The kitchen of the Guan household smelled of sinigang. A sharp, mouth-watering tamarind tang that was far too aggressive for seven in the morning.
Mei-Mei was perched on her booster seat, her brow furrowed in a look of intense concentration.
In her left hand was a plastic spoon dripping with the sour broth; in her right, a piece of chocolate cake she'd scavenged from the fridge. She carefully combined the two into a single, terrifying bite.
"Mei-Mei, please. Your stomach is going to complain," Clara said, her voice sounding thin and distant. She was staring out the window at the factory gates, her hands gripping a dish towel so hard her knuckles were white.
"It's a potion, Ma! For the dragons!" Mei-Mei chirped, her eyes brightening as the sour-sweet clash hit her tongue.
She looked at Xavier, who was sitting across from her, meticulously peeling a hard-boiled egg. "Kuya! Try the Choco-Sour! It makes your ears wiggle!"
Xavier looked at the murky, brownish concoction. His thirty-one-year-old stomach turned, but his seven-year-old eyes couldn't help but soften.
Mei-Mei was a chaotic sun in a house that was rapidly growing cold. She didn't just like sweets; she liked the extremes. She was the only thing in this house that wasn't a calculation.
"Maybe when the dragons arrive, Mei" Xavier said, sliding a sparkly blue dolphin sticker toward her. A trophy Sarah had "donated" from the Axiom office.
Mei-Mei gasped, her mouth forming a perfect 'O'. She grabbed the sticker and immediately slapped it onto her milk glass, which was already a graveyard of decals. Hello Kitty, sparkly stars, and a very confused-looking Pikachu. "Is Leo-nardo coming? I want to show him my potion!"
"Leo is busy with the Big Boxes today, Syobe," Xavier said, reaching out to ruffle her messy pigtails.
The interaction was a brief, sunlit island in the middle of the grey sea the Guan house had become.
Clara didn't look at them. She was a ghost in her own kitchen, watching the boy who had bought her sister with a magic card.
---------------
The boardroom of the **Rural Bank of Dasmariñas** on P. Campos Avenue was a study in 1980s corporate decay.
The mahogany table was scratched, the air conditioning rattled like a dying beast, and the portraits of the founding family on the wall seemed to be judging the current board for their failures.
Leo Guan sat at the far end of the table, his bespoke suit a sharp contrast to the frayed collars of the bank's directors. Beside him, Vee sat with her laptop open, her fingers hovering over the Final Offer button.
"The Bangko Sentral has already placed you under Prompt Corrective Action" Leo said, his voice smooth but lethal.
"Your Non-Performing Loans are at forty percent. Most of them are agricultural credits to farmers who haven't seen a harvest in two years. You're sixty-five million pesos underwater, gentlemen"
"We have roots here, Mr. Guan" the Chairman, a man named Mr. Bautista, said with a shaky voice. "My father founded this bank to help the community. We aren't just numbers"
"Your father's roots are being choked by debt, Mr. Bautista," Leo countered.
"By December next year, the BSP will close this building and freeze every account. The community you love will lose everything. Or... you can accept the Axiom Foundation's proposal"
Vee turned the laptop toward them.
"We are offering $3.5 million USD in fresh capital injection," Vee explained.
"We'll assume the liabilities, stabilize the reserves, and transition the bank into a digital-first institution. You keep twenty percent of the equity and your names on the door. We keep the charter and the operational control"
"Digital-first?" one of the directors asked. "This is a rural bank. Our clients barely use ATMs"
"They will" Leo said, leaning forward. "Because we're going to give them a reason to. We're going to link this bank to the Vanguard network. Every student, every vendor, every farmer who uses a Vanguard card will have an account here. You're not just a bank anymore. You're the spine of the new Cavite economy"
The directors whispered among themselves. They saw the exit ramp. They saw the $3.5 million. Nearly two hundred million pesos—that would wash away their failures.
Bautista looked at the pen on the table. "How about the ones in Tarlac you mentioned in the rider?"
"The Pineda Estate debt is part of the deal" Leo said. "We'll restructure them. We want their cooperation"
Bautista signed. He thought he was saving his father's pride. He didn't realize he had just handed Xavier the first node of a private central bank.
---------------
At the Guan-Tech factory, Arthur Guan was pacing his office, the floorboards creaking under his weight. Leo was there, ostensibly helping with the digital inventory system, while Xavier was sitting on the floor, playing with a set of gears.
"It's a blockade, Leo!" Arthur shouted, slamming his hand onto the desk. "Aguila has leased a three-kilometer stretch of the provincial road in Tarlac. They're claiming 'Private Security Zones' for their own projects. They're charging our trucks five thousand pesos per pass! It's extortion!"
