The World Ends In 27 Days

Jingwei acknowledged the information and continued past him.

Qinghe sat before three sections of the communications wall.

Government orders occupied the first screen, while the other two displayed capacity reports from Yunzhou hospitals. Red warnings appeared beside emergency departments that were no longer accepting new patients.

But through it all, the hospitals remained open, emergency services still answered calls, and the government continued broadcasting instructions.

Every surviving piece of the old world encouraged people to believe the rest of it could be restored.

Jingwei handed Qinghe the report concerning his relatives. "Three people became ill during the night. The oldest is 81."

Qinghe read the symptoms and studied the accompanying photographs without offering reassurance. His attention remained on the elderly woman seated beneath the wet towels.

"The first two may be experiencing heat exhaustion," he explained after reviewing their temperatures and reported symptoms. "Your aunt’s confusion and rapid breathing are more serious. She needs immediate cooling and medical assessment."

"The nearest hospital has suspended admissions."

"Then we treat her where she is." Qinghe opened a connection to Rong headquarters while providing precise instructions.

They needed to move her into the coldest internal room, remove unnecessary clothing and keep wet cloths against her neck, armpits and groin. If she could swallow safely, they should give her small amounts of water while monitoring her consciousness and temperature.

Jingwei forwarded every instruction to the security director.

He was still arranging the remote assessment when the private bedroom door opened across the common room.

Zhiyi emerged wearing loose shorts and one of Hanchuan’s shirts. Her hair hadn’t been brushed, and she carried her tablet beneath one arm. Hanchuan followed her into the kitchen with his hand resting against her lower back.

They both looked rested.

Jingwei tried not to notice.

Zhiyi stopped beside the island and examined the untouched coffee in Zeyu’s hands. "Is that cold?"

Zeyu took a testing sip before making a face. "It appears to have surrendered sometime during the night."

She pushed the cup toward Hanchuan when he reached them. "Can you make tea?"

Hanchuan redirected her toward one of the stools before opening the refrigerated storage. "After you eat."

"I can do both at the same time."

"You told me that yesterday." He placed a bowl and several ingredients on the counter. "You drank the tea and forgot the food."

"I didn’t forget it. I stopped being hungry."

Hanchuan looked at her over his shoulder. "That explanation has never made it better."

The exchange held the comfortable familiarity of a conversation they had repeated countless times. Zhiyi opened her tablet while Hanchuan prepared breakfast, already accepting that food would appear in front of her and that he would remain close enough to notice whether she ate it.

There was nothing careless about their behavior. Hanchuan had spent 27 days building the protection surrounding them, and Zhiyi had provided the knowledge that made it necessary.

They weren’t celebrating while Yunzhou suffered. They were simply living inside the safety they had created.

This morning, that distinction did nothing to soften Jingwei’s reaction.

His mother was kneeling on a heated floor while trying to cool an elderly woman with wet towels. His sister had slept beneath an inadequate air-conditioning system while waiting for Jingwei to arrange buses.

Eighty-seven people believed he could fix their circumstances because he had always been able to do so before.

Hanchuan was cutting fruit for his wife.

The resentment entered Jingwei before he could stop it.

He looked away from them and concentrated on Qinghe’s instructions, ashamed that the sight of his closest friend caring for Zhiyi had become offensive.

Hanchuan had warned him. Zhiyi had predicted the Heat. Every working system inside Xiling existed because the two of them had acted while Jingwei still struggled to believe what they knew.

They hadn’t taken safety from his family.

They had offered him the chance to prepare them.

Jingwei had prepared them.

The reports on his phone proved how little preparation could accomplish once people refused to surrender the habits of the world they had lost.

Zhiyi approached the communications wall after Hanchuan placed breakfast in front of her. She carried the bowl with her, eating mechanically while reading the headquarters report.

"They’re using too much water," she observed.

"I know."

The sharpness in Jingwei’s reply made Qinghe glance toward him.

Zhiyi only continued reading. "The municipal system will probably lose pressure before the electrical grid fails. If they wait until the taps stop running, they won’t have enough containers filled."

"The staff began filling bottles and bathtubs last night."

"That won’t be enough for 87 people." She enlarged the building inventory and marked several items as she found them. "They have office water dispensers, kitchen pots and sealed waste containers that haven’t been used. The cleaning staff should separate anything capable of holding potable water from containers that can be used for sanitation."

Her conclusion came without judgment. She didn’t accuse his family of wasting resources or ask why Jingwei hadn’t anticipated the problem.

