Chapter 221: You
"Who the fuck took my crystals?"
Yuche looked at Jiang Meilan for several seconds and decided that if Rouxi survived the night, he was going to tell her she needed better enemies.
Or at least kill them before they turned into enemies.
The woman had walked into Rouxi’s house while the front defenses were burning, while Luo Xin was on his knees trying to keep Rouxi’s spine from becoming a permanent disaster, and while every person in the living room had already reached the end of whatever patience they had carried in from the hotel.
And after seeing all of that, her first concern was the fact that the crystal cores had disappeared before she could finish claiming them.
That told Yuche almost everything he needed to know about her.
"They were right there," Meilan snapped, pointing toward the empty boxes spread across the living room floor. "I saw them. There were hundreds."
Chenghai looked at the empty boxes with an expression that had gone completely still. Zhenlan’s face did not change, but Yuche saw the way his attention sharpened. Those two understood the value of what had vanished in a way most of the room still didn’t.
Yuche understood the value too. He simply didn’t care as much as he cared about the woman lying unconscious on the blankets.
If Rouxi needed more cores, he would get more cores. If she woke up angry because they were gone, he would find out where they went, find more on top of that, and let her be angry while still breathing. That was a problem for later.
Meilan was a problem standing in front of him right now.
"Those are government resources," Meilan continued, looking toward Commander Li as though she expected him to correct everyone on her behalf. "My father will want them accounted for."
Commander Li’s expression did not move. "Your father isn’t here."
For the first time since stepping inside, Meilan seemed to hear something she did not expect. Her mouth tightened, but she recovered quickly enough, lifting her chin as though the room had simply misunderstood her position.
"This district still falls under civilian recovery authority," she replied. "The mansion, the supplies, the cores, everything here needs to be catalogued properly now that Shen Rouxi is no longer capable of managing it."
Lingyun smiled.
That was usually when people should start stepping backward.
"Say that again," he invited.
Meilan glanced at him with faint irritation. "I said someone competent needs to take control."
Yuche’s fingers flexed once against his knee.
Not because she had insulted Rouxi. People insulted Rouxi all the time, usually right before they learned better. What bothered him was the way Meilan looked around the room while speaking, her eyes touching the couch, the supplies, the windows, the storage boxes, and even the injured woman on the floor as though she were already deciding where everything would go once it belonged to her.
The house. The food. The cores. The plants. The people.
Everything in her voice sounded like mine.
Yuche did not like people coveting what belonged to Rouxi.
"Those cores belonged to Rouxi," Chenghai said, his voice rough enough that even Shen Kaiyang looked toward him.
Meilan gave a soft laugh. "Rouxi is dying if not already dead."
The room changed.
Not loudly. Nobody lunged. Nobody shouted. Nobody broke furniture or threw fire at her face, even though Yuche suspected Lingyun was only barely postponing the pleasure.
Luo Xin looked up from Rouxi’s body, his face pale and damp with sweat. The baby vine curled close to Rouxi’s shoulder and opened its small mouth, black venom glistening along its teeth. Commander Li’s jaw tightened, and several of his men shifted their footing like they had finally realized they were standing in the middle of something that could turn into a massacre without warning.
Meilan mistook the lack of immediate violence for permission.
"That isn’t cruelty," she said, with the patient tone of someone explaining something obvious to idiots. "It’s practicality. Once she’s gone, someone has to make decisions about this place. My father has the authority, and Commander Li will confirm that once he remembers where his duties actually lie."
Commander Li stared at her for a long moment. "My duty is not to hand you someone else’s house because your father wants it."
Meilan’s eyes narrowed. "Commander Li, be careful."
Yuche almost admired the stupidity of that sentence.
Almost.
Before anyone could answer, Rouxi stopped screaming.
The silence landed harder than the screaming had.
Yuche turned back to her immediately. Her body had not relaxed. Her eyes had not opened. Her fingers had not moved. She was still lying in the middle of the living room with vines bracing her ruined leg and shoulder, but the sound was gone.
The baby vine made a thin, miserable noise and pressed itself against Rouxi’s neck.
Luo Xin stopped breathing for half a second.
Then he moved.
He checked her pulse first, then her breathing, then pressed both glowing hands near the damage along her spine. His face drained of what little color he had left.
"Why did she stop?" he whispered.
No one answered him.
Yuche watched the healer check her pulse again. Luo Xin’s hands were not steady anymore, and that was a problem because those hands were the only thing keeping Rouxi from whatever permanent damage her body had not already suffered.
"Luo Xin," Commander Li said.
"No," Luo Xin answered quickly, without looking up. "No, don’t talk to me. Her pulse changed. It was stronger before. It was stronger, and then she stopped screaming, and now I don’t know if that means I fixed something or if something failed."
Yuche leaned closer to Rouxi and rested two fingers lightly against her wrist. Her pulse was there. Weak, but there.
But for once, there was no comfort in that.
Weak still meant alive, but alive was not enough.
Meilan made a quiet sound of annoyance. "Are we really going to pretend this changes anything? If she survives, she still can’t manage this place. If she doesn’t, then delaying the inevitable only makes everything messier."
Lingyun took one step forward.
Yuche lifted one hand without looking at him.
Lingyun stopped.
Not because Meilan deserved to keep breathing. She didn’t. But killing her now would pull attention away from the part of the room that mattered, and Yuche had already noticed something else.
Huang Zedong kept looking at the windows.
The first time, Yuche ignored it. The fire outside was still burning, and anyone with sense would keep track of a fire near a house wrapped in plants.
The second time, he noticed.
By the fourth, he stopped listening to Meilan altogether.
Huang Zedong was not looking at Rouxi. He was not watching Luo Xin, even though any person in the room with basic survival instincts should have understood that the healer was currently the most important man alive. He was not watching Commander Li, Chenghai, Zhenlan, or Lingyun.
He kept looking outside.
Then back inside.
Then outside again.
Yuche breathed in slowly.
Smoke clung to everyone. It had followed Meilan’s group into the house, drifted in through the opened door, and stained the air after the front wall caught fire. But Huang Zedong carried it differently. Sharper. Closer. Fresh heat still lingered around him, faint enough that most people would miss it beneath the larger problem burning outside.
Yuche did not miss it.
He looked at Huang Zedong’s hands.
Then at the windows.
Then at Meilan, who had come through the front defenses without any surprise that they were already burning.
Chenghai and Zhenlan were still watching the missing cores. Commander Li was watching Meilan. Lingyun was watching for permission to kill someone. Luo Xin was watching Rouxi like he expected her body to betray him at any second.
Huang Zedong looked at the windows again.
That was enough.
Yuche stood.
The room noticed immediately. Meilan stopped talking mid-sentence, irritation flashing across her face as though she couldn’t believe someone had interrupted her without using words. Shen Kaiyang shifted his stance. Tao Jun’s pleasant expression tightened. Lin Cheng moved half a step closer to Meilan, and Guo Renwang’s gaze flicked toward the door.
Huang Zedong looked away from the window too late.
Yuche pointed directly at him.
"You."
