Hope was a foreign, terrifying emotion for Mei Ling. For years, her world had been a relentless, screaming cacophony. Not of sound, but of raw, unfiltered data. Every Wi-Fi signal was a shriek, every satellite pass a roar, every nearby phone's data packet a stinging needle against her consciousness. Her mind was a radio tuned to every station in the world at once, and the static was devouring her sanity.
Now, a boy who looked her age stood in the center of her self-made prison, offering the one thing she thought impossible: silence. The hope he ignited was so bright it was painful, and the fear of it being extinguished was even worse.
"How?" she whispered, the single word a plea. "How can you stop the noise?"
Wei Heng's expression remained unchanged, as calm and deep as a winter lake. He didn't offer comforting platitudes. He offered a solution. "Your mind is a house with no doors and no windows, letting the storm rage inside. I will not build the walls for you. I will give you the blueprints and the tools. You will build them yourself."
He gestured to a relatively clear space on the floor amidst the clutter. "Sit."
Mei Ling hesitated for a moment, then complied, sinking into a cross-legged position on the dusty floorboards. Her body was a bundle of nervous energy, her eyes darting between the glowing monitors that were both her torment and her only connection to the outside world.
"Close your eyes," Wei Heng instructed. "The storm is not outside; it is within. You must face it. Do not try to fight the noise. Simply observe it. Acknowledge it. See it for what it is: a river of information. You are not drowning in it; you are standing on the bank."
She did as he said, and the familiar chaos immediately crashed down on her. Financial data from the Shanghai stock exchange, whispered fragments of a private video call from across the hall, weather satellite data from above the Pacific—it was a dizzying, nauseating vortex. Panic began to rise in her chest.
"I can't—"
"You can," Wei Heng's voice cut through her internal chaos, a point of absolute stability in the storm. "Now, listen to my words. This is the first verse of the 'Mind Palace Fortification Art.' It is not a spell. It is a method of focus, a way to find your center."
He began to speak, his voice low and rhythmic. The words were in a language she didn't recognize, ancient and filled with a profound power. They were not magic, but they were a key, designed to unlock the control she never knew she had. He wasn't just reciting; he was using his own Spiritual Sense to guide her, to project the meaning and intent of the technique directly into her consciousness.
'Find the 'self' amidst the chaos,' his voice echoed in her mind, a concept clearer than spoken words. 'The noise is the 'other.' You are the 'self.' Separate the two. In the center of your mind, there is a single, quiet point. Find it.'
Mei Ling focused, clinging to his guidance like a drowning woman to a raft. She pushed past the torrent of data, diving deeper into her own consciousness. And she found it. A tiny, infinitesimally small spark of pure silence. It was her. Her core identity, buried beneath the avalanche of the world's information.
'Now, build your first wall,' Wei Heng's mental guidance continued. 'Take that point of silence and expand it. Will it to grow. Imagine it as a shield. Not to block the river, but to divert its flow around you.'
She focused all her desperate will on that single point. She imagined it as a smooth, obsidian sphere. She pushed. The sphere expanded, pushing the screaming data streams away. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her body trembled with the strain. The noise fought back, pressing in on her fragile shield.
But for the first time, it was not inside her. It was outside.
And then, for one glorious, shattering second, she succeeded. The sphere held. The noise was gone.
Silence.
It was not an absence of sound. It was a presence. A profound, beautiful, all-encompassing peace that she hadn't felt since she was a child. A single tear traced a path through the grime on her cheek, then another. The dam of her pent-up misery broke, and she began to sob, not from pain, but from a relief so absolute it was overwhelming.
Wei Heng watched her, his expression unreadable. He waited until her sobs subsided into quiet shudders.
"That is the first step," he said, his voice pulling her back to the physical world. "You have built one wall. You will learn to build a fortress. You will learn to build gates in those walls, to let in only the streams of information you desire. The noise will become your library, not your prison."
Mei Ling opened her eyes. The world looked different. The glowing monitors were no longer sources of pain, but simply tools. The ever-present headache that had been her constant companion for years was gone. She looked at Wei Heng with an expression of pure, unadulterated awe. He hadn't just helped her. He had saved her.