Leo looked up from his screen, catching Xavier's eye for a split second. "Can't you take the mountain pass, A-Peh?"
"The pass adds four hours and doubles the fuel cost!" Arthur spat. "We'll be in breach of the SCTEX contract by Monday. I've called the DPWH, I've called the Governor—they all say it's a private matter between landowners"
Arthur looked at Xavier, who was currently making a clicking sound with two interlocking gears.
To Arthur, his son was a genius, but this was a war of adults—of land, law, and leverage. He didn't ask Xavier for help; he simply vented his frustration, a man drowning in a tide he didn't understand.
"I wish I had the money to just buy the whole damn province," Arthur muttered, collapsing into his chair.
"Maybe you don't need to buy the province, Pa," Xavier said, not looking up from his gears. "I saw a map on Leo's computer. There was a big farm road next to the highway. It looked like a shortcut in my racing game"
Arthur blinked, looking at Leo. "A map? What map?"
Leo cleared his throat, improvising. "Uh, yes, Tito. I was looking at the Tarlac agricultural plots for a... potential project. There's the Pineda Estate. It runs parallel to the provincial road. It's private land, though. They'd never let us through"
"The Pinedas?" Arthur sighed. "Old money sugar barons. They wouldn't talk to me"
"Actually" Leo said, sliding his phone across the desk. "I heard from a friend in Dasmariñas... the Rural Bank there just got bought out by a Manila group. They're the ones holding the Pineda's mortgage. They're looking to optimize their assets. If you can get a pass from them..."
Arthur grabbed the phone. His eyes scanned the info Leo had found "A pass? From the bank?"
"It's worth a call, Tito" Leo said.
Arthur didn't wait. He began dialing. He thought he was being proactive, using a lucky tip from his nephew's college research.
He didn't know that the Manila group was currently sitting in the room with him, disguised as a seven-year-old and an IT student.
---------------
Xavier arrived home at 10:30 PM. The house was quiet, but a single light was on in the kitchen.
He found Mei-Mei sitting at the table, a bag of Guan Desserts sour-balls in front of her. She was meticulously licking the sour powder off each one before dropping the sweet centers into a glass of water.
"Kuya! Look! I'm making a Moon Drink!" she whispered-cheered.
"Is it for the dragons, Mei?" Xavier asked, sitting beside her.
"No, it's for you," she said, sliding the glass of murky, sour water toward him.
"So you don't look so tired"
Xavier looked at the Moon Drink. It was a biological hazard. But he picked up the glass and took a tiny sip. The tamarind powder was violently sour, followed by a sickly-sweet aftertaste. It was the taste of his life. The sharp, acidic reality of the war he was fighting, hidden beneath a layer of artificial sweetness.
"It... tastes like magic, Mei," Xavier wheezed.
Mei-Mei giggled, leaning against his arm. Her hair smelled like baby shampoo. For a moment, the $4.2 million in the Swiss bank didn't matter. The Tarlac blockade didn't matter.
"Kuya?" Mei-Mei asked, her voice dropping. "Why is Ma crying in her room?"
Xavier's grip on the glass tightened. "She's just happy, Mei. Happy that Aunt Tessie is getting better"
"Is she?" Mei-Mei asked, her eyes searching his. "She doesn't look happy. She looks... like she lost her doll"
Xavier didn't have an answer for that. He just held her hand, her small fingers feeling like porcelain in his.
Clara walked into the kitchen then. She saw them. She saw the Moon Drink and the stickers and the way Xavier was shielding Mei-Mei's innocence with his own body.
She looked at the Vanguard Gold Card in her hand—the five million pesos for Tessie's dialysis.
She walked over and placed the card on the counter. She still didn't look at Xavier, but her voice was steady.
"I used it" Clara whispered. "Tessie starts on Monday"
"Good" Xavier said.
"Don't think this changes anything, Xavier" she said, finally looking at him.
Her eyes were hard. "I'm taking her to the hospital. And I'm taking Mei-Mei with me"
Xavier watched her go. He looked at the 2031 phone.
[ABYSS: VANGUARD BANK ACQUISITION (FORMERLY RB DASMARIÑAS) COMPLETE. ASSETS CONSOLIDATED.]
The dragons were safe. But the tower was getting higher. And he was the one left to guard the gate.
[ASSETS: PHP 4.1M (LIQUID) + 12M (LOGISTICS) + 3M (REAL ESTATE) + $700k (MIDAS CASH) + 60M (BANK ASSETS)]
[EMPIRE PROGRESS: 10.0%.]