Li Wei hated vault lighting.
It always made everything look like bad news.
The chamber hidden deep within Area 003 hummed with encryption sigils. In the middle of the room, inside a floating containment frame, a small piece of jade hung suspended above a disc of inscribed gold.
The Auspicious Beast’s pendant.
It was tiny, milky white, with a hairline crack across its side.
The holographic interface flickering over his desk washed Li Wei’s face in blue, carving the tired lines under his eyes deeper as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke.
He held the cigarette between his teeth and leaned forward, fingers moving through several encrypted screens in quick swipes.
A second later, another projection sparked to life. On the holo panel propped against an evidence crate, Meng Yao’s image flickered into clarity.
"Commander Meng Yao," Li Wei said.
Meng Yao inclined her head. Behind her, the image shifted to a sealed sub?basement in Area 001—shadows pooling around racks of sealed weapons, old banners, relics that radiated history and poor impulse control.
One banner dominated the frame.
Blackened silk engraved in crimson, charred sigils. Even through a screen, the air around it tasted like battlefield and smoke.
"Commander Li," she greeted, then raised an eyebrow. "You realize smoking around sensitive equipment is a violation of—”
"About seven regulations," Li Wei finished dryly, tapping ash into an empty teacup. "I'll add them to my growing pile.”
Meng Yao sighed, almost inaudibly. “Status?”
Li Wei checked the readings hovering over the jade. “Eathan’s anchor is holding. Signature locked at time of detachment.”
He angled the holopad so she could see it. Threads of gold light clung to the pendant’s surface from the inside, spiderwebbing outward, then sinking back in.
On her end, Meng Yao set four seal stones around the ragged war banner. She pressed her palm to the central glyph carved into the altar beneath it. Crimson light surged, then folded inward.
“The war banner is bound,” she said quietly. “Chewie’s imprint is… as excessive as expected.” A fractional pause. “Of course it is.”
“You say that like it’s new information,” Li Wei replied with a shake of his head.
He checked another line of glyphs scrolling down his main screen.
“Anchor arrays are reading clean. But just to be clear,” he said, “these are one?way offerings. Once the artifacts are reinforced into the sacrificial lattice, they’re done.”
“Then these two understand,” Meng Yao said. It was more statement than question.
“They insisted,” Li Wei said. “Eathan picked the pendant before I finished the list of warnings. Chewie told me which banner to dig out of your warehouses.”
Meng Yao’s expression softened by a millimetre.
“Trust,” she murmured. “Or recklessness.”
“With those two, the line is theoretical.”
Li Wei’s eyes lingered on the Qilin pendant. Threads of light pulsed again, in sync now with the readings hovering above the frame.
He could still see the way Eathan had taken it off.
***
TWO DAYS EARLIER — HQ. AREA 003.
Nobody had expected Area 003’s HQ doors to be opened one day by the uninvited.
Li Wei looked up from his screen to find two snow?damp silhouettes in the entryway, dripping onto his nice polished floor: one tall, one small, both with the exact same “we did something you’ll hate” look.
“…How,” he asked flatly, “did you find this place?”
Chewie shrugged, scattering melted snow. “You use the same brand of coffee everywhere, Captain. Your qi smells like overwork.”
“Also, the warding’s good, but your fire escape plan is copy?pasted from the MSR manual.” Eathan scratched his cheek. “I had the [SYSTEM] map the route the last time you walked us out.”
Li Wei stared at them for a long, offended beat. Then, he sighed.
“If you’re here, it’s either very bad news or very stupid news. Sit.”
They didn’t sit. They stood in front of his desk like two defendants about to plead guilty.
Eathan raised his wrist; the holo projection from his wristpad spilled into the air, revealing a RealmNet overlay of a private channel labeled [REDACTED].
“First at the Westpoint rooftop,” Eathan said. “Three weeks after the Games. And again just now.”
He skimmed through the summary like pulling out a splinter.
