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LOCATION: CHENGDU REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION HUB
CITY: CHENGDU, CHINA
DATE: JULY 23, 2026 | TIME: 3:00 AM
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System Broadcast
Vitalyx Recipients: 1,498,004,576
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@PraiseBeToHe: "Before they call, I will answer…" Isaiah 65:24 #VitalyxMiracle
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Chengdu, in western China, was a city of contrasts. Towering apartment blocks and teeming markets at its heart, ringed by farmland and villages stretching far into the mountains.
The regional distribution hub for Vitalyx was a well-hidden secret for a reason. It operated 24 hours a day, ensuring that all hospitals, clinics and pharmacies would have sufficient supply for the people.
Xiao Jun led the local chapter of Heaven's Mandate, a religious militant group who were thrown into a frenzy by the Vitalyx announcement.
They'd been mobilizing in different areas of the country, stockpiling weapons and sloppily messaging each other on trackable apps.
Xiao Jun was smarter than that. He and his group stayed together at the farmhouse he had inherited from his father. It was located far outside of Chengdu city proper, and he ensured that they only communicated in person and in whispers. And always under a roof. Just to ensure overhead surveillance wouldn't capture any of their plans.
His paranoia had so far paid off. His cell of twenty men and women were still alive and free, while well over a thousand of their compatriots had been swept up by local law enforcement and the Beijing police state.
At midnight, they had all gathered inside the barn. He was briefing them on the final plan before they left.
"But first, we must pray," he said. "This Vitalyx has surely poisoned hundreds of millions of Chinese. We have to stop it."
Xiao recited a prayer while the others bowed their heads.
Afterward, he stowed the family heirloom sword across his back, then lifted the black steel rifle he had procured at great cost high above his head. One symbol of the old ways. One of the new. Both ready to serve Heaven's will.
"The time has come. We must free our brethren. I've been told they are holding 1,137 of our brothers and sisters in prison cells and labor camps. We do this to free them first. Then, we will ensure that infernal Vitalyx supply is destroyed once and for all."
Everyone kept their voices to whispers, but they cheered in low breathy exhalations. They all hugged and patted each other on the shoulder.
They loaded up and checked each other's gear and loaded into five separate vehicles.
They were to take different routes into the city, drive around randomly, and converge on a specified address at exactly 3:00 AM.
Xiao Jun did as he'd told the others. He found a parking spot a few blocks away from the warehouse and walked the rest of the way on foot. He kept to the shadows, the assault rifle slung over his back.
When he arrived, he waited in hiding a few more minutes until he received texts saying everyone was in position.
Four guards roamed in random patterns outside the warehouse.
"Two more hours," one of them said. "I'm exhausted tonight for some reason."
"Yeah," the other guard said, "can't wait to get some rest. Hopefully this will be over soon. The overtime pay is nice, but the hours are killing me."
Suddenly, as the guard was talking, he heard a muffled sound from across the street.
A hole opened in the center of his partner's forehead. The guard had only a moment to recognize this before he, too, dropped to the ground from another suppressed rifle shot to the temple.
The other two guards in the front of the warehouse fell at the same time, and twenty members of Heaven's Mandate stayed low as they crossed the street.
Four dragged the bodies into the shadows, after searching them to find a set of keys.
Silently, and with the military precision they had practiced for months, the twenty entered the building and took the lives of two more guards and sixteen warehouse workers.
One was caught returning from the restroom. He'd been looking down at his phone and didn't even see it coming.
Another was driving a forklift, and was just about to stab the wooden pallet of Vitalyx on a high shelf when the shot entered the back of his head.
A clang sounded through the quiet of the warehouse as the forklift slammed into the metal shelving.
In four minutes, the Regional Distribution Hub for Vitalyx was cleared, and the only ones left standing were the twenty from Heaven's Mandate.
Four of them donned guard's uniforms and stepped outside to patrol the street. Keeping up appearances until the last minute was crucial to Xiao's plan.
The others went to the locker rooms and put on warehouse coveralls.
After changing, he gathered the remaining fifteen members in the center of the warehouse to hand out the final assignments.
"It's 3:45 now," Xiao said. "We've got around five hours before the buses come. I need you to man the phones."
He pointed to one of the members, who bowed curtly and walked to the front office.
"The rest," Xiao continued, "take up positions around the inside perimeter and be ready. The next shift comes at 5:00. We must be ready for swift action."
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was a local favorite for school trips and essentially a required stop for tourists visiting western China.
The name, [ 成都大熊猫繁育研究基地 ], sounded clunky even in Chinese, and when rendered into English, they hadn't bothered with brevity. Most simply called it the Panda Base.
To the Chinese, the giant panda was more than an animal. It was a national treasure, a living emblem of peace and balance.
Since ancient times, poets had likened its black-and-white fur to the duality of yin and yang, while modern governments used it as a symbol of diplomacy and goodwill.
Children on school trips adored the nursery, where they could see newborn cubs so small they fit in a hand. Older students loved watching the adults lounge on scaffolds, gnawing through stalk after stalk of bamboo like kings of leisure.
Pandas ate forty pounds of bamboo a day, and spent most of the rest of their time sleeping. Guides often joked about the "lazy gluttons," but these adored animals were the very image of innocence.
On the morning of July 23rd, three school buses full of 25 children each from the Chengdu East Lotus Elementary School motored down the road toward the Panda Base.
Many of the children carried their favorite panda plushie, or wore panda t-shirts under the blue tracksuits that served as their school uniforms.
They spoke animatedly about what they were hoping to see at the park, and their teacher led them in a song.
As the first bus pulled onto the side street that led to the expressway, the driver noticed an elder man walking slowly across the street.
He slowed, and the two buses behind him did the same. The elder man was taking his time crossing, stooped and deliberate. But respect for the elderly was a paramount virtue in Chinese society, and nobody complained.
That's when the armed men appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
Two men with assault rifles approached each of the vehicles. They forced the doors open and boarded the buses.
One pointed his weapon at the driver while the other escorted the students and chaperones off the bus and into a warehouse.
A line of masked men and women in guard and warehouse uniforms kept the line from the buses to the storage facility orderly.
The children cried and whimpered, but nobody raised a hand on them. They were just ushered along.
Once the buses had been unloaded, one of the armed men from Heaven's Mandate stayed with each driver and forced them to continue the route to the Panda Base.
Once they arrived, the driver was to report the children safe, and then they would be free to go.
Back at the Chengdu Regional Distribution Hub for Vitalyx, 75 children and six chaperones sat cross-legged on the floor in neat lines.
Heaven's Mandate fed them and gave them bottles of water. But they had been searched and all mobile phones had been confiscated.
"Keep the noise down," Xiao Jun told them, "and Heaven will ensure you sleep in your own beds tonight."
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System Broadcast
Vitalyx Recipients: 1,804,553,018
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@Gabriella439682: I lost 25 lbs in the first week! #VitalyxLove
@TrollKing694U: Easy, SlimFast. You've still got a ways to go. #JustGettingStarted
@Gabriella439682: How do you ban people on here?
@TrollKing694U: Your fat thumbs aren't meant for such precision work.
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