"This place is a cage," Wei Heng stated, his gaze sweeping across the squalid apartment. "It is a monument to your past suffering. You will not stay here."
He pulled out a burner phone and made a call. "The package is ready for pickup. Location B. Proceed."
"What—" Mei Ling started to ask.
"You will come with me," he said, leaving no room for debate. "I have a place for you. A place with the resources you need to properly harness your gift."
An hour later, Mei Ling found herself standing in a room that felt like it was from another world. It was inside a sleek, modern loft apartment high above the city. Her new room was three times the size of her entire old apartment. It was clean, sterile, and dominated by a U-shaped desk arrayed with the most advanced computer hardware she had ever seen. Custom-built servers hummed quietly in a climate-controlled rack in the corner. It was a hacker's paradise, a technopath's dream.
"This... this is for me?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"It is a tool," Wei Heng replied, standing in the doorway. "Like a sword for a swordsman. Your body is your primary weapon, but you need the proper equipment to interface with the world. This is the best money can buy."
He had thought of everything. He hadn't just recruited her; he had prepared for her. The level of foresight was terrifying. Her loyalty, already won by the gift of silence, was now cemented by this overwhelming display of provision and planning.
"Your training will continue," Wei Heng said. "But now, you have your first task. A test."
He brought up a holographic map of Fuzhou on a central monitor. "The Hunter's Association and the major guilds believe they have this city under surveillance. They are wrong. There are gaps. Blind spots. I want you to find every single one. Public cameras, private security systems, traffic cams, satellite dead zones. I want a complete map of every shadow in this city where a person can move without being seen."
It was a direct counter to Lin Xia's order to her own team. While the Azure Dragon Guild was trying to find a ghost in their net, Wei Heng was having his new Oracle map out every hole in that very net.
Mei Ling looked at the task, then at the state-of-the-art system before her. A fire she hadn't felt in years began to burn in her eyes. This was not a curse. It was a power. And for the first time, she was in control.
She sat down, her fingers hovering over the keyboard for a moment before she stopped. She closed her eyes. She didn't need the keyboard. She reached out with her mind, her newly controlled Spiritual Sense diving into the city's digital bloodstream. The noise was still there, a roaring ocean, but now she stood behind a wall of glass, observing it. She opened a small gate in her mental fortress, allowing only the data streams from Fuzhou's surveillance network to flow through.
To Wei Heng's senses, the atmosphere in the room crackled with invisible energy. Mei Ling's eyes were closed, but the monitors before her came to life. Windows opened and closed at impossible speeds. Code scrolled by in a blur. The holographic map began to populate with red lines and shaded zones, marking the blind spots with terrifying speed and precision. She wasn't hacking the system; she was communing with it. She was asking it questions, and it was answering.
In less than ten minutes, it was done. A complete, flawless map of the city's surveillance weaknesses was displayed on the main screen.
Mei Ling opened her eyes, a faint, triumphant smile on her lips. "Task complete."
Wei Heng looked at the map, then back at her. He had known her potential from the records of his past life, but seeing it unleashed and focused was something else entirely. He had not just recruited a hacker. He had recruited a true Oracle.
He gave a single, sharp nod of approval. "Welcome to the team."
Later that night, Wei Heng stood alone, looking out at the city lights. His plan was moving faster than he had anticipated. In Gao Qiang, he had his Shield—a pillar of unwavering strength and loyalty. In Mei Ling, he had his Eye—an omnipresent intelligence network that would render his enemies' secrets bare. The foundation was strong.
'A shield and an eye,' he thought, his mind already calculating the next phase. 'Now, I need a hand that can preserve life.'
His thoughts turned to the third name on his list. Dr. Sun An. The brilliant, reckless healer who, in the original timeline, would burn himself out in a blaze of selfless, tragic glory.
'Your tragedy,' Wei Heng vowed to the unsuspecting doctor, 'is another I will not allow to be written.'