The World Ends In 27 Days

Hanchuan knew something was wrong before he reached the table.

The chair beside his remained empty, but Zeyu was moving toward it with Zhiyi beside him. He had positioned himself between her and the guests filling the ballroom, matching her slower pace without touching her or attempting to direct where she walked.

Zhiyi had left the table.

For one sharp second, Hanchuan saw only the empty chair and the distance between it and the side door.

He had been gone for twenty-three minutes after promising her ten. The building owner had introduced two additional conditions after Hanchuan entered the library, and legal had discovered that the eastern access dispute affected more than the transfer documents.

He had remained because the Qingshan building was necessary.

That justification disappeared when Zhiyi lifted her head.

Her face was pale enough that the dark-blue dress made it appear almost colorless. Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, and the skin above and below both elbows was marked with dark bands shaped like fingers.

Hanchuan stopped walking.

Zeyu looked at him across the remaining distance. Nothing of his usual amusement remained on his face.

Zhiyi noticed Hanchuan a second later.

Her steps quickened, but the movement lacked its ordinary purpose. She appeared to be completing an instruction rather than approaching him.

"I came back to the table," she said.

Hanchuan closed the distance between them. "I know."

"You said not to leave."

"I know," he replied softly.

"The dessert table was eighteen meters away, and I remained inside the ballroom. I thought that might satisfy the instruction, but when Meilin asked whether I was supposed to be there, I realized you might have meant the chair."

The explanation arrived too quickly.

Zhiyi had already examined every possible interpretation and assigned herself responsibility for choosing the wrong one. If Hanchuan allowed her to continue, she would return to the beginning and attempt to identify the precise decision that caused the bruises on her arms.

He placed himself directly in front of her and made sure that she was looking at him before he spoke again.

"I’m not angry," he assured her.

Zhiyi stopped speaking.

Hanchuan waited until her eyes settled on his face. "I told you ten minutes, and I was gone for twenty-three. That was my failure, not yours."

"The property required—"

"The property is irrelevant to this conversation." He kept his voice even, removing every opening she might use to redirect blame toward herself. "You were allowed to get dessert. You were allowed to leave the chair. You did nothing wrong."

Zhiyi looked toward the empty place setting as though the table might contain evidence supporting or contradicting him.

"The instruction wasn’t specific enough," she said finally.

"No, it wasn’t."

Some tension left her shoulders.

Hanchuan wanted to pull her against him, but the bruises stopped him. He had no way to know whether touching her would offer comfort or add another sensation to a body that had already endured too many hands.

Instead, he lowered his gaze to her arms.

Four separate grip patterns marked her skin. The worst circled her right forearm, where the pressure of a thumb had created a dark oval beneath the inner bone. Smaller red marks surrounded the bruising, and one band above her elbow was beginning to swell.

"Who touched you?" he asked.

Zhiyi’s attention followed his. She examined the marks as though she were seeing them for the first time.

"Two security guards."

Hanchuan looked at Zeyu.

"I found her with Jingwei," Zeyu said. He remained beside Zhiyi, but anger had pulled every trace of warmth from his voice. "Two of his men had been holding her. One on each side."

"Why?"

"Meilin told them I wasn’t invited. I asked them to call Jingwei, and they decided that meant I was lying," Zhiyi interjected, filling in the gaps for both men.

That explanation accounted for a security check. It didn’t account for the force visible on Zhiyi’s arms.

"Did you fight them?" asked Hanchuan, cocking his head to the side.

"No," she replied, shaking her head.

"Tried to run?" continued Zeyu, his jaw tightening.

"No," Zhiyi repeated with a shake of her head.

Hanchuan looked at the bruises again.

Zhiyi was nineteen years old, five feet two inches tall and light enough that Hanchuan could lift her without effort. Jingwei’s guards were trained men whose employment depended upon controlling physical threats without creating unnecessary injuries.

Two of them had decided she required both hands.

"Where is Jingwei?"

"Dealing with them."

That was the only reason Hanchuan remained beside Zhiyi instead of walking back toward the dessert table.

He removed his phone and sent Qinghe a single message.

Come to the table. Zhiyi is injured.

Qinghe appeared less than a minute later. He abandoned the conversation near the garden doors without explaining where he was going, his attention finding Zhiyi before he reached them.

His expression changed when he saw her arms. "What happened?" he asked, looking at Hanchuan like he might have been responsible for the bruises on her arms.

"Security restrained her," Hanchuan answered. "She didn’t resist."

Qinghe stopped beside Zhiyi but didn’t touch her. "I need to examine your arms. Is that all right?"

Zhiyi considered the question before nodding.

Only then did Qinghe take her wrist. His touch remained light as he turned her arm beneath the chandelier, examining each bruise without pressing into the damaged tissue.

"Can you move your fingers?"

Zhiyi opened and closed her hand. Qinghe asked her to rotate her wrist and then bend her elbow, giving her one instruction at a time. She completed each movement without complaint.

"There’s no obvious fracture or dislocation," he said after checking the second arm. "But both forearms are swelling, and the bruising will worsen. I want imaging done tonight."

"It doesn’t hurt," Zhiyi told him.

Qinghe’s expression became colder. "That doesn’t mean they didn’t injure you."

Hanchuan watched Zhiyi absorb the distinction.

She hadn’t reacted to the pain because pain had never been the part that overwhelmed her. The damage mattered to Qinghe. The hands had mattered to Zhiyi.

Someone had ignored both.

Zeyu pulled out the chair beside Hanchuan’s. Zhiyi sat after confirming that it was the same place she had left, but her attention moved immediately toward the dessert table.

"My plate is still there," she grumbled after a moment.

It was the first problem she had identified that Hanchuan could solve without asking anyone else for information.

"I’ll get you another one."

"You don’t know which pastries I chose."

For the first time since seeing her arms, something in Hanchuan’s chest loosened.

"Then Zeyu will get them."

Zeyu nodded once. He had been present long enough to know that the pale filling was vanilla cream, and no one needed to explain why returning with the correct desserts had become important.

Movement near the edge of the ballroom caught Hanchuan’s attention.

Jingwei was approaching the table alone.

The guards were no longer behind him, and Meilin and her friends had disappeared from the dessert station. His face revealed nothing to the surrounding guests, but Hanchuan had known him too long to mistake the stillness for calm.

Zhiyi followed his gaze. "Jingwei said you wouldn’t be angry," she said after a moment.

Hanchuan moved his chair closer to hers, careful not to touch her bruised arms.

"He was right."