Chapter 163: Then Deal With Him
Commander Zhao Mingyuan waited until Pei Hanchuan disappeared from the screen before allowing his expression to change.
Then he pushed his chair back hard enough to make the young lieutenant beside him flinch.
"Find her," he ordered, turning toward the communications staff. "I want to know where Qiao Zhiyi is."
The lieutenant glanced at the dark monitor before approaching him. He had stood through the entire conversation, although apparently he hadn’t heard the same things his superior had.
"Sir, Pei Hanchuan confirmed that she’s being looked after," he reminded him cautiously. "He may simply be refusing to cooperate."
"He couldn’t tell me when she’d be available," the officer replied, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "Ask a man like Pei Hanchuan for something he doesn’t want to give you, and he’ll make sure you know he’s refusing. That was different."
He could still see the younger man’s fingers tightening around the phone.
Hanchuan had looked exhausted, angry, and desperate to finish the conversation. More importantly, he had become furious when asked a question that should have been easy to answer.
The officer had seen that expression outside hospital wards, given by other spouses who didn’t want to say too much, often enough to recognize it.
Something had happened to the girl.
He had no way to know how serious it was, and that uncertainty made sitting behind his desk feel unbearable.
"Bring me everything we have on her whereabouts," he instructed the lieutenant. "And get the search staff in here."
The young man hurried away. Around the room, people began moving faster, abandoning conversations when they realized whose name had brought their commander to his feet.
Before the Heat, Qiao Zhiyi had been someone the government wanted working with its specialists.
Now those same specialists kept asking for her while the systems holding the country together failed around them.
They needed her to help preserve what remained. Eventually, they would need her to help rebuild what they couldn’t save.
He wasn’t prepared to discover that she had died while they waited politely for her husband to return a call.
The lieutenant came back with a woman carrying a tablet. She looked as though she had been pulled away from several other emergencies, which she probably had.
"We haven’t confirmed her location," she reported, setting the tablet on his desk. "The search was limited to existing records and requests for information. Most of our people have been handling evacuation support."
The officer remembered approving that arrangement.
Pei Hanchuan had money, properties, and connections. Leaving Zhiyi with him had seemed safer than moving her through a city that could barely keep its roads open.
Apparently, he had mistaken a wealthy husband for a guarantee.
"That changes now," he replied, looking between them. "She is a national treasure. If we intend to come out of this with anything left to rebuild, we need her alive."
The woman nodded and opened the incomplete search. "We can revisit the properties connected to her husband, but there are too many to check individually."
"Then find someone who can narrow them down," he snapped. He caught himself when her shoulders stiffened and lowered his voice. "I’m not asking you to search every building he owns. Find out where he intended to take her."
She left with the lieutenant, already calling for another member of her team.
The officer remained standing.
Every few minutes, someone approached with a problem that couldn’t wait, and he dealt with it while watching the doorway. By the time the lieutenant returned, his coffee had dried into a dark ring at the bottom of his cup.
"We found a contractor who worked on Xiling Data Archive," the lieutenant reported. He placed a phone on the desk, his earlier hesitation replaced by urgency. "He remembers the conversion into private accommodation. It was arranged through people working for Liang Shichen."
The officer recognized the name. Hanchuan’s friends had appeared often enough in the search material for him to remember which families stood behind them.
"Does he know whether they moved in?" he asked, reaching for the phone.
"No, sir," the lieutenant admitted. "But he remembers an underground residential section and extensive cooling work. He wasn’t given access to the completed rooms."
The officer questioned the contractor himself.
The man knew less than he wanted and more than anyone else had provided. When the conversation ended, Xiling had become the first place worth sending someone.
He dispatched a patrol already operating nearby and spent the next hour resisting the urge to demand an update every five minutes.
The call finally came while he was refusing another request for fuel.
"The main approach is damaged, sir," the patrol leader reported over the radio. "We observed another entrance from the road. There’s a guarded vehicle access, and the exterior equipment appears operational."
The officer straightened. It didn’t prove Zhiyi was inside, but the property deserved a closer look.
"Stay clear of the entrance," he instructed. "Wait for reinforcements."
He summoned the lieutenant and ordered a recovery team prepared, including medical personnel and transport capable of keeping her cool.
He wanted her brought somewhere he could confirm her condition himself.
For the first time since the call, doing something eased the pressure beneath his ribs.
"Should we contact Pei Hanchuan before they leave?" the lieutenant asked, pausing beside the door. "He may agree to meet them."
"No," the officer replied firmly. "He had the opportunity to tell us what was wrong. We aren’t giving him time to move her somewhere else."
The lieutenant hesitated, then nodded. Outside, engines began turning over as the soldiers assembled.
The officer watched them through the window. They were tired, too. Every man he sent outside had already done more than should have been asked of him, but he couldn’t spare them this.
"Sir," the lieutenant called from behind him, his voice quieter now. "What if we find her and her husband refuses to let us take her?"
The officer turned away from the window. He thought of Hanchuan’s cold face and the girl nobody had been allowed to see.
"Have the medical officer assess her before transport," he ordered. "We don’t endanger her by rushing."
The lieutenant remained where he stood, waiting for the answer they both knew was missing.
"And Pei Hanchuan?" he pressed carefully.
The officer reached for the radio as the first vehicle approached the gate.
"If he interferes," he replied, "then deal with him. By any force necessary."