Dawn — Li Feng's room
Dawn settled over the Second Branch residence in pale shades of gold, but the house felt anything but peaceful.
Li Feng hadn't slept — his workstation still displayed faint traces of overnight activity: scripts finalized, devices calibrated, silent network threads woven into place with surgical precision. The air in his room held the faint static of work done in absolute focus.
Then—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three sharp raps.
Not hesitant.
Not impatient.
Formal.
Li Feng stood from his chair, his expression already shifting into the stillness of someone who'd been expecting something.
Across the hallway, Li Xue's bedroom door opened a crack, her hair messy, voice soft.
"…Gege? Someone's—"
Footsteps sounded downstairs.
Heavy.
Coordinated.
Boots.
Li Feng lifted a hand toward her — a calm, wordless signal: Stay in your room.
She obeyed immediately, closing the door.
He descended the stairs with unhurried steps.
At the base, Li Guohua stood facing the front entrance, his posture straight, composed. Before him were six Li Group guards in formal deployment attire — not the relaxed posture of household security, but the rigid stance of a soldier executing an order.
The captain bowed slightly.
"Second Branch Head," he said, tone clipped and professional,
"We are here under direct instruction from the Patriarch."
Guohua's voice held the controlled calm of a man already understanding the situation before hearing it.
"…Your instruction?"
"Effective immediately," the captain announced,
"all members of the Second Branch are to remain within the residence until further notice. A temporary movement restriction."
House arrest.
Delivered politely.
A flicker crossed Guohua's eyes — irritation, or perhaps cold recognition — before his expression returned to control.
"For what reason," he asked, "has such a measure been deemed necessary?"
"Internal asset protection during evaluation," the captain said without pause.
"Standard procedure."
Li Feng stepped off the final stair.
The captain turned, giving him a shallow nod — not deference, but acknowledgment of relevance.
"You as well, young master Feng."
Li Feng's face remained unreadable.
He returned the nod once.
The guard continued:
"Personnel will be stationed at all exits. Should you need anything, our unit will arrange delivery."
No room for argument. No threat. Just the sterile politeness of enforced control.
When the guards stepped back outside, Guohua closed the door.
The lock slid into place with a quiet finality that felt louder than the knocking had.
A moment of stillness.
Then footsteps on the stairs.
Li Xue descended halfway, clutching the railing, eyes wide but steady.
"…They're really doing this?"
Guohua let out a slow breath.
"It appears," he said quietly, "the Patriarch has no intention of leaving room for uncertainty."
Li Feng's gaze was calm.
"We expected as much," he said simply.
Xue bit her lip, worry tightening her voice.
"…Then what do we do now?"
Li Feng looked at her — steady, grounded, cold in all the right places.
"We let them play their game," he said. "For now."
The simplicity of it settled the air more than reassurance would have.
Without another word, he turned and headed back upstairs, footsteps light against the quiet tension.
Xue watched him go — trust overriding fear.
Guohua remained in the entryway a moment longer, gaze sharp with thoughts he didn't voice.
Outside, the guards shifted into position.
Inside, the Second Branch was sealed in place like a piece on the board being boxed in.
And behind the closed door of Li Feng's room…
the silence hummed with the quiet, coiled energy of someone already three steps ahead.
---
Longhai City
Longhai City woke to a new story.
Not a rumor.
Not speculation.
A coordinated, polished narrative pushed across every major local platform before noon.
[Headline — Longhai Business Daily]
Li Group Youth Innovation Pipeline Reveals New Assistive-Tech Prototype
[TechSphere Online]
Li Group quietly supports advanced gesture-interpretation tool from its Youth R&D Wing.
[City News Network]
Industry analysts note Li Group's rising investment in next-generation human-machine interfaces.
The articles shared a tone:
Vague.
Professional.
Carefully crafted.
None mentioned Li Feng.
None mentioned the Second Branch.
None claimed Silent Hands explicitly.
