The stench of burning flesh still clung to Jin Lian's nose, mingling with the scent of boiling oil and Ling Xiao's screams. The image wouldn't leave her mind: the fat merchant, Ling Bo, shoving his only son with a trembling hand toward the giant vat of oil—used to pluck feathers from giant birds in the slaughterhouse—while she, Jin Lian, pulled him from the other side in a mad struggle. A slip, a final push… and then a deafening hiss of steam, accompanied by a scream so bone-chilling it cut off mid-breath. A new odor joined the daily scent of death in the slaughterhouse: that of a human body frying alive.
She had escaped immediately afterward, vanishing into the filth-laden maze of the slaughterhouse before the guards could recover from their shock. But she hadn't gone far. Hiding among rotting yulong hides, she trembled—not from fear, but from a visceral nausea that shook her entire being. She had touched death, felt the killer heat of the oil brush her face, and witnessed the consequences of their plan. The name that had begun whispering through the slaves—"Tainted Blood Doll"—had nearly become a charred corpse.
Outside, chaos turned to panic. Ling Bo's howling was that of a wounded beast: "My son! Get my son out! Put out the fire!" But the massive vat was an inferno none dared approach. Guards and slaves alike stood frozen, watching the mutilated body float atop the bubbling oil—a grotesque emblem of their master's fall. The stench spread, and the whispers among the slaves shifted from horror to something else: a forbidden exhilaration. They had seen the impossible. Their once untouchable master had cast his heir into death with his own hands. The sacred system… was cracking.
• • •
In the broken shack, Mo Tianyin waited. His worry did not show on his cold face, but his fingers unconsciously stroked the handle of a small dagger hidden in his sleeve. The calculations had been precise, but human chaos always carried an element of unpredictability. When Jin Lian's silhouette slipped through the crack in the wall—pale, stained with oil, and reeking of death—his muscles relaxed slightly.
"Ling Xiao… is dead," Jin Lian rasped, sitting against the wall. Her eyes were still wide, as if seeing the scene again.
"Yes." Mo Tianyin's reply was simple. He didn't need details. The smell and her state said enough. "And Ling Bo?"
"Burning from the inside," she whispered. "I saw it in his eyes… madness."
Mo Tianyin smiled—a gentle smile, sharp as a blade. "Good. Madness makes him weaker. More predictable." He stood, began packing a few items into a burlap sack. "We can't stay here. The storm is coming. Ling Bo will unleash hell's legions to find the 'Tainted Blood Doll.'"
Jin Lian lifted her head. "Tainted Blood Doll?"
"That's what they're calling you now, in the markets and the slaughterhouse," he said, tying the sack. "A symbol. A ghost. Something that disrupted the system and humiliated the slave trader. They need symbols, Jin Lian—even in despair." His gaze grew calculating. "You are that symbol now. Use it."
The words were harsh, but they carried a heavy truth. She was no longer just Jin Lian the slaughterhouse worker. She was a whispered legend among the oppressed. A force… and a doubled danger.
• • •
The next dawn found the Lower City boiling like a cauldron. Ling Bo's guards—reinforced by cheap mercenaries of "mixed blood"—stormed through shacks, beat any "tainted" who dared look at them, and hunted for the woman with ashen eyes who destroyed their master. Corpses hung from poles at district entrances—a bloody warning. Fear returned, but under the surface, something had changed. The slaves' eyes no longer held just terror. They were charged with a silent question: Where is she? Will she return?
Mo Tianyin and Jin Lian moved like phantoms—from hideout to hideout: an abandoned cellar under a shop, a rickety attic above a blacksmith's forge, even the putrid drainage channels that carried the Upper City's waste. Everywhere, they heard whispers:
"Ling Bo's gone mad! He's killing dozens every day!"
"I heard his son screamed 'Blood Doll' before he died!"
"The steward from Yun Zihan's estate came himself! He's hunting her!"
"Is it true she's a ghost? That her tainted blood gives her demon strength?"
