Rewind to four years ago.

Early winter of 2014, early morning.

The temperature in Hedong dropped below zero, cold and quiet, only the deserted roads and dim street lights reminded people who were hurrying in the dark that this noisy city also had a lonely side.

Xiangbei was still asleep when a hurried phone rang suddenly.

"Daxiang, get up quickly! There is an emergency! The situation is urgent!"

"Uh...... Neurotic, in the middle of the night. ”

The tone on the other end of the microphone was like sending an urgent telegram, a series of exclamation points.

Xiangbei rubbed his eyes, his face full of sleepiness.

"Hey, you kid! It's me, Qu Changguo!"

"Mr. Qu, I'm sorry!" Hearing the three words Qu Changguo, he immediately went north in spirit.

"At about 11 o'clock last night, a fire broke out in Luohe Village in Xincheng Street, and the injured were sent to the Municipal People's Hospital, and it is said that someone has died. The caller was Qu Changguo, deputy editor-in-chief of Beijiang Evening News, "The strange thing is that this fire did not occur in a residential area, but in a farmland!"

There is a rule in the journalist industry, no matter when and where, you must keep the phone open 24 hours a day, and once there is an emergency, the unit must find you as soon as possible!

There was a fire in the farmland, and there were dead people? How did the two get together? In the eight years I have been a journalist, it is the first time that I have heard such a rare thing in the north.

"Luohe Village, which village do you mean on the outskirts of Hedong?"

"That's right. ”

"Has the cause of the fire been clarified? Was it an accident or a man-made accident? Is there still a scene at the scene? Is there any martial law?" Perhaps out of professional sensitivity, when he heard the word "dead man," he sobered up a little to the north. While asking Qu Changguo, he turned on the screen of his mobile phone, and the time showed that it was 4:23 in the morning, and five hours had passed.

Xiang Beiluo listed a bunch of questions and threw them to Qu Changguo, which caught the other party a little off guard.

"You kid, you think I'm your interviewer, I wouldn't have called you in the middle of the night if I had the answer. I also received information in my sleep, which is a clue from a reliable source, I have verified, and the information is conclusive. But I can't tell you what's going on. In my opinion, this is not easy. As you know, Luohe Village is this year's Internet celebrity village, and the province has invested tens of billions of dollars in projects. I didn't expect this to happen at this juncture. ”

Qu Changguo's words reminded him. According to Hedong's plan last year, four or five suburban villages, including Luohe Village, were included in Hedong's "northward expansion" strategy, especially Luohe Village, which is the top priority of this plan, and is expected to be built into the city's new CBD, the central business district, in the next five years, in order to drive the entire Hedong city's economy to take off again.

About half a year ago, Xiangbei also posted a manuscript: "The rise of Luohe CBD and the east of Hedong are about to roar".

However, with the advancement of the plan, from the second half of this year, Luohe Village began to be restless. Everyone's eyes are focused on this hot land, businessmen, big business, and the local people...... In people's eyes, this is a blue ocean full of business opportunities.

It's a game. In the face of temptation, all kinds of cows, ghosts, gods and snakes appeared in their original forms and appeared on the stage. Xiang Bei vaguely felt that if this chaos continued, something big would happen sooner or later, could it be that this time it was really going to break out?

looked north at his wife Zhou Xuecen and son Nuo Yi who were still asleep, the two were still asleep, lying horizontally and vertically, and had already squeezed themselves to the side of the bed.

Since having children, my wife quit her job and became a stay-at-home wife. Today, the child is two years old. At this age, one-third of the day is spent making noise, one-third laughing, and one-third sleeping. This rhythm makes every day fulfilling for this small family.

Xiang Bei quietly put on his slippers and walked out of the bedroom.

He turned on the speakerphone, put his phone on the table, and listened to the phone while recording the address and interview request provided by Qu Changguo.

"Understood, I'll finish the task as soon as possible. ”

"It's hard work, brother, I'm going to the unit now. Let's keep in touch and communicate with each other whenever there is a new development. In addition," Qu Changguo added, "the situation in Luohe Village is too complicated, so please pay attention to safety." ”

……

In the early winter morning, the morning sun is still struggling to poke its head out. The whole city was shrouded in darkness and smog, as if it were suffocating.

To save time, the nearest route was chosen to the north, driving through several small alleys. At this time, most people are still asleep, and there are only scattered vehicles on the street.

Xiang Bei and his colleagues will always experience this kind of starry and moon-wearing days several times a year, sometimes after catching up with emergencies, and then returning to the unit to write, and then squinting on the sofa in the office for a few hours before putting into new work.

Winter, dawn, silence, deathly silence......

"Even if fate is upside down, even if fate is twists and turns, even if fate threatens you to be a boring person, don't shed tears and be sad, you shouldn't give up, I want to be with you forever for the rest of my life......"

A classic Cantonese song came from the car stereo, with a cheerful rhythm and a drowsy northward exuberance. He turned up the volume and shook his head rhythmically to the music.

On both sides of the road are the newly replaced city billboards: "Civilization is the most beautiful scenery of the city" and "Civilization makes the city shine......

These days, Hedong is experiencing the most important period of the year. The whole city seemed to be magical, the facades on both sides of the street were suddenly clean, the psoriasis on the billboards was gone, and the cars parked indiscriminately on the roadside disappeared.

Looking at the beautiful scenery to the north, thinking about this sudden errand, thinking about his wife and children's hot kang head, he couldn't help but spit out a few dirty words in his mouth, this emotion made him feel surprised and scared. Is this not a good sign? After all, danger lurks in any kind of extreme.

Although everyone will complain if this kind of errand changes, since you have chosen this profession, you should stick to the bottom line. For this point, Xiangbei has been silently alerting himself over the years, not to lose himself, and not to let himself become a "little old tree" that stops growing.

Along the way, the fire in Luohe Village has been appearing in Xiangbei's brain, if it just happened in other places, if it was just an ordinary fire, this matter would naturally become a lot more dull, but listing the key words of Luohe Village, farmland, and villager deaths together, Xiangbei seems to feel that things may not be as simple as imagined.

It is an hour and a half from the city to Luohe Village. There were few cars in the early morning, and it only took an hour to reach the scene north.

The sun had broken through the night, revealing an egg-yellow glow......

The fire scene was in a farmland at the north end of Luohe Village, across the road from the villagers' living quarters. When I arrived to the north, the scene had been surrounded by villagers for three floors inside and three layers outside. If something like this happens in the middle of the night, who has the heart to sleep?

Naturally, the police had already arrived and pulled up a cordon. Every few meters, there is a heavily armed policeman, and no one can get close to it.