Nest of Clamor

The murky stench of rust, engine oil, and sour sweat flooded Xiang Yi's nostrils, tightening his throat. The wind and snow atop the Kunlun Mountains seemed to still howl through the gaps in his bones, but the filth and chaos at the city's edge wrapped around him like an oil-soaked net, heavy and suffocating. He stood in an abandoned industrial district on the outskirts. Before him lay a cluster of warehouses like the carcasses of steel beasts. Warehouse Seven, their destination, crouched like a silent monster lurking amid dust and shadow.

Lanling King slipped soundlessly out from the shadows along the warehouse wall, dropping to one knee. His movements carried a nearly imperceptible stiffness—the wound beneath his left shoulder blade still hurt. Like a wall of shadow, he positioned himself precisely half a step behind Xiang Yi, hawk-like eyes sweeping over the empty street and distant lights.

"My lord, Warehouse Seven has been surveyed." Lanling King's voice was low and steady, rough with exhaustion. "A Cold War military-industrial remnant. The main structure is intact. There is a deep air-raid shelter underground—impact-resistant, with excellent natural shielding. No official surveillance nearby. Police response time... exceeds fifteen minutes." He paused, his voice sinking further. "...Mister Ming and Mister Guiguzi are in terrible condition."

Xiang Yi's heart abruptly clenched. He strode through the warehouse entrance, where a stronger stench of decaying rust and dust rushed at him, mixed with a faint... sickly-sweet rot.

In the corner of the warehouse, the sight was horrifying.

Ming Shiyin sat cross-legged, the divination disk floating before his knees dim as a dying candle in the wind. Every labored breath made his body ripple violently, like a reflection in water on the verge of vanishing. A viscous dark-red line of blood, thick as ink, wound down from the corner of his tightly shut lips and dripped onto the dusty concrete floor. The drops did not immediately seep into the dust. Instead, they briefly gathered, giving off a faint sickly sweetness, before dimming and being covered by dust. His heart's essence was burning away.

Guiguzi sat withered across from him, his face ashen. Countless Xuan Weizi particles, fine as dust, intermittently spilled from his shriveled fingertips, gathering into a dim band of light that wound around Ming Shiyin. Yet the light band itself was like the wick of a dying candle. Xuan Weizi particles constantly peeled away, turning to ash and drifting off; each annihilation took a trace of light from Guiguzi's eyes. He was using his own essence to keep Ming Shiyin alive. Xiang Yi could even "hear" the soundless, faint tearing of that essence, scraping against his already fragile mind and bringing sharp pain.

The price! Cold, tangible, a price heavy enough to make the soul tremble!

Xiang Yi's fingers tightened instantly, his knuckles turning white as they dug deep into his palm. The cold pain could not suppress the anxiety and tearing agony surging through his chest. The mental fractures left by the Ancient One still churned inside his skull, and every breath tugged at a dull ache. At the edges of the warehouse before his eyes, fine golden static kept flashing, outlining the Ancient One's calm, unruffled face. Every flicker brought a pain like ice spikes piercing his brain.

Instinctively, he gripped the dagger at his waist—the token Lanling King had brought upon his first arrival. The cold metal edges pressed into his palm, while a faint but steady warmth seeped into his exhausted, splitting nerves like an undying beacon in the abyss, preserving his wavering clarity and the courage to decide. It was like an invisible string, pulling taut the nerves that were about to snap. In his haze, his fingertips seemed to sense a faint resonance of energy—the fragment of Lanling King's pure, sharp will to protect him unto death when he had knelt and sworn allegiance.

"Whatever it costs, stabilize them." Xiang Yi's voice was hoarse and hard. His gaze swept toward the depths of the warehouse as he forcibly suppressed his turbulent thoughts. "The funds?"

"They have been secured through Stardust Holdings. We only need the original owner, Hudson, to sign." Lanling King handed over newspaper clippings and an intelligence summary. "Hudson is deeply obsessed. He believes the Cold-Forging Technology that built his fortune was stolen by Stark engineer Ivan Vanko and used to optimize the Arc Reactor casing. With no hard evidence, Stark's legal team countersued him for commercial defamation and bankrupted him. The warehouse is still piled with discarded parts bearing [STARK IND]. His hatred runs to the bone."

