Chapter 64 – The Phoenix Awakens
Bai Xueqing stood slowly, her knees still shaky, but her gaze sharpened like forged steel. The thousand lives that now coalesced inside her didn't weigh her down—they lifted her.
Mo Chen steadied her elbow. "You okay?"
"I'm more than okay," she said, voice steadier than it had ever been. "I finally understand who I am—and who they want me not to be."
She looked at her hands, as if seeing them for the first time. The power that slept in her soul had finally awakened—not just cultivation, not just intellect—but a harmony of every lesson she'd endured across lifetimes.
Meng Zhihao, ever the awkward tension-breaker, whistled. "You look like you could bench-press a mountain."
"I might try, later," Xueqing muttered, cracking a rare smile.
The team stepped out of the ancient vault, the early morning light painting City A's skyline in orange and gold. It was a new dawn—and Bai Xueqing had risen from the ashes.
---
Elsewhere…
Inside a high-security boardroom atop a building known only as "Sector C," the gloved man crushed a crystal glass in his hand. The shards cut into his palm, but he didn't flinch.
"She's awakened too soon," he muttered.
The hooded companion—now revealed to be a woman with a cold beauty and a single red streak in her black hair—leaned forward.
"We underestimated the bond between her and Mo Chen."
"No," the man said darkly, "we underestimated the part of her that's always known she was meant for more."
He turned to a wall-sized display, tapping into encrypted files. The screen filled with photos of Bai Xueqing across centuries—drawings, old photographs, surveillance.
"She's not the enemy we trained for," he said grimly. "She's worse."
---
Back at Bai Corp
Xueqing gathered her closest allies in the underground strategy room—Meng Zhihao, Lin Nuo, Mo Chen, and now… Qiao Lan.
The latter stood stiffly, under light surveillance, but determined to make up for her betrayal.
"We've confirmed," Lin Nuo reported. "The mysterious gloved man has ties to Project Silence—the same group responsible for erasing identities and rewriting historical records."
Mo Chen leaned against the map table. "It gets worse. They're not just after you anymore, Xueqing. They're preparing to erase everyone tied to the ancient Phoenix bloodline."
Meng Zhihao cracked his knuckles. "Guess it's time we stopped playing defense."
Bai Xueqing nodded. "From this moment forward, we don't wait for attacks—we strike first. One by one, we dismantle their control."
She turned toward the board where they had pinned photos of enemies and suspects. Her fingers landed on the center—the gloved man.
"We baited the rat and caught the spy," she said. "Now we burn the nest."
And from her voice alone, everyone in the room believed:
The phoenix had awakened—and war was coming.