"Attention all survivors in the eastern and southern sectors. Qingyuan Emergency Base is opening a temporary registration station for individuals displaying unusual physical or elemental changes following recent fever symptoms. Registered ability users will receive medical monitoring, priority rations, protected accommodation, and appropriate placement within Qingyuan Base's emergency response units."
The broadcast had looped every few hours since yesterday afternoon, and by now the farmhouse had learned to work around it the way people learned to work around a dripping faucet. No one rushed to the radio anymore. No one went quiet mid-sentence.
Except Xu Ren.
He sat beside the radio with his notebook open on one knee, and it was the stillness in his shoulders, not anything he said, that made Tang Li Yue look up from the porch steps, where she had been watching Wei Jian lift his third sandbag of the afternoon.
"Xu Ren."
