"Not much to look at. Half of the building is gone.."
[Stop walking.]
Qingran froze.
"What is it?"
[Fengya's cultists — all of them. She's sent them after you. One hundred strong.]
Qingran's heart didn't race, but her pulse deepened, coiling low like a storm held still beneath the skin. Calm wasn't optional anymore — it was survival.
"How far?" she asked aloud, her voice a quiet rasp in the dim hallway.
[Thirty minutes. They were given direct coordinates. She told them where to look.]
Of course she did. Fengya wouldn't come herself. Not yet. Not unless it was clean and guaranteed.
She was too clever for that.
And too greedy.
Qingran exhaled slowly and looked back down the narrow passage of the basement. Thirty minutes. That wasn't enough time to run not with the collapsed floors and no clear exit.
She'd have to hide. Or fight. Or both.