“An anonymous channel reached out. A… ghost of some sort? They told me that Mister White’s core isn’t gone—it’s drifting in the Realm of the Passing, being hunted. When it stopped drifting, they’d send coordinates.”
Eathan swallowed, thumb pressing the pendant at his collarbone.
“Tonight, they said it stopped.”
He flicked, and a new line of text hovered between them:
[???]: White Tiger’s last move is unfinished.
[???]: Open the door.
Li Wei had seen many strange things in his job. He wasn’t sure he liked that this was instantly in the top ten.
“And this source?”
“Blocked,” Eathan said. “Every time I tried to trace, my HUD threw up the divine equivalent of a middle finger. But the signal didn’t feel… hostile.”
Chewie folded her arms, expression half grim, half resigned. “Feels like their style,” she said. “Boss’s biggest ghost fan.”
Eathan blinked. “His what now?”
“Later,” Li Wei said. He pulled up a secure tablet, fingers tapping through layers of classification until a document with far too many red stamps lit up the screen.
“Realm of Passing access protocols,” he said. “Abridged version. Do not tell anyone I let you read this.”
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Eathan and Chewie leaned in.
“Long story short,” he began, “the RoP is built for the dead and for entities tied to death administration. Living souls can’t stroll in and out. To rightfully enter, they either have to die—which I do not recommend—or carry a compatible divine essence and pay a price equivalent to temporary death.”
He flicked the document; diagrams of soul paths and anchor sigils rotated above the desk.
“So…” Eathan swallowed. “I’m assuming we’re leaning towards the second?”
Li Wei pointed at him. “You. Mortal host of the Qilin, which is, in case you’ve forgotten, technically deceased. Your soul’s already running dual?boot. You qualify.”
He tipped his chin toward Chewie. “You. Reincarnation of Chi You, with an official death record and a demon god sidebar. You also qualify. Albeit with nightmarish paperwork.”
Chewie looked mildly pleased. “Thank you.”
“But qualifying isn’t enough,” Li Wei said. “You still need an anchor.”
He tapped the screen. A new set of diagrams flared: object silhouettes, rune circles, a rough file outline labeled [CASE STUDY: IDIOTIC BIRD].
“A sacrifice anchor,” he explained. “To detach you from your mortal bodies without snapping the thread completely, you leave something behind. An artifact carrying a strong imprint of who you are. We fuse it into an anchor array here. You go in tethered to it as a semi?spectral copy.”
He paused, making sure they were actually listening and not just waiting for the fun part.
“This part’s important,” he said. “Once we burn the artifact into the anchor lattice, it’s effectively part of the infrastructure. Wander for too long, or break it, and you stop being ‘visiting’ and receive the unwanted PR card. Look at Great Peng. His favourite robe has been sealed under Old King’s Canyon ever since his stunt attempt for RealmNet. Even he can’t touch it without risking his own core.”
“Favourite robe?” Eathan blinked.
“Apparently one knitted by Foxfire for a bet they both lost,” Li Wei said. “He’s been unreasonably not over it since.”
Chewie whistled. “Harsh.”
“Anchors are harsh,” he said. “You’re telling the universe, ‘Here, keep this piece of me forever, in exchange for one very unsafe round?trip ticket.’”
Silence stretched.
Eathan’s hand drifted to his collarbone. The jade pendant sat there, warm from skin, the chain familiar against the back of his neck.
Taeril had tossed it to him on a nothing?special afternoon, in between restocking cup noodles and yelling at a defective freezer.
“Wear this when I’m late,” he’d said. “So you remember your boss is theoretically reliable.”
It had been a joke then. Didn’t feel like one now.
“…If we’re doing this to drag him back,” Eathan had said quietly, unclasping the chain, “he can keep something of mine for once.”
He set the pendant down on Li Wei’s desk. The small jade piece looked very small on the scratched surface.
