But the moment he touched the policewoman, he knew something was wrong. Checking her breath, he found she had none. There were clear ligature marks on her neck. He recoiled in terror and said to Susu, "She, she's been strangled to death. We need to escape quickly…"
As he spoke, he thought of the hospital room window and immediately opened all the windows in the room.
Susu stared at the motionless policewoman on the bed. Dead?
She couldn't believe it. Just moments ago, she had been a living, breathing person…
Xiao Anjing scanned outside each window. They were on the fifth floor. If they jumped from the window to escape, he and Susu would both die!
Suddenly, he spotted a metal staircase outside one of the windows. Though it was a short distance from the window, with a bit of effort, they should be able to reach it.
He immediately turned to Susu and shouted, "Go to the bathroom and get two wet towels!"
Susu snapped back to reality. Ignoring the pain from her C-section incision, she stood up from her wheelchair and ran into the bathroom, soaking all the towels inside.
She draped a completely wet bath towel over herself and carried a pile of wet towels, handing them all to Xiao Anjing. She asked, "Was it the killer he sent? What should we do now?"
Xiao Anjing pointed to the fire escape, which was becoming obscured by thick smoke, and said, "I don't know. Escaping is the most important thing right now. Do you see the staircase not far from the window? We need to quickly get out the window and go down that metal ladder."
With that, Xiao Anjing covered his mouth and nose, motioning for Susu to do the same with a wet towel. He wanted to help her out the window first.
Susu was already dizzy from the smoke, her breathing becoming difficult. She couldn't even see the fire escape outside, and it was late at night, so everything was pitch black. She didn't know where to place her feet on the ladder.
"Susu, quickly step onto the ladder and hold on tight!" Xiao Anjing urged, removing his wet towel. He had inhaled a lot of smoke and felt like he was suffocating.
Susu knew that if she stayed on the windowsill, Xiao Anjing wouldn't be able to escape. She closed her eyes, stretched a leg downwards, and without a second thought, decided to reach for the ladder. If she couldn't find it, she'd cling to the wall to get out of the burning room.
But suddenly, she felt her legs, which were already dangling in the air, being firmly grasped by someone below. Her hands were still clamped tightly to the edge of the windowsill, refusing to let go.
Xiao Anjing thought she had already descended the ladder. Remembering the position of the staircase, he quickly threw down his wet towel, scrambled out the window, and stepped onto the ladder. As he was about to descend, he realized something was wrong.
Susu was still clinging to the windowsill. He couldn't tell if her legs were dangling or not. His throat felt so constricted that he could barely speak. "Susu…"
"Get onto the windowsill and give me a hand. Tie her with this rope, and I'll pull her over down here along the ladder." Someone was speaking to him from below.
Xiao Anjing asked frantically, "Who are you…"
"There's no time," Qin Tianyi, who was on the ladder below, said, handing him the rope.
Xiao Anjing had no other choice. He couldn't abandon Susu and escape alone. He gripped the rope and climbed back onto the windowsill. The metal fixtures of the windowsill were burning hot.
His skin felt a searing pain when he accidentally brushed against the windowsill. He managed to say to Susu, "Hold on a little longer. Once I tie you, let go of your hands."
Susu couldn't answer. With her last bit of strength, she held on. Xiao Anjing quickly tied the rope around her arms below her elbows and then told her to let go.
After she let go, Qin Tianyi, who was below, gripped her legs tightly with one hand, pulled the rope taut, and placed her on the ladder. He said, "Can you move on your own? You can start climbing down now."
Susu grunted in affirmation, feeling herself on the ladder.
Qin Tianyi then called up to Xiao Anjing on the windowsill, "You hurry down the ladder too, and get to the hospital room directly opposite on the fourth floor."
With that, he first helped Susu down the ladder and brought her to the hospital room where he was staying.
As soon as Susu stepped off the ladder, her legs could no longer move. She relied entirely on Qin Tianyi's support to enter the fourth-floor room and fainted as soon as she was inside.
Xiao Anjing agilely descended the ladder and entered the room Qin Tianyi had mentioned. He collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air, feeling that he would have suffocated if he had been a second slower.
He watched as the person who had helped them laid Susu flat on the bed, gently feeding her water, and wiping the soot from her face. He thought that this person was likely not their enemy.
Even if they were an enemy, he didn't have the strength to stop him.
It was then that he heard shouts from upstairs: "Fire!" accompanied by the sound of people running. Then, there was running on their fourth floor as well.
The person who had helped them heard the commotion and calmly closed all the doors and windows.
Xiao Anjing surmised that the fire in Susu's room must have triggered the fire alarm systems on the same floor. The hospital wouldn't let the fire spread, and once discovered, it would be quickly extinguished.
He suddenly understood why the fire in Susu's room had started from the ceiling.
The killer had disabled the fire alarm and automatic sprinkler system in the ceiling before setting the fire. By igniting it from the ceiling, the fire could spread within the room, consuming the entire room before anyone outside noticed.
However, the killer hadn't anticipated someone being in the bathroom. He had opened the room's windows, creating airflow. As soon as the smoke drifted out, it would trigger some of the public fire alarms.
If they hadn't planned to move Susu tonight, she would have been strangled once and burned to death, leaving no chance of survival.
He had thought nothing in this world could frighten him anymore, but this time, he felt a chill run through his entire body.
He tried to get up, half-walking, half-crawling into the bathroom of the room they were in. He closed the door and desperately used cold water to clear his head. He drank a lot of cold water to ease the discomfort in his lungs.
Their continued presence in the hospital was still dangerous. They could be certain that the killer was a nurse, but with so many nurses in the hospital, who knew which one it was? They had to continue moving Susu discreetly.
Feeling a bit better, he walked out of the bathroom. The person who had helped them had already changed Susu into clean hospital clothes. He looked at Xiao Anjing and said, "Her stitches from the abdominal wound have burst, and it needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. Also, she hasn't woken up yet; she's probably just fainted from the smoke. You need to quickly take her…"
Xiao Anjing looked at the man's half-disfigured face and guessed who he was. "Tianyi… Tianyi? Is that you?"
Qin Tianyi nodded and said, "Thank you. If it weren't for you tonight, Susu would have… wouldn't have made it."