense.

I didn’t even want to describe the gloominess; no one expected this to happen. Had I known, I would have preferred to be caught and beaten on the spot rather than go in and check things out first. Now it was too late to say anything.

It took four hours to extinguish the fire, and many people suffered burns. Soon after, a barefoot doctor arrived and treated the injured with herbal medicine. Upon examination, the gloomy oil bottle turned out to be okay. Perhaps it was due to the insulating effect of the mud on the ground; although he had many burns, none were serious, except for his left hand, which was burned quite badly. The barefoot doctor seemed experienced and unflustered, slowly applying the herbal medicine and saying that as long as they kept changing the dressings, there would be no scars left. Here, summer wildfires are frequent, and villagers have a lot of experience with burns.

None of us spoke as we returned to Ah Gui’s house to clean up. My eyebrows and hair were singed and falling out. It was a terrible sight.

The gloomy oil bottle fell completely silent, and the room was filled with the strange, unpleasant smell of burn ointment. I felt a bit resentful toward the胖子, telling him that if he hadn’t insisted we come back first, we could have gone straight in to retrieve the photos and this wouldn’t have happened.

The胖子 got angry, saying it wasn’t fair to blame him. Since someone had set the fire, we would have definitely been targeted, and it was only a matter of time before something happened. This time it was an old house that burned; if we had seen the photos, they might have burned us instead. Besides, in that situation, no one would have been brave enough to go in headfirst; it was broad daylight, and climbing into someone else’s house was just too reckless.

I was also feeling a swell of frustration with no outlet. I really couldn’t blame the胖子, but hearing him say that made me boil with unexplainable anger. I fought the impulse to argue with him and banged my head against the wall a few times to calm down a bit.

The胖子 clicked his tongue and said to me, “I think there’s nothing we can do about this. I suspect that his mother has already planned everything; otherwise, we wouldn’t be so unlucky. That lunatic who stole the box, I think he might have been set up by someone else, part of the arsonist’s gang. Think about it, he made such a loud noise when stealing the box and even knocked on the floor to draw our attention; he definitely wanted to lure us out.” He paused for a moment. “Then his accomplices were waiting outside. Once we went out and saw them, we wouldn’t dare go back in. After we left, they set the house on fire… Damn it, it must be like that.”

It made sense. I nodded. If that’s the case, they must have discovered us by chance and, in a panic, lured us out. If they had known our plan earlier, they would have taken action sooner and wouldn’t have been so urgent and extreme.

If that’s true, then the ones who set the fire were likely those villagers who were watching us from the hillside at that time… Who were they? I had never seen them before, and they shouldn’t know me either.

“They definitely don’t know what we’re looking for. If they knew we were looking for the photos, all they had to do was take the photos and burn them; they wouldn’t need to burn down the whole house,” the胖子 said. “But these people aren’t very smart; they’ve shown their faces, and I don’t believe we can’t do anything about them. Do you remember what they looked like?”

I had a vague impression, but given the distance, it would indeed be difficult to recognize them completely, so I couldn’t help but sigh.

If the闷油瓶 hadn’t suddenly remembered that box, we would have seen the photos directly, and we wouldn’t be in this situation. But if that’s the case, the box would be buried under the charred ruins, with no hope of being found. We were indeed at fault, but we hadn’t completely failed. Thinking of this, I felt somewhat relieved. There’s always a way out, and with the house burned down, I realized one thing: someone in this village definitely knows something, and it won’t be ordinary. In any case, this counts as a clue.

I just didn’t know if that group would take further action against us. The胖子 said they probably wouldn’t kill us; otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed to burn the house down—they could have just killed us directly. But we still had to be careful; we must be more vigilant in the future.

Even with these thoughts, the胖子 was still a bit uneasy. He went to阿贵’s yard and brought back a few sickles to hide under the bed for self-defense, and he also got a few cups to hang on the doors and windows. If the doors or windows moved, they would fall and make a noise.

At that moment, I felt restless, with a premonition—since someone was obstructing us,阿贵’s help in finding that old guide from back then would also face complications. Someone didn’t want us to continue our investigation.