Nobody spoke on the stairs.
The Flatline Choir had thinned behind them the way it always did, not stopping, only sinking back into the hospital's walls until it was one more thing the building did when no one was listening. Fang Ning climbed with one hand pressed flat against the rail, as if the rail might tell her whether the floor was still where it was supposed to be. Bei Cheng walked with his jaw set. Rong Ze had his notebook shut inside his coat and one hand resting over the pocket.
Lin Yue counted their footsteps without meaning to. Eleven sets. Twelve, if he counted the one that had been Han Xu's and wasn't anymore.
They were tired. But it wasn't the kind of tired that made people slow. It was the kind that came after a truth had been put in front of you, when the body had nowhere to put it and kept everything switched on instead.
Xia Lian was already at the nurses' station when they came up.
