Xue's eyes flicked between the two women in the dark uniforms. They wore the Lan lackeys' cut, but their faces were blank, neutral, like masks carved for business. The corridor light painted them in cold look. Xue forced her voice to be sharp.

"Who the fuck do you work for?" she snapped. "Is this a rival family? Some businesswoman who paid you to take me out? Say so and I will double whatever they offered. I am a Lan. You will be well paid to walk away."

One of the women tilted her head a fraction, then both exchanged a single, small nod. No answer. No hesitation. The silence smelled worse than blood.

A tiny spark crawled along the knuckles of the left woman. It burst into flame, blue and hungry, licking the air without heat. The right woman flexed her fingers and bone slid like metal, forming a blade that fit her palm. The blade was not forged. It was part of her.

Xue's smile fell. She felt sweat bead at her hairline.

"This is... troubling," she muttered under her breath, because she was Lan and Lan never admitted fear out loud. But her mind was loud as thunder. Her hands trembled where they hovered near her coat. She looked very brave and very small at the same time.

After few minutes, the room was unrecognizable. Furniture overturned, walls gouged, and the faint hum of broken lights filled the silence. The two women lay sprawled on the carpet, their uniforms torn, their bodies crushed into stillness. The air stank of iron and smoke of the woman with fire ability.

Xue stood amid the wreckage, chest heaving. She didn't remember how long it had taken, only that she'd survived. Her throat was dry. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

She stepped back and whispered, "I never want to do that again."

Her mouth shaped a curse without sound. "Fuck Ren. Fuck everything." The words tasted like bile. She needed to leave. Now.

Xue moved before she could think about courage or cowardice. She was all motion. She turned on her heels and made for the alley, adrenaline and shame empowering her steps. Her heels clicked like an accusation of her cowardice.

But suddenly footsteps came from behind, precise and measured. Xue's heart hit her ribs like a trapped bird. She forced her hands into position, fingers trembling. A pulse shield flicked from her palm, a thin translucent square. It erupted toward the sound.

The corridor stayed quiet. No cracking screams, no splintering bone. Her pulse shield fizzled out into the empty air. Her shoulders slumped with a mixture of relief and something darker. She tilted her chin up and saw the thread.

A woman hung on a thin wire below the roof, poised like a spider suspended between two walls. Her outfit was black but different; it hugged her body in a way the Lan uniforms did not. She held something that caught the light and made Xue's stomach drop.

The woman looked down. Her face was lined with a hard amusement.

Before Xue could move, the woman on the thread threw it.

Time narrowed. The thing flew, and Xue had no reflex fast enough to dodge. The air split with soft wet sounds and the world reassembled with a new, terrible focus.

It was a collection of heads. Tied together. Faces she kind of recognized, faces she had nodded at at gatherings, faces of women who served her The rope slung like a grotesque necklace, hair and blood dripping slow like grotesque beads. Xue froze. The image branded itself behind her eyes.

The woman on the thread landed like a cat and crossed her arms. "Those are traitors in your ranks," she said, voice smooth. "They were trying to kill everything tied to the Lan business"

Xue felt the blood in her ears. Her feet refused to carry her. She was grateful in a way she did not want to be grateful. Someone had cleared the path. Someone had dealt with the rot inside the Lan network. She should be proud. Instead, she wanted only to curl into the smallest shape and hide.

"Who are you?" Xue whispered, because the rational portion of her brain demanded identity. The Lan name was a shield as much as a prison. If this woman was someone hired by Lan family, then Xue might be set free. If not, then she might be the next head that would be tied up.

The woman's mouth twitched. "Think of me as someone who does not take interest in seeing this country burned." She turned slowly, then looked at Xue with an unnerving patience. "I would like you dead. Our lady does not appreciate awful human beings who treat people like commodities. But it would inconvenience my lady if you died in this alley. So you will live."

Xue swallowed the word 'thank you' back down into her chest. Saying it would be admitting debt. Lan pride forbade that. Still, relief rinsed her like a cold wave.