Xiang Yi's gaze passed over Hudson's haggard, resentful face in the clippings, skimmed across Ivan Vanko's name, and settled on the pile of scrap parts in the depths of the warehouse, reflecting a dim, cold gleam. A trace of icy calculation flashed through his eyes.

"Resentment... especially venomous hatred toward a giant like Stark, makes an excellent smokescreen," he murmured, weighing the words. "...And a potential fuse."

His fingers unconsciously tightened again around the dagger's rough hilt. The shadow beside him gathered, and A Ke's figure silently emerged. Her presence was more still and heavy than it had been in Kunlun, while the sheath of her Shark-Tooth Knife glimmered with a ghostly chill.

"The target is Joey. 'Old Smokestack,' a dock foreman who has been leading the residents' agitation." Lanling King's voice was cold. "His only daughter has Werner Syndrome, a rare genetic disease, and urgently needs a huge sum of money. The Viper Gang used that against him, forcing him to take the lead in causing trouble."

A Ke's icy eyes remained without ripples. She nodded, and her figure silently melted into the night beyond the door.

Within the oppressive warehouse, the scent of action flickered and vanished. Soon—

Dawn had not yet fully broken, and gray light seeped into the slums.

Joey dragged his exhausted body home and pushed open the creaking door. A chill seized him in an instant—a bone-deep, freezing terror. A throwing knife thin as a cicada's wing, its blade glowing faint blue, had pinned a folded note precisely through the spot just inside the doorknob where his fingers were about to touch! Beneath the note lay a swollen manila envelope.

His heart pounded wildly. Trembling, he pulled out the deathly throwing knife and unfolded the note. A single line of cold printed text read:

"Take the money and keep quiet. Your daughter's medical records are in the third row of the Sacred Heart Hospital archives. Make one more sound, and next time the knife goes through the records."

The envelope was heavy, stuffed with thick bundles of crisp new U.S. dollars. Beside it lay a metal coin whose edge had been neatly cut in half—the twisted, entwined viper emblem on it was clear, and the severed edge was smooth as a mirror.

Joey's face went deathly pale, cold sweat soaking through his old undershirt. He suddenly clenched the envelope and note as if they were branding irons, staring in terror at the broken serpent mark. Overwhelming fear and the absurd sensation of escaping death seized him. As though his bones had been pulled from his body, he slid down the doorframe and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air.

From the shadows nearby, A Ke watched Joey's pathetic collapse with cold indifference. She counted three heartbeats, confirming that nothing remained in the man's eyes but pure terror, enough to crush reason; there was no longer any resistance or luck left in him. The threat had been silent, precise, striking the two most vulnerable places in his soul. She habitually flicked her hand. A strange sensation lingered on her fingertips—cold, slick, and carrying faint mental corrosion, like touching venomous snake scales freshly pulled from rotten mud. Disgust flashed through her eyes. She rubbed her fingers hard against her dark clothes again and again until the chill vanished.

When A Ke's form gathered in the shadowed corner of the warehouse, her cold voice broke the silence. "The source of the noise has been dealt with." Her gaze swept over the discarded Stark parts piled in the center. "I left half of the Viper mark. The energy... was a little dirty." The final sentence was a clear warning.

Xiang Yi's expression sharpened. "When does the construction crew arrive?" He turned to Lanling King.

"This afternoon. But, my lord..." Lanling King's brows furrowed more deeply as he looked at the two people barely holding on in the corner. "The underground work requires heavy machinery. Vibration and noise cannot be avoided. Mister Guiguzi's condition... I fear he cannot sustain long-term, large-scale Cognitive Interference. The longer it takes, the greater the risk of exposure."

The price followed like a shadow, pressing closer with every step!

Xiang Yi's fingers locked around the dagger at his waist, that faint cold warmth like the only guiding thread in darkness. The pain in his skull, the golden static before his eyes, the tragic sight in the corner, A Ke's warning... the immense pressure was like a tangible shackle. He closed his eyes, forcing his rapidly spinning mind to squeeze out its last clarity beneath the crushing weight.

