Chapter 132: No Longer Rationing Water

Hanchuan made scrambled eggs on the induction range and placed fruit beside them. Zhiyi ate while he summarized the overnight updates one at a time.

Qingsong’s air quality remained safe.

The hospital’s eastern generator operated at 92 percent after staff disconnected additional equipment.

Jinhai’s crowd had dispersed from the private vestibule, though several people remained on the lower mechanical floors. None had reached the shelter entrances again.

The information answered the questions Zhiyi hadn’t asked upstairs.

Once she finished eating, Hanchuan gave her the multivitamin that Qinghe insisted that everyone needed to take with breakfast and waited until she swallowed it before allowing her to approach the communications wall.

The government broadcast began while Shichen was still reading.

His niece objected when the emergency notice replaced her book across the main display, but Shichen transferred the call to his tablet before the signal disconnected.

Director Han Zhiming appeared beneath the national emergency symbol.

His suit had been replaced by an open-collared shirt, and the skin beneath his eyes revealed that government offices no longer maintained ordinary schedules.

"Effective at 10:00 today, municipal water service will be suspended in 12 districts to preserve pressure for hospitals, cooling centers and emergency shelters," he announced.

His recorded statement remained controlled despite the scale of the interruption. "Residents in affected areas must collect their assigned daily allowance from the nearest authorized distribution point."

A map appeared beside him.

The suspended districts contained more than three million people.

Zhiyi opened the government reservoir data while Hanchuan read the distribution plan.

The consolidation system they had helped create had slowed the depletion of Yunzhou’s water supply, but it hadn’t restored damaged pipes or reduced the demand created by millions of people attempting to survive temperatures above 50 degrees.

The city was no longer rationing water to prepare for a shortage.

It was rationing what remained because the shortage had arrived.

Director Han continued describing collection times, identification requirements and limits for each household.

Hanchuan placed one hand at the back of Zhiyi’s neck while she calculated how long the remaining municipal reserves could support the announced allowances.

She leaned into his touch without looking away from the numbers.

On the wall, the first authorized water points opened their gates.

Thousands of people were already waiting outside them.

The first distribution point served six residential blocks from the parking level of a municipal school.

Government trucks had filled temporary storage tanks before sunrise. Soldiers controlled the entrance, while civil employees checked identification and recorded each household’s allowance.

The system appeared organized from above.

At ground level, it was already failing.

Thousands of people filled the street outside the school. Some carried proper water containers, while others brought cooking pots, storage bins and plastic bags supported inside cardboard boxes.

Families sent multiple members to different lines, hoping to collect the same allowance more than once.

Residents assigned to afternoon collection had arrived before the morning group entered.

They didn’t believe water would remain if they waited.

Zhiyi enlarged the camera feed from the first checkpoint.

One civil employee scanned identification cards while another entered household numbers into a tablet. Each verification required 23 seconds when the network responded.

The line contained more than 1,800 people.

"They’ll process fewer than 160 households an hour," she said as she compared the rate with the number of residents assigned to the location. "The first group won’t finish before the afternoon collection period begins."

Hanchuan kept his hand against the back of her neck. "Can they add more checkpoints?"

"The parking level has two vehicle entrances and one pedestrian gate. They can create five parallel lines if they move the tanks farther from the entrance, but the identification system will still fail when the municipal network becomes overloaded."

The first failed scan appeared while she spoke.

The employee attempted it again. When the tablet rejected the card a second time, the resident refused to leave the checkpoint. People waiting behind him began shouting before a soldier moved him aside.

Zhiyi opened the feeds from the other authorized points.

The same delay appeared across all 12 districts. Electronic verification had been designed to prevent duplicate collection, but the system depended on a communications network supporting emergency calls, hospital records, government shelters and millions of residents attempting to check the new rationing rules.

"It should be decentralized," she said. Her fingers moved through the distribution data while the complete structure formed. "Verify each household once, then issue a physical collection record that can be marked without accessing the network. Assign residents to individual buildings instead of districts and deliver the combined allowance to each property."

Jingwei examined the crowds gathering outside the schools and government offices. "That places the water inside residential buildings without soldiers controlling it."

"It also removes thousands of people from the street."

"Building managers will steal it."

