A Tribute to Our Firefighters

This novel measures the boundary between life and death with mortal flesh and blood. When toxic chemical clouds devour lives, when the twisted wreckage of a school bus traps the voices of children, when floodwaters engulf a city’s pulse, the seven members of the Anning Development Zone Fire Station shed the label of heroes and reveal the wounded, ordinary people beneath.

Station chief Li Jianguo keeps a charred medal from the 1987 Greater Khingan Range fire locked in his desk drawer. “Soldier King” Wang Haitao’s roars on the training ground mask nightmares of failed rescues. Zhang Haiyan, the fireground records officer, has buried in her database the memory of her lover, who died because information was delayed. Between bouts of vomiting at a car accident scene, rookie Zhao Minghui catches sight of his younger brother in his school uniform. Publicity officer Chen Lan uses picture books to explain to her daughter why “Mom keeps disappearing whenever the alarm goes off.” “Pillar” Liu Dazhu grips his father’s medical bills as he operates a water-supply valve. Equipment technician Sun Xiaofeng protects the beeping machinery, even as he edges toward deafness.

From the clappers of the Northern Song patrol stations to the wail of modern alarms, they stand on a fault line spanning five thousand years of firefighting history. With chemically burned hands, they cradle infants; with hydraulic cutters, they break the curse of steel. On psychological evaluation forms, they write, “Still required to hold the line.” This is no heroic epic, but seven ordinary lives patched up with bandages, proof that true courage means keeping hold of the hose even after seeing the full horror of the world.