Chapter 6: Lao Wang's Warning

The terminal at Hongqiao Airport hummed with predawn energy—business travelers clutching coffee, families herding sleepy children, the fluorescent lights casting everything in that particular shade of institutional green that made five in the morning feel like midnight.

Chen Wei stood near the domestic departures entrance, a weathered canvas duffel slung over one shoulder. Inside: two changes of clothes, her grandmother's jade bracelet wrapped in silk, a worn leather journal of her mother's notes, and seventy-two hundred yuan in cash. The mark on her forearm pulsed beneath her sleeve like a second heartbeat.

Li Wei Wang had texted her at four-thirty. *Jet's ready. Pilot says weather's clear all the way to Chengdu. Meet me at Gate 4, private terminal.*

She'd replied with a single thumbs-up emoji, which felt absurdly modern for someone about to go hunting for thousand-year-old spiritual artifacts.

The crowd parted slightly, and she saw him.

He moved through the terminal like a shark through still water. Six-foot-something of tailored black coat and quiet menace, his presence parting the sleepy travelers without a word. He'd traded the bespoke suit for something more practical—dark cargo pants, a charcoal sweater, boots that looked expensive and broken-in. A leather satchel hung across his chest.

He didn't see her yet. He was scanning the crowd with those sharp eyes, the ones that had made her skin prickle the first time he'd walked into her shop demanding to know his death date.

*Three weeks,* she reminded herself. *Three weeks to save the world from whatever's in that prison. And I'm doing it with a billionaire I barely trust.*

"Cousin."

The voice came from behind her, low and rough as gravel. Chen Wei turned.

The woman standing there looked like a warped mirror of Chen Wei herself. Same sharp cheekbones, same dark eyes, but where Chen Wei's face was softened by a lifetime of quiet anonymity, this woman's was hardened by something else. Scars—faint, white lines that caught the fluorescent light—ran from her left temple down to her jaw. Her black hair was cropped short, practical. She wore a simple grey jacket over a black turtleneck, and she carried a long, narrow case wrapped in oilcloth.

She looked like she'd walked out of a different century.

"Tang Mei," Chen Wei said. The name felt strange on her tongue. She'd known this woman existed—had known since she was twelve, when her mother had explained the family's complicated history—but they'd never met. Never spoken. Just letters, passed through intermediaries, each one carefully worded to avoid saying too much.

Tang Mei's eyes flicked to Chen Wei's left forearm. "You're really marked."

"You're really scarred."

A ghost of a smile crossed Tang Mei's face. "The Tang family doesn't do things by halves. Our branch got the dangerous assignments." She hefted the oilcloth case. "You asked for the sword."

"I asked you to bring it."

"Same thing." Tang Mei's smile faded. "You know what this means, right? The moment I hand this over, our families are bound again. Fifty-three generations of separation, ended because you made a phone call."

"The seals are failing. I don't have time for family politics."

"Politics." Tang Mei laughed, a harsh sound. "You think this is politics? Chen Wei, our grandmothers were sisters. Their grandmothers were sisters. For five hundred years, our branches have guarded the same secret without speaking to each other. And now you want to just—pick up where they left off?"

"I want to save the world," Chen Wei said quietly. "Everything else can wait."

Li Wei Wang's voice cut through their standoff. "I assume this is the cousin."

He'd materialized beside them without a sound. Tang Mei's hand went to her waist, where a knife was probably hidden, before she caught herself.

"You must be the billionaire," she said flatly. "I've heard about you."

"All good things, I hope."

"I heard you're the reason my cousin's in danger."

The air between them crackled. Chen Wei stepped between them, holding up both hands.

"We're all on the same side here. Tang Mei, this is Li Wei Wang. He's funding this expedition and providing transportation. Li Wei Wang, this is my cousin Tang Mei. She's the keeper of our family's weapon legacy, and she's been training for this her whole life."

Li Wei Wang studied Tang Mei for a long moment. "You've used that sword before."

"Not in anger. Not yet."

"But you know how."

"I know how." Tang Mei's voice was ice. "I know how to kill things that should stay dead. I know how to cut through spiritual barriers. I know how to do everything my cousin doesn't, because her branch was always meant to be the thinkers, not the fighters."

"And yet," Chen Wei said, "my branch was the one who carried the seal."

Tang Mei's jaw tightened, but she didn't argue. She unrolled the oilcloth, revealing a sword in a plain leather scabbard. The hilt was wrapped in dark silk, the guard simple iron. It looked ancient and unremarkable—until she drew it.

The blade caught the fluorescent light and turned it into something else. Ethereal, almost liquid, with characters etched along the fuller that seemed to shift when Chen Wei tried to read them.

