When the signal tower on the Northern Ridge died, the world didn’t just go dark; it went silent.

  The constant hum of the network—the background noise of millions of data streams, ads, and notifications—vanished. What remained was a thick, sticky darkness, broken only by the glowing ember of a cigarette.

  Wan Dashan sat on a broken stone lion, the cold seeping through his trousers. The smoke from his cigarette curled into the night air, the only sign of life in this graveyard of technology.

  Near the open grave, Madame Shen was carefully re-wrapping the golden seal in red cloth. The artifact that had jammed the drones now looked harmless, like a toy. Behind the armored car, Wan Ruyi and Wan Xiaotian huddled together, their faces pale as they stared at the scattered wreckage of drones in the grass.

  “Big Brother,” Xiaotian’s voice trembled, holding up a black screen. “The net is dead. All of it. No signal. The Wan Corp backend is greyed out. The share protocols, the trust interfaces… everything is locked.”

  “Greyed out?” Dashan took a long drag, the cherry of his cigarette flaring bright in the dark. “Good. When the screen goes dark, the heart gets clean.”

  He looked down the mountain. Below, cutting through the natural darkness like spears of light, were three pairs of high-beam headlights.

  The social media circus had been physically cut off. Now, the capital’s hunting dogs had decided to come collect the carcass in person.

  “Madame Shen,” Dashan said, standing up and brushing the dirt from his knees. His movements were calm, deliberate. “Take Ruyi and Xiaotian. Go via the water route. Back to the Old City, to your qipao shop. That place has no signal, no rules, and no algorithms. Just your scissors. As long as I don’t show my face, Zhao Tianqi won’t dare touch you.”

  “And you?” Madame Shen asked, her eyes sharp in the moonlight.

  “I am the Head of the House,” Dashan said, his voice flat. “The Head stays to seal the ruins.”

  He watched them disappear into the shadows of the locust forest. Only when the last rustle of leaves faded did he reach into his inner pocket and pull out the physical encryption key. It was frozen solid, still dripping with liquid nitrogen, biting into his palm.

  He walked down the mountain path, alone.

  Three black SUVs screeched to a halt in front of the stone archway. The doors opened in unison.

  Out stepped Zhao Tianqi.

  Even in this desolate wilderness, Zhao looked unnervingly pristine. He wore a light grey suit tailored to mathematical perfection. His shoes were polished so brightly they seemed to reflect the ghosts of the dead. He clapped his hands slowly, a sound that echoed too loudly in the silence.

  “Brother Dashan,” Zhao smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. It was a smile calculated by an algorithm to maximize intimidation. “What a ‘finale’. Two hundred million viewers were watching the climax, and you pulled the curtain. That kind of ‘Xu-style’ ambiguity… it makes investors very nervous.”

  Dashan stood in the middle of the dirt road, blocking the path. His stance was wide, rooted. It was the Zhan Zhuang (standing stake) posture his father had forced him to practice for hours every day since he was six.

  “Mr. Zhao,” Dashan said, his voice rough. “Can’t sleep? Come to pay respects at the Wan family grave in the middle of the night?”

  “I’m here to put out a fire,” Zhao said, stepping closer. The smell of expensive cologne clashed with the scent of wet earth and burnt circuitry. “Old Man Wan’s brain cells aren’t entirely dead yet. Hand over the ‘Biological Compute Core’, and the consortiums behind me will guarantee Wan Corp’s position on NASDAQ. As for the shoes you burned, the mother you killed… we can use AI to reshape a more compliant truth. A nicer story for the public.”

  Dashan looked at Zhao’s perfectly packaged face. Suddenly, he remembered a note his father had written in the margins of Dream of the Red Chamber: “When the fake becomes real, the real becomes fake. But when killing for real, no fake name is needed.”

  “Mr. Zhao, the rules have changed,” Dashan said. He tossed the frozen key up and caught it, the metal clicking sharply. “My father tried to become a god, so he lost to human nature. You want to be the undertaker? But you forgot one thing: the soil on this Broken-Head Slope is so hungry, it couldn’t even hold my father down.”

  He pointed to the dirt beneath his feet.

  “I just buried something next to that big brain up there,” Dashan lied smoothly, his eyes locking onto Zhao’s. “It’s Madame Shen’s ‘backup plan’. Unless I actively unlock it tomorrow morning before the market opens, all of Wan Corp’s code (bottom-layer code) will turn into meaningless gibberish. Every server. Every account. Gone.”

  Zhao’s smile froze. The muscles in his jaw twitched.

  “You want to talk?” Dashan turned around, starting to walk back toward the city lights in the distance. “Fine. Let’s talk. But not here. Meet me at that wonton stall in the Old City. The one with the broken neon sign.”

  Zhao’s bodyguards tensed, hands moving toward their holsters. Zhao raised a hand, stopping them. His eyes narrowed, a flash of pure venom crossing his face.

  “Very well, Brother Dashan,” Zhao said, his voice dropping an octave. “Let’s go back to the city. Let’s see if your ‘old rules’ are harder… or if my ‘new algorithms’ are sharper.”

  The headlights swung around, illuminating Dashan’s back as he walked away.

  The stars above seemed to dim. The dust from the first volume of this war settled.

  Dashan didn’t look back. He knew the battle for the throne was over. The battle for the street had just begun.

  And in the streets, gods don’t survive. Only survivors do.

  Dashan has survived the funeral, the AI father, the drone swarm, and the mind control. But now, the real enemy steps out of the shadows: Zhao Tianqi, the man who wants to buy and sell the truth.

  The battle moves from the digital sky to the dirty streets of Old City. No more gods, no more algorithms. Just knives, woks, and raw survival.

  Thank you to everyone who rated, commented, and followed 'Blood & Binary'! Your support keeps the story alive. ??

  Volume 2: Street War starts NEXT CHAPTER! Will Dashan's bluff work? What happens at the wonton stall? Find out soon!

  Drop a comment: Who do you think is more dangerous? The AI Father or Zhao Tianqi? ??