The Phoenix of the Slums

At the top floor of Rui Corporation's tower in downtown Shanghai, Song Rui stood before a wall of flickering screens, the glow casting sharp shadows over his sharp cheekbones. His hands, usually calm and composed, were clenched into fists behind his back. Each screen showed a different news station—all repeating the same damning headline.

“TRAFFICKING RING BUSTED IN HANGZHOU—LINKED TO RUI CORPORATION!”

His assistant, a man in a black suit with square glasses, stepped into the room with hesitation. “Chairman Song… the Financial Bureau froze three of our offshore accounts. And the Ministry of Security has dispatched a task force.”

Song Rui didn’t speak.

The silence was worse than shouting.

The man continued, “Our informants say someone leaked the files with exact timing—just as the virus hit the port systems. The syndicate is blaming you for exposure. The Lotus Clan is—”

The glass in Song Rui’s hand shattered.

“I KNOW,” he growled, turning sharply. Blood dripped from his palm. “Find out who did this. And I don’t want names—I want their hearts ripped out and nailed to my door.”

He turned back to the screens and paused at one still image.

Tianming, face shadowed by the warehouse lights, standing tall beside the human trafficking victims being loaded into ambulances.

It was him.

He was alive.

Song Rui’s eyes burned with a twisted satisfaction. “So the little rat finally shows his teeth.”

Back in Zhejiang, Tianming poured over a list of encrypted files Zhao had decrypted overnight. Each document opened a new layer of the Lotus Clan’s operations—front companies, safe houses, political connections, and something else.

A coded dossier labeled “Jade Protocol.”

“What is this?” Tianming asked, eyes locked on the screen.

Zhao scratched his head. “It’s old. At least twenty years. Mentions a failed experiment. Gene therapy, cognitive enhancement—something about ‘perfect candidates.’ Your mother’s name is in there. So is Lu Qingshan.”

“Military-grade enhancement?” Fang asked, leaning over his shoulder. “No wonder they tried to erase this.”

Zhao nodded. “And it gets worse. This protocol wasn’t just about soldiers—it was about bloodlines. They were trying to breed a new generation of leaders. Ones they could control.”

“And I was born during that window,” Tianming muttered.

Silence fell.

It was no longer a theory.

They hadn’t just wanted his mother gone.

They wanted what she protected.

Him.

Later that night, Tianming met with an old contact—Wu Jinhai, a retired intelligence agent who once worked with Lin Meixiu during her deep-cover years.

The man’s face was weathered, half his jaw replaced with metal from an explosion long ago. They met at a dimly lit tea house near the edge of Suzhou, the walls padded with soundproofing and the air thick with incense.

Wu stared at Tianming for a long time before speaking. “You look like her.”

“You knew my mother?”

Wu nodded once. “She was the best damn field agent we ever had. Brilliant. Ruthless. But she made one mistake.”

“What?”

“She fell in love.”

Tianming leaned forward. “With who?”

Wu sipped his tea. “Lu Qingshan. Before she knew what he really was.”

The words hit like a hammer.

Tianming’s breath caught. “That’s not possible. She was sent to take him down.”

“She was,” Wu confirmed. “And she almost succeeded. But when she realized she was pregnant, she fled. Disobeyed orders. Went dark. I helped her disappear.”

Tianming’s mind reeled. “So Lu Qingshan might be—”

“Your father.”

By the time he returned to the safehouse, dawn was bleeding over the horizon.

Fang was waiting by the door, arms crossed. “You disappeared.”

“I had to meet someone.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What did you find out?”

Tianming stepped past her and dropped into a chair. “Everything we thought we knew was a lie.”

Fang frowned. “Start talking.”

He looked up, eyes like steel. “Lu Qingshan… is my father.”

The words fell like a stone into water. Fang froze. Zhao, overhearing from the hallway, stopped mid-step.

“And that means,” Tianming continued, “I wasn’t just born into this war. I was made for it.”