Family Crisis

The icy night wind carried dust and the rancid stench of rotting vegetation from deep within the city, pouring continuously through the smooth, mirror-like hole in the hospital room wall and brushing against Xiang Yi's sweat-soaked, chilled bangs. The monotonous ticking of the heart monitor was endlessly amplified in the empty, deathly silent room. Every beep was like an icy coin smashing viciously against the frayed ends of Xiang Yi's nerves, resonating with every fluctuation of the numbers on the faint blue screen within his mind!

[Mental Power (Lv.0): 105/110 (Draining: -1 point/minute)]

→

[104/110]

The number fell slowly but relentlessly! With every tiny drop, it felt as if an invisible carving blade slashed across the edge of Xiang Yi's vision, leaving behind another fine, web-like black crack. It was as though the boundaries of his consciousness were silently crumbling away along with his mental power! The instant the number dropped below 100, a sharp, continuous high-frequency ringing erupted in his left ear, like a red-hot steel needle driven deep into his cochlea! When it fell below 90, half his face was instantly covered in countless fine, icy pricks, numb to the point of losing all sensation!

What was draining away was not merely a cold numerical value, but the lifeline maintaining the existence of that lethal blade suspended in the darkness! It was the only power he could grasp for himself in this perilous Marvel Universe!

His eyes were tightly shut. His body seemed to be sinking into an icy sea, yet his consciousness clung like the toughest spider silk to a presence dozens of kilometers away, one that had slithered like a venomous snake into the cold shadows of the city's steel forest—Lanling King.

The instant the shared vision was forcibly activated—

Boom—!!!

A violent dizziness exploded in the depths of Xiang Yi's mind like the Big Bang! Two utterly different torrents of perception collided, churned, and tore at each other madly!

Before his eyes was the cold, pale ceiling of the hospital room, while the thick, pungent scent of disinfectant filled his nostrils. Yet deep within his consciousness was the soul-wrenching disorientation of high-speed movement! Whenever Lanling King ghosted between the shadows of towering buildings, Xiang Yi felt as if an invisible giant hand had forcibly dragged his organs from his body, only to brutally stuff them back into a warped and mangled cavity the next instant! The flowing neon lights below twisted into viscous, corrosive streams of colored asphalt, smearing across his consciousness! Car horns warped into the shrill wails of dying Beasts from an abyss! The blurry, swaying faces of pedestrians became shattered mirror shards, spraying wildly across the edges of his vision!

Lanling King moved soundlessly like a phantom with no physical form, slipping through the reflections on icy glass curtain walls, the dark backs of massive billboards, and the deepest darkness of narrow ventilation ducts. Every abrupt stop and instantaneous burst of movement brought violent tremors at the level of the soul, as though he were being repeatedly hammered by an invisible sledgehammer!

An icy warning stabbed into his mind. The blue screen fluctuated violently as scarlet words silently emerged:

[Warning! The host's mental endurance has reached its limit! Shared perception is increasing mental power consumption! Current drain rate: -1.5 points/minute!]

The back of his head felt as if it were being repeatedly pierced by a red-hot iron spike! Xiang Yi clenched his already mangled lower lip, and the heavy stench of blood spread through his mouth. His nails dug deep into the flesh of his palms, and that sharp pain became his only anchor against the sensation of his soul being torn apart! He could not disconnect! He had to control this blade! He had to see the enemy clearly!

The shared vision finally stabilized with great difficulty. Lanling King clung soundlessly to the cold, smooth glass exterior of the Hongyuan Trading building like a deadliest gecko. Beneath him was a drop of dozens of meters. The night wind cut like knives, producing a faint wail as it swept over the Shadow Bracer. His cold gaze pierced through the mask like a sniper scope's crosshairs, firmly locking onto the brightly lit Chairman's Office on the top floor.

Inside the office, the bloated Liu Jinbiao was sunk deep into a wide leather executive chair, spitting as he ranted into the phone. Every fold on his greasy face was crammed with vicious delight.

