The gray dawn of Jiangnan was masked by heavy, weeping storm clouds by the time Lin Feng sneaked back into his university dormitory. The shared room was quiet, save for the synchronous, heavy snoring of his three roommates. On the floor by the bathroom, Lin Feng quietly peeled off his ruined, silt-caked clothes, scrubbing the black mud and industrial grime from his skin under freezing water.
As the cold water struck his chest, he looked down at his reflection in the stained bathroom mirror.
The transformation was subtle but profound. The slight slouch in his shoulders was gone, replaced by a straight, blade-like posture. His muscles weren't bulked up like a bodybuilderâs, but tightly bound, streamlined, and dense. Beneath the surface of his skin, a faint, translucent pearlescent sheen hummed with life before fading back into the appearance of ordinary mortal flesh.
Mortal Flesh Refinement, Stage 3 Peak,
Lin Feng thought, clenching his fist. A soft, explosive pocket of air popped in his palm from the sheer velocity of his grip.
A single night of hard labor and one premature Spiritual Seed, and Iâve already surpassed ninety percent of the martial artists who will try to manually open their meridians during the early weeks of the Awakening.
He dressed in clean, cheap clothesâa simple black hoodie and loose jeansâand sat cross-legged on his thin mattress. Instead of sleeping, he pulled out the items he had looted from Manager Zhou.
The corporate credit cards were useless to him for now; the moment he tried to swipe them, the Zhao Groupâs financial fraud department would trace the transaction grid back to Jiangnan. The silver electronic keycard emblazoned with the luxury logo of the
Zhao Group Inner Sanctum
, however, was a goldmine. It granted administrative access to the subterranean storage vaults of the Zhao Groupâs primary logistics hub in the city.
According to the timeline, that vault currently holds an uncatalogued crate of "Ancient Jade Ornaments" imported from an archaeological dig site near Mount Tai,
Lin Feng recalled, his eyes narrowing.
The corporate suits think theyâre just luxury antiques to display in the CEOâs office. They don't know that three of those jades are dormant Spiritual Stone Clusters, packed with raw, unrefined Qi.
But to infiltrate a high-security corporate logistics facility, Lin Feng needed specialized toolsâspecifically, a localized frequency cloner to bypass the keycardâs secondary biometric rotating algorithm. And for that, he needed cash. Black-market, untraceable cash.
He opened his cracked smartphone and navigated past the standard social media apps, opening a hidden, encrypted peer-to-peer browser network. In 2036, the "Deep Web" of Huaxia was filled with illegal weapon brokers, smugglers, and counterfeiters. But among the sea of mundane criminals, there was a single, highly exclusive data-broker forum known as the
Brocade Carp Network
.
Right now, it was just a high-end playground for corporate corporate spies and information thieves. In a year, it would evolve into the primary underground hub for independent cultivators trading dangerous secrets, illicit pills, and stolen cultivation inheritances.
Lin Feng created a brand-new, untraceable account. For his alias, he typed in two characters:
Xuanwu
âThe Black Tortoise.
He clicked on the localized Jiangnan forum board and posted a single thread titled:
[Classified Analysis] Geological Variance Data: Grid 04 â Jiangnan West District Excavation Anomalies.
Inside the locked, pay-walled post, Lin Feng typed out the exact geological coordinates he had memorized from Manager Zhouâs phone, along with a detailed technical breakdown of the sub-surface seismic readings that would occur over the next forty-eight hours. He didn't mention spiritual energy or the Awakeningâdoing so would make him look like a lunatic. Instead, he framed the data using advanced corporate terminology, proving that the bedrock beneath the West District site contained a highly volatile, highly valuable lithium-ion composite fracture.
He set the unlocking price for the data thread at
50,000 Yuan
.
To an ordinary citizen, fifty thousand yuan was half a year's salary. To a corporate rival of the Zhao Group looking for an excuse to aggressively short the company's real estate stock or launch a hostile regulatory audit, it was pennies.
Lin Feng shut his phone, laid his head back against his pillow, and closed his eyes. He didn't check the thread. He didn't need to. He knew the structural greed of the Jiangnan corporate landscape too well.
Three hours later, the sharp, rapid vibration of his phone against his wooden desk woke him.
Lin Feng sat up instantly, his mind completely clear, devoid of the morning grogginess that plagues ordinary mortals. He swiped open the screen.
Notification: Your account "Xuanwu" has received a confirmed escrow deposit of 50,000 Yuan. Funds have been converted into decentralized digital currency and laundered through three international shell routing nodes. Current Balance: 49,500 Yuan (After Forum Commission).
A thin smile played on Lin Fengâs lips.
Hook, line, and sinker.
He clicked on the transaction details. The entity that had purchased the locked data used a highly encrypted corporate handle:
The Jade Pavilion
.
Lin Fengâs eyes flashed with a hint of nostalgia.
The Bai Family Group.
In the future timeline, the Bai Family was the bitter, mortal enemy of the Zhao Group. While the Zhao family focused on brutal, paramilitary expansion and corporate enforcement, the Bai family specialized in intelligence gathering, spiritual medicine distribution, and high-tech cultivation research. The two mega-corporations would fight a bloody, decade-long proxy war for control of Jiangnan Provinceâs spiritual nodes.
By selling the West District data to the Bai family, Lin Feng hadn't just secured his early training funds; he had intentionally dropped a lit match into a powder keg. The Bai family would immediately deploy their own corporate covert teams to verify the geological variance at the construction site. When they found the Zhao Groupâs elite security force beaten half to death and the equipment ruined, the Bai family would assume the Zhao Group was desperately hiding a massive mineral discovery.
The two giants would tear each other apart trying to secure an empty, drained mud pit, leaving Lin Feng completely forgotten in the shadows to pursue his next target.
Suddenly, a private notification popped up on the bottom of his screen. It was a direct message from
The Jade Pavilion
.
The Jade Pavilion: "The structural telemetry you provided is ninety-five percent accurate based on our satellite verifications. However, the seismic core analysis is missing the final baseline reading. Who are you? Where did you obtain internal Zhao Group telemetry?"
Lin Feng tapped the keyboard calmly, his expression entirely detached.
Xuanwu: "A scavenger doesn't explain where he finds the bones. If you want the final baseline reading, be at the Antique Market on Phoenix Street tonight at 11:00 PM. Bring a military-grade variable frequency cloner, model structural-X, and an additional twenty thousand yuan in cash."
There was a long, tense pause on the other end of the encrypted chat. The digital typing indicator flickered three times before a response finally cut through.
The Jade Pavilion: "Deal. Come alone."
Lin Feng threw his phone onto his mattress and stood up, walking over to the window. Outside, the rain had finally stopped, and the early morning sun was breaking through the high-rise skyscrapers of modern Jiangnan, casting long, golden reflections across the wet asphalt below.
"A mishap turns into chaos, and chaos turns into profit," Lin Feng whispered, his eyes mirroring the vast, sprawling concrete jungle before him. "The corporate kings think they control the chessboard. They have no idea Iâve already taken their first piece."