The weight of the industrial Jade in the bunker storage was the only thing that allowed Lin Feng Yi to sleep for more than an hour at a time. The air was colder now, the kind of deep winter chill that seeped through concrete and bone alike. He sat by the main power hub, watching the green glow of the crystals as they hummed inside the lead-lined casing. He had hooked them into the primary grid, and for the first time, the bunker felt alive. The lights did not flicker, and the air scrubbers moved with a steady, confident purr.
But the red lights on the map were still there, burned into his mind. Three more bunkers had gone dark since they returned from the transit station. The world was being hunted, and his little hole in the ground was just another box on a checklist for something terrible.
He stood up and walked into the common area. The scavengers were huddling near the heaters he had repaired. They looked better than they had a week ago. Their skin was less grey, and the hollow look in their eyes was starting to fade. But they were soft. If a Hesperian squad walked through that hatch right now, they would be slaughtered.
Geng, Hao, stand up, Lin Feng Yi said.
The two men looked up from their bowls of warm mash. Geng groaned, his joints popping as he rose. We just got back from the haul, Xiao Lin. My back feels like it is made of broken glass. Can we not just enjoy the warmth for one day?
No, Lin Feng Yi said. He picked up one of the glass-tipped spears they had taken from the Iron Rats. Warmth makes you slow. Slowness makes you dead. You saw what happened at the station. Those men were not soldiers, and they almost had us. The next ones will be better.
Geng looked at the spear and then at the boy. You killed their leader like you were chopping wood, kid. Why do we need to learn? You can just do it again.
Lin Feng Yi stepped close to Geng. He was much smaller, but he projected a stillness that made the larger man go quiet. I cannot be everywhere, Geng. And I will not always be here. If I die, or if I am across the city, what happens to Mei? What happens to Uncle Chen? Do you want to watch them burn because you were too tired to hold a stick?
Geng looked over at Mei, who was sitting in the corner drawing in the dust with a piece of charcoal. He set his jaw and nodded. Fine. Show us how to poke people with a stick.
Lin Feng Yi led them to the largest open space in the bunker, a room that had once been a small gymnasium for the staff. He didn't start with fighting. He started with standing. He made them stand in a line, their feet shoulder-width apart, their backs straight.
You are not just holding a weapon, he told them. You are part of the ground. If your feet are wrong, the spear is just a heavy piece of trash.
For hours, he moved between them, kicking their heels into place and shoving their shoulders back. It was tedious work. He felt the frustration rising in his chest. In his old life, he had managed thousands of people with a single email. Now, he was struggling to teach two grown men how to stand still. He felt the potion in his blood pulse, a sharp reminder that his time was ticking away. Every second spent on basic drills was a second lost to the enemy.
By the afternoon, the men were sweating and swearing. Their muscles were shaking from the strain of holding the poses.
This is stupid, Hao muttered, his spear wobbling. I thought you were going to show us the magic moves you used on the Butcher.
Lin Feng Yi took a spear from the rack. There is no magic, Hao. There is only physics and timing.
He stepped in front of Hao. Hold your spear out. Try to hit me.
Hao blinked. I don't want to hurt you, kid.
You won't, Lin Feng Yi said. Try.
Hao lunged forward. It was a clumsy, heavy movement. Lin Feng Yi didn't even use his weapon. He stepped an inch to the left, caught the shaft of Hao's spear, and used the man's own momentum to pull him face-first into the floor.
Hao hit the metal with a loud thud. He sat up, rubbing his nose, looking stunned.
You were looking at my eyes, Lin Feng Yi said. Never look at the eyes. Look at the center of the chest. The eyes can lie. The chest tells you where the weight is going.
As the training continued, Lin Feng Yi felt the golden script in his eyes shifting. It wasn't just about his own progress anymore.
Martial Pillar Progress Twelve Percent. Tradition Pillar Progress Five Percent.
The Tradition pillar was moving because he was passing on knowledge. He realized then that the System didn't just care about his strength. It cared about the strength of the group. He was rebuilding a culture of defense, a tradition of the Middle Realm that had been lost to the scavenging life.
Late in the day, Uncle Chen walked into the room. He was leaning on a cane Lin Feng Yi had fashioned for him, but he looked stronger than before. He watched the training for a long time without saying anything.
You are building a wall, Xiao Lin, Chen said during a break.
Lin Feng Yi wiped the sweat from his forehead. A wall isn't enough, Uncle. We need a perimeter.
What do you mean?
The bunker is a cage if we don't control the ground above it, Lin Feng Yi explained. We are going to build the First Circle. We need sensors, traps, and sightlines. If a Hesperian scout gets within a mile of that hatch, I want to know the color of his eyes.
Over the next few days, the work shifted. Training happened in the mornings, and engineering happened in the afternoons. Lin Feng Yi took the group to the surface, despite their terror. He showed them how to set up tripwires made of high-tensile wire from the bunker storage. He showed them how to hide pressure plates under the rubble that would trigger silent alarms down in the terminal.
