By Lin Mengqing, Lv Yihan & Zhang Nanqian
Edited by Du Wenwen
Seventeen days before the Lunar New Year, a fire originating from illegal construction in an underground cold storage took the lives of 39 people in Yushui District, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, and another 9 were hospitalized.
Most of the victims were young people in their twenties. About half a month ago, local universities had entered their winter break, and some students who were preparing for the “undergraduate upgrade” chose not to go home, staying near the school to attend training courses.
In the freezing cold of Jiangxi, around zero degrees Celsius, more than forty students were crammed into a classroom without windows, attending classes and tutoring from nine in the morning to nine-thirty at night, hoping to work hard for their future.
Until after three o’clock on the afternoon of January 24th, gray-black smoke from the fire emerged from the underground level of the shops along Tian Gong South Avenue Jiale Garden, spreading to the training institutions and hotels on the second floor, engulfing their lives. A passerby less than five hundred meters from the scene smelled the smell of burning.
The Rehabilitation Department of Xinyu City’s Xingang Central Hospital began to admit patients from this fire around four o’clock that afternoon. A doctor recalled, “The people brought in had very black faces, and their features were indistinguishable; most of them were choked by smoke.”
Those young people who could not escape the fire and unfortunately died were also ordinary people who lived seriously, just like you and me.
It is regrettable that among the 39 victims, we have only found the families, friends, and classmates of 6 of them. A few lines of text are not enough to fully record their vibrant lives.
A 15-year-old girl would stand under the streetlights of a snowy night in the south, reaching out to catch the falling snowflakes, leaving a commemorative photo; a daughter, regarded as a treasure by her parents, had a height of 1.8 meters and was lively and cheerful since childhood. Her original career dream was to become a police officer; three girls who became good friends because of the training class shared the same love for small animals, buying sausages at the supermarket to feed the stray cats nearby, and also agreed to bring their own cats and dogs to a gathering; and two boys who also wanted to improve their education and pass the undergraduate exam, firmly believed that their current efforts would rewrite the course of their future lives.
A fire, they forever lost their tomorrow.
CDT File Card
Sister｜The day that was supposed to be going home
Linlin, a 15-year-old girl from Yunnan, was the youngest victim of the fire. She was also the only child among the 6 victims who was not taking the “undergraduate upgrade” training course.
A friend who lived in the same hotel as her told Linlin’s sister Lulu that when the incident happened, Linlin had knocked on her door to remind her to escape, but after the two escaped, she turned back to her room to get something. “My sister raised a cat, and it is estimated that she went back to get the cat,” Lulu speculated.
In the thick smoke, the girl could not get out of the room again.
Rewinding to a few hours before the incident, her mother had received a message from Linlin, saying that she had not received her salary and did not have enough money to buy a train ticket, and wanted some money to buy a ticket. Lulu said that the day her sister had the accident, it was supposed to be the day she was going home.
In the summer of 2023, Linlin came to Xinyu, Jiangxi, and worked the night shift in a factory. Before leaving home, she told her family that she did not want to continue going to school and wanted to go out to work with her friends. “Let the child go out and suffer,” Lulu thought, but at that time she never imagined that half a year later she would also come to this small city 700 kilometers away to collect her sister’s remains.
Linlin’s social media account only posted three photos with background music. The girl was slender, with fair skin, brown mid-length hair draped over her shoulders, and a pair of big, lively and playful eyes. Like girls her age, she would also add slightly confused words under the photos: “Those muds that I think I can’t get out of will eventually be light and breezy.”
Linlin’s back on her social media platform (Source: Internet)
On January 22, two days before the incident, Xinyu had a heavy snowfall. This southern girl wore a white fleece cotton coat and a popular “three-in-one” bear ear hat, also white. In the photo, she stood on the side of the street under the night lights, reaching out to catch the falling snowflakes, leaving a side profile.
After Linlin’s accident, her account became a “digital cemetery”, and the comments section of relatives and friends pieced together her life before her death—she liked to hear her friends speak in ethnic languages, liked to play games with her friends, said she would invite her friends to drink when she went back to her hometown, and also wanted to buy good food for her sister.
On January 24th, a friend also left her a message “Long time no see”, and she replied, “See you soon”.
Good friends｜Stray cats, milk tea, and scholarships
When the raging fire ignited on the underground level, Ye Tao and Shiqing, both 23 years old, were in an English class at the “Boyi Undergraduate Upgrade Xinyu Study Center”.
