Days turned into weeks. Weeks slipped into months.
And quietly, as if sculpted by invisible hands, a new building emerged on the outskirts of the city. Towering and faceless, it stood like a monolith of silence, its black steel frame and mirrored windows absorbing light rather than reflecting it. Inside, it was not chaos—it was command. Purpose-built with precision, it became the operational fortress for Kang's empire. Everything flowed in and out of it—decisions, orders, intelligence. It was a beast without a roar, guarded by shadows, known by whispers.
But back at the palace—back at the place that once trembled under the weight of blood and ruts and betrayal—peace had returned. Or something close to it. The garden once stained with the remnants of a failed uprising now shimmered in bloom. Jade-colored leaves danced in trimmed hedges, flowers opened their mouths to the sun. The illusion of serenity painted every brick. Guards walked softer. Servants bowed deeper.
Inside, time moved differently.
Jain, still a child, was growing. Not just in height or weight, but in presence. He had inherited something intangible—an aura, a gravity. There was a quiet steel in his spine, a sense of watchfulness far beyond his years. His gaze lingered longer than necessary when he looked at Kang. He watched the way the man paused before answering, how he carried silence like a blade. He watched Kang's posture in meetings, the way he tilted his head slightly before dismissing someone.
And slowly, Jain began to emulate it.
A subtle folding of his arms. The particular angle of his chin when asking a question. The heavy pause before delivering a reply.
Shan noticed.
He would catch his son doing these things—standing like a shadow of Kang—and the reaction inside him wasn't simple. It wasn't anger. It wasn't pride. It was... layered. Complex. As though he was watching the formation of something he could neither halt nor fully endorse.
Kang's blood ran in Jain's veins.
That truth had always haunted him in the quiet of the night, curled around his son's small body as if to guard him from fate itself. But fate had a long memory. And it carved legacy through lineage.
Davey, wise in the ways of survival, had said it over morning tea, stirring his cup with casual defiance. "We all have to move with the times, Shan. Sometimes that means moving with shadows, not against them."
And Shan—tired, cautious, and ever on edge—was learning. Evolving.
In this world of silk and steel, he adapted.
But some things, no matter how prepared one might be, arrived like thunder from clear skies.
---
That morning was unusually warm. The palace air was laced with the rich, honeyed fragrance of Darjeeling tea and orange blossom incense. In the main dining hall, laughter didn't echo—but peace, in its rare and brittle form, settled around the edges of the table.
Davey sat with Ron—across from him, but closer than they had been in years.
The tension that had always defined their conversations was absent. In its place was a new rhythm: hesitant but hopeful. Seven years of resentment, buried truths, and sidelong glances were finally beginning to unravel—not with declarations, but in quiet acknowledgments.
"You've changed," Davey murmured, sipping tea slowly, eyes locked on Ron over the rim of his cup.
Ron blinked, surprised. "Have I?"
"You don't flinch anymore when I look at you."
Ron chuckled under his breath, the sound barely audible. "That's rich, coming from you."
But there was warmth in his voice. A smile—small, genuine—curled at the corner of his lips. It was a smile not shared with the room, or the memory of their past, but with Davey himself.
Davey felt it like a pulse in his chest. A recognition of something long buried and resurfacing.
For a moment, all was well.
---
Until the stairs.
"Uncle Davey!"
The child's voice broke the morning calm like a songbird crashing through stained glass.
Jain. Bright, energetic, breathless with joy. His tiny feet hit the polished floor like drumbeats of life itself. He was four and fearless, his laughter like wild wind.
He came bolting down the second-floor corridor, arms flailing, cheeks flushed. His voice echoed down the stairwell as he raced toward the wide spiral staircase that curved like a crescent moon.
But then—there was a shift.
A shape uncurled from the shadows like a living ghost.
A figure, pale-faced and cloaked in servant's garb, stood at the top of the stairs, unnoticed until now. His movements were precise. Too precise. His hand shot out—not to catch the child, not to warn him—but to push.
A sharp, calculated shove aimed at Jain's small back.
And in that fraction of a second, time fractured.
Shan, emerging from his bedroom, caught it.
His heart froze, then exploded into motion.
"JAIN!!"
The scream ripped out of him, raw and guttural, more instinct than sound.
