If you looked closely at women around An Ruyi, you’d see most weren’t Chinese—Asian at a glance, but European in bone, marble under watercolor.

Take the driver: a mature woman, an Eastern European beauty, like frost-cut crystal behind the wheel.

On An Ruyi’s other side sat one with British softness, yet hawk-browed, a rose with a steel vein under silk.

Sunglasses and a mask shaded her face, a cloud and veil that kept eyes from turning like birds.

Yeah, Miss, a few years gone and you’ve only grown more womanly—reeling in pretty boys like you’re casting nets in spring.

The Brit teased with a bright smile, a bell in sunlight, loose-tongued because this special detail has guarded you for years.

Years in China, and their Chinese rolled off the tongue like clear water.

They were elites before they came, polyglots born in barracks, with small wars stamped on them like powder burns.

Chinese is a hard tongue, but they bit through it like tough jerky.

By nature, An Ruyi never kept these sisters at arm’s length; she preferred warmth, like tending a brazier in winter.

For profit or by accident, she even taught them Chinese, blush-quick as spring peach when she saw how fast they learned.

They’d come out of uniform and found her frankness cute, a stray cat sunning itself on their doorstep.

Quit clowning, Catherine... The hit a few days back? He dragged me out of that block.

Back then he was just a broke student juggling jobs; I saw talent like a flint spark, and kept him as my guard.

She could already feel the wicked grins gathering like birds on a wire.

Heat climbed her cheeks; she shoved them playfully, laughter like wind chimes, yet her worry sat heavy as rain.

A soft sigh slipped out, a leaf falling in dusk.

After he handed her that job, Chang Qing bailed the hotel the second these ‘delicate ladies’ arrived, smoke to wind.

He borrowed a motorcycle and shot for City Central Hospital, a black arrow down the road.

It gave the mature driver a clean window to study him, a hawk watching a rabbit’s gait.

This was his gap from old hands; he still couldn’t sort useful intel from sight alone, beads from sand.

It’s not mystic fog, but reading bodies, stride, and every line the eyes can catch, like tally marks.

On a battlefield, that’s a commando’s bread-and-butter, steel under the skin.

Before the tapes were scrubbed, Mr. An let us watch the feed; the kid’s strong.

The mature woman flicked her menthol out the window, mint smoke as light as mist, a sly smile on her lips.

Yun-jie... from your mouth, he’d only barely tie Catherine at best; isn’t that gilding the lily?

An Ruyi didn’t know real martial arts; she’d only trained basics like a pocket knife for desperate hours.

She trusted her people, rain or shine, or she wouldn’t stake her life on Chang Qing and Luo Huo.

Doubt and use don’t mix; use and don’t doubt, a line she kept like a creed.

She’d seen both their hands; instinct made her compare, with a pinch of teasing aimed at Catherine.

In her eyes, Yun’s last strike had been fiercer than Chang’s, a razor to his broadsword.

Chang cut hard with big arcs and calm turns, a storm with an eye; Yun killed by centimeters, a surgeon in shadow.

An Ruyi had seen Yun with a knife, every stab for the throat or heart, lightning at arm’s length.

At night, Yun turned lone-wolf, a shadow ready to tear out a windpipe.

No, no. Have you ever heard me praise anyone here?

Catherine’s got talent, sure, but not in grappling; she’s lazy there, blessed in the scope like a falcon.

I’d be happy if her hand-to-hand hit half her sniping, a coin to a moon.

Catherine could only give a bitter smile, a wilted smiley face; the others grinned too.

They’d all eaten Yun’s lessons in training, iron pills you swallow without water.

Monsters like her are rare on this earth, fingers on one hand.

That young man fights hard on hard, a combative style—what you Chinese call practical fighting.

I know some Chinese arts; from the feed, he’d adapted Bajiquan, with tricks for modern weapons.

Otherwise he couldn’t have hauled you out then, rain through barbed wire.

