The northern courtyard of the Lin estate buzzed with youthful vigor. Unmarried clansmen sparred against ironwood pillars, fists pounding like war drums. Lin Hao's scaled fingertips traced the weathered gateframe as Lin Wanrong led him through memories both bitter and sweet.

  "Your old room remains untouched," she murmured, though her jade hairpin trembled betrayingly.

  "I didn't come for dusty scrolls." Lin Hao halted abruptly, milky eyes fixed on her qi signature—a flickering candle amidst gale winds. "I came for you."

  Lin Wanrong's laughter held winter's brittleness. "Orphans don't choose their cages, Hao'er. The Patriarch's charity demands repayment in flesh."

  Nearby, a gaggle of adolescent disciples paused their drills. "Brother Hao's back!" squealed a freckled boy, triggering a wave of whispers.

  "Traitor..." hissed a hawk-nosed youth, knuckles whitening around his practice sword.

  The Kung Fu Fly alighted on Lin Hao's shoulder, compound eyes recording every sneer. Wolf Spider venom glands pulsed rhythmically beneath his sleeve—three drops could paralyze the entire courtyard.

  Lin Wanrong's hand found his, cool against the dragon scales still rippling beneath his skin. "Don't."

  Memories flooded Lin Hao—monsoon nights spent regaling these same youths with tales of celestial swordsmen, their awed faces lit by stolen lanterns. Now their contempt stung sharper than any blade.

  "Clan Competition approaches!" bellowed Instructor Lin Xiong, his scarred bulk parting the crowd. "Lazy whelps think glory grows on trees? Triple your strikes!"

  As wooden dummies splintered under renewed assault, Lin Hao's enhanced hearing parsed the subtext: Three slots for Tianyan Academy. Three chances to escape this gilded prison.

  Lin Wanrong's pulse quickened beneath his touch. "You could compete," she ventured. "The Patriarch might..."

  "Beg for scraps like a trained hound?" Lin Hao's bark of laughter sent sparrows fleeing. Draconic energy surged as he faced the training grounds. "Watch closely, children."

  His clawed fist struck the nearest ironwood pillar. Grain centuries in the making screamed as fissures spiderwebbed upward. The thirty-foot monolith collapsed in a thunderclap of splinters, revealing Ant-Man's swarm devouring its core.

  Gasps rippled through frozen disciples. Instructor Xiong's sword slid from nerveless fingers.

  "True power," Lin Hao whispered, scales retracting to reveal unblemished skin, "isn't begged. It's taken."

  Lin Wanrong's tears fell hot on his wrist. "You'll start a war."

  "Wars," he corrected, Wolf Spider spinning an escape thread from the shattered pillar, "require two willing sides."

  ———

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  Beneath the ancestral maple, Li Qingshou's spies reported the courtyard's destruction. The Patriarch's teacup shattered against vermilion pillars.

  "Let him go," Lin Hongkang growled, watching through slitted eyes as his wayward son approached the main gates. "A rabid dog bites its master last."

  Lin Hao paused at the threshold, Ant-Man's swarm mapping the compound's layout into his consciousness—armories, granaries, bridal chambers. Every weakness laid bare.

  "One week," he murmured, too low for mortal ears. The Kung Fu Fly's wings hummed affirmation.

  Lin Wanrong's perfume lingered as night fell—jasmine and steel. In the eastern quarter, Li Qingshou's drunken snores faltered when Wolf Spider venom dripped into his wine jug.

  The moon witnessed silent exodus: scaled figure vanishing into mist, followed by the skittering of a million chitinous feet. Dawn would find the Lin estate's walls crawling with symbols only Ant-Man could etch—promises written in venom and decay.

  Lin Hao's laughter echoed through the bamboo forest, draconic and unbound. The game had changed. Let the pieces fall where they may.

  Infiltration

  The Lin estate gates creaked shut behind Lin Hao. Guards Ma Liu and Chen Hu exchanged uneasy glances as their former charge strode into the twilight.

  “Trouble with the Patriarch?” Chen Hu ventured, eyeing the frayed edges of Lin Hao’s sleeves.

  “And that bald swine Li Qingshou.” Lin Hao’s smile held winter’s edge.

  Ma Liu’s throat bobbed. “Yet you walk unscathed…”

  Lin Hao’s scaled fingertips brushed the Kung Fu Fly perched on his shoulder—its nano-thin wings humming a lethal frequency. “Some battles leave no marks.”

  ———

  The rented room stank of mildew and ambition. Lin Hao knelt on straw mats, draconic energy coiling through meridians like molten wire. Spirit particles swirled in visible vortices—his Ultimate Cultivation Talent devouring the atmosphere’s essence.

  Crack.

  The sound of a spiritual dam bursting echoed in his bones. Lin Hao’s eyes snapped open, pupils flashing serpentine slits. Level 2 Warrior energy thrummed beneath his skin, sharpening the world into hyperfocus—ants marching in the walls, Li Qingshou’s wheeze three blocks east, the clink of spirit sun stones in a hidden vault.

  “Evolution eludes me,” he mused, flexing claw-tipped fingers. “But adaptation?” A fanged grin split his face. “That I’ll claim.”

  ———

  Drunken Pavilion’s golden lanterns bathed Lin Hao in false warmth. Ma Liu and Chen Hu stared slack-jawed at the feast—crisped phoenix tail, dragon well tea steaming in jade cups.

  “The Spirit Sun Stone mine,” Lin Hao prompted, crunching a sparrow skull between molars. “Details.”

  Chen Hu’s chopsticks trembled. “Li’s men found it digging foundations for a pleasure villa. Patriarch Lin bargained protection for half the yield… and Mistress Wanrong.”

  A teacup shattered. Kung Fu Fly’s wings stilled.

  “Payment’s due,” Lin Hao whispered, scales rippling beneath his robes.

  ———

  Li Mansion’s rear wall loomed like a tombstone. Lin Hao’s cloak merged with shadows as Wolf Spider scaled the vermilion tiles, each leg secreting paralytic silk. Inside, a symphony of depravity—Li Qingshou’s grunts, a courtesan’s falsetto cries, the cloying stench of aphrodisiac incense.

  “Now.”

  Kung Fu Fly streaked through moonlit cracks, tungsten-reinforced legs glinting. A whisper-cut across Li’s wattled neck. Wolf Spider lunged, fangs piercing buttock fat, neurotoxins freezing mid-thrust.

  Blood geysered across brocade sheets. The courtesan’s scream brought guards crashing through doors—too late. Kung Fu Fly hovered above the carnage, compound eyes recording every twitch of Li’s death throes.

  “Clean work,” Lin Hao approved, withdrawing into alley mist. Ant-Man’s swarm already tunneling toward the mansion’s foundations, seeking spirit stone caches.

  ———

  Dawn found Lin Hao perched on a fire-watch tower, Li Mansion’s chaos unfolding below. Panicked servants, bellowing captains, the reek of burnt ledgers as Ant-Man’s colony devoured account scrolls.

  Wolf Spider skittered up his sleeve, abdomen swollen with stolen spirit stones. Lin Hao crushed one—violet energy seeped into his pores, melding with draconic essence.

  “Half the mine’s yield?” He laughed, scales erupting across his cheeks. “I’ll take it all.”

  In the distance, Lin Wanrong’s jasmine perfume teased the wind—a promise, a farewell. Lin Hao’s claws flexed. The game board tilted. Let the pieces scatter.