novelTele Chapter 20 Welding Fire Encircles the City
Chapter 20 Welding Fire Encircles the City
Zhang Xun stood outside the back door, covered in filth, the cold water clinging to his skin. Water dripped from the hem of his clothes, forming a small, dark puddle on the threshold. A cut on the outside of his calf drew blood, the color indistinguishable in the water. He reached for the dagger at his waist, but his hand trembled, and he couldn't draw it.
The girl squatted by the back door, the oxy-acetylene torch hissing and wisps of smoke rising from it. She moved the barrel aside, revealing a steel plate; the weld marks were still warm, their edges tinged with a dark red. She looked up at Zhang Xun, her gaze meeting his directly.
The girl spoke first, her voice hoarse: "Your second-floor windows aren't sealed. The front and back windows need to be sealed. They're lowering ropes down from the roof to pry open the hinges and remove the bolts. I can seal it up, but I need to go inside."
A five-second standoff. The only sounds in the air were the lingering hiss and the dripping of blood.
Zhang Xun stepped aside to make room, his voice hoarse: "Don't touch the thing behind your back."
"And don't touch my thing."
The iron gate swung open, the hinges clanking, rust crunching as it fell. Daylight streamed in from behind, illuminating the dark red puddle on the threshold, blood mixed with the dirty water, its color indistinguishable. Zhang Xun stepped into the darkness; the room was colder than outside.
Qin Wei pressed Zhang Xun down onto the chair by the door, her fingertips brushing against his neck, cold and sticky. She moved to his wrists, feeling his pulse, then his ankles, and his back. Several cuts and bleeds were visible, but she remained silent, offering no treatment. She whispered, "Turn around."
The girl was treated the same way. Qin Wei gestured for her to put down her backpack, her fingertips brushing against the welding slag on the girl's work pants, rough and hot. Her neck was slightly cold; she checked her pulse, finding it deep and strong. Suddenly, Qin Wei squatted down, lifting Shen Ye's trouser leg to check for scratches from her calf to her ankle. The girl didn't flinch, standing there for her to see, her eyes fixed on the iodine bottle beside Qin Wei's feet—it was only a third full, the cotton ball around the opening yellowed. After looking at it, Qin Wei glanced at the girl for a moment, said nothing, and moved her fingertips away.
The first floor was dark, and the air felt stagnant.
Zhang Xun looked down at his hands. His knuckles were still trembling, shaking uncontrollably. He pressed his palm into an old wound on the outside of his thigh, and his fingers steadied a little. But he couldn't calm his stomach. A spasm rose from deep within his abdomen, and he swallowed, but didn't vomit.
He sat in the chair with his eyes downcast, his back pressed against the backrest, unable to straighten up. The bruise on the inside of his right wrist was still there, shaped like a shoe heel, its edges dark. Qin Wei's fingertips had just brushed against it, and he had pulled his hand away as if burned—not with pain, but with something deeper, rising from the bone.
He stared at the skin, his pupils empty and unfocused.
The girl leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs. She didn't look at Zhang Xun; her eyes were fixed on the darkness on the second floor.
"Your second-floor windows aren't sealed," she suddenly spoke, her voice hoarse, like the scraping of metal. "The hinges are on the outside. They lower a rope from the roof, wobble a couple of times against the wall, the hinges loosen, and they reach in to loosen the latch. No prying, no hammering, it's very quiet." She paused, "While you're sound asleep tonight."
Zhang Xun leaned back in his chair, not immediately responding. He was exhausted to the bone, but those words were like a needle, piercing him from the chaotic, crushing feeling of the parking lot. A specific technical problem. Clean. Determinable.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice hoarse—a little more steady than before, but still very soft, as if it came from a great distance.
"Shen Ye." Her eyes were still fixed on the second floor. "You escaped. You know how they beat you. Let me weld you, or you die tonight."
