Old Film, New Fire

Xu Zhixia looked down. The headline was short, but the contents made the back of her neck go cold. Seventeen years ago, Hawthorn Street had suffered a nighttime fire. The point of origin was the old warehouse attached to the cinema's back wall. The report said the cause was aging wiring and that there were no casualties. But some details had clearly been omitted: what had originally been stored there, why the place had been cleared so hastily the next morning, and why the ownership had changed hands so smoothly afterward, as if the fire had simply prepared the paperwork in advance. "I thought something was off back then," Teacher Shen said, adjusting her glasses. "But no one on the street wanted to dig deeper.