Inside the capital of China, deep beneath the city in a dark underground bunker, sat the nine highest decision-makers of the People's Republic of China. Each of them silently read a report detailing what the Great Houses of Europe had accomplished only twenty-four hours earlier. Even by their standards, the speed and efficiency of the operation were impressive. The room remained quiet as everyone digested the implications of the report before them.
"They really do have a lot of power, don't they?" asked Xian Mu as he turned toward Yan Wen, the Minister of National Intelligence, who was far more familiar with the political situation abroad. Wen slowly nodded while placing the report back onto the table. "Yes, they do, but it is not surprising. Without them, the entire European Union would never function as smoothly as it does today," he replied while shaking his head. Even after years of studying Europe, he still found the influence of the Great Houses astonishing.
"On top of that, it seems they are still able to hide far more from us than we initially believed," Wen continued with a serious expression. "These trade families are no joke." He had already known about the strange family in Italy that specialized in taming animals, but he had never imagined there were so many other hidden lineages scattered throughout Europe. The deeper he looked into the subject, the more complicated the situation appeared.
"You are right," Mu agreed while leaning back in his chair. "From every indication we had before now, there was never anything particularly unusual about them except for the Bingen family." The mention of that name immediately soured his mood as memories of an old intelligence operation resurfaced. Even after all these years, it remained one of the greatest failures in the history of Chinese intelligence.
"Don't even mention it," Wen muttered with a bitter smile. "We paid dearly for that operation." The room immediately grew quieter as everyone present recognized the seriousness in his voice. Although decades had passed, the scars left by that incident had never completely healed.
Back then, they had devised an operation to eliminate a member of the Bingen family. He had been leading research into a revolutionary healing agent capable of rapidly treating cuts, bruises, and numerous minor injuries. Chinese analysts eventually concluded that the same discovery could theoretically be weaponized against their own people, making the researcher a potential national security threat. Unfortunately, that conclusion had been based entirely on false intelligence supplied by the United States.
The Americans had hoped to provoke a conflict between China and the European powers, allowing them to regain influence over both regions while they fought one another. Believing the reports to be genuine, China authorized the operation without conducting enough independent verification. Their agents never even reached their target before the entire mission was exposed. It became painfully obvious that someone had known about the plan long before the operatives even boarded their aircraft.
Instead of finding their target, every Chinese ambassador stationed in Europe discovered an identical letter waiting on their desks. The message itself was remarkably short but impossible to misunderstand. It simply read, "You have interfered with someone you should never have touched and acted upon false intelligence. You will now pay the price for your transgression." At the time, many officials dismissed it as an empty threat.
They quickly learned how wrong that assumption had been. Within a single week, three nationally important experts were assassinated inside heavily fortified underground bunkers that were supposedly impossible to infiltrate. At the same time, ten strategically vital mines and power plants suffered mysterious incidents that forced them to shut down for nearly a full year. Every investigation ended in failure, as no evidence pointing toward the perpetrators could ever be found.
The final warning proved even more terrifying than the attacks themselves. A massive painting suddenly appeared across the face of the Three Gorges Dam without anyone seeing who had placed it there. Written across the concrete in enormous characters was a simple sentence: "If you choose to retaliate, this will be the next target. Stop and double-check your intelligence." From that day onward, nobody within Chinese intelligence underestimated those hidden European families ever again.
That incident had taken place nearly forty years earlier, yet Wen still felt a chill run down his spine whenever he remembered it. It was not simply the damage they had inflicted that frightened him. It was the effortless precision with which they had carried out every retaliation while remaining completely invisible. Even today, China possessed no definitive answer regarding who had actually carried out those operations.
The silence inside the bunker was eventually broken when Wan Gengxin raised another question. "Do we have similar families or organizations within China?" he asked while looking directly at Wen. The Minister of National Intelligence immediately straightened his posture before answering. He had anticipated that question for years but had always hoped he would never need to answer it.
"No, sir," Wen replied after a brief pause. "Most of those old families and organizations disappeared during the turmoil of the twentieth century." The constant wars, revolutions, and political upheavals had wiped out many ancient lineages that had once possessed specialized knowledge passed down for generations. Fortunately, many of their books, research records, and technical manuals had survived.
"Because of those surviving records, we were still able to benefit greatly from their accumulated knowledge," Wen continued. "Nearly all of the information that remained useful has already been integrated throughout our nation." While the bloodlines themselves had largely disappeared, their discoveries continued to serve China in countless scientific, medical, and industrial fields. In that regard, history had not been entirely lost.