The woman on the thread shifted, as if she had remembered something inconvenient. "Yes, yes. The man you injected with aphrodisiac. He is no longer yours to toy with. Give him up."

Xue's body tightened like a drawn bow. Her hands went cold. "I will not," she said before her reason could censor her. It was a whisper that carried all the weight of family shame and personal stubbornness. She could not walk away from the thing she had broken. Not yet.

"I don't care about your answer," the woman said. "If you do not give him up, I will ensure Lan mothers see what has been done here."

Xue stared. Her hand trembled. Her breath hitched. Her mind ran rampage with images what would happen to her if family get to know about her businesses. "They won't believe a stranger like you."

"Yes, they will not believe me. No one will. But they will believe Lady Qian's confession. I have the clips of you trying to rape that man. We have the pictures. Do you think your Lan pride will survive that?"

Xue felt the threat like a physical blow. Her knees wanted to give. She imagined her mother's face in the audience of judgment, most of all what would happen if Lan Xinyue get to know about this after she wake up from her slumber.

She saw her family in Lan estate crumbled. Her hands began to shake so badly the pulse of the small attack fluttered like a frightened insect.

"Don't even think about it," the woman added. "You will lose. We will ruin you if we must. But since I don't want the trouble today, you live. You will behave. Beside you can't beat me."

Xue wanted to laugh. It came out as a choked sound—part hysteria, part plea. She had never been this insulted in her life. Everything had gone downhill ever since she met that man. No matter where or when their paths crossed, he always brought misfortune to her.

"You will give him up," the woman said finally, "or you will be given up for you. That is the bargain."

"I..." Her voice cracked. "I don't fucking care...take that unlucky bastard away from me."

The woman nodded as if confirming a prediction. "Good! I knew even dragons can listen when they want. You will keep everything happened here secret. Only investigate about the attackers among your ranks. If I even get a little sniff that you're trying to find me or that man after this...you will die."

"Yes," Xue said, her voice raw as if she is an obedient pet.

The woman on the thread turned to go. Before she left, she added, "Remember, little Lan. Pride is a pretty little thing until it becomes a noose."

Xue felt the words wrap around her like a cold rope. The woman went up the thread and disappeared into the shadows between two staircases, leaving the corridor quieter than before. The heads lay where they had been thrown.

Xue slid down the nearest wall and sat with her knees drawn up. Her hands still shook. Her chest ached in a way that felt like punishment. She had wanted to be feared, to be sharp as a knife and clean in her vanity. Instead she was raw, exposed, and small.

She was forced to be what she is. It was hard for her to pretend anymore after everything that happened here.

"Fuck Ren, Fuck Meiling, Fuck Lans." she whispered again, not sure if she was cursing others or herself. "Fuck everything."

She pressed her palms to her eyes and tried to breathe steady. Her Lan pride would be a lamb now, not a dragon.

Meanwhile, the same thread-walking woman stepped out of the burning building, draped in the fog of night. A man—Ren—lay slung over her shoulder, unconscious, naked, but still breathing.

What was unusual about him was that he had a full-on erection, something the woman tried to avoid looking at, as it made her feel uneasy despite all the discipline she had to remain calm.

She studied him in silence for a long moment. His body was lean, unsually fit for a man, but there was something beneath his stillness that intrigued her.

"So this is the one who caused all that chaos," she murmured. "The man Lan girl broke."

Ren groaned faintly, his eyelids fluttering. The woman blushed, brushing his cheek as if appraising a delicate food. "You're an interesting man. Too interesting to waste."

Her gaze drifted toward the horizon. "Mother will be pleased with this find," she said softly. "A man with a interesting toy, a spark, and a story… yes. You'll make a fine gift."

Threads coiled around her arm again, and with a single leap, she vanished into the mist, carrying Ren somewhere he didn't expect to land the moment he left Anna's house. The night swallowed her steps, leaving only silence and the faint hum of unseen strings.

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