The dirt and gravel of the yet-unpaved parking lot was extra crunchy, so Shay kept low, slow, and as quiet as she could. She hid behind a row of barrel-looking things (cement mixers?) and peered out toward the front of the construction site.

There was a trailer near the fenced-off entrance. Five cars were parked neatly beside it.

And... there was a small group of guards talking in Mandarin.

Lots of random machines. Lots of shadows cast by the directional standing lights. Lots of places to hide. She could have gotten closer to listen in-- but she remembered Aquila’s advice.

Keep out of sight.

Stay boring.

Easy~

Staying safe was more important than risking herself for conversation that may or may not have been relevant.

Shay tiptoed around the side and back of the building, guided by the glow of distant streetlights and the ambient light of the moon.

Ooh, a back door-- but just a frame with no actual door that might have been locked. Lucky.

She made her way into a small, empty room with a couple other door frames. The one leading into the main building was covered by a thin, plastic drape showing hazy lights and vague human shapes on the opposite side.

She heard a familiar voice speaking in Mandarin.

“--(isn’t that enough?) Gongzi?” they said, “(How many are there already?)”

“Why does it matter?” another voice responded in English. “We have hundreds of these things.”

Shay recognized that person too. She got on her knees and peeked under the plastic drape.

Grey pants and expensive formal shoes-- Kuen Luo, the Arrow Group bootlicker who tried to ask Tyvan for his ID.

Gaudy, red, expensive basketball shoes. Those belonged to Andrew Zhang, the youngest son of the Zhang family.

“Maybe you could spend more time training?” Kuen suggested.

“I spend enough time practicing on the tennis court,” Andy said.

“Gongzi... How about your martial arts training?”

“Not interested.” Andy said as he walked away, “I got plenty of guys willing to put their lives on the line for me.”

“How about for the health benefits?” Kuen said, following after him, “If you strengthen your chi, that may counter the effects of--”

“I’d rather walk into oncoming traffic,” Andy said.

Pff. Rude. Why would anyone say that to another human being?

They started talking about something else. Their footsteps grew faint.

After another few moments, Shay lifted the door cover from the bottom to see more into the next room.

She saw... metal pots.

Old, Chinese clay and metal pots of varying shapes and sizes. One was bigger than the rest, box-like, fully metal, and engraved with ‘lizard’ motifs.

The back of the empty building was sectioned off by a series of portable blue dividers-- the kind used in hospitals. Shay had seen them before at her school’s blood drive. She helped set them up.

There was a lustrous, darkwood box near the middle of everything, noToRiously clean of ash and building dust.

She got into a crouch, snuck over to it, and looked inside.

Pills.

Colorful, spherical-ish, martial arts pills, like she’d read about in her light novels...

If the fiction was an imitation of real life, high-grade pills were supposed to have a sweet, intoxicating scent. But the ones in the box, the first pills she’d encountered in real life, had a pungent, TCM smell.

The scent wasn’t enough to make her gag, but she definitely felt bad for anyone who needed to take one.

The Arrow Group was making pills... which meant the pots were pill forges.

But only one small box? That didn’t match the number of forges and the amount of leftover charcoal ash. But Andy said there were hundreds of them? Where were the rest?

And why would the Arrow Group be forging pills in such a suspicious place?

--not in someone’s home... or a rented-out office...

Her grandfather would probably have something to say about it.

Shay took Aquila’s camera out of her side bag...

Oh-- she made sure the flash was off.

She put her eye to the viewport. She snapped a picture of the pills and their forges.

The click sound was almost deafening amidst the silence.

She lowered the camera...

The mechanical churning of the tiny printer almost seemed to echo in the mostly-empty building.

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“Good evening, Miss Song.”

Shay glanced up.

Kuen Luo! Silver suit! Oh, no!

He snatched the camera out of her hands-- with the photograph still printing!

He smashed it against the wall and it burst into bits of plastic and fragmented computer chips.

Heart pounding. Loud in her ears. Breath held. Shay turned to run.

Her wrist got caught-- Kuen’s grip was so tight, she let out an ugly grunt of pain.

But-- but that was fine! She knew Tae Kwon Do!

Shay kicked at Kuen’s leg. He blocked.

But that let her plant her feet down and punch him in the chest.

She was free! And she had the momentum!

--so she did the Tae Kwon Do thing!

She leapt up, spun around, and landed a solid back kick against Kuen’s chest.

It was amazing.

She hadn’t practiced in years but all that adrenaline somehow worked out in her favor!

Kuen took a step back... then he rubbed at the shoeprint on his shirt.

...So a perfect kick from a 5’2” high-school girl wasn’t enough to knock an actual martial artist down.

