“Now’s not the time for recrimination,” the director said. “Act, and think of nothing else. Do you know who said that? Your father. Once, back when I was a technician on his squad, I ignored his warning and enlarged the extraction range so I could meet production targets. As a result, a huge quantity of water entered the works, trapping more than twenty squad members in the corner of a passageway. Our lamps had gone out, and we didn’t dare strike a lighter, afraid of gas on the one hand and of using up the oxygen on the other, since the water had sealed us off completely. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, it was so dark. Then your father told me he remembered there was another passageway above us, and our ceiling was probably not all that thick. Next thing I heard was him scratching at the ceiling with a pick. The rest of us felt around for our picks and joined him, digging in the darkness. As the oxygen level dropped, we began to feel woozy and tight-chested. And on top of that there was the darkness, an absolute blackness no one on the surface is able to imagine, but for the glint of picks striking the ceiling. Staying alive was sheer torture, but it was your father who kept me going. Over and over he said to me in the darkness, ‘Act, and think of nothing else.’ I don’t know how long we dug, but just when I was about to faint from lack of breath, a chunk of the ceiling fell in and the glare of the explosion-proof lamps from the overhead passageway shone through the hole…. Later your father told me that he had no idea how thick the roof was, but it was the only thing we could do: act, and think of nothing else. Your father’s words have been etched ever deeper on my brain over the years, and now I pass them on to you.”

Experts who had rushed from all over the country to attend the meeting soon drafted a plan for fighting the fire. The options at hand were limited to just three. First, cut off the underground fire’s oxygen. Second, use a grout curtain to cut the path of the fire. Third, inject massive quantities of water underground to quench the fire. These three techniques were to proceed simultaneously, but the first had been demonstrated ineffective long ago. Air vents supplying oxygen to the fire were difficult to pinpoint, and they would be hard to seal off even if located. The second method was effective only against shallow coal-seam fires and was much slower than the pace of the underground fire’s advance. The third method was most promising.

News was still embargoed, and the firefighting proceeded quietly. High-power drilling rigs, emergency transfers from Renqiu Oil Field, passed through the mining city under the eyes of curious onlookers; the army entered the hills; whirling choppers appeared in the sky … a cloud of uncertainty descended over the mine, and rumors spread like wildfire.