“We got the intel, Young Master Lin.” The old butler stood crisp in a suit, hair neat as combed frost, face sharp as cold steel, and he handed a file fast as a dart.
As Lin Fan’s fingers brushed the packet, the wrapper split like brittle bark, bursting into shreds. Dust blossomed and thinned into the air like fading smoke.
“You’re really in a hurry, sir.” The butler pushed his glasses, joke flat as still water. Lin Fan didn’t bite; his focus tunneled like an arrow toward a mark. Through this, he could find the one he missed most.
After a few breaths, his hand clenched hard, knuckles bone-white like chalk. If the contents weren’t priceless, he’d crush it to ash. “Now! Rally everyone I have, right now!” he roared, and he sheathed the file in his jacket lining like a blade under cloth. The spy who got this went silent after sending it, a shadow swallowed by night. He guessed the worst, but this intel outweighed the cost like a mountain over a pebble. He’d spend four lives, five lives, and never blink.
The butler nodded and slipped away, a quiet flicker like a fish in dark water. He never asked; the young master did things right, then and now.
Watching him go, Lin Fan rubbed his brow, breath tight as winter air. He unlocked his phone and dialed a number long buried in dust like an old seal.
A voice brushed the line, a soft “Hello,” like a ripple on a still pond.
“Shaoyu, it’s been a while,” Lin Fan said, one hand braced on the window like a pillar. Urgency burned in his black eyes like storm-fire, but prep came first.
On the other end, a black-haired youth in a black shirt and jeans sat in a lakeside pavilion, emo-styled edge wrapped in quiet, sipping tea slow as drifting clouds.
“I need a favor.”
“Oh, I think I can guess,” Tang Shaoyu said, tone playful as a cat’s paw. “The kid who knew nothing now wants to play hero and save a beauty.”
“Good. You understand.” His face flushed warm as dusk. Time was a knife, carving seconds. “Bring your private unit to the spot; I’ll send coordinates. Call it a favor I owe.” He cut the call, clean as a blade.
“Hey, hey—” Beep-beep. The sudden busy tone left Tang Shaoyu blinking like a stunned bird. “Forget it. I’ll help.” He drained his cup in one swallow and rose, steps light as a breeze leaving the pavilion.
“Brother? You’re leaving already?” Across from him sat a girl lovely as spring blossoms. Her long hair was white with a warm wheat tint, and her blue eyes sparkled like lake-light.
“You help when you should help, right, Ling?” He stroked her hair, palm gentle as rain. She closed her eyes, content like a cat in sun. “I’m just a little unwilling,” Tang Ling pouted, lips berry-red. “That heartless guy.”
“Lin Fan used to be an emotional idiot,” Tang Shaoyu said, shrugging while he messaged his men, fingers tapping like drumbeats. “You hinted and hinted, and he still didn’t get it. He went out once, trained a bit, and found a girl. Good for him, good for you.” Thinking that, he felt a thread of relief, though any brother wants to punch the man who took his sister’s heart like a thief at dawn.
“This time we can’t use our public strength, or we’ll be poking the Organization’s rules like a hornet nest.” “Lin Fan will bring every private card he has, and he roped me in for insurance. Let’s hope the Ouyang Clan’s private unit isn’t too strong.”
After finishing his calls and saying goodbye to his sister, Tang Shaoyu headed for his private villa, stride swift as a hawk.
“Brother Yu, why’d you call us in such a rush?” Ten-odd men and women had gathered, loose in posture yet sharp as blades—his most elite squad.
“You all know Lin Fan,” Tang Shaoyu said, tone easy like talking to brothers by a fire. “His girl got grabbed by those Ouyang dogs. We’re going to pull her out.”
“Is it that blonde who made Ouyang Si eat dirt the other day?” one man asked, voice clipped like a snapped twig.
“Yeah, that girl.” Tang Shaoyu stripped off his tee and jeans and slid into a white high-tech combat suit, helm like a dragon knight’s mask. Blue-white liquid tubes pulsed under the metal like veins under ice.
“I’ve seen her—super cute!” a red ponytail girl squealed, hands pressed to her cheeks like warm petals. “Lin Fan’s way too lucky.”
“Is the young lady mad this time?” another guy started, and the rest of the men shot him looks like knives. Everyone knew—Tang Ling was the dream crush of every man in the Tang house.
“Enough. Head to the gate and board. We depart now,” Tang Shaoyu ordered, white mist hissing from his armor like steam from a stallion. “Lin Fan will send the plan on the plane.”
“I wish I had Brother Yu’s suit someday.”
“If you were the Tang heir, you could swing one.”
They bantered in loose lines and filed onto the plane, chatter rising and falling like sparrows.
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Sobs rose and broke like waves. Skin once porcelain-soft was crosshatched with crimson welts, and her doll-sweet face was bruised in ugly blues. Xiao Qianxue had lost time; she couldn’t tell how long she’d held on. Pain had dulled to frost, her nerves gone numb. Under their mad abuse, she could only hum mindlessly, no other response left.
Crack. The whip fell again. “Die, you little slut!” snarled the man Ouyang Si had just threatened; now he enjoyed her suffering most, like a jackal at a carcass.
“Enough,” someone muttered, eyes skittering away like leaves in wind. “Any ordinary girl would’ve died by now, maybe twice.”
“That’s plenty. I’m tired of swinging,” the man said, seeing her breathing out more than in. He dropped the whip with a clatter like cold iron and sat down.
“Uu...” Her golden hair lay in a snarled tumble, all life leached like autumn grass. She looked a heartbeat away from going still.
“You there,” a researcher popped into the dungeon, voice brisk like a squeaky hinge. “The doctor says the machine’s ready. Bring her up.” He clattered away, steps rapid as a woodpecker.
“Let’s go, brothers. Take her to the lab.”
Under their stares, the golden-haired girl was set on a research bed, her body a map of wounds. Blood had soaked the sheet red, a field of poppies under frost.
“Now let’s see you make trouble,” the doctor said, satisfaction curling like smoke. “Unconsciousness will help with the brainwash later. Get a treatment drip into her, or if she dies we lose everything.”
Several researchers approached, faces turned aside like clouds over the moon. They hooked up the drip, then hurried away, because looking hurt more than the sting.
“Lin Fan... save me...” Her voice fluttered out like a moth.
Tears slipped from her lashes like pearls, traced the bruised skin like rain on slate, and fell onto the blood-soaked sheet like pale petals.