Instead—
"A youth-developed assistive prototype"
"Emerging from Li Group's internal innovation structure"
"A promising direction for future research divisions"
A narrative that declared ownership
without ever stating ownership.
And because Fourth Branch handled media with surgical precision, the language spread like dye in water—subtle, inevitable.
If any curious viewer checked the Expo footage again, they found a new comment line pinned under several uploads:
["This tech traces back to Li Group's Youth Innovation Division. Full announcement soon."]
A simple sentence.
A quiet correction.
But enough to redirect online conversation in a controlled wave.
---
Meanwhile—
Third Branch's influence appeared in the public record.
A new registration request appeared on regulatory sites:
["Preliminary Application: Gesture-Assisted Auxiliary Device — Compliance Review Pending."]
Another entry opened a file for:
["Safety Audit Framework Proposal — Early Stage."]
The bureaucratic terms were technical and boring, the kind papers usually ignored—
Yet they did exactly what they were meant to do:
Stake regulatory ground before the Second Branch could lift a finger.
---
First Branch moved just as quietly.
By mid-afternoon, Longhai's business registry reflected a new shell entity:
— Li Group Applied Youth Technologies — Pending Activation.
No public description.
No website.
Just a name and a structure.
A container waiting for its asset.
A net cast before the fish even realized water existed.
---
None of these motions made noise.
None were dramatic.
But together, they shifted Longhai's information landscape like a tide.
By late morning—
Journalists had already begun messaging Fourth Branch PR asking for comments.
Industry influencers had started tagging the Li Group in analysis threads.
A handful of companies even sent quiet inquiries, asking if Silent Hands would be open for partnership.
All without the Second Branch's knowledge.
All without needing their consent.
The Li Family had begun tightening its grip—
not through force,
not through confrontation,
but through paperwork, positioning, and perception.
By the time the guards finished assembling at the estate's security wing,
the world had already been told exactly who Silent Hands belonged to.
Whether the Second Branch agreed or not.
---
Li Second Branch Residence — Midday
The house was unnaturally still.
Not peaceful.
Not calm.
Just… contained.
The Li Family guards were stationed at discreet but unmistakable positions around the courtyard, each maintaining a professional, expressionless stance. They did not speak to the family. They did not enter the house.
Their presence alone was the message.
Inside, the Second Branch moved with a muted tension — each aware of the silent net drawn around them.
---
Li Guohua
Li Guohua sat on the living room sofa, scrolling through his tablet. He wasn't checking messages—he was smart enough to know that those were being monitored by the Li family.
Instead, he reviewed documents stored locally — no network calls, no synced files — keeping his face neutral, posture composed.
The picture of a man waiting for a conversation he already knew was coming.
Occasionally, his eyes flicked toward the courtyard.
He didn't interrupt.
---
Li Xue
Li Xue sat at the dining table with her laptop open, chin resting on her hand.
She wasn't typing.
She was watching.
Refresh.
Refresh again.
News articles shifted every twenty minutes — some reposted, some subtly edited, some "new" pieces with almost identical wording.
All Fourth Branch fingerprints.
Silent Hands wasn't trending, but references were everywhere:
"Promising Youth Tech from Longhai"
"Li Group's Next R&D Hopeful"
"Early-Stage Innovation Pipeline Insight"
None mentioned names.
None mentioned her or her brother.
Every headline followed the exact narrative the patriarch dictated.
The feeling sat bitterly at the back of her tongue.
She exhaled slowly and closed the laptop halfway, eyes drifting to the open courtyard doors.
Her brother was still there.
And unlike the news, he was steady.
Unmoved.
Untouched.
---
Li Feng
In the courtyard, sunlight stretched long shadows across the stone tiles.
Li Feng stood barefoot on the cool ground — utterly still.
Zhan Zhuang — Standing like a tree.
His arms raised in a gentle arc, elbows rounded, fingers relaxed, shoulders sunk.