Keke, a mutual friend of the two girls, told us that the class on January 24th was added temporarily. She was not feeling well and took a leave of absence, but her two friends went to class as usual.
At 3:22 p.m., Keke finished chatting with Shiqing, but 10 minutes later, she received a video from the teacher—the location of the training institution was billowing with smoke.
She started asking her friends about their situation on WeChat, but more than a dozen messages were unanswered. She then made three voice calls, but still no one answered. Keke ran to the scene and was stopped outside by the police, and then ran to the hospital, but she couldn’t find them after searching for a long time, only seeing many hearses.
At 7:42 p.m., she opened the chat box again and sent almost desperate words, “I beg you, please be safe, I don’t want to lose you, answer me, please?”
Keke first met Shiqing when the class started last November. She thought she was a very beautiful girl. There was an aisle between their seats, and Keke wanted to say hello to her but always didn’t dare. Until one day, when it was almost time for class, she saw Shiqing running down the stairs, and the two had their first conversation—”What are you doing?” “Going to the supermarket to buy sausages to feed the stray cats!”
Keke, Shiqing, and Ye Tao feeding stray cats
Cats were the starting point for Shiqing and Keke to get to know each other. In the following three months, the two girls fed stray cats together, ate ramen, and drank milk tea. Keke didn’t have an electric bike, and it took half an hour to walk from the training institution to the rented house, so Shiqing would ride her electric bike to take her home. Keke didn’t understand the knowledge points, and Shiqing told her, “The rules of logical operation are not in the book, you have to remember them. You can draw them in the book if you don’t take notes”. When Keke had dysmenorrhea, Shiqing kept asking in text messages, “Do you have ibuprofen?” “Do you have a hot water bottle?” “Do you have an electric blanket?”
She also introduced Keke to her roommate—Ye Tao, a girl who also loved cats, and she kept a gray and white kitten at home. On the afternoon of January 16th, Ye Tao sent Keke a video of her own cat, “Come tonight, I’ll let you pet it”. Keke replied, “Come! Definitely!” That night, the three girls drank milk tea, petted Ye Tao’s cat at the door of the institution’s classroom, and talked about cats and dogs.
Originally, the three girls had agreed that before the holiday on January 31st, Shiqing would bring her dog. Ye Tao would bring her own kitten to Keke’s rented house to play. But now, the agreement will never be fulfilled.
On the official website of Ganxi Vocational and Technical College, you can still see the news that Shiqing and Ye Tao won the National Inspirational Scholarship for the 2022-2023 academic year—only 5 people in their major were shortlisted for the preliminary review. In Keke’s impression, the two girls would also study in the classroom besides attending classes. Shiqing from Qinghai once told her, “I must go out of Qinghai to see it”.
Niece｜A tall girl of 1.8 meters, wanted to be a police officer
Xiao Ou, Liu Ming’s niece, was not yet 21 years old.
When they learned that their daughter, who was born in 2003, was also on the list of victims, Xiao Ou’s parents cried their eyes out. On January 25th, when they went to the funeral home to see their daughter for the last time, they fainted several times.
Liu Ming said, “This family is forever broken.”
In the uncle’s impression, Xiao Ou was sunny and cheerful. This tall girl, almost 1.8 meters tall, was preparing for the “undergraduate upgrade” this year, aiming for the Jiangxi Police College, and aspired to be a people’s police officer.
“Although her academic performance was average, she has always been diligent and humble, and she has received more than 5,000 yuan in scholarships every year in college.” Liu Ming remembers that his sister once said that after going to college, Xiao Ou hardly asked the family for living expenses.
In Liu Ming’s account, Xiao Ou has always been a sensible girl. This time, in order to save money for the family, she enrolled in a training class two kilometers away from home, and went to class by electric bike or on foot every day. A few days ago, there was a heavy snowfall in Xinyu, and the girl fell on the road while riding her electric bike, and she continued to go even though she endured the pain.
A one-story house burned down by the fire after the incident (Source: Local residents)
Not long before Xiao Ou’s accident, this family had already experienced a disaster.
The family had a car accident. When Liu Ming arrived, Xiao Ou and her parents were covered in blood, and the car was smashed to pieces. Xiao Ou’s fracture had just healed when she died in the thick smoke. Xiao Ou’s father also had underlying diseases and heart disease, and had undergone several craniotomies.
