Meng Tian moved across the tiled rooftops of the Forbidden City with a supernatural grace. He was not a man running; he was a shadow flowing through other shadows, his movements utterly silent, his path guided by an instinct that was now honed by superhuman senses. He dropped from the eaves of Li Lianying's residence into the rear courtyard, landing on the stone pavement with no more sound than a settling wisp of smoke. The air was cold and still.
His target was the "storage pavilion," a small, handsome building set apart from the main house. According to Shen Ke's analysis, its construction was unusually robust for a simple storehouse. Its walls were reinforced, its windows barred. It was a miniature fortress disguised as a garden shed. It was where a man like Li Lianying would keep his real treasures.
Meng Tian approached the courtyard entrance, his body low to the ground. Two of the head eunuch's personal guards stood sentinel, their halberds resting beside them. They were elite soldiers, handpicked for their loyalty and strength, but they were only human. And they were bored. One of them stifled a yawn.
Meng Tian did not give them a chance to be anything else. He moved from the darkness like a striking cobra. Before the first guard could even register a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, Meng Tian was on him. A single, precise hand-chop to the base of the skull, delivered with a fraction of his true strength, was enough. The guard's eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled to the ground without a sound, his halberd clattering softly.
The second guard spun around at the noise, his mouth opening to shout an alarm. The shout never came. Meng Tian was already there, his other hand clamping over the man's mouth, his arm wrapping around his neck in a chokehold that would have crushed a normal man's windpipe. He applied just enough pressure to render the man unconscious in seconds, then gently lowered his limp body to the ground next to his partner. The entire engagement had taken less than five seconds. It was silent, brutal, and efficient.
He reached the pavilion itself. The door was, as expected, a formidable obstacle. It was crafted from thick, iron-reinforced timber, and in its center was a heavy, German-made lock, a testament to Li Lianying's paranoia. A battering ram would have had trouble with this door. Breaking it down would awaken the entire compound.
Meng Tian had no need for a battering ram. He examined the doorframe, then placed the palms of both his hands on the thick wooden planks just to the right of the lock mechanism. He closed his eyes and focused his will, summoning the immense, thrumming power that now lived in his muscles and bones. He did not punch or shove. He simply pushed, applying a steady, relentless, and truly inhuman amount of crushing pressure.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a low groaning sound, like the cry of a dying tree, came from deep within the wood. The tough fibers began to splinter and tear. With a final, silent surge of power, the wood around the lock's housing gave way completely, tearing away from the internal bolts. The door swung inward with a soft, defeated creak.
Meng Tian slipped inside, pulling the broken door shut behind him. The interior of the pavilion was a treasure trove. Racks of priceless silk robes, shelves laden with magnificent works of jade and ivory, and exquisitely painted scrolls were stored here in neat, orderly rows. It was a collection that could buy a small army, the fruits of decades of corruption and extortion. Meng Tian ignored it all. He was not a common thief. He was a soldier on a mission, and his target was not art; it was silver.
Following the intelligence from Shen Ke's architectural analysis, he moved to the rear of the pavilion. He knelt down and began tapping his knuckles against the heavy stone flagstones that made up the floor. Most sounded solid, a dull thud. But in the far-right corner, the sound was different. A slightly higher-pitched, hollow echo. He had found it.
The flagstone was, in fact, a massive, perfectly fitted stone slab, a hidden trapdoor with no visible handle or seam. It was sealed by its own immense weight, a simple but effective security measure. It would take a team of men with heavy iron crowbars to even begin to budge it.
Meng Tian found a small crack along one edge where he could get a purchase with his fingertips. He dug his fingers in, the calloused pads gripping the rough stone. He braced himself, planting his feet wide. This was a true test of his limits, a lift that rivaled the great stone lintel in the practice yard. He pulled, his entire body straining, the muscles in his back and legs bunching into knots of solid iron.
With a deep, guttural grunt that was swallowed by the thick walls of the pavilion, the stone slab began to move. It scraped against its moorings, the sound of grinding rock deafening in the silence. He lifted it, inch by agonizing inch, until he could pivot the massive weight aside, revealing a dark, square hole in the floor and a narrow stone staircase leading down.
A wave of cool, musty air washed over him. Below was a small, brick-lined vault. It was not large, but it was filled with what he had come for. Stacked against the walls were dozens of heavy, locked wooden chests, bound in iron. This was Li Lianying's personal, secret treasury.
He descended the stairs. There was no time to search for keys or to pick the heavy locks. He chose a simpler method. One by one, he approached the chests. A single, controlled, downward blow from his fist was all it took for each one. The heavy locks shattered, the thick lids splintering under the superhuman force. The sound of his blows was muffled by the underground chamber.
Inside each chest, nestled in soft cloth, were neat stacks of silver ingots, the standard currency of the empire's large transactions. They gleamed dully in the faint light from the open trapdoor.
He worked with the speed and efficiency of a man loading supplies for a campaign. He pulled out several large, sturdy sacks he had carried wrapped around his waist. He began to transfer the silver ingots, the heavy bars clinking softly as he piled them into the sacks. The sheer weight of the silver was staggering, enough to crush a normal man, but he slung the heavy sacks over his shoulder as if they were filled with grain. He cleared the vault in less than ten minutes.
His work was done. He ascended the stairs, slid the massive stone slab back into place with another groan of protesting rock, and exited the pavilion. He paused for a moment in the courtyard, a silent specter surrounded by unconscious guards and a plundered vault, then melted back into the shadows of the night, as unseen and as unheard as he had arrived.