Yun’s eyes narrowed, willow-brows lifting, mature charm like dusk wine.

Same for today: those gunmen weren’t pros, but not strays; numbers alone were a tide.

Young Master Li picked the wrong tiger to poke; the kid meant to kill.

If you want to keep him, ship him to the Middle East for a few years; he’ll come back an iron hand.

Yun had left special forces not for age, but for an ‘accident’ that erased her file, a name smudged by rain.

With her build and years, she was elite among elites, eyes like scalpels.

With her methods, Chang Qing would climb a rung, mind tempered and killing craft honed like a whetstone.

That was his current bottleneck: few full-frontal kills, a blade that’s cut wood but not armor.

In her read, today would be the day he killed in anger, a match to powder.

But there’s a sniper on their side...

We can’t help with that; Catherine just took a job and hung it on Young Master Li.

Otherwise they wouldn’t have struck this rashly; if you want him, give him cover and a road back.

The other women nodded, eyes like analysts’ lamps; they’d studied his reels and gamed out counters.

They knew his worth; dying to a petty storm would be a waste, smoke over pearls.

For them, killing was bread on the table, routine as brewing tea.

Each had left units for trouble big or small, smoke that drove them from barracks.

Catherine had been an elite police sniper; pressure from above turned her into a ‘bandit’ in the hills.

So they judged a guard the soldier’s way, by the weight of blood on his hands.

Chang Qing’s skill and head were sharp, and he didn’t flinch in life-and-death; still, one flaw loomed.

Experience. A sky missing stars.

As a martial artist, he’d seen enough close work; mid-close, he beat many.

But far from enough for the world; he couldn’t run guns, his biggest hole, a gate without a bar.

They still prized fists, since today wasn’t the Middle East or Africa with fields of fire.

Yet at close range, a decent shooter can cage an unarmed fighter, like a fox in a coop.

Modern life’s a wall built of guns; pistols level the ground like gravel.

If the ambush wasn’t in a narrow stairwell but in a wider lobby, what then?

Without guncraft, how would he pick cover; where would he run; what’s the real reach of a barrel?

That sense is born in battle, a gut ground down like river stone.

Yun’s sense was top tier; mid-close firefights with her were suicide, moth to flame.

So she valued guns; not godlike aim, but a fine map in the head for sudden storms.

If Chang Qing knew how to work a gun, he’d have cracked the siege much faster, like sun through fog.

Wait, Sister Yun, what do you mean Catherine just did a job?

She pinned it on Young Master Li—did that shake his clan and make them jump early?

If so, didn’t I take this hit for nothing, wind and dust in my face?

It felt like she’d found the root of the storm, a thread in the knot.

Miss, relax— that’s not why he went berserk.

We only poured a little oil round the firepit; his family shoved him into the blaze.

Catherine kneaded An Ruyi’s shoulders with a smile, hands warm as towels, and shot her sisters a look.

It said don’t spill; let me talk.

The others shared a knowing smile, lanterns in a row; Yun at the wheel only sighed and shook her head.

Our Miss is earnest to a fault, a blade kept bright.

Yun had only ‘let slip’ the line; the sisters didn’t puncture it, just drifted along.

Talking of Chang Qing, her eyes held praise and pity, twin lights on dark water.

They all knew how deadly a pre-set sniper rifle is, a scythe on a hinge.

If he lived through those big hospital windows, that’d be a miracle, a fish through a net.

A pro might miss once, but not twice; the man failed on Chang once already.

Next time, the luck won’t be there, only the crosshairs.

At City Central Hospital, Chang Qing killed the engine and ran for the inpatient block, a storm front knifing in.

He tore a sticky note and scattered it into a trash can as he passed, like chaff to wind.

Only one thing beat in his chest: his sister, a lantern in a gale.

Downstairs, security guards were gathering, a hedge of uniforms.

He slipped through gaps in the crowd, a fish through reeds.