He found a crate of old optical sensors in the maintenance room. They were meant for the library security system, but he re-coded them to act as motion detectors. He placed them in the hollow eyes of the surrounding ruins, hidden behind shards of glass and piles of brick.
It was hard, dirty work. The weather was getting worse, the wind biting into their skin. Lin Feng Yi's body felt like it was constantly on the verge of breaking. The hunger of the Jade potion was getting sharper, and he found himself staring at the glowing crystals in the power room, feeling a strange urge to touch them, to pull the energy directly into his veins.
One evening, while they were setting a trap near the garage entrance, Geng stopped and looked at Lin Feng Yi. You're not like us, are you?
Lin Feng Yi paused, a coil of wire in his hand. We are all humans, Geng.
No, Geng said, shaking his head. We are scavengers. We live for the day. You live for the next hundred years. You talk about circles and perimeters and legacies. Where did you learn to be a general?
I read a lot of books in the library, Geng, Lin Feng Yi said, turning back to the wire. It was a lie, but it was the only one that worked.
I don't think so, Geng muttered. But I don't care. As long as Mei is safe, I will follow you into the fire.
That was the first time someone had explicitly pledged loyalty to him. It wasn't a System notification or a golden script. It was a human choice. Lin Feng Yi felt a strange weight in his chest. It was the weight of responsibility, a burden heavier than the Jade.
By the end of the week, the First Circle was complete. A ring of sensors and traps stretched for three hundred meters around the bunker. If anything larger than a rat moved in the ruins, the alarm would pulse red on the bunker terminal.
Lin Feng Yi sat at the desk that night, his eyes burning with exhaustion. He opened the Scholar's Stone he had found at the station. He pressed it against the port, and the screen filled with a new set of data.
It wasn't a diary this time. It was a list of names. Thousands of them. It was the roster of the 2025 Global Recovery Initiative. He scrolled down, his heart thumping. He found his own name: Lin Feng Yi, Lead Strategist.
And then he found a note attached to his file.
Subject 001. Stasis confirmed. Mandate Protocol active. In the event of total societal collapse, Subject 001 is authorized to use the Jade Network to re-establish the Great Harmony. Warning: The Jade is a living element. It does not just provide power. It provides a path. Do not let the path consume the traveler.
He stared at the word living. He looked at the industrial Jade humming in the corner. He realized that the Hesperians weren't just using it for fuel. They were trying to bond with it. That was what the Grafting was. They were trying to become the path.
He felt a surge of fear. He was drinking the same energy. He was using it to fix his mind and strengthen his body. Was he turning into the very thing he was fighting?
A soft sound at the door made him jump. It was Mei. She was holding her blue bird, her eyes wide.
Are you okay, Xiao Lin? You look like you saw a ghost.
I am fine, Mei, he said, closing the screen. Just tired.
You should sleep, she said, walking over and sitting at his feet. Uncle Chen says the winter is coming for real tomorrow. The big snow.
Lin Feng Yi looked at the sensors on his screen. The perimeter was silent. The ruins were dark. But he knew the snow would bring more than just cold. It would bring the hungry things. The monsters that lived in the white dark.
He reached out and stroked Mei's hair. It was thin and brittle from years of bad food, but it felt real. It felt human.
Go to sleep, Mei. I will watch the circle.
She curled up on the floor next to him, and eventually, her breathing became slow and steady. Lin Feng Yi stayed awake, his eyes fixed on the screen. He felt the potion in his blood settling, the digestion reaching a new plateau.
Digestion Status Twenty-Five Percent. Sequence Nine Ritualist: Stability Reached.
He felt a new clarity. He could hear the hum of the bunker's heart. He could feel the cold wind hitting the sensors on the surface. He was connected to the place in a way he couldn't explain. He was the bunker, and the bunker was him.
He looked at his hands. They were still dirty. They were still the hands of a boy. But when he clenched them, he felt the strength of the old world and the potential of the new one.
The First Circle was done. But the world was large, and the enemy was ancient. He needed to find the others. He needed to find the source of the Jade. And he needed to find out what had happened to the woman in the video.
The winter storm hit at midnight. The wind howled through the ruins, shaking the very foundations of the skyscrapers. The sensors on the surface flickered and died one by one as the ice covered them.
Lin Feng Yi stood up and walked to the ladder. He didn't wake the others. He climbed to the hatch and looked out through the reinforced glass.
The world was white. A thick, blinding sheet of snow was erasing the city. And in the middle of the white, he saw a single red light.
It wasn't a sensor. It was an eye.
Something was standing in the storm, right at the edge of his circle. It was tall, thin, and moved with a grace that no human should have. It didn't trigger the tripwires. It didn't set off the alarms. It just stood there, watching the bunker.
Lin Feng Yi gripped his iron strut. The game had changed again. The Hesperians were one thing, but the things in the dark were another.
He didn't feel like a scholar anymore. He felt like a hunter.
He closed the hatch and locked it. He went back down to the terminal and began to warm up the defensive systems. He wasn't going to wait for them to knock.
The first winter of the new world had arrived. And Lin Feng Yi was ready for the cold.