They returned to the warehouse at 2 AM.
Kai's divine sense detected the problem immediately with twelve people inside, all cultivators, ranging from Body Refinement to Foundation Establishment. Waiting in ambush positions.
He parked the motorcycle two blocks away.
"What's wrong?" Wei'er whispered.
"We have visitors." Kai closed his eyes, expanding his divine sense to its limit. The cultivators inside weren't moving randomly; they were in a formation. Professional. Military-trained.
And at the center of the formation, one presence that made Kai's instincts scream danger.
Golden Core stage.
His first real threat since descending.
"Police?" Wei'er asked.
"Worse. Cultivators. At least one Golden Core."
Wei'er sucked in a breath. "We need to leave. Right now. A Golden Core cultivator could level this entire block."
Kai considered. With his current cultivation early Foundation Establishment with one fragment recovered he was hopelessly outmatched in a direct fight. A Golden Core cultivator had spiritual energy reserves hundreds of times greater, techniques that could atomize buildings, and physical abilities that defied physics.
But he'd fought beings stronger than himself before.
The key was never to fight fair.
"Stay here," Kai said, dismounting. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, use the jade token Shen Yun gave you. Go to the nearest major sect."
"Kai, you can't—"
He was already moving, slipping into the shadows between buildings.
The warehouse had six entry points. The ambush team had covered five of them, leaving one the maintenance shaft on the roof unguarded. Probably because it was too small for a normal person to use.
Kai wasn't a normal person.
He scaled the building's exterior in thirty seconds, his enhanced strength making the climb trivial. The maintenance shaft was indeed narrow, but manageable.
He dropped into the warehouse's ceiling crawlspace.
Below, he could hear voices.
"—don't understand why we're waiting. The targets could return anytime." Young voice. Impatient.
"Because Master Feng ordered us to wait." Older voice. Disciplined. "We spring the trap when they're both inside."
"Feng" wasn't a name Kai recognized, but the title "Master" suggested significant authority.
Kai moved through the crawlspace silently, positioning himself above the main office. His divine sense mapped the opposition precisely:
Ten Body Refinement cultivators stationed at entry points. Two Foundation Establishment cultivators flanking the office entrance. And inside the office, the Golden Core cultivator Master Feng.
Waiting.
Kai reached into his jacket and pulled out three items: a flash-bang grenade (purchased from a very questionable contact three months ago), a small vial of corrosive acid, and the steel bolt he'd kept from the teahouse attack.
Then he dropped through the ceiling.
The office floor exploded as Kai crashed through, landing in a crouch directly behind Master Feng. Before the man could turn, Kai hurled the flash-bang toward the door.
The explosion was deafening in the enclosed space. Light and sound overwhelmed the Foundation Establishment guards.
Master Feng spun, his Golden Core aura erupting like a physical force. "You!"
Kai was already moving, using the steel bolt like a dagger, aiming for Feng's throat—
The bolt stopped six inches from Feng's neck, caught by an invisible barrier of qi. The man's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Foundation Establishment? Impossible. No Foundation cultivator moves that fast."
Kai twisted, changing the angle of attack, simultaneously throwing the acid vial at Feng's face—
A wave of spiritual energy deflected it. The vial shattered against the wall, acid hissing as it ate through concrete.
"Clever," Feng acknowledged. He looked middle-aged, with sharp features and eyes that calculated constantly. "But futile. Do you know the gap between Foundation and Golden Core? It's not a difference of degree. It's a difference of a kind."
He moved.
Kai barely dodged, the displacement of air where Feng's fist passed leaving a vacuum that imploded with a crack. If that had connected, Kai's body would have been pulped.
"Fast," Feng said, surprised. "Very fast. But—"
Kai's counterattack was a feint, his real target the floor beneath Feng. The kick shattered concrete, revealing the building's structural supports.
Which Kai had spent the previous week carefully weakening.
The floor collapsed.
Both men fell into the warehouse's lower level a maintenance basement Kai had discovered during his initial inspection. Feng tumbled ungracefully, his Golden Core cultivation making him durable but not immune to surprise.
Kai landed in a roll, already sprinting for the basement's far wall.
Where he'd planted three jerry cans of gasoline and a timed ignition device.
Activated six hours ago.
Feng realized the trap a moment too late. "You—"
The explosion turned the basement into an inferno.
Kai burst through the wall pre-weakened, like the floor and emerged into the adjacent building's foundation. Fire roared behind him, consuming oxygen, superheating the air to temperatures that would kill a mortal instantly.
A Golden Core cultivator could survive it, but not comfortably. Not without dedicating most of their spiritual energy to defense.
Kai used the confusion to escape through a drainage tunnel he'd mapped weeks ago, emerging three blocks away.
His clothes were singed, his hair smoking slightly. But he was alive.
And Master Feng had learned an important lesson: cultivation level wasn't everything.
Preparation was.
******
Wei'er nearly collapsed with relief when Kai appeared from an alley. "I heard the explosion! I thought—"
"I'm fine. We need to move. They'll regroup quickly."
"Who were they?"
"I don't know yet. But they knew about the warehouse, knew we'd return here." Kai's expression was grim. "We have a leak. Someone told them our location."
"That's impossible. The only people who knew about this place were—" Wei'er stopped. "Oh no."
"What?"
"I told Zhang Lin. My old CEO. I mentioned we were starting a new venture, and asked if any of his staff would be interested in joining. I didn't give him the exact address, but I said East District, warehouse district." She looked stricken. "You think he sold us out?"
"Or someone made him talk." Kai pulled out his phone, dialing the burner number he'd given to Zhao, the real estate contact. No answer. "We need to assume all our previous contacts are compromised."
"Then where do we go?"
Kai thought rapidly. The warehouse was lost. Their plans for production were delayed. Enemies on multiple fronts Wang Zhou's legal and political pressure, the mysterious assassins targeting cultivation families, and now an unknown force with Golden Core cultivators hunting them directly.
A normal person would panic.
Kai saw an opportunity.
"We go on offense," he said.
"Offense? Against who?"
"Everyone." Kai started walking toward a busier street where they could catch a cab. "Wang Zhou thinks we're hiding. The assassins think we're targets. Master Feng thinks we're cornered. They're all wrong."
"Kai, we just lost our only facility. We have no production capability, no staff, no—"
"We have something better." Kai pulled out his phone and opened a photo of the symbol from the assassins' wrists. "We have a mystery that the Cultivation Affairs Ministry desperately wants to solve. And we're going to solve it for them."
"In exchange for what?"
"Protection. Resources. Legal immunity." Kai hailed a cab. "And information about who's really pulling the strings in Haishi City."
Wei'er climbed into the cab after him, her expression troubled. "You know something. About that symbol, about what's happening. I can see it in your face."
Kai gave the driver an address at the Cultivation Affairs Ministry's Haishi City branch. Then he turned to Wei'er.
"I know," he said quietly, "that someone from my past is involved in this. Someone who should be dead. And if I'm right about who it is..."
He trailed off, staring out at the city lights.
"What?" Wei'er pressed.
"Then Wang Zhou is the least of our problems."