Chapter 2: Charred Timber Tells the Truth

Han Tie slammed the stack of survey records down in front of Lin Zhao, the papers fluttering under the dim emergency lights and kicking up a choking cloud of dust like a long-overdue verdict. The air was thick with a cloying mix of burnt plastic and damp mildew, making it hard to breathe.

His face was stone-cold, his eyes darting over Lin Zhao’s figure. His usual imposing aura had deflated, leaving only barely concealed anxiety. Han Tie roared, "The spot you’re pointing to contradicts the initial inspection report completely! The initial report confirmed a short in the ground-floor circuit. You got any proof that’s a lie?"

Lin Zhao didn’t touch the papers. He just slowly raised his head, his gaze clear but icy, catching a strange sheen in the gloom of the fire scene. Shattered glass scattered across the floor reflected flickering spots of light, tracing his taut jawline.

He ignored Han Tie’s barbed words, his voice steady but carrying an undeniable weight of authority. "Sergeant Han, the burn marks from a circuit short would run vertically. The cracked concrete on the ground is radiating outward horizontally. That’s basic physics, not mysticism."

Han Tie let out a cold chuckle, sizing Lin Zhao up and down with a smirk. He crossed his arms, leaning back against a ruined wall section where twisted metal pipes, warped by extreme heat, groaned faintly in the background.

His tone dripped with sarcasm. "You think your hands, which haven’t had any professional fire investigation training, can override the expert team’s conclusion just by feeling it out? Fire service law only recognizes physical evidence, not your dramatic nonsense."

Lin Zhao ignored the provocation and walked straight toward the charred black wall. The debris under his feet crunched sharply, each step heavy with significance. He pointed at a cracked concrete cross-section, his voice eerily calm. "Touch it, Sergeant. If I can read an eight-hundred-degree horizontal heat flow, will you believe me?"

Han Tie scoffed, not even deigning to look at the stone properly. "What can you read from a scorched rock? You playing a trick, or did your brain get fried?"

Lin Zhao extended his right hand, his fingertips gently brushing the rough concrete surface. The instant they made contact, an intense burn shot up his nerve endings straight to his brain, feeling like an old scar being torn open fresh. It wasn’t just physical pain; it felt like his soul was being forcibly stretched.

He gritted his teeth as cold sweat trickled down his temples, dropping onto the dry cement floor and evaporating instantly. His hands remained rock-steady, knuckles turning white from the effort. In his mind, he built a three-dimensional model of the heat flow, watching data points align like stars, connecting into a狂暴 arc—the trajectory of the flames as they devoured the space.

Su Wan appeared in the shadows at some point, arms crossed, observing Lin Zhao with a cool, analytical gaze. She adjusted her glasses, her eyes behind the lenses sparkling with logic and doubt. Her voice was frigid. "Lin Zhao, if you actually have this ability, provide data to back it up. Verbal descriptions don’t enter the chain of evidence. I refuse to accept any conclusion without instrumental support."

Her words acted like a bucket of ice water, dousing the edge of Lin Zhao’s heightened state and forcing him to convert his intuition into verifiable logic.

Lin Zhao took a deep breath, suppressing the pain inside his body, and made deeper contact with the concrete. His Second-Stage Ability activated. Multi-point thermal data coalesced in his mind, and the fire scene’s timeline instantly unfolded. He "saw" that abnormal horizontal heat flow. It wasn’t the vertical high temperature produced by a circuit short; it was the signature of a liquid evaporating and burning violently.

In the vision, the orange-red ripples didn’t rise from the outlets but erupted from a specific spot on the floor, rapidly licking the structures above.

The intense pain receded like a fading tide. Lin Zhao opened his eyes, the manic frenzy gone, replaced only by cold rationality. He turned around; the wall behind him still retained the crack patterns from extreme heat, silently witnessing the truth he had just uncovered. His voice was clear and firm. "The ignition point isn’t near the ground-floor circuit box. It’s two meters to the north."

The heat flow sprayed horizontally, lasting for a very short duration with a peak temperature exceeding eight hundred degrees. This is a classic Accelerant deflagration signature, not a natural short circuit.

Han Tie froze. He instinctively started flipping through his original records, his fingers trembling, the edges of the paper damp with his sweat. Comparing the data, he realized Lin Zhao’s indicated position completely contradicted the electrical wiring paths. For the first time, the hot-headed sergeant showed a flicker of awe in his eyes. "How did you calculate the specific location?"

"This requires precise thermal imaging scans." He seemed to realize that this young man might possess something far beyond his understanding.

At that moment, the sound of leather shoes crunching on gravel approached, the rhythm elegantly out of place in the ruins. Cheng Yu smoothed his cuffs and walked up with a warm smile, his crisp suit looking absurdly sharp in the moment.

He tried to smooth things over, using business-like charm to cover up the sharpness of the truth. "You two are being too pedantic. Fire causes are complex; it could be accidental line aging combined with external interference. Classifying it as an accident is more favorable for insurance claims. Why must everyone fight?"

Su Wan’s eyes sharpened instantly. She pointed at Cheng Yu’s nose, her voice icy. "Boss Cheng, you’re rushing to classify it as an accident to avoid payouts? Or do you actually know who poured the oil? Your motives are hardly as innocent as a typical public adjuster’s."

