The Phoenix of the Slums

2:27 AM – Abandoned Silk Factory, Safehouse Perimeter

Rain beat down hard. Thunder rolled low like the growl of something ancient. Inside, Fang Yuwei clicked away at her laptop, trying to decode more from the black book’s scanned files. Zhao Chenhai paced silently, eyes scanning the windows. Every creak made his fingers twitch toward the pistol on his hip.

Tianming sat, shirtless, while Fang stitched his wound with trembling fingers.

“You should be in a hospital,” she muttered.

“I don’t heal well in hospitals,” Tianming replied, his voice like gravel.

“Then at least rest.”

“I will.” He stood. “When this is over.”

Zhao looked up. “The Lotus Clan isn’t a gang. It’s an institution. Ghosts in suits. Their operatives are recruited from abandoned orphanages, warzones. Indoctrinated. Trained since childhood.”

“And Lu Qingshan has them on speed dial?” Tianming asked.

Zhao nodded. “Only the top tier. You kill one, three more follow.”

Tianming glanced at the broken porcelain half-mask. “Then we break the chain. Where’s their nest?”

Fang spun her laptop around. A blurred satellite image of a mountainside monastery outside Hangzhou, labeled “Lingyan Temple.”

“Looks like a temple,” she said. “But encrypted chatter routes through a satellite node just beneath it. Military-grade signal masking. Off-grid. Lotus HQ.”

Tianming’s knuckles cracked.

“Then we go tonight.”

The trio moved in silence, dressed in black, weaving between twisted roots and ancient trees. Mist clung to the ground like breath.

They reached a ridge.

Below: the temple, golden tiles glowing faintly under the moonlight. Peaceful. Holy.

Except for the infrared laser web encasing its outer wall, the drones hovering in tight orbits, and the two guards with automatic rifles patrolling the outer path.

Tianming crouched low. “Three-minute patrol loop. We can slip in under the southern tower.”

Zhao pulled out a dart gun and neutralized the two guards with surgical precision.

The path cleared.

They moved like shadows.

Inside the Temple – Underground Passage

Fang hacked the side panel on a Buddha statue. It hissed open.

They slipped inside—a dark passage, walls lined with lotus engravings. The deeper they went, the colder it got.

They reached a fork.

Zhao paused. “Left leads to the dormitory. Right to weapons cache.”

Tianming made the call. “Left. We find the recruiter. The one who trains them.”

They crept down the left path. Whispered chants echoed from ahead.

They found a room full of sleeping children.

Bunk beds. Metal floors. Stark walls.

Lotus trainees. No older than twelve.

Fang’s breath caught. “He’s building killers from birth…”

Then a voice echoed through the chamber:

“And you just walked into my classroom.”

Lights flared.

The trainer stood in the center of the room—a lean man in monk robes, but with eyes like a snake’s and fingers wrapped around a steel chain whip.

He didn’t smile.

He uncoiled the whip.

Tianming stepped forward, eyes locked.

“I’m not here for the children,” he said. “I’m here for you.”

The trainer nodded solemnly. “Then I shall teach you pain.”