"Let's go have dinner after work tomorrow. I heard there's a good Thai restaurant."
Luna held a small white umbrella and stood at the door to say goodbye.
Tomorrow would be the hundredth bouquet—the day we had agreed on as our official dating day, the day I ended my career as a killer, and the beginning of my new life.
"Don't order anything too expensive. I'm broke," I joked.
"You cheapskate," Luna said, showing a faint dimple. "Don't be late. I hate it when men are late."
Her graceful figure disappeared into the rain. Just as I was about to close the door, a pair of hands held it open, and a lazy voice echoed inside.
"What's going on? Closing so early? Are you two actually working, or just fooling around? No wonder I lose money every month…"
The boss, who had been absent for a long time, walked in, shook the rain off his coat, and sat in the wicker chair, sipping a cup of tea.
An extremely ordinary middle-aged man—not handsome, not ugly—with a perpetually tired expression. He spoke casually, worked lazily, appeared and disappeared unpredictably. That was my boss.
Yet he was the smartest man I had ever met. I even suspected he had another identity.
On the surface, we were just boss and employee, but in the limited time we spent together, we constantly tested each other, trying to figure out each other's true nature.
Rain pattered crisply on the stones outside, adding a pleasant and refreshing feel to the summer night.
"Sylin, I hear you're in a relationship?" the boss teased.
"Uh… maybe," I said, scratching my head shyly.
"Then be careful. If a hot girl comes into the shop, don't you dare talk to her—her police skills can turn you into a bloody mess. And you can't call the cops either, because she is a cop, hahahaha…"
The boss was making a trivial joke, and Chloe stifled a laugh.
"I got it. I'll save the contact info of every hot girl who comes in, so you can follow up when you return," I said.
"Smart. I'll give you a five-hundred-dollar raise. Dating costs money, and a man can't let a woman look down on him for being cheap," he said.
"Thanks, boss," I replied, feigning exaggerated joy.
Chloe packed up and went back to school, leaving just the two of us in the shop. An eerie silence fell. The boss sipped his tea slowly while I organized the books by their numbers.
"Sylin, let's play the next game of chess," the boss said, looking at me with a complicated expression, pointing to the board beside the sofa.
"Okay," I said, wiping my hands with a towel and sitting across from him.
It's good that all tests have an ending. Let the truth be revealed—we'll see whether we are friend or foe.
Since I started working here, we had played dozens of chess games, and I had never won. A few times, I had him seemingly trapped in checkmate, yet he always found a way to turn the tables. On reflection, those were likely deliberate openings—he just let me see a false chance of victory.
"Knight jump—check," I launched an aggressive move.
"Pause," the boss said, using a cannon to block my knight.
"Capture bishop—check again."
"Exchange rook—counter-check."
The pieces bounced across the board like chips on a gambling table. Gradually, the tide turned in his favor. Within twenty moves, the game was decided. I sighed, put the pieces back on the board, and surrendered obediently.
"Sylin, your killing aura is too strong," the boss said, lifting his face with a rare seriousness.
My muscles tensed instinctively. The words had a double meaning—he seemed to see through my identity.
"A heavy killing aura, rushing to finish the game, will often lead to mistakes that cannot be undone."
"Boss, your insight is sharp," I said.
For the first time, I met his gaze with the look of a killer. A normal person would have broken into a sweat, but the boss merely raised his teacup and took a slow sip.
"Do you know what's most important in chess?" he asked.
"What is it?" I stared at him, ready to act.
"In chess, wins and losses are normal. What matters is that we remain players, not sacrificed pieces." He placed a chess piece back on the board. I noticed the stone piece had fine cracks spreading across it, then it crumbled into fragments.
Was this a warning, or advice?
What exactly did this unfathomable man want to tell me?
"Sylin, I received a new batch of books today. Stay late tonight to organize them. If the weather's good tomorrow, I'll give you the day off—go enjoy your romance."
The boss stood, patted my shoulder, and slowly walked out of the shop.
The House of Qin Consortium's central tower was heavily guarded. Without the intelligence and help Vincent had given me, slipping inside so easily would have been impossible.
The chairman's office sat on the fiftieth floor. Professional bodyguards hired from abroad stood at the door; it took me two minutes, and without a sound I took them out.
I took a deep breath and pushed open the matte black, bulletproof steel door.
The office was enormous. A young man sat behind the desk, head down over paperwork. Hearing the noise, he looked up at me with a trace of puzzlement.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Sorry." The pistol whirred in my palm; a bullet found his temple. He toppled backward in his chair with a dull thud.
Wrong. It couldn't be this simple.
Fifteen years of killing had taught me to trust my instincts — this had the smell of a trap. The chairman of House of Qin would not fall so easily. I spun around. Three figures filled the doorway.