"Some will," Zhiyi acknowledged. She calculated the probable loss under both systems before displaying the comparison. "Central distribution loses more through delays, crowd movement, heat exposure and abandoned collection. Decentralized delivery increases theft but reduces total mortality."

The conclusion would disturb officials attempting to design a fair system.

Zhiyi wasn’t designing fairness.

She was determining which failure killed fewer people.

Director Han’s secure request arrived before the first checkpoint processed 50 households. Hanchuan accepted it, but he kept Zhiyi’s terminal outside the connection until the official appeared on the communications wall.

Han Zhiming no longer attempted formal greetings.

"The northern school point suspended distribution after residents broke the first barrier," he reported. Live footage appeared beside him, showing soldiers forcing the crowd back from the parking entrance. "Two other points have requested reinforcements, and the verification network is operating at 31 percent capacity."

"You opened too few locations," Hanchuan told him.

"We opened every location we could secure before sunrise."

"That doesn’t make them sufficient."

Han Zhiming accepted the criticism without defending the decision.

He had reached the stage of the disaster where results mattered more than preserving authority. "Miss Qiao anticipated a failure rate in the original water plan. We need the correction model."

Hanchuan’s hand remained against Zhiyi’s neck.

The director had addressed him rather than demanding that she join the call. He had learned that access to Zhiyi passed through Hanchuan, even when the city required something only she could provide.

"She has a correction," Hanchuan said. "You receive 30 minutes."

Zhiyi looked up at him. The time limit hadn’t existed before he announced it.

Hanchuan met her gaze. "Thirty minutes, then you stop."

"The distribution model requires more than 30 minutes to optimize."

"You aren’t optimizing it. You’re identifying the immediate changes they can implement today," Hanchuan countered.

Han Zhiming remained silent while they settled the limit.

His expression suggested that he wanted every available minute of Zhiyi’s attention but understood better than to interfere.

Zhiyi accepted the narrower task. "They need to replace district-level collection with building-level delivery. Use property records to estimate occupancy, then send one combined allocation to each residential building. A responsible person signs for the delivery and distributes it internally."

Director Han frowned as she spoke. "We don’t have enough trucks to visit every building."

"You don’t visit every building. Create neighborhood transfer points for groups of 10 to 20 properties. Each building sends two authorized representatives during an assigned 15-minute period. They collect sealed containers for the registered occupancy and return before the next group arrives."

"Then who supplies the containers?" he asked.

"The government does for the first delivery. The same containers are returned and refilled each day."

Han Zhiming looked toward someone outside the camera’s view and requested the available container inventory. The answer disappointed him.

"We have enough standardized containers for less than a quarter of the affected properties."

"Then begin with the highest-density buildings," Zhiyi said while ranking the districts according to population, distance from water storage and expected interior temperature. "The remaining buildings continue household collection temporarily, but separate them into smaller locations. Pharmacies, clinics, parking structures and government-owned storefronts can operate as transfer points."

She reorganized the map.

The 12 district-level locations became 86 neighborhood points.

Each point served fewer people, shortened walking distances and reduced the number of residents who needed to stand outside while waiting.

The plan required more staff but fewer soldiers.

Verification occurred when building representatives registered, and the physical container seals prevented them from collecting twice without returning the first allocation.

Jingwei identified available security contractors still operating within each district.

Shichen filtered the proposed locations according to structural shade, ventilation and safe crowd capacity. Qinghe ranked the neighborhoods where heat-related illness made long lines most dangerous.

The solution developed around Zhiyi without requiring her to calculate every part.

Hanchuan watched the remaining time.

When 26 minutes had passed, he instructed Director Han to send the completed model to his emergency coordinators and implement the first neighborhood points before the afternoon distribution period.

Han looked at the revised map. "We still need Miss Qiao to calculate the daily allocation for each property."

"No," Hanchuan replied. "Your department has the occupancy records and the formula she used."

"Those records are already inaccurate. Thousands of people relocated after the cooling failures."

"Then your officials will correct them."

The director’s exhaustion hardened into frustration. "Every error reduces someone’s water."

"And making Zhiyi personally responsible for every household in Yunzhou reduces the time she can protect our shelters." Hanchuan’s hand shifted from the back of her neck to her shoulder. "We gave you a system. Operate it."