Li Wei studied him for a long second. “You understand you’ll never get this back.”
“Feels like I haven’t understood anything for months,” Eathan said, shrugging a smile. “But yes. It’s important to me. That’s the point, right?”
Beside him, Chewie exhaled through her teeth.
Li Wei’s attention shifted to her. “And you?”
The twelve-year-old tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling for a moment as if scrolling through several centuries of bad ideas.
“What counts as ‘strong imprint’?” she asked. “Has to be personal?”
“Personal,” Li Wei said. “Attuned to your path. Also something the world already associates with you. The more narrative weight it has, the cleaner the anchor. And again: one?way. No souvenir retrieval.”
Chewie clicked her tongue. “Well, that rules out everything in the staff vending machine.”
She went quiet, then her gaze sharpened.
“The banner.”
Eathan glanced sideways. “Banner?”
“War banner of Chi You,” Chewie said, as if that explained everything. “It’s a signature piece. Old me swung it around a lot. New me is not currently allowed within twenty meters of it.”
Li Wei’s brows rose. “You mean the one White confiscated because you kept trying to decapitate diplomatic envoys with it?”
Chewie sniffed. “They were trespassing in my zone. And yes, that one. Boss dumped it on Meng Yao’s head ‘for safekeeping’ a few decades ago. It’s probably sulking in one of her vaults.”
Li Wei rubbed at his temple.
“You two are alarmingly decisive about cutting pieces off yourselves,” he said. “Do you realise what kind of precedent this sets?”
“Yes,” Eathan and Chewie said in unison.
“…I am surrounded by reckless children.”
“We’re your best employees,” Chewie said innocently.
“I don’t pay you.”
Li Wei flicked a quick note into the tablet, the words [REQUEST ACCESS: CHI YOU WAR BANNER (CONFISCATED)] tagging themselves to Area 001’s admin secure line.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll talk to Meng Yao. She’ll be thrilled.”
Chewie smirked. “Tell her it’s my inheritance.”
“You have no idea what that word means.”
“Okay, so now we have anchors,” Eathan said, pulling them back on track. “Now what?”
Li Wei swiped to the next section of the protocol. “Now for the other two problems: door and guide.”
“Door I get,” Chewie said. “We need a way in.”
“We need a proper way in,” Li Wei corrected. “We can detach you and tie you, but the RoP isn’t going to roll out a red carpet. Its gates only open where there’s death.”
Eathan’s expression had shuttered a little. “So we… what. Borrow someone else’s tragedy?”
“Or stage our own,” Chewie had said before anyone else could. She’d looked up, eyes bright with something that wasn’t quite humour. “We let the realms think we died. They mourn. The emotional pressure opens a gate.”
Li Wei could still recall Eathan’s immediate stunned reaction then as he stared at her.
“You’re supposed to be a child,” he’d said.
“Ex?demon warlord,” Chewie corrected. “Stop discriminating.”
Li Wei blew out a breath. “From a ritual perspective,” he admitted slowly, “it solves the mourning requirement. If the emotions are genuine, the realm won’t care whether the cause is technically staged.”
“My friends,” Eathan said, voice low. “They’ll believe it.”
He looked like he hated the idea, yet he hadn’t backed away from it.
Chewie lifted her chin, smug.
“Alrighty, then. Let’s have COZMART explode,” she continued. “Publicly, cleanly, with no actual collateral. Area 001 announces my heroic death in a rift. Your mortals see the shop burn. Real grief. Real fear. Real unfinished business.”
Li Wei considered a rebuttal, decided he didn’t have the energy, and picked up his cigarette again.
“The fact that White ever trusted you two with his property is a crime.”
***
PRESENT—HQ. AREA 003.
“Their choices were… deeply personal,” Li Wei said now, dragging himself back to the present vault and Meng Yao’s holo-projection. “The pendant, the banner. Both hold more than enough resonance to keep them anchored."
