The northern blizzard descended upon the capital like a heavy, suffocating shroud of white iron, dropping the visibility across the Foreign Trade Zone to less than three meters. The savage wind howled through the high gaps of the factory gates, rattling the corrugated roofing sheets of The Xi Garden's Western Gate lot with a relentless, deafening roar.
Inside the primary manufacturing sector, the air was sub-zero, smelling heavily of cold concrete, raw black-bean sediment, and the metallic tang of automated iron piping.
Lin Xi stood dead center before the supreme master-control panel of her industrial fermentation line. She wore her thick canvas winter worker's coat over her white chef's jacket, her fingers moving with absolute, mechanical speed as she adjusted the heavy brass pressure dials.
"The main power grid line running from the municipal station will be severed within thirty minutes," Gu Shaozheng's low, raspy whisper materialized out of the dark mists behind her.
He stood stripped of his formal green uniform jacket, wearing a tight, black thermal combat sweater that emphasized his massive, broad shoulders. In his right hand, he casually balanced a solid, black-steel tactical baton.
"My harbor intelligence scouts tracked a convoy of three unflagged commercial utility trucks breaching the outer zone perimeter ten minutes ago," Shaozheng reported, his hawk-like eyes scanning the darkened windows. "The British syndicate hired the 'Iron Hooks'—the most notorious gang of professional black-market saboteurs in the capital. They are armed with industrial wire cutters and silent pneumatic tools."
"They believe that if they cut the electrical lines to our refrigeration grid, the extreme temperature drop will permanently kill the living culture lines, forcing me to surrender the backup strains," Lin Xi replied smoothly.
She turned a massive iron valve, a sharp, clicking sound echoing off the gray brick walls.
"They failed to calculate that a 21st-century master chef understands that a living yeast strain requires a structural shield. The primary refrigeration voks they see through the glass windows are nothing more than a dummy decoy grid, A-Mei. I filled those central voks with basic industrial starch water and cheap food coloring. The genuine Fermented Gold mother culture vessel is sealed deep within a subterranean vault directly beneath our primary charcoal coal hearth."
A-Mei stepped out from the shadow of the bottling conveyor line, her dark southern shawl pulled tight, a rare, predatory grin cutting across her weathered face. "The subterranean hearth is currently burning at a steady forty degrees Celsius, fully insulated by three layers of volcanic stone-salt brickwork. Even if the entire capital freezes solid tonight, the Mother Culture won't lose a single calorie of heat."
"The bait is perfectly placed," Lin Xi smirked, extinguishing her hand-held flashlight. "Let them sever the wire. The kitchen is officially dark."
------------------------------
SNAP.
At exactly 11:45 PM, the low, electric hum of the automated factory line was instantly severed. The remaining emergency yellow bulbs across the high rafters flickered twice and died, plunging the massive warehouse into an absolute, tomb-like pitch darkness, broken only by the rhythmic, violent slamming of the blizzard against the iron doors.
A sharp, screeching sound cut through the roar of the wind.
The heavy reinforced side locks of the secondary shipping bay door were violently sliced open using an industrial pneumatic saw. Five shadows dressed in heavy, insulated black worker uniforms slipped through the narrow gap, their faces masked, their hands gripping heavy steel crowbars and thick canvas extraction bags.
"Move fast!" the leader of the Iron Hooks hissed in a rough capital dialect, his flashlight beam slicing sharply through the freezing vapor of the room. "The foreign client wants the central glass culture tank intact. Smash the iron casing on the master refrigerator and pull the primary biological core!"
The five saboteurs sprinted across the concrete floor, their heavy boots splashing through the freezing condensation, heading straight toward the massive, decoy steel voks positioned at the center of the line.
They didn't check the high catwalks. They didn't calculate the silence of the room.
"Breach verified," Gu Shaozheng's low voice vibrated through the tactical radio earpiece against Lin Xi's jaw.
From the high iron scaffolding above, Shaozheng dropped down into the dark like a silent timber wolf dropping onto a helpless flock of sheep. He didn't fire a single weapon; the raw kinetic velocity of his massive frame hitting the concrete floor was completely deafening.
Before the lead saboteur could swing his searchlight, Gu Shaozheng's steel tactical baton cut through the freezing air with an explosive, mechanical SWISH.
CRACK.
The solid steel baton struck the leader's right forearm with enough force to cleanly shatter the radius bone, sending his heavy flashlight and iron crowbar clattering loudly across the concrete.
"ARRGGHH!" the leader shrieked, collapsing violently into the industrial dust as he clutched his broken arm.
"Intruders on the line!" another saboteur yelled, frantically raising a heavy steel pipe wrench to strike back into the dark.
Gu Shaozheng executed a flawless, high-speed military rotation. Pivoting on his heel, his large hand shot out from the shadows, clamping violently around the man's throat like a hydraulic vice. Lifting the full weight of the grown thug completely off the concrete floor with a single arm, he violently slammed his frame backward against the iron automated piping lines.
The impact was absolute. The saboteur's eyes rolled into the back of his head, his body crumpling unconscious into the oil stains.
------------------------------
The remaining three thieves panicked entirely, dropping their extraction bags as they frantically bolted back toward the broken shipping bay doors to escape the shadow predator.
SLAM.
A massive, white-hot wall of roaring orange flame violently exploded from the central charcoal hearth line, completely blocking their exit path.
Lin Xi stood directly behind the brick furnace controls, her white chef's jacket gleaming beneath the sudden, fierce illumination of the fire. In her right hand, she casually balanced a massive, hand-honed iron cleaver, its mirror-like finish catching the glare of the roaring coals.
"You came into my factory lot to harvest my inventory, but you forgot to check the temperature of the stove," Lin Xi announced, her voice projecting absolute, cutthroat dominance over the howling of the blizzard.
The three remaining saboteurs froze solid, their knees shaking as they looked from the terrifying, blood-stained cleaver in her hand to the towering, lethal shadow of Gu Shaozheng closing in from the dark corridor behind them.
"We... we were just hired for a local scrap metal removal!" one of the thieves stammered, dropping his weapons in pure, unadulterated terror. "The foreign merchant paid us five hundred yuan cash at the Friendship Hotel! He swore the factory was empty!"
"Your contract is officially canceled," Lin Xi smirked, taking a slow, predatory step forward, the edge of her cleaver catching the firelight.
"A-Mei, notify the garrison outpost. Tell Xiao Wang to bring the transport trucks to load this fresh fertilizer. And tell him to pass a direct message to the Ministry of Foreign Trade: The Xi Garden is initiating a high-level corporate audit of their diplomatic quarters at dawn tomorrow morning. If the British syndicate wants to play an industrial cold war... I am about to turn the capital's legal courts into a complete slaughterhouse."