NATURE: The Most Powerful

The Beijing air, thick with the distant hum of traffic, did little to soothe Lu Xi's nerves. She had come to this city on a whim, a quiet pilgrimage to a past she barely knew. Two days had passed in a blur of tourist sights and anonymous meals, but the third brought an unexpected chill.

She sat in a quiet restaurant, the clatter of chopsticks and hushed conversations filling the space. Then she saw him. Her father, Tang Yan, surrounded by a family she didn't belong to, a picture of domestic bliss she had never known. He held his wife's hand, a tender gesture that spoke volumes. Lu Xi felt nothing. No anger, no longing. Just a quiet confirmation of what she already knew: they were strangers now.

Finishing her lunch, she slipped out, a ghost in the crowd. The city's pulse beat around her, indifferent. She wandered, aimless, until a flicker of movement in a secluded alley caught her eye. There, crumpled in the shadows, was a woman. Injured. Dying. And radiating a purity that stopped Lu Xi in her tracks.