"Mei, are Australia's bushfires always this strange?"
He stuck out his tongue to gauge the wind and said vaguely, "The wind is clearly blowing from the west, but the flames keep spreading toward the ranch, as if someone were controlling them."
No fire in the world burned like this.
Mei frowned, sensing the subtle discrepancy between the wind direction and the path of the flames. She called over the ranch's temporary manager, Mr. Chen Sicheng.
"Other than the constantly burning bushfire, is there anything else strange about this ranch?"
"No."
Compared with the standard questions Mei had learned in class, Zhao Bai was clearly more refined and easygoing.
He spoke up. "The flames are burning toward this ranch. Stand here and walk in a few different directions. I want to see what connection there is between the wildfire and you."
"Don't talk nonsense!"
Mr. Chen was extremely flustered, as though he were hiding something.
Of course, he was not hiding anything.
Any ordinary person would inevitably feel this way in such circumstances.
Mei tried to comfort him, and it took a long while before Mr. Chen calmed down. Then Zhao Bai's single sentence sent him right back into a panic.
"Could it be that one of your relatives is where the fire is heading?"
It was as if someone had blown up the cafeteria's pepper storage room. Zhao Bai watched with his own eyes as a nearly forty-year-old man squeezed out a hot tear, the glistening droplet rolling down his dark, gaunt cheek.
The atmosphere immediately grew heavy.
It turned out that Mr. Chen's daughter had died young. She had been of elementary school age, but a full-body infection caused by burns had taken her life.
Her body had not been cremated, but buried in the wilderness one hundred and