The Phoenix of the Slums

The private estate of Lu Qingshan rested in the Wudang Mountains, shrouded in fog and old legends. It was a place so far removed from modern chaos that time itself seemed to slow. A stone path led through a bamboo forest to a massive compound carved into the mountainside—equal parts monastery, fortress, and laboratory.
Inside the dim chamber known as the Hall of Still Wind, Lu Qingshan sat cross-legged on a stone dais, clad in a silk robe of midnight black. A single candle burned before him, casting his face in an eerie glow. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow but even—so still that he seemed part of the mountain itself.
Then, without opening his eyes, he spoke.
“Enter.”
Song Rui stepped through the sliding doors, his demeanor subdued, yet his pride refused to fully bow. “Master Lu.”
Lu Qingshan opened his eyes slowly—like a predator sensing weakness. “You failed.”
Song Rui’s jaw tightened. “It was unforeseen. The boy—Tianming—he’s more resourceful than expected. He’s also awakened."
Lu Qingshan’s lips curled into something between a smirk and a grimace. “So... the seed has grown.”
“He’s targeting our networks. The trafficking ring is gone. Hei Hu squad is dead.”
A long silence stretched.
Then Lu Qingshan rose. Even in his sixties, he moved with unnatural fluidity. His gaze cut through Song Rui like a blade.
“You have forgotten your place.,” he said coldly.
Song Rui lowered his head, teeth grinding.
Lu Qingshan turned toward the ancient scroll hanging at the back of the room—inked in the shape of an orchid with petals made of fire. “I warned you years ago. If that child ever returned… he would not come to beg. He would come to burn everything.”
“But there’s still time,” Song Rui said quickly. “Give me more men. More drones. I’ll crush him before he becomes a threat.”
“You think this is about men and machines?” Lu Qingshan snapped. “You fight with fire while he becomes the flame."
He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “You fail me again, Song Rui, and I
will bury you beside his mother.”
At the same time, Tianming sat on the roof of a safehouse near the edge of Hangzhou, watching the city below flicker with life. Fang joined him, sitting cross-legged beside him in silence.
“What now?” she finally asked.
He handed her a file. “This is where the Orchid Society is moving next. Underground bio-lab near Nanjing. We hit it.”
“That’s a direct strike against Lu Qingshan.”
“I’m done waiting,” he said. “Let him feel the pain he taught me to live with.”
Fang was quiet for a moment. Then: “Do you really believe he’s your father?”
“I don’t want to.”
“But?”
“But the blood doesn’t lie.”
She looked at him, expression unreadable. “That means you’re not just part of this. You might be the key to it.”
Tianming didn’t reply. He stared at the moon, silver and hollow.
Two nights later, the team approached the Nanjing facility under cover of a thunderstorm. Rain lashed across their jackets as they crouched in an alley across from the entrance—a discreet warehouse guarded by facial-recognition turrets and Orchid Society sentries.
Zhao hacked into the surveillance feed, hands moving fast over his laptop. “Okay, you’ve got sixty seconds after I loop the cams. But once we’re inside, we’re flying blind.”
Tianming rolled his shoulders. “Then we make it count.”
Fang drew her knives. “Let’s dance.”
Zhao clicked a key. “Loop engaged. Go!”
Tianming sprinted across the street, slipped under the gate’s sensor just as it reset, and dispatched the first guard with a silent blow to the carotid. He gestured for Fang, who vaulted the fence like a shadow.
Inside the warehouse, the smell of chemicals and metal hit hard.
They moved swiftly through rows of glass chambers—each one holding something horrifying: mutated embryos, cybernetic grafts, artificial adrenal glands. The Orchid Society wasn’t building soldiers. They were crafting monsters.
Zhao’s voice buzzed through the comm. “Guys… you’re not gonna like this.”
A door at the end of the hallway hissed open.
Prototype 07-A stepped into view—an eight-foot tall humanoid enhanced with titanium bone implants, a skull encased in a steel visor, arms too long to be human.
Tianming stepped forward, eyes burning.
“No more shadows.”