Young Master Li had lost his head, a bull in a hall, and didn’t care about fallout.

After his lunge, the hospital moved—security called, police dialed, alarms like crows.

The guards could only keep other patients calm, a thin dam against a flood.

As for the police?

The An family had staged that ‘drill’ at the hotel, and the next act would be ‘short on units’.

Reinforcements wouldn’t come quick, smoke where you want rain.

He didn’t expect strangers to pull his sister out safe; not cops sunk through with big clans.

That wasn’t bitterness; he’d walked the river too long and soaked his shoes to the knees.

Years of work taught him not to trust ‘relevant departments,’ just the bone in his fists.

He hammered up the stairs to the fifth floor without a breath, a drumbeat in stone.

His body could take it, iron lungs under a calm face.

A few guards faced off with the gunmen there; even doctors were about to be dragged in, white coats flapping like flags.

The nearest gunman stood in reach; Chang’s eyes went cold as steel, and he lunged like a shadow cut loose.

He didn’t hesitate. He ripped the rubber baton from the guard’s belt, a black lash snapping from its hook.

He moved faster than knives could think. The baton cracked into a thug’s temple, a thunderclap under skin.

The man staggered, balance gone like a stool kicked out. Changqing caught his collar, slammed him to the floor like tossing a sack.

The baton dropped like a hammer on both eyes. Blood fountained, red rain spattering tile and shoes.

Guards froze like statues. Doctors stared like deer in headlights. They knew this soft‑spoken regular, the gentle youth with warm eyes.

Today he was all storm and steel. The picture in their hearts shattered like glass under heel.

It still wasn’t over. He snatched the thug’s machete, the blade a cold crescent, and rushed the nearest one like a gust down a hallway.

One chop bit the neck, a butcher’s stroke. The baton drove the blade deeper; half the steel wedged in. Blood sprayed like a busted hydrant.

These hitters were Young Master Li’s last scraps. His elites got burned up on assassinations, spent like coin.

The street punks had grit, but not this kind of ice. Changqing killed when he said kill. They mostly scared shopfronts and skimmed protection money.

They went soft, legs like noodles. Changqing didn’t soften. His will was a locked blade.

He grabbed the wounded man and barreled forward, using the body like a door to smash open the corridor.

Two machetes came down, sparks of death. The meat shield caught them. Changqing was already moving, a wolf through reeds.

The baton cracked joints like snapping twigs. An elbow shattered a jaw; a knee crushed the groin; two fingers stabbed the eyes like hooks.

The baton finished it, caving throats, cutting off the road of breath. Two lives ended, candles pinched out.

Today was his quickest day of killing. Mercy felt distant as winter, a river iced to the bed.

He knew this might make him an exile in a strange land. So be it. They’d stepped on his bottom line.

Break their feet, boil them for soup—he didn’t mind. His rage was cold, clean, and sharp.

He dropped the baton, took two machetes, and strode for the familiar ward like a blade returning to its sheath.

Yo, welcome, lowborn.

Inside, Young Master Li’s men pinned Changqing’s sister and Dr. Lin, two musclebound oxen shadowing the bed.

Behind Li stood a compact Southeast Asian fighter. His legs looked like iron rods; Changqing knew the style at a glance.

Name your terms and let them go. I’m here, Young Master Li.

Changqing’s voice was ice. Both machetes angled like fangs.

Let them go? When did I say I’d let them go?

Li put on confusion, then laughed loud, a hyena in silk. His blade kissed Changqing’s sister’s neck.

He opened his mouth to boast. Changqing cut across him like a knife.

Li Qingluan. Li Shihe. Li Lunyuan. Li Xu. The addresses of the Li family’s houses are…

Want me to keep going, Young Master Li? I can list their habits, too.

He spoke smooth, names flowing like beads over a string. With each one, Li’s face sank a shade.

He knew those names. Changqing’s calm recitation said the truth was memorized, the knife already at the roots.

And who else could have handed him that kind of intel?