Zhang Xun was silent for two seconds. He looked towards the stairwell—he couldn't see Su Nian's face, only the sharp glint of the arrowhead in the dim light. He then looked at Lin Xiaotang behind the shelf; she was holding a rabbit doll, her fingers clenched, the blade's reflection flickering in the candlelight.
Why did you come here?
"You have living people here, you're on guard, and you're the closest to me." Shen Ye finally turned his head and looked directly at him. "There are people in the Iron Fist Gang who specialize in this; their nickname is 'Iron Wire.' They lower ropes from the roof and hook them onto the second-floor window latches."
Zhang Xun tried to stand up, supporting himself on the chair armrest, but his knees stiffened and the wound on his calf ached. He lost his balance and sat back down, the chair legs scraping against the concrete floor with a short, rough sound.
"Can you seal it?" Zhang asked.
"Yes," Shen Ye said. "The hinges are welded shut; you can't pry them open or kick them loose. But I don't have much gas left in my cylinder. Sealing all the windows should be enough."
"Then?"
"Then you live one more night," she said, "or I turn around and walk down the alley, and you'll have your throats slit from the second floor tonight. Choose one."
Zhang Xun leaned back in his chair, his fingers trembling as they hung in mid-air. He looked at Lin Xiaotang behind the shelf, then at the cold glint of an arrow at the stairwell.
"Seal it." He said, his voice a little steadyer than before, but still very soft. "Lin Xiaotang, follow her. Su Nian, don't put the arrow down."
Shen Ye's lips twitched slightly, but she didn't smile. She took off her backpack, pulled out a welding torch, the edges of its brass casing gleaming. Without waiting for Zhang Xun to say anything more, she lifted her foot and started climbing the stairs, her boots thumping on the wooden planks without hesitation.
Lin Xiaotang placed the rabbit doll on the counter and trotted after him. As she passed Zhang Xun, she looked up at him. Zhang Xun didn't say anything, but simply nodded.
Lin Xiaotang followed Shen Ye. The two went up to the second floor one after the other, their figures swallowed up by the darkness at the top of the stairs.
Su Nian took two steps on one leg, positioning herself where she could see both the front and back windows simultaneously. The bowstring was still taut.
The welding torch upstairs kept clicking intermittently for forty minutes. It would light up once, stop, then light up again. Shen Ye was trying to conserve gas.
A roar came from downstairs, very close, as if drawn by the noise. Zhang Xun tensed up, his fingers reaching for the baseball bat beside the chair. The sound circled outside the roller shutter, then the dragging footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Zhang Xun struggled to his feet, leaning on the chair, and looked at the three metal shelves against the wall on the first floor—they used to display tents and backpacks, with holes for uprights, and quite heavy. He reached out and pushed the heaviest one, the shelf scraping the floor with a screeching sound, and it moved half a meter.
"Push it in, hold it in place," he whispered.
No one asked why. Qin Wei grabbed a corner of the shelf, and the two of them worked together to push the shelf inside the roller shutter door, bracing it against the door panel at an angle. The shelf had wheels at the bottom, but the latches were rusted, making it very difficult to push.
Upstairs, the welding torch stopped. The clanging of metal ceased, and the shop fell into a hollowed-out silence.
In the morning, the sun was already high in the sky, and light streamed in through the gaps in the curtains on the second floor, casting a bluish-white shadow on the floor.
Shen Ye came down the stairs. She walked slowly, the welding torch held horizontally in her hand, the pressure gauge needle on the gas cylinder dropping from green into the yellow zone. She didn't look at anyone, heading straight for the street-facing side of the first floor. She tapped the wooden board inside the roller shutter door with her fingers, then tapped the legs of the diagonal support of the shelf, listening intently.
"We can hold on up front," she said, her voice hoarse, "but we don't have much gas left, so we'll use it sparingly."