"...Hahaha! Even if Xiang Haishan doesn't die this time, he'll be skinned alive! I'll smash his bones and boil them for oil! I already made the arrangements at the tax bureau crystal clear. The evidence chain is so perfect no one can pick out a single flaw! Just wait and watch Xiang Group's wreck of a ship sink to the bottom!... That juicy piece of the old city district will be in our pockets sooner or later!..."

Xiang Yi's pupils shrank to pinpoints! Icy magma surged and roared through his veins! So it really was this greedy fat pig!

Lanling King moved. His figure blended into the reflection on the glass curtain wall itself, ignoring the barrier of reinforced glass as he silently phased through it.

[Phasing (Active): Temporarily pass through solid obstacles (long cooldown). Cost: Mental Power -3]

Inside the office, Liu Jinbiao lowered his head and clumsily trimmed a cigar with a gleaming golden cutter—

A nearly transparent outline slipped soundlessly from the deepest shadow behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains, as precise as a clock hand moving to the millisecond! Its target was the heavy alloy safe in the corner, its faint blue indicator light flashing!

Serpent-like fingers silently brushed over the cold combination dial. The faint black aura around their tips seeped like a living thing into the intricate lock. Only three seconds passed! With a soft click, the heavy alloy door sprang open soundlessly, as though an invisible hand had flicked it!

Bundles of cash, gleaming gold bars, and rolled-up property deeds were piled inside. Resting conspicuously atop them was a kraft-paper document pouch marked with the scarlet words: "Xiang Group Top Secret"!

Lanling King's hand, steady as a precision mechanical arm and carrying the silence of death, reached toward that fate-deciding document pouch.

The instant his fingertips were about to touch it—

Buzz!!!

An extremely faint yet cold, viscous wave of malicious energy, as tangible as a swamp, suddenly rippled through the shared perception like a poisoned stone thrown into a deep pool! Lanling King's movement stalled for an almost imperceptible instant!

Those faint blue eyes locked on at once! His gaze pierced through the document pouch and nailed itself onto an inconspicuous black metal emblem buried deep inside the safe beneath it! At the center of the emblem was a snarling Beast head, ringed by ten cold, heavy metal loops linked end to end!

The Ten Rings Syndicate!

That cursed name pierced Xiang Yi's thoughts like an ice awl steeped in deadly poison! The moment the energy fluctuation from the Beast-headed Ten Rings Emblem reached him, the shared vision was instantly stained with a viscous, nauseating blood-red hue! A tangible reek blending burning sulfur, piled-up rotten flesh, and rusty blood flooded brutally into Xiang Yi's nostrils and throat through the sensory link like lethal poison gas!

A massive, suffocating sense of foreboding wrapped around his heart like an icy giant python! This was no longer simple business sabotage! It was a catastrophe capable of swallowing the entire Xiang family!

"Get the evidence! Withdraw immediately!!" Xiang Yi's will stabbed viciously into his soul-link with Lanling King like a red-hot branding iron, carrying the desperate urgency of approaching death!

Lanling King's fingers did not hesitate in the slightest. Like a viper's tongue, they instantly pinched the edge of the document pouch and yanked it free!

The instant the pouch left the safe and escaped the emblem's range—

Sizzle—!!!

Deep inside the safe, the dormant Ten Rings Emblem suddenly erupted with blinding scarlet light! An invisible, high-frequency oscillating energy pulse spread outward in an instant like a ring-shaped shockwave, sweeping through the entire space!

Buzz—!!!

Every light in the office abruptly went out! A shrill alarm capable of tearing apart the soul erupted madly from every corner and every inch of the building's walls, like countless awakened ghosts shrieking in unison! Blood-red warning lights flashed frantically, instantly turning the luxurious office into a bloody vision of hell!

The blue screen in his mind trembled violently as scarlet warning messages cascaded down:

[Ten Rings energy marker activated! Alarm triggered across the entire area!]

[High-intensity lifeforms rapidly approaching! Target lock in progress! Threat Level: Fatal!]

