Fang Runing didn't move.
She stayed half-kneeling, one arm around He Yuanqiu, the other hand sliding slowly toward the hemostatic forceps at her waist. Slowly—so slowly it made almost no sound. Her eyes never left the crack under the door, where the hem of a white skirt swayed once more, as if someone had turned a circle just outside.
The voice came again, still that little girl's timbre, sweet and light, like singing a two-line nursery rhyme: "Found you. I'll count to three, and you'd better hide."
Fang Runing didn't answer. She swept the room quickly. This storage room had one extremely narrow window, set near the ceiling, half the glass broken, letting in a gray wash of daylight. The window was narrow, but a person could sidle through. The sill sat about two meters off the floor; she could boost He Yuanqiu up and climb.
The question was whether those things had already circled around outside.
No time to hesitate. Under the door, the skirt hem suddenly stretched forward—and then the doorknob began to turn. Corroded metal squeaked softly: one turn, two turns, someone screwing it open with enormous patience.
Fang Runing moved.
At the fastest speed of her life she hauled He Yuanqiu upright, braced her against the wall, crouched, and heaved her onto her back. He Yuanqiu's body hung slack, arms dangling in front of Fang's shoulders, her breath warm against the back of her neck. Fang Runing clenched her teeth and straightened up inch by inch, borrowing a brace from the radiator beside them until the weight was settled. She shuffled toward the window, eyes locked on the door the whole way.
The turning stopped. Outside the crack, an eye pressed itself to the gap. It was grotesquely large, the pupil swallowing nearly the whole socket, ringed in a dark red rim—like someone who had just been crying. The eyeball rolled, found Fang Runing moving toward the window. Then it curved.
A smile.
"Big sister, are you climbing out the window?" He Yuanxia said from outside, sounding genuinely curious. "That's a wall out there. You'll fall and die."
Fang Runing was already at the window. She looked up: an iron frame, several vertical bars set into it, rusted but solid—anti-theft bars, once. Half the glass was gone; the remaining half wore a coat of dust. The light outside was weak, but she could see wall. The outside was, indeed, wall.
Less than two meters to the opposite wall. Blank gray concrete, nothing else.
She reached up and gripped the sill; the rough iron bars bit into her palms. Her arms shook as she pulled; He Yuanqiu's weight dragged her waist down. But she climbed anyway—one foot on the radiator below, the other braced against the wall—wedging herself and He Yuanqiu into the air by sheer force.
"Hold on to me," she said through her teeth.
He Yuanqiu wasn't awake, but her arms seemed to stir, looping loosely around Fang Runing's neck. Fang turned sideways; her shoulder blade cracked against the window frame. She forced herself between the bars and pushed her upper body out.
Gray light fell across her face. She took in the layout outside—a bad spot: bare vertical wall below, no foothold; a few protruding drainpipes to either side, rust-eaten, running upward; and less than half a meter above her head, a narrow concrete ledge, the underside of a third-floor balcony.
And beyond the building stood the newspaper wall. The writing had changed. The line "NO PATIENT ON THE SECOND FLOOR MAY LEAVE" was drowned under black liquid; only the last word remained: "LEAVE."
The door opened.
Fang Runing heard it slam against the wall, and then light footsteps—bare feet on concrete, slap, slap, closer and closer.
He Yuanxia wasn't smiling anymore. Her voice came out of the room, low and hoarse in a way that didn't belong to any child: "You can't take her. No one gets to take her. She's my sister. I found her first."
Fang Runing didn't look back. She shifted He Yuanqiu higher on her shoulder—and then did something utterly reckless: standing on the sill, she leapt up and to the left, both hands seizing the drainpipe, the whole load of her and He Yuanqiu hanging in the air. The pipe lurched violently, rust flaking off like scales. Her finger joints stretched nearly out of socket, but her grip locked and did not let go.
He Yuanqiu's body slipped an inch. Fang Runing clamped her elbow around her, feeling her own muscles scream past their limit.
"Slip again and we both go down together," she said into He Yuanqiu's ear. "If you can hear me, put in some effort."
Wind funneled through the gap between the buildings, cold. Sweat ran from her temple into her eyes, stinging them shut. She climbed on instinct: right arm first, left following, foot finding a sliver of purchase on the pipe and pushing. He Yuanqiu never slid again—whether because she really was holding on, who knew.
By the time she reached the third-floor window she was soaked through. That window was narrower, smaller, fitted with complete iron bars, black inside. She hooked one hand over the bars and dragged herself against the wall, gasping like she was coming apart.
Then she felt the drainpipe beneath her vibrate.
She looked down. He Yuanxia stood on the windowsill below, face upturned, blue skirt ballooning in the wind. Her eyes had changed—no longer childlike; the eyes of someone who has waited too long and will now do anything. She reached out, took hold of the pipe, and began to climb. The movements were wrong, her limbs bending as if her joints pointed in different directions than a person's should—but fast, effortless, and in seconds she was at Fang Runing's feet.
"Big sister is mine," He Yuanxia said, so close it might have come from inside Fang Runing's own chest. "You're mine too. All of you are mine."
Fang Runing kicked down with all her strength.
The kick caught her shoulder. She flipped backward—but didn't fall. Like a cat she adjusted in midair, pressed back onto the wall, fingers jammed into the brick joints, and hung there, perfectly steady. She grinned up, a row of thin, pale-blue teeth.
Fang Runing stopped paying attention to her. The concrete ledge was within reach now—a half-meter-wide platform running toward the roof. With the last of her strength she heaved He Yuanqiu up and rolled over after her, lying on her side, chest heaving.
The daylight was brighter up here. She lay on the ledge, staring at the gray-white sky. He Yuanqiu lay beside her, face calm, still breathing.
Fang Runing turned her head slowly toward the barred third-floor window. It was dark inside, but gradually she made it out—behind the glass stood rows of infant cribs, a size smaller than ordinary hospital beds. No one lay in them, but every single crib had a small wooden tag hanging at its head. On the nearest, written in black marker, were two characters.
Yuanxia.
She pushed herself up to sitting and gathered He Yuanqiu into her arms. Wind moaned through the buildings, like someone crying very far away. She counted the cribs. One, two, three—on and on, past where her eyes could follow. Every tag carried the same name.
Yuanxia.
Then the person in her arms stirred.
He Yuanqiu's eyes opened slowly, finding her as if surfacing from deep water. They were still amber, a little more focused than before. Her lips moved, her voice so faint the wind nearly stole it.
"Take her with us."
Fang Runing looked down. "Take who?"
As if she hadn't heard, He Yuanqiu's gaze drifted to the barred window, to the row of empty cribs. Something complicated welled up in her eyes—not sadness; older and heavier than sadness, like something buried for years that had finally begun to loosen.
"Take her with us," she said again. "I promised her. Take her with us."