Zhang Xun stood up, his knees stiff, and used the armrests to support himself. He looked towards the stairwell, then at the roller shutter door. In the alley outside, the sound of dragging footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
---
Zhang Xun went upstairs to the second floor, sat on the floor, leaned against the bed, and examined his calf. Bai Mo sat on the sofa, his left leg straight, the tip of scissors pressed against the scab, but he couldn't break it. Su Nian lay half-reclined on the bed, her legs supported by a composite arch. Lin Xiaotang sat at the foot of the bed, a rabbit perched on her knee. Qin Wei squatted beside the first-aid kit.
The air on the second floor is stuffy.
Zhang Xun was about to speak when Bai Mo asked first, "Are the coordinates of Tiger Head Mountain accurate?"
"yes."
"After she finishes her examination, she'll confirm you have more. Forced confessions are faster than a transaction."
Zhang Xun remained silent.
"What about Cuiping Mountain?"
Zhang Xun did not answer.
A very faint scratch came from downstairs, like fingernails scraping against the bottom of a roller shutter. Everyone froze. Three seconds later, the sound stopped. The air settled again.
Su Nian leaned against the bed, her voice extremely low: "Cuiping Mountain, the mountain behind the sanatorium. There's a tree there, broken."
"Air raid shelter?" Bai Mo suddenly asked.
"Yes, an electromagnetic lock." Su Nian paused. "After the power is cut off, pull the switch in the ventilation duct."
"Manual switch?"
Su Nian nodded: "It can fit in the car. The SWAT team used to use it."
Bai Mo pressed the tip of the scissors a little deeper into the scab, drawing out a bead of blood, which she wiped away with her thumb. Her gaze lifted, landing on the back of Zhang Xun's right hand. There was a circular bruise there, caused by the heel of her shoe. She instinctively pulled her left foot back. Lowering her head, she pressed the tip of the scissors against the scab again.
Qin Wei brought over the first-aid kit and sat down next to Zhang Xun. She applied the iodine solution. Zhang Xun hissed, but didn't pull his hand away. Qin Wei's hand was trembling, but she gripped it tightly.
After Qin Wei left, Lin Xiaotang placed the rabbit plush toy next to Zhang Xun. Zhang Xun glanced at it but didn't touch it. The rabbit sat between the two of them, its threads sticking out.
Su Nian leaned against the bed and reached out to tug at the end of the walkie-talkie cord on Zhang Xun's collar. The cord was tightly tangled and wouldn't come off. Zhang Xun's neck muscles twitched, but he didn't look up.
Five people were in the same room. Su Nian's breathing came from the direction of the bed, too light, too regular, each breath half-filled, not fully exhaled. Bai Mo's scissors tip pressed against the scab, not breaking through, a thin line hanging between the metal and the flesh. Lin Xiaotang's thumb caressed the fur of the rabbit's ear, round and round. Qin Wei unscrewed the cap of the iodine bottle, tightened it, unscrewed it again. Zhang Xun looked at his hand, his knuckles still trembling. No one spoke, because speaking would shatter something.
The air on the second floor was stuffy and tight.
---
dusk.
Voices came from the back alley. Two thugs crept into the alley and pulled on the iron gate. It was a push-out type, and they couldn't open it.
One of them got impatient and slammed his steel pipe against the door. The sound echoed through the alley.
Three seconds later, the sound of dragging footsteps came from the alley entrance. The infected were drawn by the sound and swarmed up from the alley entrance.
The scream wasn't a complete shout. The steel pipe slammed to the ground, followed by the dull thud of a body falling.
The six people in the room listened in silence. Shen Ye continued to examine the weld.
Shen Ye spoke up: "They originally planned to come in from the second floor tonight. Now I've blocked it." She wasn't boasting, she was stating a fact. "They can only resort to a frontal assault or trapping and killing them."
When Shen Ye checked the front window, the reflection from the opposite rooftop disappeared.
Shen Ye turned his gaze away from the window, ran his finger along the seam one last time to confirm that the layered texture was intact.
Zhang Xun walked to the back window, placed his right hand on the window frame, and looked down through the crack. His fingers began to tremble again, and he clenched his fist tightly.
