Ignored by Nana Toki, Mo Yao’s anger swelled, a banked fire flaring in a brazier.
His obsidian eyes glared at Nana Toki like they could spark flame.
When had anyone ever ignored him? The thought pricked like a thorn lodged deep.
From cradle to now, his mirror had never cracked; Nana Toki was the first split.
Humiliation crawled over him; rage made his body tremble like a drawn bow.
He wanted to order his people to seize that brash woman, but his gut warned him like a hound refusing the leap.
It would be foolish, like stepping onto thin ice at dusk.
Strange. Too strange. Mist that wouldn’t lift at noon.
Abao and his crew stared at Nana Toki leaning on the doorway, like a dead soul waving at them on a sunlit street.
Cold sweat slicked their backs like rain on slate.
Fear mingled with an uncanny chill, a draft from an unseen tomb.
The room had gone quiet after Chongming Yan and Chen Yiyi left, but a bone-cold strangeness seeped in like fog.
“Surprised to see me?”
Nana Toki lounged against the rail, amusement plain on her face like a cat watching birds.
“Thought I should be dead?”
She watched the youths behind Abao; a thin smile curved like a crescent blade.
Their scalps prickled, as if dropped into a northern ice pit.
Her voice was thin iced needles, each word pricking skull and chilling heart.
She seemed a hell-ghost risen from the underworld.
“You’re that Suo Sen?”
Mo Yao was sharp; with a glance he read her like a seal carved in jade.
Too bad. No prize for being right. Nana Toki ignored him like wind passing a flag.
Mo Yao wasn’t her mark; her arrows were set on the youths behind Abao.
Think she’s some avenging saint for the original host? No—you’re far too naive.
Her creed was steel: I don’t start trouble; if you do, I’ll wipe out your whole family.
She simply wanted these idiots dead, weeds snapped after frost.
Hell, you killed the original host—fine. I didn’t know her; her life or death wasn’t my concern.
But you poisoned? That’s your sin. Pay with your lives; drink the gall you brewed.
Tack-tack-tack... Her black metal-tipped heels clicked on black tiles, like Death knocking at the door.
Facing Nana Toki, Abao’s crew felt cold fear surge from their soles to their skulls like winter wind up a chimney.
“D-Don’t come any closer!”
One youth behind Abao snapped; he shoved past, grabbed their steel pipe, and swung for Nana Toki’s face like a stray dog lunging.
But—pff. Boom. The crowd saw a blur, lightning behind their eyelids.
Before they could react, the charging youth whipped back like a kite with its string cut.
If Abao hadn’t dodged, he’d have been dragged into it like a crab tangled in a net.
The ones behind him weren’t so lucky.
They toppled like bowling pins as the flung body crashed into them.
“You’re here to wreck the place!”
Mo Yao’s face darkened; his gaze sharpened like a drawn blade aimed at frost.
“Wreck the place?” She swept the room, amused. “What do you even have worth wrecking? A few chipped teacups and beer glasses?”
Crash. As her words fell, Mo Yao saw the woman snatch something and hurl it at him like a hawk dropping a stone.
“Damn!” He reacted too late. The chair she threw smashed toward his head like a battering ram.
Thud. Standing by the glass table, Mo Yao went out cold, a candle blown in wind.
“Trash, and they call you the second male lead.”
She dusted her hands, barely glancing at Mo Yao crumpled on the sofa, and strode straight for the group behind Abao like a storm rolling in.
Seeing her come their way, their hearts skipped like misfiring drums. This woman was poison.
“So, is tormenting people fun?”
Nana Toki walked step by step, slow. A smile hung on her face; her calm was a stagnant marsh.
The ones scrambling up couldn’t react before Nana Toki reached them and laid in, her fists like hailstones hammering tin.
“I—ugh—bang!”
“For injecting me! For forcing a shot of that poison!”
She seized one man’s hair and drove a fist into his face; the sudden crack startled the rest like thunder at noon.
“Feels good, shooting people up, huh? Hm? Feels good?”
“Hm? Good or not? I’m talking to you—good or not?”
She wore a spiked wristband; after a few punches, his face turned to blood and pulp, smashed fruit on a cutting board.
Blood streamed, and his mouth slurred pleas like a broken radio sputtering static.
“N-not good... please... please stop hitting...”
Maybe her methods were too blunt, too violent; the box held nothing but chilling screams, silence wrapping them like wet cloth.
The others froze, eyes wide, watching fist after fist thud into flesh, torment stretched like wire by his cries.
“Ah! Ah! Aah! Ah! Ugh... urgh... ugh...”
At the end, he couldn’t even scream; more breath went in than out, a guttering lamp ready to die.
She stopped only when her final punch brought nothing but the wet splatter of blood, no sound left under it.
“Who’s next?”
She lifted her head, blood spattered on her face like plum blossoms in winter, and looked meaningfully at the trembling crowd.
“We haven’t settled our account.”