“Our hearts are colder than the heavy snow these days. We cannot accept or imagine how helpless and tragic our niece would have been before death came.” Liu Ming wrote these words on social media.
He didn’t even dare to think about what his sister and brother-in-law’s lives would be like after losing their daughter, who was regarded as a treasure by the family. He always recalled Xiao Ou’s lively and lovely appearance when she was a child, stumbling behind the adults.
This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, the family had a dinner, and Xiao Ou sat next to Liu Ming. He asked his niece if she had started dating, and the girl shook her head shyly. There were only ten days left before the Spring Festival, and Liu Ming had also bought New Year’s gifts for Xiao Ou, “the gifts she was looking forward to”. But it is a pity that she will never have the chance to open them herself.
Roommate｜The dormitory that can never be made up again
The fire also took the life of 21-year-old Zhang Peng.
He was a 2021 student of the School of Big Data and Computer Science, Jiangxi Institute of Engineering. On the afternoon of January 25th, his roommate and classmate Chen Yi confirmed the news of Zhang Peng’s death to us—he also learned this bad news from the videos sent by other classmates.
On the evening of the 24th, Chen Yi sent a message to Zhang Peng, but he never received a reply, and the phone was also turned off when he called.
A distant view of the fire scene
As early as mid-November 2023, Chen Yi started his internship, and Zhang Peng also started taking the undergraduate upgrade courses at the institution. The school had already gone on holiday two weeks ago, and Zhang Peng continued to attend classes at the training institution.
“He always wanted to go to undergraduate school. He was only 30 points short of the college entrance examination. He also showed that he was very smart and good at higher mathematics when he was with us.” Chen Yi recalled that Zhang Peng was very motivated, and he had the idea of going to undergraduate school since his freshman year, mainly to improve himself, and he also persuaded everyone to go together, saying that he thought it would be easier to find a job at undergraduate school.
Zhang Peng was the only one in the dormitory who had signed up for the “undergraduate upgrade” training course, and thus died in this accidental fire. Chen Yi felt sorry for him, “Why did he spend that money to take the exam, and now he has lost his life”.
Chen Yi said that Zhang Peng was the youngest child in the family, and he had several older sisters. In school, Zhang Peng applied for student aid every year.
In July of this year, Zhang Peng and Chen Yi were both going to graduate from school. Before the winter break, the two boys had agreed that they would go back to school and have a meal with their roommates next semester, but now, they can no longer “make up the people in the dormitory”.
Senior｜Forever lost the gift of “tomorrow”
“The sky will not always be dark, and sweat will not always deceive people” is Yu Jialei’s WeChat signature.
This dark-skinned boy from Qinghai, who was 1.88 meters tall, had left an impression of self-discipline and humility on his junior Lin Rukai.
Yu Jialei loved to play basketball, got up early every day to practice, and also went to practice after evening self-study. His ball skills were actually very good, but he always said that his skills were average and that he needed to train hard.
Yu Jialei’s WeChat signature
On January 25th, Lin Rukai saw a list of victims circulating online, and he couldn’t believe that his senior had passed away. A few days ago, Yu Jialei had also liked a short video he sent.
The two also studied at Ganxi Vocational and Technical College. According to Lin Rukai, in their school, about five or six people in each class chose to upgrade to undergraduate—usually students with good grades and plans and requirements for their future. This is related to the real-world employment problem. Many companies’ employment selection criteria start with a bachelor’s degree, and it is indeed difficult for junior college students to find a job. In recent years, it has been difficult to find a job, and Lin Rukai and his seniors and sisters also have plans to upgrade to undergraduate.
When Lin Rukai first met Yu Jialei, he heard him say that his most important goal was to upgrade to undergraduate. Yu Jialei would study words and read books every night, no matter how late he returned to the dormitory. Yu Jialei told his junior that his English was average, and if he wanted to take the undergraduate exam, he needed to constantly improve himself.
When Lin Rukai first entered the university, Yu Jialei helped him answer many questions about his major, school, and course selection. “The senior was relatively introverted, but he was very kind to people he knew, and he also treated me to a meal.”
Yu Jialei once told Lin Rukai a sentence he liked, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift from heaven, cherish today as you cherish a gift.”
On January 24, 2024, he forever lost the gift of “tomorrow”.
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