A death warrant!

Boom!!! Crash—!!!

The heavy metal fire door to the emergency staircase exploded inward as though high explosives had been planted behind it! Twisted metal fragments scattered in every direction like Death's scythes!

The cover over the elevator shaft was savagely hurled upward by an unreasonable and terrifying force from below, slamming into the ceiling with an earsplitting boom!

Three shadows, as though they had crawled from a fissure in the deepest hell, burst forth like three black bolts of death lightning. They carried a scorching wave of pungent burning sulfur and bloodthirsty killing intent so thick it made one vomit!

Their movements lacked the stiffness joints should have possessed, flowing with eerie smoothness like puppets controlled by invisible strings! Their feet landed without a sound, yet left faint, charred sulfur marks still radiating heat on the polished tile floor! Beneath the black masks covering their lower faces, pairs of inhuman eyes glowed dark red like burning coals! Elite assassins of the Ten Rings Syndicate!

Within the shared vision, Lanling King's figure instantly merged into the shadow of the wall, the document pouch pressed tightly against his back. But the three icy, bone-deep killing intents clung to him like parasites, charging forward at speeds far beyond human limits! The distance was rapidly shrinking!

"Lose them! At any cost!!" Xiang Yi's will roared soundlessly in his mind! His heart hammered wildly in his chest, nearly smashing through his ribs! Under the double fatal alarms and crushing mental pressure, his mental power cascaded away like an avalanche!

The scarlet drain-rate display on the blue screen jumped frantically:

[Warning! Mental Power overload! Peak drain rate: -4.8 points/minute!]

→

[85/110... 80/110... 75/110...]

The rapidly shifting images in the shared vision were like a blender from hell! Every time Lanling King made an unnatural change in direction that defied physical limits, Xiang Yi felt as if an invisible iron hammer weighing ten thousand pounds had smashed into his spine! Whenever Lanling King merged with the shadows to create brief spatial ripples that disrupted his pursuers' senses, it felt as if a miniature bomb had detonated inside Xiang Yi's skull! His vision was completely filled with splattering, viscous darkness and the scarlet flashes of alarms! His stomach convulsed violently, and acidic bile mixed with a heavy bloody taste surged madly up his throat!

"Urgh—!" Xiang Yi clapped a hand over his mouth. His body curled painfully into a shrimp on the icy hospital bed as he trembled uncontrollably! Cold sweat soaked through the sheets beneath him in an instant like floodwaters bursting through a dam! His brain wailed on the verge of collapse like an overloaded engine melting down!

The numbers plummeted:

[70/110... 65/110...]

Just as his consciousness was about to be completely torn apart and fall into eternal darkness—

The shared vision abruptly went dark! Like a power source forcibly cut off, everything sank into complete blackness!

Lanling King's figure disappeared like melting ink into the deepest shadow of a narrow back alley piled with discarded junk and reeking of mold and rotting garbage! The three killing intents that had pursued him relentlessly like parasites suddenly lost their target at the mouth of the alley, pausing in place as they searched like headless flies amid their violent sulfurous aura!

"Huff... Hah... Hah..." Xiang Yi collapsed completely onto the cold hospital bed like boneless sludge, gasping for breath. Every inhalation came with searing pain that seemed to tear through his lungs. The violent dizziness ebbed away like a receding tide, leaving only the dull, persistent agony in his skull after it had been repeatedly pounded by a heavy hammer. His soul felt as though it had just been pulled from an overspeed centrifuge and then brutally thrown into cold, viscous cement.

[Mental Power: 75/110 (Drain rate restored to -1 point/minute)]

→

[74/110...] The hourglass was still flowing, slowly and lethally.

"My lord, the evidence has been secured. The target is connected to the Ten Rings. Their stronghold has been marked. I have temporarily shaken off pursuit and am withdrawing along the backup route." Lanling King's cold, hoarse voice echoed directly within Xiang Yi's consciousness like rusted gears grinding together, carrying a trace of barely perceptible exhaustion. At the same time, a faint but clear stream of information flowed over: "[Fabric on left arm torn, minor abrasion. Energy reserves depleted by approximately 15%. Reached designated safe node.]" The cost remained manageable.