His gaze flicked to the readout listing stability estimates. The numbers were not comforting.
“Frankly, I’m more concerned about what happens if they stay semi?spectral beyond the window,” he added. “Realm of the Passing will try to keep what it thinks it’s owed.”
Meng Yao’s expression shifted, sharp edges smoothed by something like respect. “What about the guide?” she asked. “To ensure safe passage, they still require someone with innate ties to the Realm of the Passing.”
"We have the perfect candidate already lined up.” Li Wei stubbed out his cigarette in an empty coffee mug. “A mortal, ironically.”
“A mortal?” Meng Yao’s brows rose. “You’re sending a mortal into the Realm of the Passing?”
She stared at him.
“Commander Li, have you finally cracked under the pressure?”
Li Wei laughed quietly, tapping ash into the cup again. "Probably. But this one comes pre?packaged with the right wiring. Fragmented Spirit Envoy. The Mortal Spiritual Registry flagged her lineage months ago.”
“Name?”
“Sera Dream,” he said. “Westpoint University. Art major. Part?time photographer. Ancestor registered as Lady Yunmo, mid?tier psychopomp. The line never quite severed; it just went quiet.”
“Is that so.” Meng Yao leaned back, considering. “And she doesn’t know."
He gave a humourless smile. “If we tried to explain, we’d never get her to step within ten feet of the gate. Better to let the ancestor handle the briefing when possession kicks in.”
“Risky, but clever,” she said. "How much does Eathan himself know?"
“He understands the stakes,” Li Wei said. “He was halfway resolved already. The message from the cybernetic ghost just… snapped it into place.”
Meng Yao’s gaze sharpened. “Cybernetic ghost?”
“Cipher Venerable,” Li Wei said. “He’s the one who tipped Eathan off that Bai Hu’s core was diverted to the RoP Also mentioned that the Jade Court is actively hunting it.”
“The Heavens…”
Her fingers tightened against the edge of her console, knuckles pale. “Then our timetable is shorter than anticipated.”
“Which is why,” Li Wei said, “we accelerated everything.”
Meng Yao rubbed her temples. "Commander Li, every time I speak to you, my stress increases."
"That," Li Wei replied, "is entirely mutual."
For a moment, silence sat between them again—this time heavy with all the things neither could control.
“All jokes aside,” Meng Yao said finally, voice softer, “they have one shot at this. If they fail—”
“They won’t,” Li Wei cut in.
The certainty in his tone surprised even him. He looked back at the pendant, at the faint pulse of light echoing a boy who complained too much and jumped anyway.
“Taeril White trusted them,” he said. “Annoyingly, I find myself trusting his judgment.”
Meng Yao’s expression shifted, the barest hint of a smile at the edge. “Then we’ve done everything we can,” she said. “The rest is up to them—and to the Realm.”
"Precisely," Li Wei agreed. He checked the time, grimaced. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write three separate sets of lies to explain why Area 003’s commander is late to Council debrief. Again.”
“Do inform me,” Meng Yao said dryly, “if any of them say something detrimental about our commander.”
"No promises," he sighed, lifting his cigarette in a half-salute.
The connection blinked off, and silence rushed back in, broken only by the soft hum of wards and the faint, stubborn glow of the Qilin pendant in its frame.
Li Wei scrubbed a hand over his face, then turned toward the far wall.
Behind another pane of reinforced glass, an elaborate incubator glowed faintly. Inside, a single crimson egg pulsed with slow, steady light—the Vermilion Bird’s egg, tucked neatly into mortal custody.
He walked over, tugging his coat straighter.
"You know," he muttered irritably to the egg, "if your rightful guardian doesn’t get his divine ass back here soon, I'm not above considering omelets."
The egg ignored him in a very superior way.
Li Wei sighed, then turned away with another sigh, casting a final glare at the incubator before heading back toward his cluttered desk.
The Vermillion Bird’s egg pulsed once, as if laughing at his demise.