Changqing and An Ruyi traded a look, a flick of flint in the dark. At that very moment, her second phone lit up like a cold fish breaching the surface. That was odd. Was the An family’s shadow already moving like wind through bamboo? Had those factions that swore they wouldn’t help suddenly flipped their faces overnight?

That was a snowflake’s chance in summer, so slim even An Ruyi didn’t buy it. Her doubt sat like a stone in a still pond.

If anyone was reliable, it’d be the forces under the An banner, a canopy of hands reaching across many layers like roots under old pines. Those fickle families couldn’t compare. She didn’t believe they’d catch a scent so fast.

Her father was famous for settling accounts after the harvest, a sickle that never missed. He wouldn’t spare them. Once the family moved, the wind wouldn’t leak from a single seam. Afterward, he’d peel their hides like bark, layer by layer.

So who was calling now, like a knock at midnight?

“Don’t tell me Young Master Li’s calling to beg,” Changqing said with a shrug and a smile, a leaf tossed on the stream. He was joking. Things had rolled too far for that. Even if he begged, what would a phone call change now?

From the moment An Ruyi called her father and asked for full support, everything had slipped past her fingers like rain. A few more hired killers from Young Master Li wouldn’t stop a great clan’s march. At this point, one man’s strength was an ant pushing a cart.

An Ruyi gave a helpless smile and nudged him aside, weariness like dusk under her eyes. She stood, took the phone. Unknown number, a blind doorway. With Changqing on guard, she sanded down her tired voice and took the call.

“Hello?”

“An Ruyi… you really won’t die, will you?”

The voice was young and barbed, like a thorned vine. Familiar. Too familiar. An Ruyi’s mouth curled, a blade behind a fan. Her voice lifted, sharp with feigned spite.

“Right back at you, Young Master Li. Maybe keep an eye on your dogs. The one smiling behind you might be the first to sink a knife in.”

That jab hit tender flesh. The fact she was alive was a slap to his killers and to him. He’d sent a flock of blades and lost them all. Calling now was like offering his cheek for another hit.

Changqing couldn’t help a smile, a bright spark in soot. Hearing his boss bite back was a long breath after a choke. He checked the stairs above and below. No gunmen ghosting up. He let out a quiet sigh, a ripple in a tight pond.

The opponent wasn’t simple. A call now wasn’t just a face for someone to strike. Maybe he’d sent something sharper to gamble the end. An Ruyi had just asked her family for aid. That thought walked like frost up Changqing’s spine.

He remembered Luo Huo upstairs. Those two short killers hadn’t come down. Either Luo Huo had ended them, or he’d pinned them like beetles. Changqing chose the bright edge of hope for his senior.

“An Ruyi, you really did as you pleased. Your bodyguard’s something. A sniper can’t drop you. Dwarf assassins can’t drop you. I send a pack of hitters with guns, still can’t kill you. Big talent, huh?”

Young Master Li was breathing hard, like a man running through smoke. Behind him, noise rose like a market in a storm. An Ruyi frowned. She had only Changqing left to move. Her original lines were cut like strings on a kite.

“Heh. What’s the point of talking now? Shouldn’t you be calling the Li family to save you? Why waste breath on me? Need a hand?” Her laugh was cold, a thin blade on ice.

She pushed him to talk and bleed. He’d cost her men and metal. She meant to cut meat off him before he died. She wasn’t a saint. She wouldn’t hand enemies a chance like flowers on a tray.

Young Master Li started to laugh, a cracked sound like a crow on a gallows. He coughed hard, then spoke again.

“Put me on speaker. I want that bodyguard of yours to hear.”

“Why? I don’t take orders from a loser who’s already fallen off his horse.”

A bad feeling crawled through her chest like ants under silk. She didn’t fear Changqing getting turned. If he were that man, she’d be dead already. So why ask for him now? Their paths had never crossed in any way that mattered.

“Will you, or won’t you?”

The threat in his voice was a rusted hook. It was the sound of a man at the cliff’s edge, toes over stone. Push him, and he’d throw stones at the sun. An Ruyi trusted her gut. She motioned Changqing over and tapped on speaker.

“Talk, Young Master Li. I’m listening.”

Changqing blinked at being called out by name. He stepped to An Ruyi’s side, eyes still combing the stairwells like a hunter scanning trees. A cold guess flashed by. Maybe that little riot he’d stirred a few days ago had put him on Li’s slate.

“Feeling cocky, aren’t you? You’re just a thug. Are you faster than bullets, lower-blood? Watch your tone when you talk to me.”

“I don’t know why you need to say that. You’re a smart man, right? Why copy those dumb TV villains? That’s just pathetic, Young Master Li. And no, you won’t turn me. Save it.”

