Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter One : 3

The 110 emergency call log showed that the man called at 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident. “His voice was very low, and his words were very brief,” the female police officer who answered the call recalled.

Only one sentence—

“The Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway is on fire! Send someone quickly!”

Then he hung up.

The officer’s first reaction was that this was another case of someone mistakenly dialing 110 instead of 119 (fire department). Following regulations, she immediately notified the urban management officers and joint defense departments patrolling the Sweeping Mouse Ridge area at night, sending them to verify the fire situation and report back as soon as possible.

About five minutes later, a call came in: “The alarm is real. A shaft next to the Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway station is on fire. The fire is quite large, and we’ve already called the fire brigade to put it out.”

The second fire brigade arrived at 10:45 a.m. After driving their fire truck into the east-west alley, they immediately saw the urban management officers waiting at the alley entrance. Led by the officers, they drove about ten meters into the alley and found an iron gate on the north wall. The Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway station was inside. Because the gate was too narrow, the fire truck tried several times but couldn’t get in. They had to stop at the entrance, and several firefighters, led by the brigade leader, went inside and located the fire to assess the situation—what the urban management officers saw as a “shaft” was actually a ventilation shaft used in the old-style subway station. The tunnel ventilation shaft was constructed of concrete, its exposed portion resembling an inverted “L.” At the top of the horizontal line was a spacious, square opening, normally covered by a protective netting. However, this netting had been removed and discarded, revealing a raging inferno inside the opening, casting eerie, dancing firelight shadows on the walls and ceiling.

The squad leader was puzzled. In older subway systems, tunnel ventilation shafts typically connected directly to the platform, with the shaft’s base extending into the tunnel ceiling. Given the current state of the fire, the most direct indication was that a major fire had broken out inside the subway station. Although the Sweeping Mouse Ridge station had been out of service for a long time, its tunnel connected to the Cherry Street Station. To prevent the spread of any fire, the security system remained in place. If a fire broke out on the platform or inside the tunnel, the automatic sensors should have immediately triggered an alarm. However, no alarm calls were received from the COCC (Subway Network Control Center). Could it be that the fire was only burning inside the tunnel ventilation shaft? How could this be?

Just then, a staff member on duty at the Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway station arrived.

Since the Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway station officially closed in 2008, urban adventurers frequently tried to sneak into the station to take photos and videos and even steal subway equipment as “souvenirs,” causing not only management trouble but also various safety hazards. In 2013, the subway company installed iron fences inside the tunnel to prevent people from walking through the Cherry Street Station tunnel. They also built a wall outside the station, planted pine trees and roses inside, and turned it into a nursery. Two of the three subway entrances were completely sealed off with concrete slabs, leaving only one exit exposed outside the wall, fitted with a thick steel security door. A man surnamed Cai unlocked the door every morning at 8:00 a.m. to go to the duty room below and stand guard until 6:00 p.m., then returned to the surface, locked the door, and left, completely eliminating the possibility of curious visitors.

Mr. Cai lived nearby. After receiving the alarm, the fire brigade, considering their limited understanding of the fire situation and the possibility of needing to enter the station to extinguish it, contacted him through the subway company. When this last guardian of the Sweeping Mouse Ridge subway rushed to the scene, he was wearing a pair of embroidered cotton slippers.

Seeing that it was a ventilation shaft in the tunnel that was on fire, he breathed a sigh of relief: “It’s alright, nothing serious. This subway station was built early, and the location was remote, so they used the open cut method, which meant drilling wells from top to bottom. The surrounding terrain was complex; there was already a lot of residual granite soil there, which easily turned into mud when it got wet, causing surface subsidence and even landslides. To make matters worse, the Qingshikou Hydropower Station was built next door before the subway was constructed. It’s like your worst fears came true. So, in addition to dewatering measures, we also installed several floodgates. The ventilation shaft wasn’t a straight line to the end; there was an opening in the tunnel wall, separated by a floodgate. When the subway was still in operation, the floodgate was open. Later, when the subway stopped operating, some troublemakers wanted to get in but couldn’t, so they removed the protective netting from the ventilation shaft from the ground, used ropes to lower themselves down to the bottom, and then entered the station. I locked the floodgate then. So this tunnel ventilation shaft was practically a vertical shaft; if there was a fire at the bottom, it wouldn’t reach the platform. The steel plates on that floodgate were really thick!” he said confidently, gesturing as he spoke.

The fire chief nodded, instructing the firefighters to use large-caliber dry powder extinguishers to pour extinguishing agent into the tunnel ventilation shaft. He then told Old Cai, “Don’t be too happy yet. The smell of gasoline in this fire could be detected three blocks away. Gasoline can burn at temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and stainless steel melts at 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. So you’d better hurry and check that floodgate inside the station!”

