Chapter 1716 — The Building Burned Down Too?

Yu Xiaoke had no time to worry about the things in her own room; she rushed to wake the old director. "Director, bad news! Fire!"

The old director slept lightly and was startled awake at once by Yu Xiaoke's voice. One look at the situation outside the house and she was alarmed too. "Quick! We have to save the children!"

So Yu Xiaoke and the old director charged straight into the children's dormitory.

Luckily both were heirs of the Flying Swallow Sect, masters of light-footed kung fu; though they were in the middle of a sea of flames, they always found solid footing, and the two of them risked their lives to get every last child out of the orphanage. Behind them, the orphanage was already a vast expanse of fire.

The wind was strong that day and the air dry, so the blaze grew uncontrollable in an instant, and from the orphanage it was clearly beginning to spread toward the surrounding districts...

Only once the children were out did Yu Xiaoke come to her senses. "Director, we have to call the fire brigade — the orphanage is going to burn to nothing!"

In her haste the old director had not brought her phone, and the area around the orphanage bordered the construction site of the old shantytown on one side and the commercial district on the other; but the shops were all closed for the night, and there was not a soul to be found.

The old director searched far and wide before she found a public telephone booth and reported the fire, but by then the flames had already spread to the shantytown construction site beside the orphanage...

By the time the shrill sirens of the fire engines sounded, the fire was beyond control. More engines arrived to reinforce, but the wind was strong and the blaze fierce, and the construction site in the shantytown held piles of flammable materials — timber beams and the like — so the fire only grew. It was not put out until daybreak.

Zhao Qibing, Li Cihua, and Chief Zhu, meanwhile, had slept soundly all night. The next morning, as soon as they were up, Zhao Qibing could not wait for Li Cihua to turn on the television. "Quick, let's see the news — the orphanage must be a heap of rubble by now!"

"Haha, you can bet on it!" Li Cihua nodded and went to switch on the TV.

The three of them settled comfortably onto the sofa, ready to enjoy the sight of the orphanage in ruins.

"At about one o'clock this morning, a major fire broke out at the orphanage near the old shantytown. By the time firefighters arrived the blaze was already difficult to control and had begun to spread to the nearby construction site. After a hard battle, the firefighters finally put the fire out at around seven this morning. But the orphanage, and the newly built Qibing Building at the nearby site, were both burned to ashes..." The broadcast was accompanied by footage of the charred remains of the orphanage and the Qibing Building...

"Ga!" Zhao Qibing leapt up as if he had been shot, staring at the news in disbelief. "Impossible! How could this be? My building!"

Li Cihua and Chief Zhu looked equally grim. They had never imagined that burning an orphanage could take the Qibing Building next door with it — and the Qibing Building had only just been completed, not a single day in use...

"Will someone tell me what the hell happened?" Zhao Qibing was so furious that he kicked the television; the LCD screen shattered and fell to the floor, spitting sparks. He did not care — what was a television worth? What he cared about now was the Qibing Building!

From the start of construction to now, the Qibing Building had been destroyed twice already. The first two times had been Wei Zhao's doing, but this third time, he had burned it down with his own hands!

"This... Young Master Bing, we had no idea it would reach the Qibing Building next door..." Li Cihua was thoroughly depressed. "I only did as you instructed and picked a day when the weather would make the fire catch easily..."

"Young Master Bing, I too was only following your orders when I poured the gasoline..." Chief Zhu said with a sour face. Neither he nor Li Cihua was an expert in such matters, nor had either any experience; how could Li Cihua have calculated the spread of the fire? And Chief Zhu, his mind fixed on carrying out the job, was even less likely to have worked out that the flames might reach the Qibing Building!

"It's not your fault..." Zhao Qibing waved a hand helplessly and sat down heavily on the floor. This fire — had he known it would cause such a disaster, he would rather have given the orphanage a little more money, or built them a new orphanage somewhere else!

But it was too late for regrets now. He had achieved his aim, but the price he had paid was far too high.

Li Cihua had been hoping to make a little more money on this project to pay off the Blood Robe Yellow Springs Sect, but now that hope had gone up in smoke, and he wore a worried frown all day long.

Compared with Li Cihua and Zhao Qibing, though, the worst off were the people of the orphanage. The orphanage was gone, and the old director could only take the children and rent a cheap duplex attic; a hundred-odd children crammed into a space of just over three hundred square meters — it was no exaggeration to say they were packed in like sardines.

Yu Xiaoke had raised a large sum for the orphanage not long ago, but it was clearly not enough to rebuild. After all, they could hardly put up the same old single-story houses again — a second build ought to be done properly. And that money was meant to cover the orphanage's daily expenses; if she withdrew it from the bank to build, it would not be enough, and once it was spent, what then?

The gold and silver treasures Yu Xiaoke had brought out were worth only about five million! Five million — if they built something simple, that would do, but if they wanted all the supporting facilities, it probably would not even cover the equipment.

"That fire was definitely set by someone from Zhao Qibing's company, and they botched it and burned down their own company nearby too!" Xiao Ben said indignantly. "Serve them right, I say — they reaped what they sowed!"

"I expect that Li Cihua will come to us again about swapping the land, and this time we will have to trade whether we want to or not!" The old director sighed, helpless. "We really cannot afford to offend the hidden Zhao family. If it were back in the day... ah..."

What she meant was that back in the day, she would never have given a piddling hidden Zhao family a second thought. But now the hidden Zhao family was a colossus to her.

Yet even Yu Xiaoke knew only so much about the events of those years, and the old director did not want to say more about the past, lest enemies come looking for them and shatter the peaceful life they had now.

"How about... I go take on another big job?" Yu Xiaoke mused for a moment, then gritted her teeth and spoke. It was the only solution she could think of — she would have to come out of retirement; otherwise, where would the money to rebuild the orphanage come from?

Fastest updates; for ad-free reading, please visit.