"Jiang Yin," Tang Mei said. "River of Silver. Forged in the early Tang Dynasty to combat a water demon that was terrorizing the Yangtze. It's been in our family ever since."

Li Wei Wang's eyes widened slightly. He'd seen a lot of extraordinary things since walking into Red Lotus Antiques, but this seemed to affect him differently.

"May I?" he asked.

Tang Mei hesitated, then handed him the sword hilt-first.

The moment his fingers closed around the grip, the blade flared with silver light. The characters along the fuller blazed like writing in fire. And something—some pressure, some presence—filled the air around them.

Li Wei Wang's face went pale. "What—"

"Put it down," Chen Wei said sharply. "Now."

He obeyed, and the light died. The sword clattered against the terminal floor. Around them, no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual. A janitor mopped a distant hallway. A flight announcement echoed overhead.

Tang Mei retrieved the sword, her face unreadable. "The blade reacts to bloodlines," she said. "It recognized you as a friend." She looked at Chen Wei. "That's concerning. The sword only recognizes allies of the Tang family, or enemies it's been forged to kill."

"He's not an enemy," Chen Wei said. "He's—"

"A descendant of one of the cultivators who created the seals?" Tang Mei's voice was sharp. "Because that's the only way the sword would react like that. The Wei family were one of the five original guardian lines. They were tasked with the creation of the western seal at Longmen."

Chen Wei stared at her cousin. "You knew?"

"I knew the names. I didn't know if he was actually connected." Tang Mei sheathed the sword with practiced ease. "The fact that he is changes things."

Li Wei Wang had recovered his composure, though his hand trembled slightly. "I didn't know. My family's history is... complicated. We don't talk about certain things."

"Your ancestors helped imprison something so powerful that it required five cultivators working together to contain it," Tang Mei said. "And then they scattered across China to make sure it could never be released. Your family forgot. My family remembered. Chen Wei's family remembered." She paused. "And now we're all back together again."

"Like it was meant to be," Chen Wei murmured.

"Or like it was fated." Tang Mei's eyes met hers. "You really believe in all that?"

"You're holding a sword that reacts to bloodlines, standing in an airport with a man who can see the supernatural and a woman who reads futures for a living." Chen Wei smiled slightly. "What do you think?"

Tang Mei didn't answer. But she shouldered the sword case and fell into step beside them as they headed toward the private terminal.

The jet was smaller than Chen Wei had expected—a sleek Gulfstream with leather seats and a table that folded out for meetings. A flight attendant in a navy uniform greeted them with coffee and pastries, pretending not to notice the sword case or the strange tension between her three passengers.

Chen Wei settled into a window seat and watched Shanghai disappear beneath a blanket of clouds. The city that had been her home for thirty years—her shop, her routines, her carefully constructed anonymity—receded like a memory.

*I'm coming, Mother.*

The flight to Chengdu took three hours. Li Wei Wang spent most of it on his laptop, making calls in low Mandarin and occasionally English. Tang Mei sat motionless, her hand resting on the sword case like a soldier awaiting orders. Chen Wei studied her mother's notes.

The first seal was carved into the Shrine of the Golden Buddha at Mount Emei—or so her mother believed. The shrine had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but the seal itself had been hidden deep within the mountain, in a cave accessible only to those who knew the way.

"The cave was sealed with a spiritual barrier," Chen Wei read aloud. "It requires the blood of a guardian line to open."

"Whose blood?" Tang Mei asked.

Chen Wei looked at the mark on her forearm. "Mine. Or yours. We're both descended from the same guardian line."

"But your branch carried the fifth seal. Your blood is older."

"Her blood will work," Li Wei Wang said without looking up from his laptop. "The question is whether we can get to the cave before the prison's current residents figure out we're coming."

"Current residents?"

He closed the laptop and met her eyes. "I've been doing some digging since yesterday. The area around Mount Emei has seen a spike in supernatural activity over the past six months. Unexplained disappearances. Reports of strange lights in the mountains. Local monks have been performing extra ceremonies to ward off evil spirits."

"They know something's stirring."

"They know something's *coming*." He paused. "Or something's already there."

The plane began its descent. Chen Wei looked out the window at the green peaks of Sichuan rising through morning mist. Mount Emei loomed in the distance, its golden summit catching the first rays of sunrise.

Somewhere in that mountain, a thousand-year-old seal was weakening.

And something was waiting for them.

Tang Mei leaned across the aisle, her voice low. "Cousin. There's something you need to know before we land."

"What?"

"Your mother didn't die in an accident."

Chen Wei's blood went cold. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she was killed." Tang Mei's eyes were flat. "And the people who killed her are still out there. They're the ones who've been weakening the seals. They've been hunting our family for generations, and now that you've made contact with me—now that we're both in the open—"

The plane's wheels touched down with a jolt.

"—they know exactly where to find us."