Spine aligned like a drawn bow.
To the untrained eye, it looked like he was simply standing.
To someone with experience, it was clear that every muscle, tendon, and joint sat in a delicate balance —
relaxed but primed, rooted but light.
A nearby guard whispered under his breath:
"…He's been standing like that for thirty minutes."
His partner replied:
"Standing? That's training. My cousin practices this — says it's hell on the tendons."
They fell silent when Li Feng shifted.
Slowly — deliberately.
His arms lowered.
His breath deepened.
And he flowed into Yi Jin Jing — The muscle tendon classic.
Controlled movements traced through the air —
stretch, inhale
contract, exhale
twist, release.
Simple motions, but each done with precise tension and structural intent.
To the guards, it didn't look like martial arts.
It looked like someone rewiring their body from the inside.
"…Is that some kind of rehab training?"
"No. That's martial refinement. Soft-looking ones are always the scariest."
Li Feng didn't hear them — or didn't care.
His mind was clear.
His breathing steady.
Every part of him needed to be steady before the storm.
Zhan Zhuang for grounding.
Yi Jin Jing for strength and circulation.
Together, they built a quiet kind of power — not visible, not dramatic, but absolute.
---
Inside the house, Guohua looked up from his tablet briefly, watching his son through the glass.
A faint, almost imperceptible pride softened his expression.
From her room, Xue looked up too as watched the steady movements.
"…Gege is calm," she murmured to herself.
Not anxious.
Not angry.
Just prepared.
---
Outside, the guards kept their distance —
but none could shake the quiet, strange pressure that filled the courtyard every time the boy shifted poses.
Something about it felt…
Dangerous.
But in a way they couldn't describe.
---
Evening — Second Branch's Residence
The sun dipped low over the estate walls, turning the courtyard tiles a muted orange.
The guards still held position—unmoving, disciplined, but no longer pretending this was just surveillance.
Inside the house, dinner sat untouched on the table.
No one was eating.
Guohua had changed into a fresh shirt, his expression calm but sharper around the edges.
Li Xue sat beside him, back straight, hands folded in her lap, not trembling—but very still.
Li Feng stepped back inside from the courtyard, towel draped around his shoulders.
His breathing was steady, his face unreadable.
He had felt the shift in the air long before the sound came.
A firm knock reverberated through the door.
Not rushed.
Not loud.
Just three controlled, formal strikes.
The kind that carried authority.
One of the guards spoke through the door, tone clipped, avoiding theatrics:
"Li Guohua.
Li Feng.
Li Xue."
A pause.
"The Patriarch requests your presence at the Li Estate."
Requests.
But everyone in the house understood the truth.
This wasn't a request.
This was a summon.
The air grew heavier.
Xue rose first, quietly.
Her fingers tightened on the fabric of her sleeve—but her chin lifted.
Guohua stood next, his posture steady, dignity intact even under pressure.
Li Feng was last to move.
He dried his hands, dropped the towel onto the nearest chair, and walked toward the door with the calm, unhurried steps of someone who had already seen the entire board.
He reached for his jacket.
Xue watched him—searching his face.
"Gege…"
He turned to her, expression softer for only a heartbeat.
"It's alright," he said.
And the strange thing was—
She believed him.
Guohua approached them both and rested a hand briefly on each shoulder.
No speeches. No warnings. No false hope.
Just a father standing with his children before entering the lion's den.
Outside, the guards stepped back, forming a corridor toward the waiting black sedan — the same one that had always taken them to school.
The moment the door opened, Li Feng lifted his eyes once toward the distant direction of the Li Estate.
The place that had decided his fate.
Or thought it had.
He exhaled slowly.
A breath not of fear, but of readiness.
"Let's go."
The three of them stepped forward in unison.
---
Hello, Author here,
Thanks for reading — Leave a comment to tell me what you think about this chapter, and drop a Power Stone if you're enjoying Li Feng's story so far! Let's grow this story together.