The golden static in his skull flashed madly, and agony tore at his consciousness. But the dagger at his waist suddenly pulsed with greater force, its faint warmth instantly piercing the chaos—an idea struck like lightning through darkness: exploit a loophole in the rules, turning continuous expenditure into precise, critical points. He instinctively tightened his grip on the dagger. Its cold edges dug deeply into his palm, and that faint warmth illuminated his shattered thoughts.

"Prioritize soundproofing the underground entrance and core area. Spare no cost—use the highest-grade sound-absorbing materials. Divide the construction crew into three shifts. Let the men rest, but keep the machines running. Compress the schedule." His words came fast, his thoughts abnormally clear under pressure. "At the same time, have Far East Construction 'accidentally' discover the air-raid shelter while excavating the surface layer! Immediately apply to the city for a night construction permit under the pretext of reinforcing old facilities to prevent a collapse that could endanger residents!" He snapped his eyes open, sharpness born of desperation flashing within them. "Have Mister Guiguzi concentrate his remaining strength on two points. First, implant the thought of 'the situation is urgent; special cases require special handling' into the approving officials' subconscious. Second, mislead any night patrols approaching the site with 'everything here is normal; no need to stop.' The objective: ultra-short, high-intensity mental interference only at the instant of approval and points of contact with patrols! Turn the enormous, unbearable pressure of continuity into precise operations at several key points!"

It was a desperate gamble that would squeeze out Guiguzi's last value, with virtually no room for error. The price... had to be driven as low as possible! Xiang Yi's knuckles turned white from rubbing the dagger.

"And Hudson?" Lanling King asked.

Xiang Yi looked outside the warehouse, toward the middle-aged man slumped beside a battered pickup truck, his hollow eyes burning with hatred.

"Tell Mister Guiguzi," Xiang Yi said in a cold, calm voice, carrying the cruelty of one who manipulated hearts, "to plant a Xuan Weizi Mark in his deepest despair and resentment. I want to know how the Viper Gang is bleeding him dry. More importantly, I want to sense exactly... when this bone-deep hatred will burn away his reason and turn him into a... useful piece." Resentment was fuel, but it was also a double-edged blade. Used well, it could ignite trouble for Stark and divert attention; if it ran out of control... the first thing it would contaminate would be this Nest of Clamor of theirs.

Lanling King left to carry out the order. Xiang Yi stood alone in the middle of the empty warehouse, its floor covered in thick dust. Decaying steel, engine oil, and dust blended into the suffocating backdrop of this Nest of Clamor. The dagger at his waist continued to pulse steadily, cold with a hint of warmth, becoming his only mental anchor in this new battlefield, this new cage.

He took a deep breath. Murky, stagnant air filled his lungs with the tangible reality of the mire. There were no seas of clouds over Kunlun here, only a steel prison and countless eyes hidden in grimy darkness. Every step he took stirred dust, which rolled through the bleak daylight seeping in through broken windows, as though he were stepping into the slowly rotting entrails of a steel beast. Danger lay dormant; crisis lurked everywhere.

Yet the cold mark pulsing at his waist reminded him clearly: a cage could also sharpen the claws that tore apart darkness.

"Begin work."

Xiang Yi uttered those two cold words, turned, and strode resolutely into the deeper shadows of the warehouse.

Behind him, an extremely faint yet nauseatingly dense gray mist—the Xuan Weizi Mark, seemingly condensed from the deepest resentment—quietly rose from where Hudson had collapsed outside the warehouse. Like an invisible venomous snake, it slid across the threshold. The air along its path became thick and oppressive, while dust moved without wind and formed tiny vortices. At last, it merged into the deepest shadow cast by the pile of discarded parts bearing [STARK IND] in the warehouse corner, where it lurked and grew. The instant the mark fused with the shadow, several poorly connected old lightbulbs nearby crackled. Their light abruptly dimmed and flickered, as if their energy had been drained away by hatred. Ming Shiyin, unconscious in the corner, imperceptibly furrowed his brow for an instant, as though the filthy negative emotion had stabbed his remaining spiritual senses. The price followed like a shadow, and the exploited hatred had also planted the seeds of contamination and backlash.