“That stance... is that Korean boxing?” he said, “Aren’t you Chinese?”

Shay pursed her lips.

She turned again to run for her life.

Something hit her side.

She hit the ground, hard, tumbling over.

Breathless.

Struggling to breathe.

Struggling to remember where she was-- what she was doing.

The side of her leg felt raw, even through her jeans. Her arm and elbow stung.

She heard the sound of something heavy and metallic being dragged toward her.

Then she heard a ‘hup’ from Kuen Luo as he lifted it off the ground.

----------------------------------------

Kuen Luo brought the sledge hammer down, full force on the skull of Xue of the Song family.

The hammer struck a barrier, bouncing with a dull clang.

A thin film of white, silken light shone over the girl’s head-- lasting not even a breath before fading into nothingness.

“Che.”

Kuen grit his teeth, tossing the hammer away.

He observed the girl, confirming that the impact robbed her of consciousness. However, the Song girl having a protective artifact had frustrating implications.

Such artifacts were exceedingly rare in the modern era. Song Wei must have doted on her greatly.

If she were killed and the Song family asked for reparations, he would be surrendered without hesitation. A mere pawn from the Luo family was the Zhang family’s ideal sacrifice.

Still... what the Song child had discovered made her existence problematic.

Allowing her to return with that information could spark a war-- one too soon for the Zhang family’s plans. The probability of him being blamed for that was... not small.

Perhaps she could be stowed at one of their safehouses for a time? Or moved out of the country? Just long enough for her family to fall...

But with the stakes involved, he still needed the permission of someone from the main family, or his life might be forfeit, anyway.

Kuen closed his eyes and sighed. The smartest thing to do would be to kill the girl and flee, himself. But if anything happened afterward, the Zhang family would sacrifice his brother or his parents.

Some of his men came to investigate the commotion.

--“(Senior Brother Luo?)”

--”(What’s happened?)”

--”( Who is this? She’s just a kid.)”

Kuen shook his head and gave them two simple orders.

“(Tie her up with a rope. Take her bag away.)”

He walked off without waiting for a response. He hoped the young master would hear him out.

He found Young Master Andrew in a sectioned off area at the opposite side of the building. He was engaging in vices that would bring shame to his family. Young masters had been squandering their family legacies since the days of Ancient China.

He sat with a group of his similar-aged peers, drinking alcohol; inhaling the smoke of wretched, harmful herbs; engrossed in uncensored pornography...

It was an abhorrent sight, Kuen seeing his junior martial brothers willfully and inconsolably harming their chi. Their sect provided them with pills and training, strong bodies and stronger teachers. But what use was a thick shell if they insisted on filling their insides with trash?

Such was Kuen’s fate. As a son of the subservient Luo family, the best he could do for a son of the main family was advise.

He bowed and saluted, “Gongzi.”

“What the hell do you want, Luo?” Andrew said, “If you’re gonna lecture me about martial arts again--”

Kuen kept his head bowed, “We’ve captured a young woman. Her name is Xue of the--”

Andrew sat up, suddenly sober. “Xue YAN? You did wHaT to Xue Yan??”

Kuen narrowed his eyes, righting his posture. That wasn’t the reaction he expected.

Still, it was better than what he feared. If his young master had taken interest in the Song child’s unconscious state... No. He’d kill her before he’d allow his young master to commit such a sin.

He cleared his throat before continuing, “The girl discovered the pill forges. We cannot allow this information to reach Song Wei.”

“Fuck old man Song!” Andrew shouted, “That girl-- she has a god-damned shadow protector!”

A shadow protector? Was he talking about her driver? At a glance, he seemed to have some martial skill, but not so much that he was a concern.

Young Master Andrew, however, did not share his opinion.

“Did you really think I got hospitalized from falling down some fucking stairs?”

Kuen chose not to answer that question.

“That guy’s EYES!” the young master screamed, “They fucking GLOW!!!”

They did what? Kuen was fairly sure he misunderstood. The English word glow must have had an alternate meaning. The Song family didn’t practice ocular arts.

“(Calm down, young master,)” he urged. “(If the girl has a guardian, he’s not here.)”

Another commotion. A panicked rush of footsteps.

One of the guards from the front approached, waving his arms.

”Gongzi! Gongzi!” he said, “(Someone just pulled into the parking lot. It’s a black Gallivanter.)”

“Well, there you fuckin’ go,” Andrew cursed, “Luo, deal with it.”

Kuen nodded, shouting for his men to gather.

He started toward the front doors but stopped when he sensed his young master following.

“Gongzi...”

“I ain’t going anywhere-- I’m not stupid, Luo. I’m just gonna take a look through the windows."