Chapter 266: Into The Inner Corridor

Zeyu followed Shichen into the service corridor, leaving the smell of breakfast behind them.

The lights came on as they passed, showing the same bare walls and closed doors he had walked past the night before.

He found himself looking at the floor anyway, half expecting water to seep beneath a door despite knowing how far above the flood they were.

Shichen stopped at the first corner and ran his light along the wall while Zeyu waited beside him, listening to the rain through the ventilation shaft.

"What are you looking for?" Zeyu asked, keeping his voice low enough to hear the radio clipped to his shirt. "Anything I can help you check?"

"Any cracks that have appeared since yesterday, and any doors that won’t close properly." Shichen lowered the light and tried the nearest handle.

The door opened easily, and he leaned inside before closing it again. "If anything looks wrong, leave it alone and call me."

They continued toward the vehicle bay, checking the rooms along the way. Everything smelled dry.

There were no fallen ceiling panels or broken pipes, and each door settled into its frame without catching.

By the time they reached the bay, Zeyu had stopped bracing himself before every turn.

The mobile base filled most of the space beyond the entrance.

Its tires rested against the stops, and the straps securing the equipment along the wall were still tight.

Zeyu walked around it with his hand brushing the familiar bodywork, checking beneath it before moving toward the boats.

He had spent years making sure they could leave a shelter if they needed to. Seeing the vehicle waiting here helped him breathe more easily, even though there was nowhere outside he wanted to take it.

"The bay’s dry," Zeyu reported over the radio. He checked the boats while Shichen examined the wall nearest the street. "Nothing’s shifted, and the launch equipment looks untouched. How’s the water?"

Zhiyi answered after a brief pause. "It’s still rising on this side, but more slowly. The far side of the tower hasn’t risen as much."

Zeyu looked toward Shichen, who had stopped beside a small inspection window.

"Can it get around us?" Zeyu asked.

"There’s still a way through," Zhiyi replied. "The problem is how much wreckage keeps getting pushed into it."

Shichen beckoned him closer. Through the thick glass, Zeyu could see the strip of water between Jinhai and the damaged building.

A balcony railing had caught against a broken section of wall, gathering boards, bags, and a pale wooden door. More debris arrived while he watched, pressing against what was already there.

Across the gap, a man stood inside an exposed room with both hands against the wall behind him. His slippers were inches from the broken floor.

Zeyu stepped back from the window.

"We should finish here," he told Shichen. "I’d rather watch that from upstairs."

Shichen checked the window frame before following him. Neither spoke until they had closed the bay behind them, and Zeyu was grateful when Jingwei’s voice came through the radio.

"The people on the stairs have reached another dry floor," Jingwei said. "They’re stopping there for now. We still have several empty floors between them and our doors."

Hanchuan answered from farther away from the microphone. "Keep both approaches on the screen. Shichen, how much longer?"

"We’re coming back now," Shichen replied. "Everything we’ve checked is holding."

When they returned to the kitchen, Qinghe had moved the breakfast dishes away from the table’s edge.

He handed Zeyu a cup of water without asking whether he wanted it, then turned back to the monitor.

On the screen, the woman with the child sat on a stair with him across her knees.

Someone had given her a towel, and she was rubbing his hair while he clung to her shirt. Above them, two men carried a cupboard out of an office.

Zeyu watched them set it beside the stairwell door.

"They’re going to block that," he said, coming closer. "There are still people below them."

Jingwei increased the sound. Footsteps and coughing came through first, followed by a man asking the others to hurry.

One of the men at the cupboard pointed down the stairs, then reached for the door.

The woman got up before he could close it. With the child balanced against her hip, she planted her free hand against the frame and began arguing with him.

Zeyu couldn’t hear all of it, but he caught enough. Her husband was still downstairs.

The man kept pulling at the door.

"They’ve barely put their bags down," Zeyu muttered. He watched another survivor squeeze past the woman, carrying a bucket with clothing stuffed around its lid. "Now they’re deciding who gets to follow."

Qinghe stood beside him, his cup untouched. "They’re frightened of losing the room they’ve found."

Zeyu glanced at him, but Qinghe’s attention stayed on the woman struggling to keep the door open.

"That doesn’t make her husband any less frightened," Qinghe added.

Zhiyi reached past Zeyu for her tablet. Her sleeve brushed his wrist, and he caught her hand for a moment before letting her take it.

"The bay’s fine," he told her quietly. "Your books are still where you left them."

Zhiyi looked up at him, and her fingers closed briefly around his. "Good. I’d rather finish reading them here."

Zeyu smiled at that, then moved aside as Shichen brought up the exterior view.

Behind them, Jingwei spoke through the stairwell speaker, telling the men to leave the escape route open. The cupboard stopped moving while everyone searched for the source of his voice.

Shichen enlarged the damaged building. The man in slippers had left the exposed room, but something about the window above it made Zeyu lean closer.

"Was that crooked before?" Zeyu asked, pointing at the frame.

Shichen didn’t answer immediately.

He brought up an earlier image beside the live view, aligning the corner of the building with the edge of the screen. In the first picture, a narrow strip of gray sky showed between the upper wall and Jinhai.

In the second, the gap had narrowed.

Shichen reached for the radio while Zeyu looked toward the windows behind their breakfast table.

Across the street, another pane shattered without anything striking it, and the people in the exposed rooms began running.

"Everyone into the inner corridor," Shichen said, turning toward them. "That upper section is leaning toward us, and I don’t know how much longer it’ll stay there."