A runner reached the furnace with a message from Wei’s wall command. Wuchen had entered the upper Registry hall and activated the old command seals. The first written orders told the western and southern crews to reconnect their nodes and transfer the local load back to the Registry.
Those stations had already isolated damaged equipment under Qinghe’s thresholds. She asked the runner which orders had reached the local captains. He said the messages named both stations but carried no updated pressure readings.
“Tell them to confirm conditions before reconnecting,” Qinghe said. “Keep their releases open.”
The order passed through people who could check the gauges. It did not control the machinery by itself.
Yan read the command. The wording reminded him of the island contracts, where obligation had been written as if the people who bore it had no choice. He asked whether any crew had been compelled to act.
Wei’s reply came by a second runner: the captains had not accepted the order; they were waiting for wall reports. The west and south teams remained in shelter. No one had been sent back to a dangerous node.
The storm pressed against the furnace while Yan completed another Final Offering cycle. His body, foundation, soul, and vitality strengthened under the art’s personal reversal. The outer pressure still shook the room. The disconnected districts remained exposed.