Steward Chen. His name was a warning bell in their ears. His personal involvement meant that Yun Zihan—or someone even higher—was now interested. He wasn't just an estate steward anymore. He was a top-tier hunter.
In their current hideout—a cramped room behind a false wall in a filthy tavern owned by a corrupt "mixed blood" man who sold them protection at a steep price—Mo Tianyin spread an old map on the floor.
"Ling Bo is weakened, but still dangerous—like a wounded beast," he said, pointing to the Slave Market. "That's his power center. But that power rests on fear and gold. Fear is cracking. The gold… we'll sever its source."
He laid out his next plan, bolder and riskier than the last:
Strike in the Dark: Use the whisper network to spread a message—"The Tainted Blood Doll" will appear at a sacred place for the Lower City's people—The Well of the Ancestors—at midnight. It would be bait to lure Ling Bo's guards and Steward Chen away from the market.
Hit the Heart: While their eyes were on the well, a small team (Mo Tianyin, Jin Lian, and a surprise ally) would infiltrate Ling Bo's main storage next to the market—not to steal money (too risky), but to free a new shipment of slaves just arrived, destined for the death mines in the west. Their liberation would be symbolic and economically devastating.
The Spark: During the chaos, they'd ignite a fire in the Slave Market itself—not random, but targeted: the cages, the slave records, and Ling Bo's personal office. Burning the memory of his trade and the symbols of his power.
"The surprise ally?" Jin Lian asked, eyes on the map.
Mo Tianyin smiled, pulling out a simple leather bracelet—it belonged to the old woman from the slaughterhouse, who had lost her son in Yun Zihan's hunt. "Mai Ling will join us. She has vengeance to exact… and three strong grandsons who work in the stone mines. They'll be our extra hands." He had planted the seed with her days ago, feeding on her silent grief and anger.
• • •
Midnight. The Well of the Ancestors. An abandoned place in a forgotten district, considered by Lower City dwellers as the resting ground of "tainted" spirits. Dead trees surrounded it. The silence was thick. Ling Bo's guards, led by their scar-faced captain, hid in the shadows, nerves tight. Steward Chen himself stood like a statue beneath a large tree, his eyes sweeping the darkness coldly. He suspected a trap—but couldn't risk losing the "doll."
Suddenly—movement. A shadow near the well. Guards strained their ears. Then… laughter. A woman's laugh—wild, high, mad—echoed across the empty place. It came from the well. Then from behind a tree. Then from atop a ruined rooftop. Impossible to be from one person.
"Spirits!" one mercenary whispered, voice shaking. "Angry ancestral spirits!"
"Fools!" Steward Chen snapped. "It's a trick!" But even his iron voice carried hesitation. In the Lower City, shadows and superstition were powerful weapons.
Panic erupted. Guards rushed toward the shifting laugh's source, stumbling in the dark, firing arrows blindly. Steward Chen tried to restore order, but the fear of the unknown had sunk its fangs deep. The laugh continued—now and then mixed with a whisper: "Tainted blood… seeks vengeance…"
• • •
At the same time, just streets away, Ling Bo's storage saw a different scene. The remaining guards were asleep or drunk. Mo Tianyin, like a deadly shadow, picked the complex lock effortlessly. Inside the dark warehouse, the stench of fear and sweat. Dozens of terrified eyes looked at them from temporary cages. Men, women, children—new arrivals, still carrying the scent of long roads and hopelessness.
"We're here to free you," Jin Lian said clearly, stepping into the lantern light Mo Tianyin held. Her blue mark was visible under her cap. "But freedom isn't a gift. It's a battle. If you're willing to fight for it… follow us now."
Silence. Then, one scrawny young man stood, fire in his eyes. "Me! I'm done being a slave!" Then another. And another. Mai Ling stepped forward, her old face carved with wrinkles and fury. "Look at me! My son died for nobles' amusement! Don't you want to die free?!"
The dam broke. Whispers turned to silent roars. Mo Tianyin, Jin Lian, and Mai Ling's three grandsons—broad-shouldered youths hardened by the mines—began breaking cages and shackles. There was no time for emotion. They were a small army of shadows and rage, forming in a dark cellar.
