Tòumíng opened the cell door and immediately ran to one of the thick wires running along the wall—the one he'd identified earlier as potentially connected to the main power system. He grabbed it with both hands and pulled, trying to rip it free from its mounting.
Nothing. The wire was secured with heavy-duty brackets and industrial-grade insulation. His enhanced strength made it strain slightly, but not enough to actually tear it loose.
"Shit," he muttered. "I need something sharp. Something to cut through the insulation."
He turned to Háo Héng. "Do you have anything in your pockets? Knife? Tool? Anything?"
Háo Héng patted himself down and started pulling items out. "Let's see... gum." He held up a stick of chewing gum. "Car keys." A key fob with the Nissan logo. "My wallet." Expensive leather, probably cost more than Tòumíng's electric bike.
"Give me the keys!"
Háo handed them over and Tòumíng examined the key ring. There was a physical key attached—the backup key for when the fob battery died. Not particularly sharp, but metal. Rigid. Better than nothing.
He started sawing at the wire's insulation with the edge of the key, trying to cut through the thick rubber coating to expose the copper beneath.
"Be careful with that!" Háo Héng said urgently. "Don't break the key! I drive a 2025 Nissan Altima! Those keys are expensive to replace! Like two hundred yuan at the dealership!"
Tòumíng stopped sawing and turned to glare at him. "Can you shut up? For once? Just... shut up?"
He went back to cutting, the key making slow progress through the insulation. Too slow. This was going to take forever, and they didn't have forever.
Behind them, the unconscious guard started stirring, groaning as consciousness returned.
"Fuck it," Tòumíng said, making a decision that was probably incredibly stupid.
He threw the keys away—they clattered across the floor, much to Háo Héng's visible distress—and opened his mouth.
"What are you—NO! Don't you DARE—"
Tòumíng bit down on the wire.
His teeth punctured through the insulation.
Good news: The circuit shorted immediately. Sparks exploded from the wire as the electrical current found a new path, directly through Tòumíng's body to the ground.
The entire basement plunged into pitch-black darkness as the power cut out, the overhead lights dying, the emergency lights failing to activate because the main power system had just catastrophically failed.
Bad news: Tòumíng got electrocuted.
BZZZZZZZZT.
Every muscle in his body seized simultaneously. His jaw clamped down harder on the wire involuntarily. His vision went white despite the darkness. Pain exploded through his nervous system—different from the pain of regeneration or bullets, this was sharp, immediate, all-consuming.
Then the current stopped as the wire fully severed, and Tòumíng collapsed to the floor, smoke rising from his mouth, his entire body twitching with residual electrical shock.
In the darkness, the guard who'd been waking up heard the commotion and ran toward where he thought the prisoners were, his hands outstretched blindly.
Tòumíng, still lying on the floor recovering from electrocution, heard the footsteps approaching and rolled to the side.
THUD.
The guard ran face-first into the concrete wall at full speed, the impact making a sickening crack as his nose broke. He crumpled to the floor unconscious for the second time.
"Tòumíng?!" Háo Héng's voice came from somewhere in the darkness, panicked. "Are you alive?! Say something! Don't die! I can't navigate this place without you!"
Tòumíng pushed himself to his feet, his body still tingling with electrical aftershocks, and grabbed Háo Héng's hand before he could wander off in the wrong direction.
"I'm fine. Come on."
He moved along the wall, his hands running across the concrete surface, feeling for landmarks. His fingers encountered metal—the large vent grid he'd spotted earlier.
He grinned despite the lingering pain. Perfect.
He pried the vent cover off—the screws were already loose from age and rust—and crawled inside, pulling Háo Héng behind him.
The vent was cramped. Dark. Hot despite the heating being turned off earlier. The kind of enclosed space that triggered claustrophobia in people who had that particular fear.
"Oh god," Háo Héng whimpered as they crawled forward. "It's so dark. It's so cramped. I can't breathe. I think I'm having a panic attack. Is this what dying feels like? I think this is what dying feels like."
"It's fine. Just keep moving."
"It's NOT fine! I can't see ANYTHING! What if there are spiders?! What if the vent collapses?! What if we get stuck and nobody finds us and we die of dehydration in here?!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!"
Tòumíng's scream echoed through the vent system, carrying through the ductwork, amplified by the metal surfaces.
Elsewhere in the Factory
Nergui stood in a hallway on the ground floor, his blank eyes staring at nothing, his head tilted slightly as he listened to the sounds of the building.
The power outage. The alarm systems dying. The emergency generators failing to kick in because the main power distribution had been sabotaged rather than simply interrupted.
Then, faintly, echoing through the ventilation system: a scream. Male. Young. Frustrated.
Nergui's lips curved into a soft smile.
He reached to his belt and removed his baton, a heavy, telescopic weapon that extended with a flick of his wrist. The metal clicked into place with a sound like a gun being cocked.
"How interesting," he said quietly to himself.
He started walking toward the nearest vent access point, his steps confident despite his blindness, his spatial awareness allowing him to navigate the dark factory as if it were fully lit.
Back in the Vents
Tòumíng and Háo Héng continued crawling, their argument escalating despite the need for stealth.
"You can't just tell me to shut up!" Háo Héng hissed. "I'm having a legitimate psychological crisis! My claustrophobia is a MEDICAL CONDITION!"
"You were fine in the closet at your house!"
"That was DIFFERENT! That closet had LIGHT! And it smelled like lavender! This vent smells like industrial chemicals and death!"
"It smells like dust!"
"DUST OF THE DEAD!"
"That doesn't even make SENSE!"
They were too focused on arguing to notice the vent beneath them had been weakened by decades of corrosion and the addition of two adult men's weight.
The metal groaned.
Then collapsed.
They fell approximately ten feet, tumbling out of the vent system and landing on the factory floor with heavy thuds that knocked the wind from both of them.
Tòumíng groaned, pushing himself to his hands and knees, his body protesting the additional abuse after the electrocution.
Then a voice cut through the darkness. Smooth. Calm. Almost friendly.
"How are these fine gentlemen doing?"
Tòumíng froze. That voice was close. Too close. Maybe ten feet away.
His eyes had started adjusting to the darkness—there was some ambient light filtering in from outside through dirty windows—and he could make out a silhouette.
Tall. Thin. Wearing a suit. Holding something in one hand that caught the faint light.
A baton.
And those eyes. Even in the darkness, Tòumíng could tell they were wrong. Blank. Unseeing.
But the man was staring directly at them despite being blind.
Nergui smiled wider, his blank eyes somehow more disturbing because they couldn't possibly see but clearly tracked exactly where Tòumíng and Háo Héng had fallen.
Tòumíng's brain completely short-circuited. He couldn't think of anything to say. Couldn't formulate a plan. Couldn't even process what was happening.
So he just raised his hands in a jazz-hands gesture and said the first thing that came to mind:
"Tadaa?"