The Jiangnan High-Speed Rail Station was a hyper-modern monument of curved glass and white steel arches, sprawling across several square kilometers. At 1:45 PM, the main concourse was a sea of kinetic motionāthousands of travelers hustling between ticket terminals, corporate commuters adjusting their ties, and the steady, overlapping chime of automated departure announcements echoing off the high ceilings.
Lin Feng stood on an upper-level mezzanine terrace, leaning casually against a stainless-steel railing. He held a lukewarm paper cup of generic coffee, looking through a pair of cheap wire-rimmed glasses he had bought at a convenience store. To the security personnel or passing crowds, he looked entirely unassumingājust an ordinary university student passing the time between transfers.
But beneath the frames of his glasses, Lin Fengās gaze was fixed on the grand security terminal on the ground floor.
1:52 PM,
he noted, tracking the massive digital wall clock.
The tactical detachment's private corporate transport train from the capital has arrived at Platform 9. Zhao Kun doesn't take commercial cars; he uses the internal railway logistics lanes to bypass regional highway checkpoints.
Through his sharpened vision, Lin Feng spotted a sudden shift in the passenger flow near the restricted VIP exit gate. Six men stepped into the terminal. Unlike standard corporate bodyguards, they didn't wear suits. They wore dark gray tactical windbreakers over heavy, stab-resistant tactical turtle-necks, their movements highly coordinated, tight, and completely synchronized.
Walking at the absolute center of the formation was Zhao Kun.
The internal security director of the Zhao Group was a man in his late forties, his hair shaved down to a sharp, military buzzcut. He had a broad, weathered face with cold, deep-set eyes that seemed to possess a heavy, structural weight. He walked with an effortless authority, his hands loosely clasped behind his back as his gaze raked across the public concourse, treating the crowds of ordinary citizens like minor obstacles.
Lin Feng took a slow sip of his coffee.
Zhao Kun. In my past life, he was known as the 'Iron Warden of Jiangnan.' The first corporate enforcer to successfully integrate ancient martial techniques with modern kinetic ballistics. He wonāt even check the local precinct logs; heāll go straight for the throat.
Right on cue, two figures slipped through the bustling crowd near the public storage locker bay situated twenty meters from the VIP exit. Lin Feng recognized them immediately: they were covert operatives from the Jade Pavilion, dressed in matching tourist outfits but moving with too much mechanical grace to be ordinary civilians.
One of them casually brushed past a row of automated metallic lockers, smoothly sliding a small, heavily encrypted tracking tagāthe digital signature of the Jade Pavilionās variable frequency clonerāinto the ventilation slot of Locker 114.
The moment the operative stepped back into the crowd, the encrypted network router Lin Feng had established earlier flared with an automated notification.
Signal Broadcast Active: Serial Number X-4090 localized within Terminal 2 Locker Grid.
Zhao Kun stopped dead in his tracks.
The security director reached into his tactical windbreaker, pulling out a ruggedized, military-grade handheld scanner. The device's array screen flashed with a brilliant, pulsing red indicator, locking onto the precise radio-frequency signature of the stolen cloner used at the northern vault heist just hours prior.
"Director?" the lead tactical enforcer whispered, his hand instinctively dropping toward the hidden holster beneath his windbreaker.
"We have a localized match," Zhao Kun said, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that carried a subtle, terrifying vibration. "Grid Sector B, locker array. The cloner's internal transponder token just pinged our localized network. It's an active broadcast."
"Should we coordinate with the municipal transit police?"
"No," Zhao Kun commanded coldly, his eyes locking onto the locker bay. "The transit police belong to the public ledger. The assets stolen from our vault are proprietary. Move in. Code Black. If the target resists, eliminate them under the protocol of a terrorist threat."
The six enforcers fan out instantly, drawing their compact, suppressed tactical pistols from beneath their gray windbreakers with practiced, horrifying fluid efficiency. The travelers closest to them noticed the weapons and let out a collective, sharp gasp, the panic spreading across the concourse like a dropped glass pane.
"Step back! Clear the terminal!" one of the Zhao enforcers roared, flashing a silver corporate security badge that carried more weight in Jiangnan than a federal warrant.
But as the team converged on Locker 114, the automated glass doors of the terminalās western entrance hissed open.
Four men in deep crimson tactical suitsāthe elite strike team of the Jade Pavilion, explicitly deployed by Bai Qingxiāstepped into the concourse. They carried heavy, reinforced briefcase containers and held non-lethal, compressed-gas dart launchers openly in their palms.
The trap had sprung.
"Zhao Group enforcers! Stand down!" the lead Bai operative shouted, his voice amplified by a localized throat mic. "You are operating outside your corporate charter! The Jade Pavilion has structural jurisdiction over this terminal's electronic variance data!"
Zhao Kun didn't even look at the man. His eyes remained fixed on Locker 114. "The Bai family's dogs are remarkably fast today. They didn't just buy our telemetry; they brought their extraction team to the public square."
"Director, they're preparing a suppression array!" a Zhao guard yelled.
"Engage," Zhao Kun ordered simply.
The concourse erupted into absolute chaos. The suppressed pop of tactical firearms and the sharp hiss of compressed-gas launchers tore through the white steel arches. Travelers screamed, dropping their luggage and scrambling toward the emergency exits as glass shards from the overhead display monitors rained down onto the polished floor tiles.
High up on the mezzanine, Lin Feng watched the firefight unfold with a perfectly flat, detached expression.
The mishap of the vault alarm had been thoroughly redirected. The Zhao family believed the Bai family had orchestrated the midnight heist to secure the Mount Tai jade stones; the Bai family believed the Zhao family was launching an illegal, unprovoked corporate purge in a public transportation hub to hide their crumbling real estate variance data. The two giants were thoroughly locked in a bloody, resource-draining proxy war, completely blinding themselves to any third party.
Lin Feng tossed his empty coffee cup into a recycling bin. He turned away from the railing, his black hoodie pulled low as he walked down the rear service stairs, entirely moving against the flow of the panicked crowd.
The distraction will last at least forty-eight hours,
Lin Feng calculated, his internal Qi thrumming with immense, dense power within his
Dantian
.
Zhao Kun and Bai Qingxi will bleed each other's elite units dry in the streets of Jiangnan. By the time they realize Locker 114 contains nothing but a hollow tracking tag, I will have already consumed the remaining two spiritual stones.
He stepped out of the stationās southern exit, entering the cool, damp afternoon air. The countdown to the Great Awakening was still ticking, but the chessboard belonged entirely to him.