"Good... job..." Xiang Yi's will was as weak as a dying candle flame in the wind. Overwhelming exhaustion and the lingering dull pain deep within his soul, like a blunt knife sawing through flesh, drowned him completely like a cold black ocean. He only wanted to sink into a dreamless abyss.

Bang—!!!

The hospital room door was violently slammed open from outside by a force so brutal it bordered on madness! The heavy door panel smashed into the wall with a terrifying, thunderous crash, and even the wall seemed to tremble!

Xiang Yi's eyes snapped open like a startled bird! His heart stopped for an instant, then began pounding frantically in his chest, nearly bursting free! The Ten Rings Syndicate?! Had they tracked him here?!

The blinding corridor lights poured in like searchlights, instantly dispelling the darkness of the room and clearly outlining a tall figure who seemed utterly drained of spirit, leaving behind only the crushing gloom of an approaching storm.

It was his father, Xiang Haishan.

He staggered inside, each footstep as heavy as if he were dragging chains weighing ten thousand pounds. The finely tailored suit that symbolized his status was now wrinkled like a discarded rag. The left cuff was visibly torn, exposing a stained shirt beneath. His tie had been roughly pulled loose and hung crookedly around his neck. His hair was as disheveled as weeds ravaged by a storm, with several prematurely gray strands stuck by sweat to his ashen temples. That face, once calm and imposing enough to hold up the sky, now held only the deathly gray of someone utterly crushed beneath the wheels of fate. His eye sockets were sunken like a skull's. Blood vessels sprawled across his eyes in savage webs, as though they might burst at any moment. His gaze stared hollowly ahead, yet seemed to pierce the void and plunge into a bottomless abyss. A fresh, dark-red strangulation mark at his throat was shocking to behold, as though he had just endured a silent struggle. White foam and bitter traces of gastric fluid remained at the corners of his mouth.

A suffocating mixture of odors instantly swept through the entire room—the harsh smell of cheap tobacco, the strong bite of low-quality alcohol, and the bitter sour stench of fermented stomach acid. The smell itself was the physical manifestation of despair.

He seemed oblivious to the gaping hole in the wall, the plaster dust in the air, and the cold wind pouring in. He staggered to the visitor's chair but did not sit. Instead, like a mountain that had completely collapsed, he leaned heavily and despondently against the cold wall. His body slowly slid down the icy, rough surface until he finally curled up on the freezing floor, arms wrapped tightly around his knees like an injured Beast hiding in its den to lick its wounds alone.

His broad back rose and fell violently, but he could not produce a proper cry to vent his agony. Only a repressed "Hah... hah..." leaked from deep in his throat, like an old bellows losing air—hollow and despairing, like the meaningless echo left after a soul had been drained dry. Murky tears did not fall one drop at a time. They poured continuously from between the thick fingers covering his face, like a broken string of dirty beads, splashing into small, cloudy puddles on the cold floor that reflected the pale ceiling lights.

"Dad...?" Xiang Yi's heart sank to the deepest part of an icy sea. Forcing down the bloody taste surging in his throat and the drilling agony raging inside his skull, he used every ounce of strength to make his voice sound confused and weak like a child's. "...What's wrong? You... smell so strongly... Have you been drinking?" It felt as if a lump of congealed blood and ice chips was lodged in his throat, scraping against his burning windpipe with every difficult breath.

Xiang Haishan seemed to be jolted awake from the edge of hell's abyss by that faint voice, and he suddenly raised his head! His one bloodshot, hollow, despairing eye—the other still tightly covered by his hand—instantly locked onto his son's paper-pale face on the hospital bed. That gaze was impossibly complicated: an unbearable, heart-rending pain; exhaustion too deep for words; towering fury born of being forced to the edge of a cliff... In the end, all of it was swallowed and drowned by a vast, bottomless gray despair.

