Chapter 3: Death Date
~2.0k words · 2026-06-20
Li Wei Wang returned the next night at exactly midnight. He looked like a man who hadn't slept — his tie was crooked, his silver hair disheveled.
"The woman in the lab. Your mother. She was pregnant. Did the child survive?"
Chen Wei studied him for a long moment. "Yes. She survived."
"Where is she? If she knows anything about what happened—"
"She knows everything." Chen Wei's voice went cold. "She knows who built the lab. She knows who authorized the dig. She knows who ordered her mother to translate the carvings, even after she warned them the script was dangerous."
Li Wei Wang's face crumpled. "I didn't mean for anyone to die."
"The fire was your salvation." Chen Wei opened the leather journal. "My mother wrote: 'The temple was built to seal something. Not a tomb. Not a treasure vault. Something alive. Something that the Tang Dynasty cultivators could not destroy but could only contain. The seal is broken now. I broke it. Wang made me break it.'"
"Cultivators? That's mythology."
"Your company has spent thirty years studying mythology, Mr. Wang. You have a division devoted to nothing else." Chen Wei rolled up her left sleeve. A mark covered her forearm — a spiral of black lines that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. "This appeared the night I turned eighteen. The same night my grandmother died. The same night the lights flickered in every building within a kilometer of the old laboratory site."
She pulled her sleeve back down. "July 15th. Three weeks from now. That's when the seal breaks. That's when you die. Unless we reseal it. Together."
"Together?"
"You have resources I don't. I have knowledge you don't. If we succeed, you live. If we fail — you were going to die anyway."
Li Wei Wang stared at her hand, extended toward him. Then, slowly, he shook it.
"Tell me what you need," he said.
"The woman in the lab. Your mother. She was pregnant. Did the child survive?"
Chen Wei studied him for a long moment. "Yes. She survived."
"Where is she? If she knows anything about what happened—"
"She knows everything." Chen Wei's voice went cold. "She knows who built the lab. She knows who authorized the dig. She knows who ordered her mother to translate the carvings, even after she warned them the script was dangerous."
Li Wei Wang's face crumpled. "I didn't mean for anyone to die."
"The fire was your salvation." Chen Wei opened the leather journal. "My mother wrote: 'The temple was built to seal something. Not a tomb. Not a treasure vault. Something alive. Something that the Tang Dynasty cultivators could not destroy but could only contain. The seal is broken now. I broke it. Wang made me break it.'"
"Cultivators? That's mythology."
"Your company has spent thirty years studying mythology, Mr. Wang. You have a division devoted to nothing else." Chen Wei rolled up her left sleeve. A mark covered her forearm — a spiral of black lines that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. "This appeared the night I turned eighteen. The same night my grandmother died. The same night the lights flickered in every building within a kilometer of the old laboratory site."
She pulled her sleeve back down. "July 15th. Three weeks from now. That's when the seal breaks. That's when you die. Unless we reseal it. Together."
"Together?"
"You have resources I don't. I have knowledge you don't. If we succeed, you live. If we fail — you were going to die anyway."
Li Wei Wang stared at her hand, extended toward him. Then, slowly, he shook it.
"Tell me what you need," he said.