The word “lower-blood” tasted like ash. Changqing’s face cooled to granite. Their mess was Li’s doing. Expecting a smile would be lunacy.

An Ruyi shook her head once, the gesture a falling petal. Losing and still posing—ugly as mud. Whatever punishment awaited him later, this act alone dragged the Li name through the gutter. If the Li family’s old patriarch saw his cherished grandson like this, disappointment would land like winter.

“Turn you? Not necessarily, Mr. Changqing. Let’s start with something you know. XX Province People’s Hospital. Associate Professor Lin’s patient. Want me to recite the ward number? Or do you want to hear a voice?”

On the other end, Young Master Li laughed, wild and small, like a rat dancing on a drum. The sound made Changqing’s stomach twist. He took the phone from An Ruyi, eyes asking if he could speak on his own blade.

Of course she agreed. She wasn’t all chest and no head. She knew exactly who he meant. Shock rose like cold water, and disgust followed like smoke. Clans crushed each other all the time, but going after a bodyguard’s family broke the rule everyone pretended to keep.

With Changqing’s sister in someone’s fist, heat flared in An Ruyi’s chest, anger laced with guilt. Big houses kept that rule to keep hearts warm. If you want loyalty, you guard their kin. Let someone snatch them under your nose, and it’s a slap across your own face.

Li broke the rule today. In the circle of great clans, he’d lose most of his support like leaves in a gale. And with his failure and his long-buried plan in tatters, his path to the main stage was ash.

“…Young Master Li, at least let me hear her voice. Don’t go too far.” Changqing’s voice came out cold as a winter well. He chained his temper. If Li had the details, then he was set to be cruel. You don’t chase a cornered wolf into a dead end. Push him now, and he’d do something rabid.

Changqing wouldn’t allow a scratch on his sister. If someone tried, he’d be crueler in return, like iron in a forge.

“Oh? Changqing. Lower-blood is lower-blood. Don’t even know how to beg? That’s your tone? Then we’re done here.”

His phone hand tightened, knuckles pale as bone. Behind Li’s swagger, he heard his sister’s voice, thin as a thread in wind.

“…Young Master Li, I’m begging you.”

He pushed his voice down, sanded it smooth, and asked “sincerely.” He didn’t mind bowing if it spared his sister a cut. Being held by the throat felt rotten, rotten enough to stir real killing intent. These scions might study grace, but bones still remember rank. When they’re cornered, they’re madder than street dogs. To them, people like Changqing aren’t people. They’re rungs on a ladder.

“Good. Then you come to your sister’s ward. Alone. Bring one person, and I’ll snap one of her fingers. Clear?”

His cruelty finally sat like a knife on a table. Changqing went very quiet, a pond under frost. He stayed that way until the line went dead.

Seeing his face, An Ruyi knew the floodgate had cracked. No matter the storm, Changqing usually wore a smile, warm as spring. At worst, mild as autumn. He rarely lost his temper. When he truly wanted blood, he went still as the hour before dawn.

He lowered the phone, slow as setting down a sword. He looked at An Ruyi, eyes solemn as night. Then he dropped to his knees like a pine bending under snow.

“Miss An, I beg you for one thing.”

An Ruyi’s eyes widened, starlight stiff in them. She swallowed words. Since she’d met him, no matter the pit, Changqing had never knelt to anyone. This single kneel struck her chest like thunder. A knot of dread tightened like a rope.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Lilith and Aileen’s mortal faces were being “threatened” by these ordinary men, ants waving fire. They traded a glance, a quiet current. To avoid twisting this world’s weave, they chose to comply, wearing human skin and human fear. Under the show of agitation, their thoughts brushed like wings.

“Lilith, that feeling of a spatial rift is getting stronger. You feel it?”

Even Aileen felt the Tianyan Barrier shifting, plates grinding under the sea. Mortals might miss the quake, but those with power could hear the world breathe. So she asked.

“Of course I feel it. A big event’s about to break over this world like a storm front. Master should be stepping into the key moment. That ignorant fool just threatened Master of this world. What comes next… will probably be dramatic.”

Lilith agreed with Eileen’s judgment; as a co-creator of the Tianyan Barrier, the upheaval hit her like a storm beating on a bronze bell.

It struck her harder than Eileen, as if the world moved on a progress bar and she was the one watching its glow inch.

A tight helplessness pressed first; inside this sealed sky, she couldn’t tug that bar forward, like a swimmer against a locked tide.

Even so, Lilith read every shift, like rings spreading on water, and moved with it, making sure no great missteps swelled into a storm.