Chapter 125: Save Your Breath

Everyone was suddenly consumed with helping their family members who weren’t safe, sound, and getting bored out of their minds in a fully stocked shelter.

Jingwei had assumed responsibility for 87 employees and relatives inside two corporate shelters. Zeyu’s family remained safe beyond the closed border. Shichen’s family had survived inside a building he designed, although they now carried authority they hadn’t wanted.

And Qinghe’s parents remained at the hospital.

Unlike the others, he had spoken to them since the Heat began.

He called their department twice each day, sent treatment protocols whenever the government distributed incomplete information and reviewed the lists of medications disappearing from the hospital pharmacy.

His parents rarely answered, not that he would expect them to.

They were always with patients.

Qinghe’s phone vibrated before Shichen could decide whether to acknowledge what he had noticed. The message came from a nurse assigned to one of the hospital’s temporary heat wards.

Qinghe read it once, then opened the attached photograph.

The image showed a former surgical recovery unit filled beyond capacity.

Patients occupied every bed, while additional mattresses covered the floor between them. Portable cooling units stood beside the doors, but the digital thermometers visible in the photograph displayed 37 degrees.

The message beneath it was brief.

The cooling unit serving Ward C failed. Your parents moved their patients into the surgical wing, but it’s already full. Administration ordered all staff over 60 to leave before the backup generators are shut down at midnight.

Qinghe checked the timestamp. The order had been issued 47 minutes earlier.

"Did they leave?" Shichen asked.

Qinghe opened the hospital’s staff-location system. His mother’s identification badge had registered inside the surgical wing six minutes ago. His father’s remained inside Ward C.

"No." Qinghe’s voice stayed quiet, but his hand tightened around the phone. "They moved the patients and stayed."

Hanchuan returned to the communications wall with Zhiyi beside him. He looked at the photograph before asking, "Can the failed cooling unit be repaired?"

"The hospital’s maintenance staff says the compressor seized." Qinghe searched the equipment records and found three previous warnings attached to the unit. "They don’t have a replacement."

Shichen opened the hospital’s floor plans while Jingwei contacted the security company responsible for the building. Neither man needed Qinghe to ask for help.

The surgical wing had independent cooling, but it wasn’t designed to serve the recovery unit, Ward C and the staff transferred from the western half of the hospital.

If administration shut down the backup generators at midnight, the remaining equipment would receive less power while supporting twice its intended load.

Qinghe called his mother.

The first attempt disconnected without ringing. The second reached the hospital network but failed before transferring to her extension. On the third attempt, someone answered.

His father’s face appeared on the screen.

Sweat soaked the older physician’s hair and surgical collar. Behind him, hospital staff pushed a patient bed through the crowded corridor while an alarm sounded somewhere beyond the camera.

Dr. Wen recognized his son immediately. His expression showed neither surprise nor relief.

"If you’re calling to tell us to leave," he said while adjusting the phone against a supply cart, "save your breath."

Qinghe didn’t react to his father’s refusal.

He had expected it before making the call.

"I’m not asking you to leave," he said as he transferred the connection to the communications wall. The hospital corridor expanded behind Dr. Wen, revealing staff moving patients past supply carts and equipment abandoned against the walls. "I need to know what will lose power at midnight."

His father’s suspicion eased without disappearing. "Administration is shutting down the western backup generator. It has less than 30 percent fuel remaining, and no one knows whether another delivery will arrive."

The hospital had three backup generators. One had failed during the second day of the Heat. The remaining two divided the building into eastern and western power zones, but only the eastern generator supported the surgical wing.

The cooling unit serving Ward C had failed inside the western zone.

Shichen opened the hospital’s electrical plans and traced the circuits connecting both sections. "Can the ward be transferred to the eastern generator?"

"Not without shutting down part of surgery," Dr. Wen replied. He moved the phone as two nurses pushed another bed through the corridor. "Administration already transferred the patients who could survive the move. The remaining equipment in Ward C will stay powered until midnight."

Qinghe understood what his father had avoided saying.

"What happens to the patients still connected to it?"

Dr. Wen glanced toward the ward behind him. "We’re determining that now."

A woman wearing surgical scrubs entered the camera’s view before Qinghe could respond. His mother had tied her hair beneath a cap, but damp strands clung to her forehead and neck. She carried two patient charts beneath one arm while drinking from a small bottle of water.

She noticed Qinghe on the screen and stopped.

"You finally reached him," she said to her husband. Relief moved briefly across her face before training and exhaustion forced it aside. "Did you tell him about the cooling failure?"

"He already knows," Dr. Wen answered as he handed her the phone. "He also claims he isn’t calling to order us home."

Qinghe’s mother studied him with open doubt. "Then you’ve become more realistic during the last seven days."

"I knew neither of you would leave while patients remained," he replied with a shrug.

Qinghe examined her visible condition before focusing on the call.

Her skin was flushed beyond what the corridor temperature should have caused, and she braced one hand against the supply cart while speaking. "How long have you been working?"

"Everyone is working," she replied without really answering the question.

"That wasn’t what I asked."

His mother’s mouth tightened in a way that made her resemblance to him unmistakable. "I slept yesterday."

His father corrected her from outside the camera’s view. "For 90 minutes."

Qinghe looked toward the bottle in her hand. "How much water have you consumed today?"

"I’m not one of your patients."

"You are if you collapse."

She appeared prepared to argue, but a nurse approached with a question about medication orders. Qinghe waited while his mother reviewed the chart, corrected a dosage and sent the nurse toward the surgical wing.

The interruption revealed more than her answer would have. His parents hadn’t stayed because administration required them. They had stayed because every person who approached carried a problem they believed they could solve.

Qinghe had inherited the same defect.