Chapter 93 Someone set fire!
After finishing their meal, the three of them cleaned up the dishes.
The wind outside was still cool, and some of the dark clouds in the sky had dispersed, revealing a bright crescent moon and twinkling stars.
They moved some small stools and sat at the shop entrance, enjoying the evening breeze and chatting idly.
Sudden!
"Clang—!"
A strange noise came from the corner of the side wall of the shop, as if something had been knocked over!
The three of them were startled and turned to look at each other.
A dark figure hurriedly darted past the corner of the wall and quickly disappeared into the dark alley.
"Who?!" Lu Qian suddenly stood up.
Almost simultaneously, two guards hidden in the shadows and Li Hong emerged and quickly protected Lu Qian.
However, before they could react and check, a pungent smell of smoke suddenly rushed into their nostrils!
Immediately afterwards, orange flames suddenly shot up from inside the grocery store!
Flames licked the wooden walls frantically, crackling and popping, and the fire spread at an alarming speed!
It instantly ignited the nearby firewood and tarpaulin!
Someone set fire!
Lu Qian stared at the figure that had disappeared into the darkness and said angrily, "Hurry up and put out the fire!"
Li Hong grabbed two wooden buckets from the wall and handed them to the guards, then turned around to find water for himself.
"Fire! Fire!" Xiao Ran screamed in fright.
The towering flames and thick smoke immediately alarmed the surrounding villagers!
At this time, everyone had just finished eating and was enjoying the cool air in the courtyard.
"Fire! The house at Miss Jiang's is on fire!"
Shouts, running sounds, and the clattering of buckets instantly shattered the tranquility of the night.
Villagers came from all directions, carrying buckets and basins.
The fire grew larger and larger, and the grocery store was almost completely engulfed in flames, with an oppressive heat wave.
Water was poured in bucket after bucket, but the effect was very slow!
As the raging fire was about to burst out of the shop, Lu Qian's eyes reddened!
The image of the large bag of life-saving medicine that Miss Jiang had taken out that morning flashed through his mind!
That dose of medicine was enough to save many lives!
No! We can't let him perish in the flames like this!
He snatched a bucket of water and poured it over his head, soaking his clothes, before rushing into the fire without a care in the world!
A figure flashed before Jiang Ling's eyes, and her intuition told her that this person didn't seem to be putting out a fire, but rather was more likely to be throwing their life away!
Almost instinctively, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm tightly.
"Lu Qian! Don't go in! The fire is too big! It's too dangerous!"
"No! Your medicine! The life-saving medicine is still inside! We can't let it perish in the fire!" Lu Qian struggled, trying to rush inside.
A single pill could save a life! The value of those pills was greater than life itself to him.
"Those medicines aren't worth much! We can get more! Human lives are more important! Lu Qian! You can't go in!"
Jiang Ling used all her strength to grab his arm and shouted in a hoarse voice.
Li Hong, who was fighting the fire nearby, heard the noise and rushed over to stop him, "Young Master! You can't go! The fire is too big, your life will be in danger!"
"If you can't go, I will!" Without saying a word, Li Hong also picked up a bucket of water and poured it over himself.
He understood Lu Qian's obsession and knew how important these drugs were to the Dayu Dynasty!
If his life could save many others, he would accept it!
"No! Nobody can go!" Jiang Ling shouted!
Those medicines would only cost a little over a thousand yuan in modern times; they're not worth risking your life for!
In the midst of the chaotic tug-of-war, a villager, anxious to put out the fire, rushed over with a bucket of water. To avoid the burning and falling lintel, he instinctively pulled the heavy, open wooden door outward with all his might.
Just then, someone darted out from inside and bumped into him—
"Bang!"
With a muffled thud, the two wooden doors slammed shut by the unexpected impact!
The moment the wooden door closed, something strange happened—
The deafening sounds of flames burning and wood crackling in the shop vanished instantly!
The towering flames and thick smoke seemed to be abruptly cut off by an invisible hand!
The grocery store, which had just been like a raging inferno, fell into a deathly silence in an instant, as if the fire had never happened!
Everyone was stunned, staring dumbfounded at the quietly closed wooden door, an eerie silence falling over the scene.
The villagers, who had just returned from fetching water from the river, stopped in their tracks, carrying their swaying buckets.
The water in the bucket was now useless.
"Where's the fire...?"
"Where did the fire go?"
"The lights in the shop are gone too?"
"What...what's going on?"
Lu Qian and Li Hong watched all of this in shock.
Xiao Ran suddenly had a bad feeling. He suddenly remembered that when the shop closed at noon today, no matter how much he knocked on the door and called out, there was no response from inside.
He put down the wooden bucket and walked to Jiang Ling's side, still panting from running. "Sister Jiang, the shop door is closed? What should we do?"
All eyes turned to Jiang Ling.
Jiang Ling's heart pounded wildly. Her eyes stared at the wooden door with a mixture of panic and helplessness.
The door is closed?!
The door was closed from the outside?!
But she's still outside!
A thought she had verified but dared not think about deeply suddenly gripped her!
She released Lu Qian and slowly walked to the wooden door.
Amidst everyone's astonished and uncertain gazes, she took a deep breath, stretched out her hands, placed them on the cold door panel, and pushed it forcefully!
"Squeak—"
The door opened with a click.
Jiang Ling was stunned.
It turns out she can open the door from the outside. And only she can open that door from the outside!
Jiang Ling immediately breathed a sigh of relief. The fear of being homeless vanished without a trace.
Before she could fully relax, everything inside the door made her gasp in shock!
Inside the shop, everything was as usual!
The shelves were neat, the items were intact, the floor was clean, and there wasn't even a trace of smoke or burnt smell.
It was as if the raging fire that had just engulfed everything was just a collective hallucination.
Only the overturned wooden barrel in the corner hinted at what might have just happened.
The villagers outside the door were completely silent, their mouths agape as they stared at this incomprehensible scene, their faces filled with shock and bewilderment.
They looked at each other, then at Jiang Ling, and then at the overly quiet interior of the shop. For a moment, no one dared to step forward, and no one spoke.
An almost frozen sense of astonishment filled the air.
The eerie silence lasted for a good ten seconds.
Grandpa Zhao took two shaky steps forward, pointed into the shop, and said in a trembling voice, "Miss Jiang... what... what exactly is going on?"
Jiang Ling looked completely bewildered; she couldn't explain it either.
Aunt Zhao exclaimed, "Heaven has opened its eyes! Heaven has opened its eyes! This, this must be divine protection! The Bodhisattva has appeared!"
This sentence seemed to suddenly awaken everyone.
"I knew it! Such a big fire, gone in an instant, and the shop is still perfectly fine! It must be because Miss Jiang did good deeds and accumulated merit that she moved the heavens, and that a deity is protecting this shop!"
"It must be because Miss Jiang has done good deeds and accumulated merits that she has been blessed by the gods, and that good people are rewarded."
"Miss Jiang has accumulated great virtue to receive such blessings!"
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