Cian'an Hall did not live above ground.
The marble-faced wellness clinic in downtown Shanghai—the one known for its overpriced incense therapy and AI-guided herbal plans—was a front.
The real Cian'an Hall was buried three levels beneath an abandoned apothecary warehouse on the outskirts of the city, accessible only by biometric clearance or a key from the past.
Sienna came disguised.
Black hair pinned up, a red sigil pressed between her brows, and a forged ID chip under the name "Nan Zhiqing."
Jenna's handiwork. Ironic. Perfect.
The air in the lower levels was colder, filled with the aroma of burning sandalwood, dried roots, and dust. Along the walls hung faded tapestries of Daoist prescriptions, flanked by antique herb cabinets. It looked like a temple. It smelled like memory.
But beneath the paper lanterns and incense burners, the tech hummed.
Radiation detectors. Security drones. Retinal scanners disguised as wooden bodhisattvas.
Her concealed silver needle case vibrated once against her thigh—an alert. Someone was sweeping the corridor with a portable radiation scanner.
She popped a lead-pellet shielding patch hidden inside her sleeve. The vibration stopped.
Sienna moved faster, weaving down an old corridor lined with ancestral portraits labeled "Guardians of the Valley."
One frame made her stop cold.
The tenth in the series.
Dr. Minghao Chen.
Her master.
Beneath the portrait, a brass plaque read:
"Exiled from the Valley. Traitor to the Blood Doctrine."
Her stomach dropped.
He hadn't disappeared.
He'd been erased.
She kept walking until she reached a narrow stone staircase at the end of the hall. It spiraled downward into darkness, lit only by occasional flickering emergency lights.
At the bottom: a steel door with no markings. Nothing but a keyhole rimmed in silver.
Her jade pendant pulsed warm against her chest.
She pressed it to the lock.
The door clicked open.
—
It was a cold archive room.
Every wall was lined with reinforced shelves, layered in anti-radiation shielding. Dozens of glass cases held ancient documents, microfilm reels, and decaying prescription books.
At the far end sat a drawer labeled in scrawled:S.A. Sterling
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
She slid it open.
Inside was a notebook—worn, frayed at the corners. The cover bore the insignia of the Valley of the Medicine King: twin serpents wrapped around a flaming staff.
She opened it.
And her master's handwriting stared back.
"If you're reading this, Sienna, I've already failed."
Her hands trembled.
"Silas was not a normal boy. He wasn't adopted. He was retrieved—from the wreckage of the K-Series clone initiative. I tried to remove the implants from his body. I failed."
"K is his mirror. The firstborn. The prototype."
"Silas was never meant to remember anything. But he cried the first time I touched his pulse points. I knew then—I couldn't let him be erased again."
Tears blurred her vision.
She turned the page.
"They will come for you, too. You're not just a witness. You're the final key. That's why I encoded your name into the alloy matrix of the Yao Furnace."
She froze.
The ancient medicine furnace she found at the smuggling dock.
She never thought to scan it for data.
The air behind her shifted.
She wasn't alone.
"You made it farther than I expected," said a voice—smooth, amused.
Sienna turned.
K stood in the doorway.
No mask.
No cloak.
Just his face—still healing, still bleeding in places—but unmistakable.
He stepped forward slowly and dropped a photograph onto the table.
A picture of Sienna at age seven, kneeling in the training courtyard of the Valley. Next to her, in shadow, stood a man.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she said.
"You shouldn't," he agreed. "We always end up in the same places."
Sienna's jaw tightened. "Why are you here?"
"I came to see if you were ready to understand."
He gestured to the journal.
"You thought this was about Sterling. Or your master's death. It's not. It's about us. All of us."
She stared. "You mean the clones."
"I mean the survivors."
He placed a small glass vial on the table—filled with a clear fluid and a shimmering gold chip suspended inside.
"This," he said, "contains the neural code of Silas's memory stabilization process. It only exists because of you. Because your body stabilized it when no one else could."
Sienna's voice was sharp. "Why give this to me now?"
K smiled faintly. "Because whether you admit it or not, you love him."
She flinched.
He stepped closer.
"And because I don't."
The air thickened.
Then he said softly, "He's unraveling, Sienna. Slowly. Silently. I tried to accelerate it to wake his core. But if you want to stop it—you'll need to break the lock."
He pulled a small detonator from his coat.
Pressed it into her palm.
"The databanks in this hall contain everything. Our files. Your father's. Mine. I'm giving you a choice."
"Why?"
"Because you still think I'm the villain. And I'm tired of playing the part."
Then he turned and walked away.
Sienna stood frozen, chip in one hand, detonator in the other.
She opened the final page of the journal.
"If they ever tell you you're not real—remember, Sienna: you were always the only one who chose. That's what made you human."
She set the detonator timer to thirty seconds.
Took the chip and journal.
And walked away.
Behind her, fire bloomed in silence.
She never looked back.
Because some truths only need to be seen once to be remembered forever.