"Good," Wan Gengxin replied after thinking for a moment. "Then I believe we finally know who harmed us all those years ago." He slowly folded his hands together before continuing in a calm voice. "However, we will not be able to do anything about them for a very long time, and after reading the rules governing those families, I believe it is best to leave them alone. They have shown no interest in provoking us unless we provoke them first."
The others looked at him with obvious confusion, prompting Gengxin to explain his reasoning further. "Families like those take their ancestral rules incredibly seriously," he said with complete confidence. "The problem was not that we targeted Europe. The problem was that we attempted to harm someone we had absolutely no right to touch."
"I can easily imagine that nearly every one of those trade families owes the Bingen family an enormous debt," Gengxin continued. "They have served as Europe's doctors for generations, perhaps even centuries, and countless lives have undoubtedly been saved because of them." The favors they have accumulated over such a long period are impossible to measure. If even a fraction of those debts were ever called upon, the number of people willing to act on the Bingen family's behalf would be enough to drown an entire nation.He knew that what those families valued above everything else was trust. If your company or family had not existed for a sufficiently long period, many of them would not even agree to speak with you because they had not yet determined how you governed yourselves or whether you were worthy of that trust. Reputation, consistency, and honor meant far more to them than wealth or political influence. From their perspective, those qualities could only be proven through generations of conduct, not a few successful years.
"That is why attacking one of them, especially someone connected to something as important as medicine, was viewed as a grave insult," Gengxin continued with certainty. "Health is one of the few things those families would never joke about or use for personal gain." Everyone around the table quietly nodded in understanding as they finally grasped why the retaliation had been so overwhelming. It had never simply been an attack on the Bingen family, but an attack on principles that every trade family considered sacred.
"But enough about that," Gengxin said as he shifted the discussion. "How has every country reacted to the message Gaia gave us?" He turned toward Hu Guanyu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose responsibility was managing China's diplomatic relations with nations around the world. Several pairs of eyes immediately focused on him as they waited for his report.
"Well, as expected, very few governments welcomed the news," Guanyu replied with a weary smile. "Most of them are unhappy that they now have to permanently station military forces around those Secret Realms within their borders." The financial burden alone would be enormous, especially for countries that possessed multiple entrances. Nevertheless, ignoring Gaia's warning was not considered a realistic option by any responsible government.
"The general consensus is that a large military presence will be required," Guanyu continued while reviewing several documents. "Otherwise, the consequences of a breach could become catastrophic." No nation wanted to discover through experience what would happen if corrupted creatures escaped unchecked into densely populated areas. Even the strongest militaries preferred prevention over reacting to a disaster after it had already begun.
"I propose that we continuously monitor both the deployment of those troops and their combat readiness," Guanyu said in a serious tone. "Regular inspections and intelligence gathering will be necessary, otherwise mistakes will inevitably occur." He slowly looked around the room before adding, "I do not wish to explain in the future that we failed simply because we neglected our responsibilities."
As he spoke, Guanyu could not help thinking about Gaia herself. Unlike many foreign governments, China had never questioned her existence or her intentions because she had personally explained everything to them during their first meeting. They understood exactly what kind of being they were dealing with. More importantly, they understood the limits of her interests.
"So far, Gaia has only demonstrated concern for two things," Guanyu continued. "The first is the survival and well-being of humanity, while the second is ensuring that nothing damages the planet itself." Beyond those two responsibilities, she showed remarkably little interest in human politics, economics, or international rivalries. That understanding alone had greatly simplified China's approach toward her.
"The assistance she has provided since revealing herself has already benefited our nation immensely," Guanyu added with genuine appreciation. Every report they had received pointed toward the same conclusion: Gaia had consistently acted according to the principles she had explained from the very beginning. She neither favored nor discriminated against any nation without reason. In many ways, her straightforward nature made her easier to understand than most human leaders.
"I agree," Gengxin said with a satisfied nod after hearing the report. The proposal to continue monitoring international military preparedness seemed both practical and necessary under the current circumstances. There was little value in assuming every nation would continue taking Gaia's warnings seriously forever. Human complacency had always been one of history's greatest dangers.
"Does anyone have anything else to add?" Gengxin finally asked as he looked around the underground conference room. One after another, the remaining ministers quietly shook their heads, indicating that they had nothing further to report. With no additional matters requiring discussion, the meeting naturally drew to a close. Each member left with a clear understanding that the world had entered an entirely new era, one in which hidden families, Secret Realms, and Gaia herself would permanently reshape international politics.