Chapter 143: You Will Come Home
Jingwei felt Hanchuan’s attention settle on him.
The other properties had remained an abstraction to his family: buildings purchased through shell companies, renovated under confidentiality agreements and filled with supplies they never expected to use.
The Rong Family money had helped fund portions of the preparations, while Jingwei’s personnel protected deliveries and erased records.
That involvement had allowed the Rong Family to believe they possessed a claim.
"The other shelters aren’t available," Jingwei replied after the silence continued to stretch on too long.
His father’s gaze sharpened. "According to whom?"
Jingwei didn’t look toward Hanchuan this time. "According to the plan we agreed to before the Heat began."
"We agreed to protect the family," hissed out Rong Jianfeng. "You made a vow when I let you take more of a role in the company. The family always comes first."
"I protected you as much as I could without bringing you into one of the nine shelters," reminded Jingwei, feeling like he was just talking in circles.
But he couldn’t be disrespectful enough to just shoot down his father. No, he needed to do more to save his family without putting a strain on his relationship with Hanchuan and the other guys.
Rong Jianfeng leaned back, studying his son with an expression Jingwei knew too well. He used the same silence when an employee provided an answer that was technically accurate but deliberately incomplete.
"How many people are inside your shelter?" he asked, even though Jingwei had told him days ago.
"Six."
The number drew Xinyi’s attention across the room behind him.
She could see Hanchuan standing near Zhiyi’s chair, Shichen working beside the communications wall and Qinghe monitoring their aunt through a separate medical connection. Zeyu remained near the kitchen.
Six people occupied a property containing more food, water and protected space than the 87 people inside Rong headquarters possessed.
Jingwei knew what the difference looked like from the other side of the screen.
Su Lihua stepped closer. "Surely there is room for a few more."
"There is room," Jingwei admitted with a slow nod. "But there aren’t enough supplies to add 18 people."
"You have nine properties," countered his mother.
"And each one has a purpose. We may need to abandon this shelter, and we will need the others for the disasters that follow the Heat."
His mother’s confusion deepened.
She had accepted the warning because Jingwei asked her to enter headquarters before Yunzhou became dangerous. She had not accepted everything Hanchuan and Zhiyi predicted.
Like most of the country, she still believed the Heat would end.
"The government expects the temperature to break within several days," she reminded him. "You can replace whatever we use after the emergency passes."
Jingwei glanced toward the city reports filling the communications wall.
The government had issued conservation orders, opened cooling centers and promised additional electrical capacity.
Banks still transferred money. Emergency dispatchers still answered their phones. Every surviving institution encouraged people to plan for next week.
But only the six people inside Xiling understood that next week would be worse.
"We can’t replace it," Jingwei replied. "Not after the roads, factories and supply network fail."
Rong Jianfeng’s frustration hardened. "You are speaking as though civilization has already ended."
Jingwei couldn’t tell him that Hanchuan had watched it end once before.
Hanchuan approached the communications wall and opened the headquarters schematics beside the road closures.
He didn’t offer the family an extraction route or pretend that one might appear. Instead, he studied what remained within their control.
"You can extend the building’s reserves," he explained. "Consolidate everyone onto the six interior floors Shichen identified. Shut down the exterior offices and four residential levels before noon. One centralized kitchen operates twice per day, and no food leaves it without being recorded."
His instructions entered the conversation without apology.
He marked the protected water tanks and ordered them separated from the ordinary plumbing before municipal pressure failed.
Shower access would remain locked. Drinking water took priority over laundry, cleaning and personal comfort.
Shichen adjusted the cooling plan while Hanchuan continued.
The server system consumed too much power and produced unnecessary heat. Nonessential corporate data would be shut down, allowing the dedicated cooling loop to support the central conference floor.
Rong Jianfeng looked toward the screens displaying his companies. "Those servers contain the Rong Group’s operational network."
"They contain records for companies that are no longer operating and will not be operating in the future," Hanchuan replied. "Keeping them active reduces the time your family can remain inside the building."
The correction landed harder than an argument.
Rong Jianfeng had spent the morning transferring money, contacting executives and issuing orders through that network.
Hanchuan reduced it to another machine consuming power that could keep human beings alive.
Qinghe provided the final restrictions.
Everyone would be screened for heat illness twice each day. The elderly and medically vulnerable would sleep closest to the cooling loop, regardless of family status. Medication would be inventoried and distributed under supervision.
Together, the instructions transformed Rong headquarters from a corporate refuge into something closer to a shelter.
They also confirmed that no rescue was coming.
A warning appeared across the headquarters schematics before anyone could respond.
One of the exterior cooling units had exceeded its safe operating temperature. Shichen opened the performance log and watched its output continue to decline.
"That unit will shut down within three hours if the load remains unchanged," he warned. "When it does, the remaining units will attempt to compensate and begin failing as well."
Rong Jianfeng looked toward someone outside the camera’s view. "Have maintenance repair it."
"The maintenance team already inspected it," Jingwei reminded him. "The system isn’t damaged. It was never designed to operate while the temperature outside is this high."
His father’s gaze returned to the screen.
For the first time, there was no order ready to follow his silence.
Jingwei watched him confront a problem that couldn’t be corrected through money, authority or the threat of replacing whoever failed to solve it.
The building was obeying the limits of its construction, and those limits didn’t care that 87 members of the Rong Family depended upon it.
Hanchuan highlighted the floors they had ordered evacuated.
"Reduce the load now, and the remaining units may survive. Delay until the first one shuts down, and you could lose the entire cooling system."
Su Lihua looked toward her husband. "Jianfeng, we need to do what they’re telling us."
Rong Jianfeng didn’t answer her.
He continued staring at the cooling-system warning while its projected shutdown time decreased. The corporate network remained active behind him, consuming power to preserve companies that might never resume operating.
Jingwei watched the realization reach his mother first.
His father resisted it longer.
He had built his life around the belief that sufficient money and authority could produce a solution to any problem. Even now, he wanted transportation arranged, supplies purchased and someone held responsible for failing to provide either.
The declining cooling output offered him none of those options.
Hanchuan hadn’t shown them a route out of the building. He had shown them how to remain alive inside it for as long as possible.
Not transportation.
Not payment.
Survival inside the building they already occupied.
"You expect us to remain here," his father concluded.
"Yes," Jingwei answered.
"For how long?"
He had no answer his family could endure.
Hanchuan and Zhiyi knew the Heat would last four years. Rong headquarters might survive weeks if everyone obeyed immediately. Perhaps they could find more water or reach another secure location after the first panic subsided.
Perhaps Jingwei was only teaching them how to die more slowly.
"We’ll reassess when the roads stabilize," he promised.
His father heard the evasion.
Rong Jianfeng looked at his son for several seconds before closing the transportation map. The corporate network remained active behind him, but he no longer appeared interested in the money waiting inside its accounts.
"If you cannot bring your family to your shelter," he replied, his voice cold and sharp as he glared at Jingwei through the screen, "then you will come home to us."