For one second, nobody moved.
The radio hissed on the table, the last trace of Dr. Xia's warning already dissolving into static.
Power drop in twenty minutes.
Outside, the chihuahua kept barking toward the east.
Tang Li Yue stood in the middle of the farmhouse dining room with one hand still near the radio, her face calm enough that Chen Qiao quietly took half a step backward.
He had developed instincts.
Good.
The apocalypse was not entirely useless.
Professor Han was the first to speak. "Twenty minutes is not enough."
His voice was very controlled.
That was how Tang Li Yue knew he wanted to shout.
Xu Ren, pale from blood loss but still seated beside the equipment like a stubborn, bespectacled ghost, was already adjusting the radio dials with his uninjured hand. The recording wire trembled beneath his fingers. His eyes were narrowed behind cracked lenses, his face sharpened by the kind of focus that made him look less injured and more dangerous.