The sound of dragging footsteps gradually faded into the distance in the alley outside the door.
The six people remained silent in the dim light.
---
After nightfall, all six people moved to the first floor. Su Nian was slow going down the stairs on one leg, so Qin Wei helped her.
A strange noise came from outside the roller shutter door. The body of an infected person was hanging from the doorknob, with a wire around its neck, swaying in the wind and scraping against the metal with a rustling sound.
A folded piece of paper was slipped under the door, its corner stained with mud. Three seconds later, a glass bottle smashed against the left side of the roller shutter door. Flames streamed down the steel door panel, and Zhang Xun, standing inside, felt his left cheek burning from the heat.
Bai Mo took the paper, glanced at it, and then stopped. Her voice was hoarse: "The coordinates are real. She's verified them... What follows is to silence them, not a deal."
Shen Ye squatted in the first-floor fortification area, adjusting the control valve of the gas cylinder trap. Without looking up, she said, "Hu Jiu'er is used to a frontal assault to draw attention while sending small teams to infiltrate from the flanks. I modified their bulletproof pickup trucks; there's no extra steel plate around the fuel tank. I left it there intentionally when I welded the vehicle."
After saying that, she retreated to the stairwell and ate her dry rations alone. The crunching sound of her teeth crushing the biscuits was loud in the quiet room. She didn't look at anyone, her eyes fixed on the shadows below the stairs.
Lin Xiaotang walked over and handed her half a compressed biscuit. Shen Ye hesitated for a moment, then took it without thanking her. She broke the biscuit in half and put one half in her mouth. She wrapped the other half in oil paper, not just stuffing it in, but reaching for the outside of her right leg of her work pants—there was a zipper there. She unzipped the metal pull, stuffed the paper packet inside, and then squeezed it shut. The welding rod tip was in another pocket, worn shiny.
A muffled thud, as if a battery had suddenly exploded, came from the back alley. Flames shot up from the chassis and instantly engulfed the car.
Shen Ye rushed up to the second floor, peered through the crack in the back window into the alley, and said, "They backed the car behind the door and burned it."
Zhang Xun stared at the flickering firelight on the wall, his knuckles turning white. He suddenly turned to face the five women in the room, his voice hoarse as if sandpaper were grinding against bones: "Qin Wei. Break the medicine into three portions and put them in different places."
Qin Wei didn't ask any questions, and directly opened the medical kit to check and organize the medicines.
After a two-second pause, Zhang Xun's right hand, still trembling, gripped the shelf pillar: "Door. Weld it again if possible. For the parts that can't be welded, tie them securely."
Shen Ye held the welding torch horizontally, the pressure gauge needle on the gas cylinder stuck at the edge of the yellow zone. She didn't light it, but instead rummaged through her toolbox for a piece of wire, tying one end to the roller shutter door track post and the other end to an empty tin can, three inches off the ground. When the door was pulled up, the tin can would rattle.
"Lin Xiaotang," Zhang Xun's voice lowered, "It's food. Crush it up and bake it into pancakes. One for each person, stuff it in the outer layer of your backpack."
Lin Xiaotang crushed half a bag of compressed biscuits, mixed them with flour and salt, and baked them into six dry biscuits on an alcohol stove.
She wrapped them in oil paper and stuffed them one by one into the outermost layer of each person's backpack. She didn't say anything, she just stuffed them in.
Zhang Xun cleared the remaining stock from another shelf to the counter. Half a box of compressed biscuits, a bottle of mineral water, and a bottle of vegetable oil with one-third remaining. Then he used a climbing rope to tie the shelf to the stair railing, using a figure-eight knot commonly used in outdoor stores. If the shelf slipped, the rope could hold it for half a second.
Zhang Xun leaned against the shelf and stuffed his trembling hand into his pocket.
"Don't sleep," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "anytime before dawn."
The firelight from the back alley seeped in through the cracks in the doors and windows, casting a flickering glow inside the house.