He opened his mouth. His lips trembled violently, and a broken wheezing sound came from his throat as though someone had seized it in a chokehold, but not a single word came out. In the end, the hand covering the upper half of his face pressed down even harder, its knuckles turning a deathly blue-white from the force. Scalding, murky tears continued to pour from between his fingers, gathering into a small patch of hopeless dampness on the floor.

This man, who had struggled through the business world for half his life and weathered countless storms, was now curled in the cold corner, silently and completely breaking down. His tall body had shrunk into a ball, trembling like a dead leaf withering in the winter wind.

The air congealed into heavy lead, pressing down upon every corner of the hospital room so heavily that it was hard to breathe. Only the broken-bellows sobbing and the cold, merciless ticking of the heart monitor lingered over the altar of despair, weaving together a silent elegy.

Lying on the cold hospital bed, Xiang Yi watched his father's back curled in the corner, utterly ground to dust by despair. It felt as if an icy iron hand had seized his heart and crushed it to pieces! Overwhelming guilt, rage hot enough to burn everything away, helplessness that sank into his bones... They wound around every part of him like poisonous icy vines, their biting chill spreading to the depths of his soul! Hongyuan! The tax bureau! Liu Jinbiao! The Ten Rings Syndicate! Not only had the crisis not been resolved, but the Syndicate's involvement had instantly expanded it into a bottomless abyss capable of swallowing the entire Xiang family! The evidence Lanling King had risked his life to obtain had become a double-edged sword hanging over their heads! Releasing it would mean declaring war on the monstrous Ten Rings Syndicate! It would be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot!

The number sustaining the distant Shadow Blade continued to drain away:

[Mental Power: 69/110 (-1 point/minute)]!

Slowly but relentlessly. The headache gnawed at his nerves like a parasite clinging to bone. The dual exhaustion of body and mind weighed so heavily on him that even moving a finger felt like lifting a mountain.

Watching his father's curled, trembling back, utterly crushed by despair, Xiang Yi's hand beneath the blanket clenched again. His nails buried themselves deep in the already battered flesh of his palm, and warm blood silently seeped out, staining the folds of the sheet red.

"Dad..."

Xiang Yi's voice was soft, so soft it seemed like a cold gust that could disperse at any moment. Yet it strangely pierced through his father's broken sobs and the heart monitor's cold noise, carrying an absolute-zero calm and a determination to sever everything. Like burning coals beneath ice, it drove fiercely into the suffocatingly stagnant air of the hospital room!

"...Bad people... will get what they deserve."

Xiang Haishan's hand over his face suddenly shuddered violently! In the bloodshot, hollow eye exposed between his fingers, an extreme bewilderment flashed for an instant before being replaced by something deeper—a desperate hope as faint and unbelievable as that of a drowning man suddenly seeing a floating straw. That hope was as weak as a dying candle in the wind, yet it carried a scorching warmth.

Xiang Yi slowly closed his eyes. His thick lashes cast two exhausted shadows over his paper-pale face. His consciousness sank deep into that faint blue sea within his mind.

The screen floated coldly before him:

[Mental Power (Lv.0): 68/110 (Draining: -1 point/minute)]

[Energy Points: 100]

[Returning to the Hidden Formula (Advanced Chapter) Fragment (Not Studied)]

[Lanling King Status: Dark traces seeping from torn fabric on left arm (minor). Energy reserves depleted by approximately 15%. Reached designated safe node (coordinates synchronized).]

Inside the hospital room, only his father's utterly repressed, hollow, broken sobs and the heart monitor's monotonous, icy ticking remained. Beyond the massive hole in the wall, the deep night was like congealed, cold asphalt, radiating silent malice. The city lights in the distance resembled the single, emotionless eye of a giant Beast watching without warmth. Yet the silent resolve and icy killing intent deep within the boy's consciousness sharpened quietly in the darkness like the keenest blade, waiting for dawn to slash through despair with a glint of cold light.