Chapter 172: Should Have Listened
Hanchuan had barely settled beside Zhiyi’s bedside when Zeyu opened the door of the medical room.
The interruption made him tighten his hand around hers before he remembered how easily she bruised. He loosened his fingers and laid her hand back on the blanket.
"The Zhao guy is on the phone," Zeyu informed him, remaining in the doorway. "He wants you to put your weapon down."
Hanchuan rose with the rifle still against his chest.
Across the bed, Qinghe watched him. The tablet rested facedown on the counter beside a folded cloth, and Hanchuan knew he had turned it over after seeing what happened outside.
"How is she?" Hanchuan asked, pausing beside the bed.
"Unchanged," Qinghe replied. His gaze dropped briefly to the rifle. "Hanchuan, did you have to?"
Hanchuan looked at Zhiyi before answering. A strand of hair had caught beneath the edge of her cheek, and he carefully freed it.
"Yes," Hanchuan replied simply.
Qinghe’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t challenge him. That surprisingly hurt Hanchuan more than he expected. He could remember when these men had never needed to ask what he was capable of doing.
They really should have seen this coming.
Instead of saying anything more, he left them with their questions and followed Zeyu into the corridor.
At the security room, Jingwei handed him the phone without speaking. The damaged observation window caught the ceiling light, its pale fracture obscuring part of the passage beyond.
Hanchuan looked at it once before lifting the phone.
"I’m here," Hanchuan informed the commander.
"You shot a soldier carrying out my orders," Commander Zhao snapped. Behind his voice, someone was speaking urgently enough to be heard through the connection.
"I warned him before he touched the door," Hanchuan replied with a casual shrug. It wasn’t his fault that no one listened to him or took him seriously.
Commander Zhao dismissed whoever stood beside him. Hanchuan heard a chair move, followed by a brief silence.
"Put your weapon down and come outside," the commander ordered. "Captain Du will take you into custody. This way we can prevent anyone else from getting hurt."
Hanchuan rested his free hand on the counter. Jingwei stood close enough to hear the conversation, while Zeyu waited beside the doorway.
"And then your men come inside," Hanchuan said with a scoff.
"Our medical officer will assess your wife," Commander Zhao replied.
Hanchuan watched Jingwei’s expression change. Even now, after the broken gate and the bullets against their window, some part of his friend had apparently expected the shooting to change what the commander wanted.
"Tell your medical officer to return to his patients," Hanchuan said, his voice cold. "Zhiyi already has a doctor."
"You don’t get to dictate terms after killing one of my men," Commander Zhao snapped back.
"Then stop calling to ask me for something that we both know I’ll kill to protect," Hanchuan replied.
Zeyu looked down the corridor. Hanchuan wondered whether he wanted to leave, then saw him checking that the medical room door remained closed.
He was grateful for that small consideration. Zhiyi couldn’t hear them, as far as any of them knew, but Hanchuan still disliked bringing this conversation anywhere near her.
Commander Zhao drew a breath.
"The others inside that building haven’t fired on my personnel," he stated, his tone becoming deliberate. "They still have an opportunity to cooperate in order to avoid any more... friendly fire."
Hanchuan looked directly at Jingwei.
His friend went still beside the counter. He understood the offer as clearly as Hanchuan did.
"Put Rong Jingwei on," the commander demanded. "He needs to understand that protecting you makes this worse for everyone."
Hanchuan held out the phone.
Jingwei stared at it before taking it, his fingers brushing Hanchuan’s and feeling how cold they actually were.
"I can hear you," Jingwei announced to the commander.
Hanchuan moved aside, giving him room. Through the monitor, he watched soldiers gather around the captain outside. One man sat on the rear step of a vehicle with his head lowered between his shoulders.
The dead soldier had been someone’s friend, too.
Hanchuan knew that, but knowing it didn’t change the fact that they were standing on opposite sides of the line. And no one was touching Zhiyi.
Jingwei listened without interrupting. Slowly, his gaze moved from Hanchuan to the marks on the observation window.
"No," Jingwei finally replied. "I’m not opening the door."
The commander’s answer was loud enough for Hanchuan to hear its anger without distinguishing the words.
Jingwei straightened.
"Because your men are still pointing weapons at our home," Jingwei answered. "You can read their reports when they are back home. Until then, what you want doesn’t matter."
He handed the phone back without looking at Hanchuan.
For a moment, Hanchuan could only close his fingers around it. Jingwei was wary of him now. He had seen it in the way his friend stepped away from him after the shot.
But he had stayed anyway.
"You’ve heard him," Hanchuan informed Commander Zhao.
"I heard a young man making a decision he doesn’t understand," the other man replied. "You’ve prepared a comfortable place to hide, Pei Hanchuan. That doesn’t make you independent of everything outside it."
Hanchuan glanced toward the monitor.
Captain Du had moved away from the vehicles. Two soldiers followed him toward a metal enclosure beside the old archive building.
"What are they doing?" Zeyu asked, stepping closer to the screen.
Hanchuan raised one hand, listening as Commander Zhao continued.
"We can disconnect the property," Commander Zhao warned. "Electricity. Communications. Whatever services still reach you."
"You came because you were concerned about my wife," Hanchuan reminded him. "Now you’re threatening the things you think are keeping her cool in this scorching heat."
"I’m giving you an opportunity to end this," the commander insisted.
Without a word, Hanchuan ended the call.
Zeyu turned toward him, but Jingwei was already contacting Shichen. Hanchuan watched a soldier pull open the enclosure while Captain Du spoke into his radio.
"External electrical cabinet," Shichen confirmed through Jingwei’s phone. "The original archive connection."
Outside, the soldier worked inside the enclosure. A moment later, the remaining lamps above the damaged outer gate went dark.
But the lights inside the security room didn’t flicker at all.
Cool air continued moving across Hanchuan’s neck as beside him, Zeyu lifted his face toward the vent, then released a breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
"Zhiyi insisted we disconnect from that before moving in," Shichen reminded them. "Because she already warned us that the grid would go down."
Hanchuan remembered her standing over the plans, refusing to accept promises that the grid would remain reliable. He knew that they would go down, but his friends hadn’t.
Bet they were glad to listen to her now.
On the monitor, Captain Du looked from the dark exterior lamps to the brightly lit passage.
Hanchuan pressed the intercom button.
"My wife designed the systems you’re trying to disable," Hanchuan informed him. "You should have listened when she told you how much it would fail."