The second-floor stack halted simultaneously.
No command. No signal. Yet every woman stopped.
Tang Ziyi slowly raised a fist.
The hallway ahead stretched longer than expected, lined with thick plastered walls and heavy wooden doors reinforced with metal frames. Dim emergency lights flickered weakly after the generator shutdown, barely illuminating the corridor.
Something felt wrong.
Not merely danger.
Pressure.
Tang Ziyi narrowed her eyes behind the white phosphor tubes. Her instincts screamed at her that the targets were here.
But the atmosphere was absurd.
Too quiet.
Too prepared.
She shifted slightly and immediately noticed something else—the corridor itself had been transformed into a kill zone. Furniture overturned. Heavy cabinets dragged sideways. Partial barricades.
Prepared firing lanes.
"Contact likely front," Tang Ziyi whispered.
Ahmin's expression darkened. "They knew."
