He stopped walking.
He listened.
The footsteps behind him were careful and slow, like someone trying not to be heard. Wei Liang kept his eyes forward, kept his pace steady, and counted the sounds. One set. Single person. Moving at his speed without getting closer or falling behind.
Following him.
He turned a corner around a fallen column and ducked low against the stone, waiting.
A figure came around the bend thirty seconds later.
Wei Liang relaxed. It was just a kid, maybe fourteen years old. He had a cloth bag over one shoulder and eyes wide with fear. The boy froze.
Neither of them moved for a moment.
Then the boy held up both hands to show they were empty.
Wei Liang stood. He said: I'm not going to hurt you.
The boy stared at his clothes, the jeans and gray hoodie. The look on his face said: that doesn't belong here. Then he spoke. The language was close but not quite right, like a song played in the wrong key. Wei Liang caught one word in three.
He filed the language problem away and pointed at himself. Said his name slowly.
The boy pointed at himself. Said: Fen.
Good enough for now.
Fen had been following him because Wei Liang was the only person walking west. Toward the inner ruins instead of away from them. Apparently everyone else had sense enough to go the other direction. Fen had a trader's instinct. He had decided someone that stupid was either very lost or very dangerous. Either way worth following.
Wei Liang gathered this from gesture and the handful of words they shared.
He also gathered that the boy had been in the ruins for at least two days. The state of Fen's bag and the dark circles under his eyes made that clear. He was running low on water.
Wei Liang thought about his own situation.
No water. No shelter. No knowledge of where anything useful was. One scavenger boy who knew the outer ruins and could navigate the layout. And forty yuan in coins that Fen had been eyeing since they started walking together.
He held out two of the coins.
Fen looked at them, bit one, turned it over twice. His expression shifted. Whatever the metal was worth here, it was worth something. He pocketed both coins, turned west, and started walking.
Wei Liang followed.
Fen moved through the ruins like someone who had grown up in them. He knew which sections were stable and which had ground that would sink under weight. He knew which columns gave cover and which open spaces left you visible from three sides. He moved fast without looking like he was hurrying.
Twenty minutes in, he stopped and pointed at a wall.
On the other side of it, barely audible, was the sound of water.
Not a river. Something smaller. Water seeped through a crack in the stone, running down to a shallow basin in the courtyard floor. It had been collecting there for centuries, probably. The water was cold and tasted strongly of minerals.
Wei Liang drank for a long time.
Then he sat back and looked at Fen.
The boy was watching him with the calculating expression of someone adding numbers. He said something containing the word for trade. Wei Liang had picked that word up in the first ten minutes.
He said: what do you want.
Fen pointed west again, then made a gesture that Wei Liang interpreted as deep, or far, or further in. He wanted to go to the inner ruins. He had been trying to get there and had turned back twice because he had no one to go with.
Wei Liang looked at the inner ruins in the distance.
He thought about the warning.
They know you are here. They are coming.
Going deeper was exactly the wrong move if something was already hunting him. It was also exactly what he needed to do. The locked thing behind his ribs was pulling him that direction, subtle and steady, like a compass needle.
He looked at Fen.
He said: I'll take you as far as I'm going. After that you're on your own.
Fen didn't understand all of it, but he understood enough. He grinned the quick grin of someone who had just gotten what they wanted. Then held out his hand.
Wei Liang shook it.
They started walking west together, deeper into the ruins, and behind them the sound of the water faded.
Neither of them noticed the dark shapes moving along the roofline above them.
Three of them, keeping pace, staying out of sight.
Watching.
They walked for another hour before Fen stopped again.
He pointed at a low building still mostly intact, its roof half collapsed but its walls solid. He mimed sleeping.
Wei Liang looked at the sky. The pale grey light had not changed since he arrived, no sun to track, no way to tell time. But his body told him he had been awake for a long time. The exhaustion was sitting behind his eyes in a way he recognized.
He nodded.
They went inside.
The interior was empty and cold. Old stone floor, old stone walls, no furniture, nothing. But it was shelter. Wei Liang sat against the wall and finally let himself stop moving.
His mind went back to the locked thing behind his ribs.
He tried again, carefully, to reach for it. Like trying to open a door with numb fingers. He could feel the door. He could feel that something enormous was on the other side. But he couldn't get it open.
Not yet.
He took out the canned coffee and looked at it.
Fen was watching him from across the room with that calculating look.
Wei Liang said: don't even think about it.
Fen didn't understand the words. But he understood the tone. He looked away.
Wei Liang drank half the coffee slowly. It was still cold. Still too sweet. He had no idea how that was possible. He was not in the right state to wonder about it.
He closed his eyes.
He told himself he would only rest for a moment.
He woke to Fen shaking his shoulder with both hands, the boy's face pale.
"Someone is outside," Fen said. In the local language, fast and frightened.
Wei Liang didn't need to understand every word.
The tone was enough.
He was on his feet before he was fully awake, back against the wall beside the entrance, listening. Outside, the ruins were quiet.
Then a voice spoke.
Low, calm, and very close.
It was speaking his name.