In two strides, he was across the hallway. There was no hesitation. No calculation. Only the overwhelming, all-consuming need to protect.
He shoved Jain aside just in time.
And then—he fell.
He felt gravity seize him, twist him, slam him against the unyielding surface of the marble stairs. His body tumbled, limbs snapping through space like a broken marionette. The final blow—his head colliding with the stone floor—was a hollow, sickening thud that echoed down the hall like a death knell.
Jain landed at the top—frightened but safe.
Shan lay at the bottom—motionless, blood blooming beneath his skull like an ink stain on pristine silk.
---
The silence that followed was thunderous.
Kang burst out of his study, rage already ignited. He saw the blood first. Then the body. Then the child.
And something inside him snapped.
He moved faster than thought, faster than instinct. "MOVE!" he shouted, shoving past Ron and Davey as they scrambled to their feet in horror.
He dropped to his knees beside Shan, voice lowering with a command sharper than steel. "Ron. Call Doctor Mo. Now."
Ron, pale and trembling, nodded and ran, fumbling for his phone.
Kang didn't blink. He cradled Shan like porcelain, one hand supporting his bloody head, the other gripping his limp wrist. His eyes scanned Shan's face, searching for signs of life, for breath, for a miracle.
And then—action returned. Servants scattered. Blood was wiped. Jain was carried into another room.
But the damage was already done.
---
Doctor Mo arrived within the hour, grim-faced and exacting.
He examined Shan with the precision of a surgeon and the worry of a friend. "Blunt-force trauma. Head injury. We're lucky he's alive. But the swelling is concerning. He must rest. And watch for signs—blurred vision, dizziness, memory lapses."
"And the boy?" Kang asked, eyes haunted.
"Unharmed. Frightened. But he will recover."
Instructions were left. Ron took charge. Davey remained silent.
And the day passed, heavy with dread.
---
Night crept in. Time bled. And finally, like a ghost rising from sleep, Shan stirred.
His lashes trembled.
A sharp pain lanced through his skull as he tried to move. The world spun, and nausea tightened in his chest. He reached, blindly, for water—his fingers brushing the glass. It slipped. Crashed.
Shattering.
Kang's head snapped up. He had been beside the bed all night, slumped in a chair, sleep pulling lines across his features.
"Shan!"
He rushed to his side, gripping his shoulders.
"You should've called me." His voice cracked. "You need water? Wait. I'll get it."
Moments later, Kang returned with a fresh glass, kneeling like a priest before an altar.
"Drink."
Shan sipped slowly, every swallow a painful effort. The silence between them was heavy—but not cold.
"What happened?" Kang asked softly. "You were going to tell me something yesterday… about the stairs."
Shan's eyes were cloudy, but the fragments began returning. "A man. He was dressed like a servant. I saw him push Jain. I pushed Jain aside…"
Then he sat up too quickly. Panic laced his voice.
"Where is he? Where's Jain?! Call him!"
Kang was already on his feet. "Davey!"
And moments later, Jain ran into the room.
The moment Shan saw him, something inside broke open.
"My baby…"
Jain scrambled into his arms, wrapping small fingers around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, Mommy. I won't run on the stairs anymore."
Shan wept, holding him tighter than ever. "It's alright. You're safe. That's all that matters."
---
Outside the door, Kang stood in silence. For one moment, he allowed himself to feel the weight of what could have been. Then, he turned to Ron.
"Find out who that was," he said, voice ice. "I want names. I want the mastermind. Someone dared to touch my son in my house. Find them."
Ron bowed. "Yes, master Kang."
The sky was overcast.
Grey clouds loomed heavy over the city like a warning written in storm language. The streets were slick with a recent rain, glistening like spilled mercury under dim daylight.
Ren stood on the edge of an alleyway, dressed in black from coat to boots, his expression unreadable.
He wasn't in the palace anymore. He had left before sunrise, under Kang's orders, with only one command seared into his mind:
> "Find out who dared to touch my son. I want answers in half an hour."
And Ren knew better than anyone—when Kang gave a time limit, the clock ticked with blood.
He had started by sweeping through the servant quarters. Interviews. Cross-checks. Every registered name, every background. Nothing unusual. All records clean. No one new.
Which meant: the intruder had bypassed security. Disguised. Slipped in under their noses.
And that… meant he had help.