The flames on the left side of the roller shutter were still climbing down the steel plate, like an orange-red snake crawling across the door panel. The corpse on the doorknob was still swaying, the wire scraping against the metal, the sound even tighter than before, mixed with the sizzling sound of the door panel being heated, seeping in through the cracks.
The candle burned out, and the wick popped. Qin Wei instinctively reached out to protect the flame, but her hand froze in mid-air before she pulled it back. The room went completely dark.
Zhang Xun sat down against the door panel, his right hand resting on the handle of the baseball bat. His fingers unconsciously dug and scratched at the mesh of the duct tape. Tap, tap. His knuckles landed on the door panel twice, then stopped.
In the shadows of the stairwell, Shen Ye held an oxy-acetylene torch, her mask pushed up to her forehead. She tapped the brass band on the barrel with her knuckles. Tap, tap. The same rhythmic thud.
Zhang Xun's finger hovered in mid-air, not falling. He suddenly remembered the soft sound from under the door—a day ago, or a dozen hours ago, too close, as close as if it had just happened. But he was too tired to distinguish between memory and illusion.
Shen Ye didn't look up. After tapping those two times, he stopped and tightened the welding torch around his chest.
Thirty seconds later, Zhang Xun's knuckles landed on the door again. Tap, tap.
Shen Ye tapped the gun barrel twice with his fingers. Tap, tap.
No one looked at the other. No one spoke. The fire outside was still burning, and the infected were still shouting.
---
5:17 AM.
A strange noise suddenly came from the roller shutter door. It wasn't an impact, but the groan of metal being slowly bent, which traveled from the top of the door all the way to the ground.
Immediately afterwards, the clicking sound of winch gears engaging came from outside. One click. Then another. The clanging of taut chains seeped in from the bottom seam of the door panel, mingling with the deep hum of the pickup truck engine idling. The door panel began to roll upwards, the bottom seam lifting off the ground.
The shelf was leaning against the inside of the door panel, with wheels at the bottom and rusted latches. As soon as the bottom edge of the door panel left the ground, the shelf lost its support and slid outwards. The metal wheels scraped against the concrete floor, making a piercing, sharp noise.
Zhang Xun lunged forward, gripping the shelf uprights tightly with both hands, leaning back and using his weight to fall into the room. The shelf continued to slide outwards, dragging him forward half a foot. His feet braced against a crack in the ground, his knuckles turning white.
Shen Ye rushed over from the stairwell and grabbed the other side of the shelf's crossbeam. The two of them worked together to pull it inwards. The wheels at the bottom of the shelf slipped, the metal frame groaned as it twisted, and then it stopped.
But the door panel was still being pulled upwards. The bottom gap was getting higher and higher off the ground. A grayish-white hand reached in through the gap, its fingernails scraping against the shelf, making a soft scraping sound. Then another hand reached in, grabbed the cross brace at the bottom of the shelf, and pulled it outwards.
The wind blew in through the cracks at the bottom, carrying the smell of blood and engine exhaust.
Shen Ye looked up, the oxy-acetylene torch still hissing with residual heat beside him: "Windlock. The pickup truck is pulling. The final assault begins."
Zhang Xun stood up, bracing himself against the shelf pillar. He looked at the five women.
Qin Wei squatted beside the first-aid kit, holding the iodine bottle cap in her hand, not tightening it properly.
Bai Mo sat on the folding bed on the first floor, scissors resting on gauze, blades pointing outwards.
Su Nian was also sitting on the folding bed, the bowstring pressed against the edge of the pillow, the arrowhead pointing towards the ceiling.
Lin Xiaotang huddled in the corner at the foot of the bed, her rabbit ears clenched between her knuckles, which turned white.
Shen Ye placed the welding torch across his lap, pushed up his mask, and looked at the door panel.
The third click. The steel plate at the lower left corner of the roller shutter rolled inward in an arc, a rivet was pulled off, hit the ground, bounced up, and fell down again.
A third hand reached in through the gap.
[End of Chapter]