She simply attempted to keep them alive.

The realization made his earlier resentment feel uglier.

Jingwei forwarded her instructions before opening the message his father had sent during the night. It contained contact information for three transportation companies, two commercial cooling suppliers and a deputy minister capable of authorizing access through restricted roads.

Rong Jianfeng had also attached proof that he transferred emergency funds into an operational account.

The amount would have purchased a fleet of buses one week earlier.

Now, it couldn’t persuade a single driver to cross Yunzhou.

Before Jingwei could respond, his father called.

He considered rejecting it. The impulse lasted less than a second before he accepted the video connection and transferred it to the communications wall.

Rong Jianfeng appeared behind the desk in his executive office. His collar was open, and sweat darkened the fabric beneath his neck. Su Lihua stood near the door while speaking urgently with someone outside the camera’s view. Xinyi remained beside the window, her phone held tightly in both hands.

The office was still recognizable. Awards lined the shelves, the family crest remained mounted behind the desk and several screens displayed live reports from Rong companies throughout the country.

Small green indicators confirmed that the financial network and corporate servers were still operating.

His father sat within the center of everything he had built and expected it to obey him.

"You ordered the cooling shut down on the residential floors," Rong Jianfeng began. His controlled tone failed to conceal his anger. "Your uncle has a heart condition, and your aunt became ill during the night. This is not the time to force the family into conference rooms."

Jingwei looked past him toward his mother.

Two guards had appeared in the doorway with a wheeled office chair. His elderly aunt sat between them, her head tipped weakly against the backrest while Su Lihua continued pressing a wet cloth against her throat.

For several seconds, Jingwei couldn’t hear anything his father was saying.

Qinghe moved closer to the wall and asked Su Lihua to bring the camera toward the patient.

The medical assessment continued beside the family argument, collapsing the distance between Xiling’s controlled safety and the worsening conditions inside Rong headquarters.

When Jingwei returned his attention to his father, he no longer cared which family member had objected to sharing a conference floor.

"The cooling system can’t support 13 occupied levels," he explained. "Everyone must move into the interior areas Shichen identified. If Uncle refuses, his apartment will continue heating until it becomes uninhabitable."

His father’s expression hardened at the blunt assessment. Rong Jianfeng had expected instructions that would preserve the family’s comfort, not an ultimatum requiring them to surrender it.

"The electrical authority expects to restore full capacity," he insisted. "This arrangement only needs to last until then. I’ve released emergency funds to purchase additional generators and portable cooling units."

Shichen looked toward Jingwei but didn’t interrupt. He didn’t need to explain again that more portable units would overload the building and increase the heat unless they were properly vented. Jingwei already understood, and his father wasn’t ready to hear it.

"The money is still in the account because no one accepted the order," Jingwei replied. "The suppliers can’t reach the building. Even if they could, there isn’t enough time to install a new commercial system before the internal temperature rises again."

Rong Jianfeng glanced toward one of the corporate screens as though the transfer’s continued existence contradicted his son.

The banking network had processed the payment. The numbers had moved from one account to another. That visible proof of wealth made it difficult to accept that nothing physical had moved with them.

"Then increase the offer," he instructed. "Someone will accept the risk if the compensation is sufficient."

Jingwei looked at his father’s damp collar, his mother’s strained face and the elderly woman slumped between two security guards.

They still believed this was a negotiation.

"The roads are failing, drivers are abandoning vehicles and the city has grounded civilian aircraft. Payment doesn’t change any of those things."

Silence followed the answer.

Xinyi left the window and approached her father’s desk. Fear had stripped the habitual confidence from her expression, but she was still trying to fit the danger into a world she understood.

"The government will clear the roads," she insisted. "Father spoke to the deputy minister. He thinks the restrictions will be lifted this morning."

"The deputy minister can authorize travel," Jingwei replied. "He can’t make the roads passable."

"Then we’ll wait until they are." Xinyi glanced toward the room behind Jingwei, taking in the illuminated communications wall and the cool kitchen beyond it. "Once they reopen, you can send the vehicles you prepared."

Jingwei became still.

He had known the request was coming. It had been present in every photograph, every report and every instruction his father refused to follow. His family didn’t believe Jingwei was teaching them how to survive inside Rong headquarters.

They believed he was keeping them alive until he came for them.

Rong Jianfeng leaned forward and placed both hands on his desk. Anger remained in his face, but his voice changed as he abandoned the discussion of cooling systems, government orders and corporate accounts.

"When are you coming to bring us to your shelter?"