A young man strode in front. He wore a tailored black suit; his face was identical to the man who'd just fallen. If my guess was right, this was the real man — Weekend, the new chairman of House of Qin. Like a guerilla decoy from a war tale, the one I'd shot was a deliberate body double.
Behind Weekend, on the left, stood a gaunt figure whose face was carved with scars. He was as thin as a stalk of bamboo, bone and skin — like a skeleton crawled from a grave. A semi-retired killer known as "Sevenius," rumor said he used to kill seven people a day in his heyday — a born slaying machine. To Sevenius's right was a squinty, fat man with a naïve, Buddha-like face. My gut dropped — there was no way I'd walk away whole. The fat man's name was "Rivian," another long-feared assassin; he specialized in killing fellow assassins. At least eighty killers were said to have died by his hand.
House of Qin had deep pockets indeed — they could hire monsters like these to be their personal guards. I remembered Vincent's strange smile and ground my teeth. That bastard had toyed with me from the start. He'd used money to push me into depravity, to break me down, and when I'd tried to step away he'd handed me an impossible task — and, incidentally, tested Weekend's hand.
"The most important thing in chess is not to be a piece thrown away."
My boss had seen through all this; he'd been trying to wake me up. I'd been too guarded to trust him.
"I know who sent you. I'll give you one chance." Weekend produced a cigarette from a gold case and lit it slowly. "Bring my man back to me, and I'll let you go."
"I hate him too. If it were possible, I wouldn't mind killing him myself." I smiled, rubbed my sore wrist.
"So you agree to cooperate?"
"Sorry. Assassins have rules. We don't betray a client's information — that's ironclad." I tossed my gun to the floor. Against Sevenius and Rivian, a handgun wouldn't be enough.
Weekend shook his head with regret and drifted back toward the doorway.
"Shame," Sevenius sneered, crazed and exhilarated.
"A pity — good material." Rivian exhaled and, like a shadow, lunged.
How long does it take for a cigarette to fall from a hand to the floor?
In that span, the first round of slaughter ended. Sevenius's legs were like knives. I'd taken two blows and my throat was choking with blood; if I'd estimated correctly, my liver was already hemorrhaging. Rivian's throwing knives were worse — one pierced the joint of my left arm at an impossible angle, nearly crippling half my mobility.
Sevenius howled, voice hoarse and wolfish, "I'll tear you apart! I'll make every inch of your body rotten, aaaah!"
I let out a satisfied laugh and rolled my eyes.
Sevenius clutched his blackened left eye as blood streamed down his face, making his expression even more feral. Rivian clutched his belly. In a flash, I yanked a thrown knife free and drove it into Rivian's lower abdomen. My decisiveness startled him; he staggered back to a safe distance.
A bleak draw for the first round — but the second round would be even worse.
If today had been handed me the hardest mission of my life, then today I was at my strongest.
I glanced at Weekend through the doorway. Watching such brutal combat, he hadn't even blinked. I had to admit: this young man was far more terrifying than I'd imagined.
"You bastard — you still think about killing the target?" Sevenius spat as blood poured from his eye like a faucet. "Old Jiang, they think we're trash."
"Kill!" Rivian's figure blurred and accelerated. Sevenius, driven by pure animal force, lunged at me and kicked at my neck. I tilted left — Rivian's throwing knife, laced with the scent of death, flew straight for my throat.
The aesthetic of extreme violence — another round began.
"Do you want me to teach you a few moves? Next time someone bullies you, you'll be able to protect yourself."
Her eyes were as clear as the sea, her lashes curling at the corners.
Rain poured down on my face, cold and biting.
"That hitman was pretty cool, wasn't he? Even at the end, he never sold out his dignity. That's what a real man is."
There were faint teeth marks on the straw of her soda. She looked at me with a dreamy kind of admiration.
Blood kept gushing from my chest. Rivian was a terrifying monster—the last stab had stripped away every ounce of my will to fight.
If I hadn't planted the bomb in advance and bought myself those crucial thirty seconds, I'd already be a corpse by now.
"Then bring me a bouquet every day. If you can keep it up for a hundred days, I'll date you."
Her voice tried to sound cool, but the shy blush on her face gave her away.
I must've lost almost all my blood by now. That knife near my heart—if I pulled it out, I'd probably come face to face with Death himself.
I gave a bitter laugh. I'd imagined this ending a thousand times, but now that it's really here, I still can't accept it. I really, truly can't.
"Don't be late, okay? I hate men who show up late."
Her dimples deepened beneath her small white umbrella as she said goodbye.
"Grandma… a bouquet, please."
I struggled to lift my arm, handing money to the old flower vendor.
She glanced down at me, then let out a startled cry. Abandoning her basket, she stumbled and ran across the street.
"What the hell… am I really that bad off?"
I tossed the money into her flower basket, pulled out a single white rose, and with the last of my strength, pushed myself upright—
walking alone into the rain-soaked night.