Chapter 1: A Shadow Returns
The night was quiet, yet Tang Rouxi moved through the darkness like a whisper. The city skyline of X Country stretched before her, neon lights flickering against the endless black sky. In her gloved hand, she held a small velvet pouch—inside, a gemstone worth more than most people made in a lifetime.
The Vermilion Heart. A rare and priceless relic, stolen from the depths of one of the world's most secure vaults. It had been a dangerous job, but the pay was good. And Tang Rouxi never turned down a challenge.
She pulled her hood lower as she boarded a private jet back to China, exhaustion settling into her bones. It had been five years since her parents died, five years of clawing her way to the top of an underground world where only the ruthless survived. But no matter how far she went, her reason for enduring never changed—her twin siblings.
She thought of them as the plane lifted off, her gaze drifting to the city vanishing below. Xiao Yue and Xiao Feng. They were only five years old when their parents' car crashed, leaving them orphaned. The government would have taken them, separated them, sent them to different foster homes. Tang Rouxi never allowed that to happen. She was only fifteen then, but she made a choice.
No one was going to take them away from her.
It wasn't easy. At first, she tried to survive by doing small jobs, using the intelligence and skills her parents had drilled into her since childhood. The Tang family had deep military roots—her father, a high-ranking officer, trained her like a soldier. Her mother, once a strategist, had made sure she understood the art of war before she even finished primary school.
They noticed early on that something was different about her. She was too strong. Too fast. Too sharp. Doctors and therapists tried to explain it, but no answers came. Instead, as she grew older, the light in her eyes dimmed, her movements became calculated, her presence so quiet that at times, it felt like she wasn't even there.
Then, her parents were gone.
She still remembered that night—how she waited in the hospital hallway, expecting to see them walk out smiling after checking on the twins. Instead, she received the news that changed her life forever.
A car accident. Fatal. No survivors.
That was the last time Tang Rouxi cried.
The moment they were buried, she became someone else. No longer the brilliant prodigy who aced the national exams and was set to enter the best university in the country. No longer the quiet girl who walked through school hallways unnoticed.
She disappeared.
And in her place, a ghost was born.
At first, she worked small jobs in the underworld—delivering packages, gathering information, and taking on minor hacking assignments. But someone noticed her potential. Someone who saw what she could become. They took her in, trained her, and threw her into the deep end.
And she survived.
Now, at twenty, she was more than just another mercenary. She was a name that carried weight in the industry, a shadow people feared but never saw.
As the plane touched down in Beijing, her phone buzzed. A new job. Another payday. Another step forward.
But as she walked through the airport, her sharp eyes caught something—a robbery unfolding near the exit.
For most, it was none of their business. But Tang Rouxi wasn't most people.
Her fingers flexed. She was raised for war. And sometimes, war found her first.