Nobody spoke when they left the arcade.
That, more than anything, was how Lin Yue knew how badly it had shaken them. Tang Xin always had something to say, even when it was the wrong thing. Mu Cheng always had an accusation loaded and ready to fire. Even Fang Jie, on his worst nights, usually filled the silence with nervous, useless chatter just to hear a human voice answer him.
Tonight, there was nothing. Just the soft, uneven crunch of glass shards under their boots as they walked away from the wreckage of a smile that had shattered mid-sentence, and the dead weight of a man none of them knew how to look at.
Han Yu walked between Shen Rui and Wei Ning, supported more than escorted, his feet moving only because they were being moved, his eyes open and fixed on absolutely nothing. He hadn't said a single word since they'd pulled him out of the glass. He hadn't screamed. He hadn't cried. He had simply let them lift him, the way a coat lets itself be lifted off a hook.