As the freed prisoners poured into the back alleys led by Mai Ling's grandsons, Mo Tianyin turned to Jin Lian. "Now… the fire."
• • •
The Slave Market was nearly empty. Most guards had followed Steward Chen to the well. The few left were drunk or asleep. Jin Lian moved like a piece of the night itself. She carried two small flasks of heavy lamp oil, stolen during her city wanderings. She entered through a crack in the rotting roof of Ling Bo's office.
Inside was a reflection of filthy wealth: thick beast-skin records of slave names and prices, money chests (mostly empty—true wealth was banked elsewhere), and symbols of cruelty: a whip painted with fake gold, a wooden mask of the "God of Purity" who blessed their trade, and… a small doll. A wooden toy that once belonged to Ling Xiao, now sitting on a shelf like a tragic memento.
Jin Lian stared at the doll. She remembered Ling Xiao's final screams. She remembered the child who used to gather meat scraps in the slaughterhouse. The old woman who lost her son. Cold, fireless anger filled her chest—like iron.
She poured oil on the records, the shelf, the little doll. Then pulled out a simple flint lighter. Struck it. A spark. A tiny flame in her hand.
She dropped the lighter into the pool of oil.
Whoooosh!
Flames devoured the office hungrily. Dry wood, paper, and oil made perfect fuel. Within seconds, the blaze became a wall of fire. It raced through the open door into the market square, igniting the wooden cages, the auction platforms where nobles inspected "stock," and the banners of the noble houses who owned shares in the market.
Alarm bells rang across the Lower City. Shouts: "Fire! The market's burning!"
From a rooftop nearby, Jin Lian watched the scene: flames consuming the greatest symbol of her world's injustice. Thick smoke rose in a black column, blotting out even the distant lights of the Upper City. And she saw, coming from the direction of the well like a black wind, the shadow of Steward Chen—his face twisted in pure rage for the first time. He knew he'd been fooled.
Jin Lian smiled in the dark. The first smile of the Tainted Blood Doll. It was bitter, weary… but carried the taste of a first victory.
Then she vanished—leaving the fire to finish its retribution.
• • •
At the edge of the Lower City, where filth meets the wild forest, the fugitives gathered. The freed slaves—around forty souls—trembled with cold, fear, and newfound freedom. Mai Ling's grandsons stood guard. Mo Tianyin distributed pieces of stale bread stolen from the tavern.
Jin Lian joined them. The freed ones met her gaze—not with simple gratitude, but reverence for a living legend. They stared at the "doll" who burned the Slave Market.
One of the freed, an older man with a deep scar across his face, asked, "What now? Where do we go?"
Mo Tianyin looked to the dark forest, then to the thick smoke still rising from the Lower City—a giant question mark above a world of injustice.
"The forest isn't safe," he said bluntly. "The guards and beasts will hunt you. But out there… there are places." He pointed toward the misty mountains. "Caves. Abandoned villages. Smuggler routes. But they're dangerous. And you'll need leadership." He looked at Jin Lian, then at Mai Ling's three grandsons. "The Tainted Blood Doll lit the first fire. But fire needs fuel to keep burning. You… are that fuel. Who among you will start a war for a world where no one is born a slave?"
Heavy silence. Then, the young man who first stood up in the warehouse raised his hand, eyes burning. "Me! My name is Kai. I'm done kneeling."
Then another. And another. Even the old woman, Mai Ling, raised her wrinkled hand. "I'm old, but I can sew wounds… and teach the young to die with honor."
Jin Lian stood before them, smoke behind her forming a ghostly halo. "We will never return to them," she said, her voice carrying new steel. "Either we burn free… or burn their system with us."
That night, under a sky full of cold stars and rising smoke, the first Tainted Blood Cell was born—a small group of fugitives, led by a ghost and a doll, carrying in their hearts an ancient rage and a new flame. Steward Chen would not rest. Yun Zihan would demand their blood. And Ling Bo… would be the first to fall on the long road of vengeance.
This was only the beginning.