The man inside the box stopped talking after that.
Yuche stayed near the vent for another few minutes, asking short questions about the tunnels, the rooms, and anything he remembered seeing before Gu Han’s men covered his head.
The answers didn’t give us much.
Concrete stairs.
Metal doors.
Old lights that still worked in some sections.
A wide tunnel where vehicles could pass if someone cleared the junk from it.
The rooms had already contained chains bolted into the walls when Gu Han found them.
That sounded less like someone’s basement and more like a place built by people who expected to keep prisoners.
Maybe the city had used it before the apocalypse.
Maybe someone worse had.
Either way, Gu Han had walked into a ready-made collection of locked rooms and immediately started filling them.
Of course he had.
Yuche checked the man’s water and the small ventilation unit attached to the box. We couldn’t open the door until we knew what the tether would do, and the man didn’t ask us to.
He had already felt what happened when I touched it.
So had I.
Chenghai carried me upstairs even though my leg had stopped trying to burn through itself. I could have walked, but he didn’t put me down when I pointed that out.
Zhenlan stayed beside us with one hand against my calf, as though the scar might suddenly climb out of my skin if he looked away.
The rain followed us through the house.
By the time we reached the living room, it had become heavier, rolling across the roof in long waves. The windows were covered in water, and every plant outside leaned toward the mansion instead of the garage now.
Lingyun sat exactly where Yuche had left him.
He had also dragged one of the small side tables close enough to reach the message screen controls.
Yuche stopped in the doorway.
Lingyun’s hand froze above the table.
"I was checking whether Han Zhi sent anything else."
"You were told to stay on the couch."
"I did."
The side table had moved almost six feet.
Yuche walked over, returned it to its original place, and checked Lingyun’s ribs before sitting beside him.
Chenghai lowered me onto the sectional, then stayed close enough that my legs remained across his lap. Zhenlan took the space on my other side.
The message screen buzzed before anyone had to explain what happened downstairs.
Han Zhi had sent the rest of the files.
There were too many for the small screen, so Chenghai connected it to the television. A photograph of Head Luo’s records filled most of the wall.
The first page was a list of names.
The second was a map.
The third made me want to feed Gu Han to something slowly.
Each person had been given a number instead of a name after their bite was confirmed. Beside the numbers were dates, locations, and short notes about how nearby zombies reacted.
Subject Four moved west. Response delayed twelve minutes.
Subject Six placed near pharmacy shelter. Forty-three dead gathered before morning.
Subject Two no longer responsive. Leave in position until area clears.
Lingyun stopped leaning into Yuche.
Zhenlan’s hand tightened around mine.
Han Zhi had marked several sections before sending them. One page showed three shelters Gu Han wanted emptied. Each had a subject moved nearby within the next two days.
The zombies had done the rest.
Gu Han waited until everyone fled or died, then sent his people in for the supplies.
"He used them like human AirTags," I said.
Lingyun looked at the map. "AirTags don’t normally bring zombies."
"These did."
Gu Han couldn’t control the Devourer.
That would’ve made him more dangerous than he deserved.
He had only figured out that certain bitten people pulled zombies toward them. Then he started leaving those people wherever he wanted something destroyed.
A shelter with more food than his own.
A clinic that refused to give him medicine.
A road another group used to move supplies.
He planted one marked person nearby, waited for the zombies to gather, then took whatever remained.
No complicated power.
No secret army.
Just Gu Han finding a person already dying and deciding they could still be useful to him.
Chenghai opened another file.
This one was a report from one of Head Luo’s men. Gu Han had offered to clear the road between the black market and the eastern districts in exchange for fuel, ammunition, and access to market records.
Head Luo had apparently agreed.
Gu Han moved two marked survivors along the road over several nights.
The zombies followed them away from the route.
Once the road was clear, Gu Han’s men left both people locked inside an abandoned shop.
The report ended there.
No one had gone back for them.
"They might still be alive," Lingyun said.
His voice had lost the joking edge completely.
"Maybe," I said.
That didn’t mean we were going to search every shop on every road Gu Han had used.
The threads I felt hadn’t all been strong. Some barely existed. Following every one of them would drag us across half the city while the thing underneath it waited for me to open the connection again.
Zhenlan understood where my thoughts had gone. His thumb moved over my knuckles.
"We find the source records first."
I nodded.
Lingyun looked like he wanted to argue, but Yuche’s hand settled against the back of his neck before he could.
We kept reading.
The next page showed Gu Han’s plans for the mansion.
Not the house itself. He didn’t know enough about the barrier or property layout to draw anything useful.
He had drawn circles around everything outside it.
The worker buildings.
The storage areas he thought existed.
The roads Zhenlan and Chenghai had repaired.
The people living behind the outer protections.
Gu Han had written numbers beside each section, estimating food use, labour, weapons, and how many guards he thought could be placed along the roads.
I stared at the last number.
He had counted children separately.
"Why?"
Chenghai didn’t ask what I meant.
"Smaller food allowance," he said.
That made it worse.
Gu Han had looked at the people outside my house and seen a settlement waiting for him to take over.
He had even divided them into jobs.
Farm workers.
Construction.
Security.
Kitchen.
Cleaning.
People with injuries or limited mobility had been placed in a separate column marked support use only.
I looked toward Lingyun.
He was staring at the same line.
His mouth had gone flat.
Yuche reached forward and changed the page.
The next document was written in Gu Han’s own hand.
Han Zhi had enlarged the important section.
If pressure at the residence remains ineffective, increase the number of marked subjects. The woman will either open the barrier or the men will be forced to relocate the outer population. Xu and Zhou understand consolidation. Once the residence is compromised, offer them command authority under unified control.
I read it again.
Then once more because the first two times felt too stupid to be real.
"He planned to offer Zhenlan and Chenghai jobs."
Lingyun leaned closer to the television. "Command authority under unified control."
"That means Gu Han wanted to tell them what to do."
"I know. I’m enjoying how badly this would’ve gone."
Chenghai’s hand moved around my ankle.
Zhenlan looked at the note without changing expression, which was somehow more threatening than lightning.
Gu Han had expected the two of them to see his little settlement and recognize the future they had built before.
He thought they would step into place beneath him because he gave them titles.
He had no idea they had spent the last several days tearing that future apart, taking me on dates, carrying couch cushions outside, and ignoring weather requests from cucumber growers.
The man was working from very outdated information.
Yuche opened the final attachment.
It wasn’t one of Head Luo’s files.
Han Zhi had added it after comparing dates and supply records from the market.
A short message appeared beneath the image.
Gu Han purchased restraints, water containers, and enough sedatives for at least twelve adults. Most recent purchase was nine days ago.
Nine days.
After the first marked people had already been sent east.
After Gu Han knew the method worked.
Han Zhi sent another line before we finished reading.
Two of Gu Han’s vehicles were seen leaving the cul-de-sac before dawn today. Both used the underground access road. They returned empty.
My calf tightened and Zhenlan looked down immediately.
The scar didn’t burn this time.
It pulled.
Faintly, but in more than one direction.
I closed my eyes and counted what I could feel without reaching farther.
One thread near the city road.
Another farther south.
Two close together, moving slowly east.
The last two weren’t beneath houses anymore.
I opened my eyes.
"He moved them."
Chenghai was already standing.
The map remained on the television, arrows spreading from Gu Han’s streets toward shelters, roads, and the mansion.
One of the new threads pulled again.
This time, the plants beyond the eastern side of the barrier turned with it.
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