Chapter 393: Traitor
The first alarm sounded while Yuche was standing outside Rouxi’s private room.
He turned toward the stairwell as gunfire erupted from the warehouse below. A second alarm joined the first, followed by the mechanical grinding of security shutters dropping throughout the upper level.
The steel barrier at the end of the corridor slammed downward.
It never reached the floor.
Yuche lifted one hand, and the shutter stopped with its bottom edge hanging less than a meter above the concrete. The motor continued trying to force it down, filling the corridor with the scream of grinding gears, but the steel buckled beneath his power instead.
He closed his fingers.
The shutter folded upward from the center. Metal peeled away from its tracks and crushed into itself, leaving the corridor open beneath a thick knot of twisted steel.
Zhenlan glanced toward the ruined mechanism. "Someone triggered the internal lockdown."
Another shutter dropped behind them, cutting off the examination room from the hallway leading to Rouxi.
Yuche turned his wrist.
The second barrier tore sideways out of the wall before it finished falling. Bolts shot from the concrete, steel tracks bent apart, and the entire shutter flattened against the ceiling.
Someone had known exactly where Rouxi was.
Someone had isolated her room while the rest of the market was being attacked.
Lingyun stepped out of the examination room with his clean shirt hanging open and fresh bandages wrapped only halfway around his ribs. The healer followed him, still holding the end of the unfinished dressing.
"You need to lie down," the healer protested.
Lingyun looked past him toward the alarms. The cheerful expression he had worn for Rouxi was gone.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Someone activated the market’s internal security," Yuche said. "They tried to seal her away from us."
Heat rolled through the corridor.
The healer released the bandage and retreated without being told.
A radio crackled below them.
"We found her," a man shouted over the channel. Gunfire nearly drowned out the rest of his words. "We found the Dragon Head’s woman."
Yuche became completely still.
The alarms continued screaming. Men shouted from the lower warehouses, and something heavy struck one of the exterior gates hard enough to shake the building.
None of it mattered.
Someone had entered Rouxi’s hallway believing she could be taken from him.
One of the market guards held a radio near his chest. Yuche crooked two fingers, and the metal clips inside the device tore free from the man’s vest. The radio flew across the corridor and landed in Yuche’s palm.
Before he could speak, Rouxi’s voice came through the speaker.
"No, you didn’t."
A gunshot followed and the guard beside Yuche swallowed.
Lingyun’s cold expression cracked just enough for vicious pride to appear beneath it. "That’s my Rouxi."
"She’s still cut off from us," Chenghai reminded everyone.
She might be cut off now, but she wouldn’t be for long.
Yuche reached toward the steel supports running through the corridor wall. Metal groaned behind the concrete. A section of the partition beside Rouxi’s private room split away as the framing tore itself free, opening a direct passage around the compromised hallway.
"Go," Yuche ordered.
Zhenlan and Chenghai moved immediately.
Wind swept broken concrete and sharp metal away from the opening before Zhenlan passed through it. Chenghai followed, widening the gap with his shoulders when the remaining wall proved too narrow.
"You’re not coming?" Chenghai asked.
"You’ll reach her first."
Yuche did not need all four men crowded around Rouxi while the market fell apart beneath them. Zhenlan and Chenghai knew what she could do and would remain beside her until the threat was gone.
Yuche had an entire warehouse district made of metal.
And someone had been foolish enough to invade it.
He looked at Lingyun. "Can you fight?"
Lingyun glanced down at the loose bandage around his ribs before pulling his shirt closed. "They interrupted her while she was opening my present."
That answered the question.
Yuche walked toward the stairwell.
Every steel door along the corridor unlocked before he reached it. Bolts withdrew, chains loosened, and damaged shutters lifted out of his way. The market’s security system no longer answered to the controls hidden inside Head Luo’s office.
It answered to him.
The situation below became clear the moment he reached the upper railing.
The assault had been divided across the warehouse district.
Armed men wearing grey bands poured through one of the loading entrances, guided by former market guards who had opened the service doors from inside. Another force had entered through the freight tunnels and was moving toward the restricted storage rooms.
Outside, sirens mounted on armored trucks drew a large herd of zombies toward the eastern fence.
The attackers wanted the market intact. They planned to let the dead overwhelm the outer defenses while they seized the warehouses, records, medicine and cores.
Yuche rested one hand on the railing and the metal beneath his palm answered.
His senses travelled through the connected beams, fencing, shutters, rails, weapons and shipping containers surrounding the district. The market unfolded around him through steel. He felt every gate hanging from its hinges, every loaded gun held inside the warehouses, and every vehicle parked beneath the red crane.
The railing bent beneath his fingers. Then the market moved.
The guns in the hands of the nearest attackers twisted first.
Barrels curved toward the floor. Magazine housings crushed inward. Triggers locked beneath suddenly warped guards. Several men dropped their weapons when the metal folded around their fingers.
One screamed as the frame of his gun closed over his hand.
Yuche descended the stairs without hurrying.
A traitor wearing Head Luo’s colors stepped from behind a stall and aimed at him.
Yuche looked at the weapon.
The gun tore itself apart. Pins, springs and pieces of the firing mechanism ripped free from the frame. The barrel bent backward while the ammunition rose from the ruined magazine and hung in the air between them.
The traitor froze as Yuche flicked his hand.
The cartridges struck the man across the face like a handful of thrown stones. He staggered backward, and Lingyun caught him by the throat.
"Traitor," Lingyun said calmly.
Fire slipped beneath the man’s collar.
Yuche continued walking while the screaming began behind him.