The night air over the capital crackled with the sound of approaching rotors and the heavy rumble of armored convoys. For the first time in history, the Northern District's military might and the Southern District's financial hegemony moved in perfect, lethal synchronization. The Si Family Estate, a sprawling monument to old money and stolen secrets, was under siege—not by a foreign army, but by the combined wrath of the two men who held the nation's lifeblood in their hands.
As armored vehicles in olive-green lined the perimeter, Xiao Jinglin's global financial task force began a surgical liquidation of every offshore account bearing the Si name. Shen Xi walked through the main hall, the rhythmic click of her boots echoing against the marble. Behind her, Mu Feichi moved with a predatory grace, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword-cane, his eyes never leaving her back. They were met at the entrance of the private laboratory by Si Weixuan. The "Goddess of Jingdu" looked unrecognizable; her hair was disheveled, and her face was a mask of desperate fury.
"You can't do this!" Si Weixuan screamed, blocking the heavy steel doors. "This lab is private property! These are the Si family's crown jewels!"
"The only jewels in this room were stolen from my mother," Shen Xi said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as she stopped inches from Si Weixuan. "The 'Black Gold' orchid serum, the neural stabilizers, the Ghost Pulse variants—they all belong to the Yun lineage. You didn't invent them; you just learned how to mislabel the files."
Shen Xi reached out, her fingers catching the ID badge around Si Weixuan's neck. With a sharp tug, she snapped the lanyard. "You've spent your life pretending to be a genius on the back of my mother's ghost. Today, that debt is called in."
Mu Feichi stepped forward, his shadow engulfing both women. He didn't even look at Si Weixuan as he spoke to his guards. "Remove her. If she resists, charge her with the attempted assassination of a Marshal. I believe the penalty for that is still a firing squad."
As the guards dragged a hysterical Si Weixuan away, Shen Xi entered the lab. The air was sterile and cold. She immediately moved to the central terminal, her fingers dancing across the keys as she bypassed the Si family's encryption in seconds.
"I need the centrifuge at 14,000 RPM," Shen Xi commanded, her eyes fixed on the chemical monitors. "And Mu Feichi, sit down. Your blood pressure is spiking again. If you collapse before I finish the synthesis, even my blood won't be enough to reboot your nervous system."
Mu Feichi obeyed, leaning against the cold metal of a lab table. He watched her work, his gaze intense. "Xiao Jinglin is outside burning their empire to the ground. Why aren't you out there watching the spectacle?"
Shen Xi didn't look up, her hands steady as she mixed a glowing violet reagent. "Watching a fire is a waste of time. I'd rather be the one who ensures the phoenix that rises from the ashes is the one I designed."
Outside, the screens in the Si family's drawing room showed the final collapse of their stock. Xiao Jinglin stood by the window, his phone to his ear, his voice cold and final. "I don't care about the market impact. Buy the remaining shares, then dissolve the board. By midnight, I want the Si name erased from every building in this city."
He hung up and looked toward the lab doors. For the first time in twenty years, the void in his heart was replaced by a sharp, protective fire. He had lost the mother, Yun Zi, but he would burn the world to ensure the daughter never shed another tear.
Inside, Shen Xi pulled the final vial of synthesized antidote from the centrifuge. She turned to Mu Feichi, but her eyes caught a flashing alert on the main server. The data Xiao Jinglin had started to recover was being siphoned.
"Someone is remotely wiping the 'Project YUN' files," she hissed, her fingers flying over the keyboard to block the signal. "They're trying to erase the connection between the Xiao bloodline and the Si family's research."
"Trace it," Mu Feichi ordered, standing up as the neural flush began to stabilize his system.
The screen flickered, revealing a single location in the heart of the capital: The Shen Family Villa. It seemed the fallen Shens, realizing the Si family was being liquidated, were trying to destroy the evidence that linked them to the original conspiracy before Xiao Jinglin could seize it.
"They're not just wiping data," Shen Xi realized, her face going pale. "They're activating a self-destruct on the villa's underground vault. Shen Ruo is there. She's trying to take the secrets of my birth to the grave."