Chapter 235: A Truck Ahead

Qinghe watched the former employee look down at the keys.

The man had barely reacted when the woman accused him of threatening her son, but now he took a step toward the ring lying in the dust. Hanchuan told him to stay where he was, and he stopped with one foot still lifted.

"It’s what we’ve got left," the former employee said, looking toward the mobile base. "Somebody had to stop people from taking everything in the first week."

The woman shifted her son higher against her hip. He had stopped crying, though his fingers remained twisted in her shirt. She glanced toward the lobby, where the older man with the towel had stepped outside again.

"Get the keys," the woman told him. "You know which door."

Qinghe watched the older man hesitate beside the entrance mat. He kept looking at the two men on the ground, then at the former employee standing near the gate.

The woman said his name, too softly for Qinghe to catch, and he finally came forward.

Hanchuan allowed him to collect the keys. The former employee followed the movement with his eyes but kept his hands raised as the older man passed him and returned to the building.

"You can’t just hand it out," the former employee protested. Sweat ran down his face, dripping from his chin. "There are people here who haven’t done a day’s work."

Qinghe looked toward the child in his mother’s arms.

One sandal hung loose from the boy’s foot, its strap pulled free during the struggle. His mother tried to fix it with one hand before giving up and taking it off.

She tucked it beneath her arm, still listening to the man who had ordered her son brought outside with a knife.

Nobody in the vehicle answered him.

Several minutes passed before the older man returned. He carried a sealed pack of water against his stomach, and a younger woman followed him with a cardboard box.

She lowered it beside the entrance and began taking out food, holding each item up for the people gathering behind her.

Qinghe could see tins, crackers, and packets of dried meat. More people appeared carrying boxes, but the sight of the food didn’t bring the rush he expected.

They stood around it, looking at the supplies and then at one another.

An elderly woman sat down on the entrance step. She rested both hands on her knees and lowered her head while the younger woman knelt beside her with a bottle.

The boy’s mother began shaking.

At first, Qinghe thought the weight of the child had become too much for her. She lowered him behind the garden wall, then gripped its top with both hands. When she looked toward the former employee, her face had changed.

"He made me give him my wedding ring for half a bottle," the woman said. Her voice carried across the courtyard without her having to shout. "My son had a fever. I told him he couldn’t keep anything down."

The former employee glanced toward the food.

"We didn’t know how long it had to last," the former employee replied. "You think opening a few boxes means there’s enough for everyone?"

The older man came down the steps with a bottle still in its wrapping. He stopped several paces away and held it where the former employee could see it.

"There are empty ones beside your bed," the older man said. His hand trembled, shaking the water inside. "You weren’t drinking half a bottle."

Qinghe sat back slowly.

He remembered measuring water for patients during shortages at the hospital, trying to make what remained last until another delivery arrived.

He could understand counting bottles, setting limits, and worrying about tomorrow. He could not mistake what he had just heard for any of those things.

The woman retrieved her son’s sandal and bent to fasten it properly. The boy drank while she worked, both hands wrapped around the bottle the older man had brought him.

Beside Qinghe, Zhiyi lowered her tablet onto her lap.

"The shelter is still sealed," Zhiyi told Hanchuan. "I’ve checked the inside cameras. The food stores haven’t been touched, and the rooms are cool."

Shichen leaned over to look at the screen she offered him. Qinghe saw clean shelves and a quiet corridor before she turned it toward Hanchuan.

After the burned roof and the people sleeping in the lobby, the empty rooms looked almost unfamiliar.

"We can still use it if we have to," Shichen said. He studied another image before returning the tablet. "But we’d need to clear the grounds and check the building first."

Hanchuan nodded, then turned back to the courtyard.

"We’re leaving the private wing locked," Hanchuan told the people outside. "Stay away from those doors. We’re not opening them."

The older man looked up, but the woman beside the boxes caught his sleeve before he could speak. She pointed toward the water they had just found, and he bent to help her move it into the shade.

The former employee hurried a step closer to the gate.

"You can’t leave me here with them," the former employee said. He looked over his shoulder as two men came out of the lobby. "Take me down the mountain. You’ve got room."

Qinghe watched the men stop beside the boxes. One was so thin that his trousers had been tied at the waist with a strip of cloth. Neither approached the former employee, but he backed toward the mobile base anyway.

"Stay clear of the vehicle," Jingwei warned him. He checked the road behind them while Zeyu prepared to reverse. "We aren’t taking you."

Qinghe remained seated as the man began pleading. He didn’t know what the people in the hotel would do after they left, but he wasn’t going to ask his friends to bring that man within reach of Zhiyi.

When Zeyu looked back to make sure everyone was ready, Qinghe fastened his belt.

They left the gate behind and followed the cleared road downhill. Shichen watched the bends with Zeyu while Hanchuan sat beside Zhiyi.

Qinghe kept seeing the mother fixing her son’s sandal, carefully threading the strap after everything that had happened.

Jingwei was quiet in the front seat. After a while, Zhiyi leaned forward and placed a bottle in the holder beside him.

"I loosened the cap," Zhiyi told him. She waited until he looked toward her before settling back. "You haven’t had anything since we stopped."

Jingwei took a drink, then returned his attention to the road. Qinghe watched him lower the bottle and understood that they would all remember this afternoon differently.

Before they reached the bottom of the mountain, Zeyu slowed beside a broad patch of bare ground.

"There’s a truck ahead," Zeyu said, easing his foot onto the brake. "It’s stopped across the junction."

Through the windshield, Qinghe saw the man who had escaped from the hotel standing beside its driver’s door.

He was pointing uphill toward them while another man lifted a rifle from the seat.