"If you want to live, let help you."
A familiar voice, silent and ethereal, drifted lightly.
It made Xu Si’s heart race.
It was the first ti she had ever felt this way.
She looked straight at the figure before her, clothed entirely in black with long, silver-white hair. Her nose caught a faint, almost imperceptible scent of gunpowder. Even without seeing his face, she knew exactly who it was.
A high-ranking mber of the Triad Society.
His codena might be "Hei Shi."
He had appeared again at such a mont: amidst the terrifying sounds of knives and gunfire, within this dark and cramped shelter, in such an ambiguously provocative posture, and so very close.
Xu Si pressed against him, able to feel the smooth, firm lines of his muscles and the cool warmth of his body.
This ti, he hadn’t sent the bald giant; he had co to rescue her himself.
Her expression was somber. There was no blush, no racing heart, no panic. Calmly, she tilted her delicate, fragile neck upward and asked in a breathy whisper, "Why do you keep helping , again and again? And why did you give a gun?"
She had learned her lesson this ti.
This man was mysterious and elusive. If she didn’t ask all her questions at once, he might vanish before her eyes in the next second, and she wouldn’t even be able to grab the hem of his clothes.
"Heh."
The tall man’s lips curved, but the cold set of his mouth held no joy. He released the fingers that had been cupping the back of her head and effortlessly pulled the gun’s trigger, his chin lowering to graze her crimson lips.
"Ask a different question."
He didn’t want to answer?
Xu Si’s back was against a hard postbox, with no room to retreat. She blinked, unable to avoid his proximity, and her defiance waned. Turning her head aside, she forced herself not to let her lips touch his face.
"Then how will you save ? Can we get out of here?"
In the deep night, his grip on her was perfectly controlled, neither hurting her nor allowing her to move an inch. Hearing her question, he chuckled softly.
"As long as I want to, you can get out."
Xu Si lifted her hesitant hands and rested them on his arm. After a mont’s thought, she tilted her head in confusion.
"If you’re that powerful, do you really need to hold like this? Can’t I just walk out on my own?"
Around them, the moonlight seed to ebb and flow, casting hazy shadows. The gang mbers engaged in fierce battle neither advanced nor retreated.
After two seconds of silence, Xu Si heard his voice again. It was slightly lower than before, sowhat familiar, yet when she searched through everyone in her mory, it remained strangely alien.
"Mhm, I need to hold you just like this."
His icy fingertips brushed against her beautiful, slender swan-like neck.
"Stay quietly in my arms until this conflict is over."
Xu Si felt a jolt, as if electrified by his touch, and a shiver ran through her entire body.
Even for soone as calm and self-possessed as she was, such casual, repeated teasing would make her earlobes burn and her legs feel weak.
On a night like this, ablaze with conflict and shrouded in dangerous mist, the surrounding scene seed like sothing out of a movie. The two of them clung to each other, their heartbeats, breaths, and body heat intermingling in an ambiguous haze.
Xu Si, held in his embrace, remained still and proper, but she couldn’t help asking one more question, a note of unwillingness in her voice, "What’s your purpose in saving ? What kind of reward do you want?"
Upon hearing this, he tilted his head down slightly to look at her. The cold, white moonlight couldn’t compete with lamplight, leaving his face obscured. Only his somber, cool gaze swept over the crown of her head, again and again.
"What do you think? When a man passes through such a dangerous place in the middle of the night and saves a woman, what do you believe his purpose is? What kind of reward should he get?"
There was no trace of desire in his words, only a subtle, playful teasing.
Any answer would be awkward.
It was like flirting.
Xu Si took a very slow, deep breath and said no more.
In any case, she couldn’t detect any ill intent or malice from the man.
They remained hidden. In reality, this wasn’t a sound strategy. Once the conflict ended, the victors would stay to reap the spoils, and soone had already spotted them.
The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder as ard figures closed in, surrounding them.
Just as I’d thought, Xu Si mused, once we’re discovered, the chances of escaping are slim to none.
She trembled, instinctively wanting to reach for her gun again, only to rember that the man had already taken it.
She couldn’t see how many people were behind her.
She could only gauge their numbers by the reflections of light on the ground and the rustling of footsteps—many, so many it induced a sense of despair.
Her fingers trembled. "The gun," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Give it to . I can launch a sneak attack."
At her request, he rely quirked the corner of his mouth, patted her back gently in a soothing gesture, and continued to hold her close, his grip unwavering.
"Have you thought this through? If you kill soone, your hands will be stained. How will you face yourself when you go back?"
Xu Si swallowed hard, then laughed. "They’re already trying to kill . What does it matter if my hands get dirty? Are you mistaken about ? I’m not as kind as you imagine."
The words had barely left her lips when soone fired two shots at the postbox. Bullets struck the tal, sending out fiery sparks.
His voice was chilling, like fragnts of ice from isolated, floating floes.
"Ah, I never misjudge anyone. Nor have I ever imagined what you should be like."
He pulled Xu Si out from behind the postbox. His gaze, wild and savage, swept over everyone present. His once ethereal voice now seed solid, piercing through his mask without the slightest restraint as he laughed and said, "Let’s go. Since you want to get out so badly, I’ll take you."
Xu Si hadn’t expected him to walk out so boldly, as if no one else existed.
But since we’re already exposed, there doesn’t seem to be any other option but to leave.
She still didn’t have a gun.
All she could do was clutch the hem of the man’s clothes, trusting that he had a way out.
Expressionless, an aura of madness and slaughter surrounding him, he stared at one of the n holding a gun. His voice was deep and magnetic.
"You fired those shots."
Soone scoffed.
But the smile quickly froze on his face.
The next second, a bullet struck the man’s left hand. A vivid stream of blood gushed out. It all happened without a word.
Many of the others grew enraged, raising their guns.
BEEP BEEP BEEP—
A black luxury car approached, honking, its door swinging open. The bald giant stepped out, his dark, grim face revealed.
Everyone was startled.
That face carried considerable weight in Underground City; there wasn’t a soul who didn’t recognize it.
He was a subordinate of a Triad Society leader.
And the only one who could command him was the chieftain of the Triad Society.
The bald man respectfully held the car door open wider, his voice cold. "Put your guns down. The Triad Society is here to pick soone up."
The surroundings fell into an awed silence.
No one dared to interfere further.
In this city, rife with constant gang warfare where only the fittest survived, the Triad Society was the sole ruler. No one dared to defy them.
To her bewildernt, Xu Si was lifted into the black car, and they drove away, leaving behind the blood-drenched, forbidden zone.
Imperceptibly, rain began to fall over Underground City. As the scenery outside the car window erged from the darkness, it grew increasingly prosperous.
Xu Si sat alone in the passenger seat. The bald giant, his arms covered in tattoos of demonic faces, was driving. Through the rearview mirror, she saw the mysterious man in black, his head still tilted, the brim of his hat heavily shadowing his face.
Xu Si felt a chill, as if her heart had been steeped in ice water.
I must have been tricked, she thought. He’s so formidable, why did he insist on holding ? And for over an hour, at that...
「After a long while.」
The man, who had been silent until then, finally spoke.
His voice was light, tinged with an elusive hint of a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, giving an impression of unpredictability.
"You’re safe now. Where do you want to go?"
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