Lin Zhao ignored Cheng Yu’s meddling. He stared at the wall, combining the Thermal Fingerprint analysis, his voice heavy. "The Accelerant curve is abnormally steep, with clear solvent evaporation tails. This isn’t simple alcohol; it’s industrial mixed oil. This was an arson plot, and the chain of evidence points to a specific suspect."

His voice wasn’t loud, but it echoed in layers through the empty ruins, silencing everyone present.

In the distance, the roar of excavators echoed, their massive mechanical arms moving slowly in the night as workers cleared debris from the depths of the ruins. Suddenly, a sharp cry of panic broke the silence, piercing and frantic, standing out starkly against the quiet construction site.

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound. A black iron canister, blackened by fire, had been dug out from the rubble. Though the body was deformed, the residual metallic sheen was still visible under the floodlights. The label on the can was charred, but the faintly visible English abbreviation clearly pointed to Cheng Yu’s company’s supply chain.

The smile on Cheng Yu’s face froze completely in that moment, like a piece of glass that had been melted by high heat and then rapidly cooled, fragile and cracked. He instinctively took half a step back, his leather shoe crunching softly on a loose stone, the sound terrifyingly loud in the silent night wind.

"That’s impossible..." Cheng Yu’s voice was dry, as if his throat were filled with sand. "This is just a coincidence. Industrial oil has many distribution channels. No one can prove this canister definitely came from our hands. It could be planted evidence deliberately inserted by someone."

Su Wan let out a cold snort, pulling a folded chart from her carrying briefcase. She braced her hands next to the deformed iron canister and pointed to a barely noticeable circular indentation at the bottom. "Boss Cheng, since you’re so convinced this is planted, explain this. This is a unique stress mark formed by the hydraulic rod of your company’s exclusive transport vehicles during emergency braking."

"This is the only case in the entire industry, and the characteristic code matches perfectly. This canister of oil was transported directly from your warehouse to the scene and then poured into the wall’s crevices. You didn’t just provide the fuel; you provided the pipeline."

The atmosphere on the scene instantly dropped to freezing point. Han Tie’s hands, which had been crossed over his chest, ready to mock Lin Zhao, were frozen in mid-air. The mockery on his face faded, replaced by deep wariness. He turned his head, looking at Lin Zhao, who had been silent all along, his fingers slightly red from the high-temperature burns.

Lin Zhao slowly pulled his hand back. The skin on his palm was blistered, with purple bruises spreading along the veins to his wrist. He didn’t touch the wound; instead, he walked straight to the iron canister, crouched down, and lightly pressed his nose against the cold metal surface. For a normal person, this might be desecration, but for Lin Zhao, it was the only way to absorb the truth in the ruins.

"The heat flow memory doesn’t lie." Lin Zhao’s voice was hoarse but undeniable. "The residual heat field I just read shows the oil-pouring action happened thirty minutes before the fire broke out. During that time, only someone with unrestricted access privileges could enter the core area."

"Cheng Yu, your so-called 'business charm' is just an attempt to wash huge insurance claim payouts into legal income in a single night. But this canister is a secret you can’t keep. It is the death warrant you handed yourself."

Cheng Yu’s face turned pale. He looked at the security captain behind him, his eyes filled with a frantic, threatening glare. "Handle this... thing. Quickly!"

Before the security captain could move, the blue lights of police cruisers had already pierced the night sky in the distance. Interwoven red and blue beams swept across the ruins, illuminating the unburned beams and columns, and also illuminating Lin Zhao’s eyes, which were clear and almost transparent.

Lin Zhao stood up, ignoring the approaching danger. His gaze penetrated Cheng Yu’s hunched back and looked toward the dark cave opening deeper in the ruins. Something there seemed to tremble faintly, like a creature dormant for a long time, or like a volcanic vent about to erupt.

He felt a stronger heat flow surging up from the deep underground, climbing up along his fingertips, bringing a trembling sense of scalding anxiety.

"But this is not all." Lin Zhao murmured softly, his brow furrowed as if seeing things others couldn’t. "This canister is just the fuse. The 'core' that truly triggered this disaster is still below."

At the mention of this, Cheng Yu’s body began to shake violently. He dropped to his knees, covering his face with both hands, letting out a desperate moan. "Please, don’t say any more... the thing inside... it’s something you can’t handle..."

Lin Zhao ignored his pleas and took a step toward the pitch-black opening. The concrete underfoot cracked from the vibration, revealing a fathomless dark hole beneath. A gust of hot wind mixed with the heavy smell of diesel and a strange sweet scent blasted toward him, whipping the hair on Lin Zhao’s forehead frantically.

He narrowed his eyes. In the depths of the opening, a cluster of pale blue flames flickered in his pupils. The flames were not still; they pulsed rhythmically with his breathing, as if silently inviting the one who dared to face the truth.

Just then, a heavy metallic clang echoed from deep within the cave wall. Moments later, a massive, rust-covered iron door slowly creaked open, revealing a breathtaking sight behind it—there was a complete underground laboratory hidden there. On the lab table sat another identical black canister, except this one was brand new, and the date on the label pointed to three months in the future.