Ren's jaw tightened as he pulled out his earpiece and spoke into the mic, voice low.
> "Team Three, check the gatehouse logs again. Focus on the southwest checkpoint. Look for inconsistencies or unexplained gaps during shift change yesterday morning."
The static reply came fast.
> "Roger that, sir."
As the minutes passed, pieces began to fall into place. A stolen ID. A servant's uniform that had been recorded as lost weeks ago but never replaced.
Then: a tip.
From a contact in the underworld. Someone had found a body—male, early thirties, in uniform. Dumped in the sewer grid near the abandoned factories on the eastern edge of the city, twenty kilometers from the palace.
Ren didn't hesitate.
---
By the time he arrived at the scene, the sky had darkened. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The area was a graveyard of industry—forgotten factories and rusted scaffolding, all draped in creeping vines and years of silence. The smell of mold and oil clung to the air like a sickness.
A black SUV idled by the edge of the sewer channel. Inside were two of Kang's private intelligence officers, their faces drawn and eyes sharp. They stepped aside when Ren approached.
He descended slowly into the concrete trench. The floor was slick. He moved with calculated steps, his boots echoing in the tunnel. The deeper he went, the stronger the stench of rot and wet iron.
They had left the body in place—just as he'd ordered.
The man lay crumpled like a discarded puppet, half-submerged in foul water, his limbs twisted unnaturally. His mouth was slightly open. One eye still bulged, staring into the darkness, the other lost to decay. Bruises bloomed across his neck and chest, and his shirt—the once-white servant uniform of Kang's estate—was stained with blood and something darker.
Ren crouched beside the corpse, his expression unchanging.
He examined the wounds. Ligature marks on the wrists. Blunt trauma to the skull.
A message.
Clean but cruel. Professional. No traceable blade. No identity left behind.
This man had been silenced after his failure.
> "Someone killed him to erase the trail," he muttered.
He stood, removing his gloves as he turned to the agent beside him.
> "Send his fingerprints to central archive. Cross-reference with our database and every public sector registry from the last ten years. If nothing comes up, check immigration."
The agent nodded.
> "Yes, sir. But… no ID. No wallet. No chip. This was meant to be a ghost."
Ren looked back at the body. His voice dropped, darker than before.
> "Then I want you to find the wind that carried the ghost here."
---
Outside, the clouds finally broke. Rain began to fall in sheets, washing the blood deeper into the gutter systems.
Ren stood beneath the rusted overhang of a broken warehouse roof, eyes narrowed against the storm. He pulled out his phone, called Kang directly.
> "Master Kang," he said, his tone clipped. "The intruder is dead. Murdered before we could trace him. Left in the sewer twenty kilometers from the estate. Likely executed by whoever sent him."
There was a pause. Kang's voice came, deep and composed—but vibrating with fury.
> "So someone covered their tracks."
> "Yes. Thoroughly."
> "Then it wasn't a warning." A breath. A beat. "It was a test."
Ren's eyes darkened.
> "Agreed."
Kang's voice sharpened like a blade unsheathed.
> "Find out who sent the message. Pull the threads. Start in the lower networks—anyone selling identities, laundering uniforms, recruiting drifters. I want every back alley, every crime boss, every leak in our circle swept and sealed. Use violence if necessary."
Ren gave a slight nod, though the other end couldn't see it.
> "Understood."
The line went dead.
---
Ren stayed in the rain for another minute, watching the rust-colored runoff swirl into the open drains, dragging pieces of leaves, dirt, and maybe memory with it.
Whoever this man had been—he wasn't just a hired hand. He was used. Killed like a disposable tool. The kind of man sent by someone who never intended to let him speak.
And now a boundary had been crossed.
It wasn't just about Shan anymore.
It was about Jain.
Ren's hand clenched slowly into a fist at his side.
He turned toward the SUV, stepping into the storm with his jaw tight and eyes colder than the rain.
> "Back to the estate," he ordered the driver. "We start hunting now."
And as the wheels turned toward home, lightning cracked in the sky behind them.
The war had already begun.
They just hadn't seen the first blade.
Yet.
in his study, Kang stood before the dark window.
For the first time in years, fear coiled in his chest—not for himself.
But for his family.
Someone had come close.
Too close.
And he would never allow it again.
Not without blood.
Not without war.