Humbled, Old Cai dashed down into the subway station.

Under the pressure of the extinguishing agent, the flames in the tunnel ventilation shaft, which had been burning like a furnace, gradually died down. As the last wisp of white smoke escaped from the shaft and dissipated, darkness once again enveloped the abandoned subway station enclosed by a wall.

To determine the cause of the fire, a firefighter, secured by a safety rope, wearing a helmet equipped with an LED light, and attaching a portable fire extinguisher to his belt, crawled into the tunnel ventilation shaft and, with the help of his comrades, was slowly lowered down.

Generally, fires in abandoned urban manholes were mostly caused by delinquent teenagers or homeless people living nearby throwing cigarette butts or other ignition sources into them. Considering that the accelerant was gasoline, the former were more likely to be the culprits. Firefighters called these fires “loss of both life and property,” which sounded depressing, but it was actually a friendly term, meaning there was neither economic loss nor personal injury, and it was considered a routine fire incident. The next thing to do was remind Old Cai: since the subway station was abandoned, why not completely seal the ground openings of the tunnel ventilation shafts with cement slabs to prevent future fires? The fire chief ordered the other firefighters back to the vehicle, waiting for the firefighter at the bottom of the shaft to locate the source of the fire and determine its cause before heading back to base…

Suddenly, a shout rang out. It was from the firefighter at the bottom of the shaft; the voice was muffled and buzzing, and with the strong night wind, the fire chief didn’t hear it clearly. He leaned over the shaft opening and asked, “What?”

“There’s a dead body in the well!”

It felt like a hand clenched his heart in its fist. The fire chief shuddered. Years of experience told him that just from his colleague’s voice, he knew the seriousness of the situation—this time, he sensed he was in deep trouble.

The firefighter’s next words sent chills down his spine: “Captain, call the police quickly! There’s more than one body!”

“Calm down! What’s the panic?” the fire chief shouted down into the shaft, then realized that he was the one who was truly panicking. He took a deep breath, feeling the air here was not only cold but also eerie. The moment he inhaled, his blood ran cold, and he dared not breathe again. He fumbled for his phone for a while before realizing it was in his hand and quickly called the police.

As far as the eye could see, there was only boundless darkness and clumps of pine trees emerging in the shadows, their dark green hues contrasting sharply.

Here, it was especially necessary to note the name of the firefighter who went down the well to investigate: Chen Guoliang. It was his calm and composed handling of the situation that allowed the most crucial element of this case—the crime scene—to remain relatively intact, without suffering significant damage. This soon proved invaluable in solving the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case.

Upon discovering the charred human body at the bottom of the shaft, he didn’t disturb it. Instead, he removed his firefighting gloves, took out his phone, and used the supplemental light from his helmet to take photos of the situation below. He then called to his comrades above to prepare a fire blanket, which they placed at the shaft opening. He then asked them to pull him up. During the ascent, he endured the pain of his muscles being pulled, avoiding stepping on any part of the shaft wall. As soon as he emerged from the shaft, he removed his steel-soled fire boots, placed them upside down on the fire blanket, and told everyone, “Don’t move!”

During this time, the head of the Sweeping Mouse Ridge police station, who had received the report, arrived with several officers. After listening to Chen Guoliang’s report, the head of the station shone a powerful flashlight into the well and realized this was no ordinary criminal case. He immediately reported to the district branch bureau. One sentence from the report shocked the branch bureau chief on duty that night: “The firefighters who went down into the well said there were about three bodies, two of which might be children…”

Cases involving women, the elderly, and children always attracted the highest level of attention, so the district branch chief immediately reported to the city bureau. The city bureau issued two orders: first, protect the scene and await the dispatch of a specialist to organize a criminal investigation; second, conduct a search of the surrounding area and immediately detain all suspicious persons.

Within two hours, a large force was deployed to Sweeping Mouse Ridge. Dozens of heavily armed police officers tightly controlled all the surrounding traffic arteries, forming an impenetrable fortress. Ambulances and police cars rushed to the scene, initially causing congestion due to the narrow alley. But this was quickly alleviated after traffic police towed away some illegally parked vehicles lined up along the south side of the alley to facilitate access for those entering and exiting through the iron gate on the north wall. Leaders from the neighboring Sweeping Mouse Ridge Middle School rushed over to assess the situation and organized the school administration and student affairs offices to verify the whereabouts of boarding students. The district government’s main leaders also arrived at the scene as quickly as possible to fully cooperate with the police investigation.

Even by the most stringent standards, the response of all relevant departments in the city in the first two hours after the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case broke was impeccable.

Nevertheless, those standing at the crime scene—especially the police officers—remained uneasy, not only because of the perilous nature of the case but also because they knew that the “representative” the city bureau was about to send was very likely a female police officer known for her strictness and demanding nature.