Ascendant in the Shadows

Mercy

The dark toilet tunnel came into view, and icy water rushed into Richard’s nasal cavity, gurgling as it filled his throat. Bubbles rose furiously to the surface, and the excruciating sensation of suffocation stabbed at his brain like a sharp needle.

Splash! Richard’s head was yanked out of the water by Li Ang, and the mob boss gasped desperately, his disheveled hair clinging to his forehead.

Skipping any futile pleas for mercy, Richard rasped, bedraggled, “I can give you money. A lot of money...”

“Ah... For someone as integral as the ‘pillar of Gotham,’ anything below ten million dollars must be pocket change, right?”

Li Ang casually tightened his grip around Richard’s thick neck, his tone indifferent. “But, as you can see, I neither carry a credit card nor a card reader. So...”

“A check!” Richard coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of murky water as if grasping at a lifeline. “There’s a checkbook in my pocket.”

“Oh, that’s a fine suggestion,” Li Ang said, rubbing his temple as if deep in thought. “But how can I trust you won’t just call the bank to freeze the account the moment I’m out of sight?”

Richard steadied his breath, his voice calm. “The bank is one we use specifically for laundering money. It’s just two blocks away—Kerwin Bank. All you need to do is present the check, and the staff won’t ask any questions. They’ll hand you suitcases full of cash right on the spot. You can knock me out and lock me in this stall. By the time someone finds me, you’ll already be far away with the money.”

With trembling hands, Richard slowly pulled the checkbook from his pocket, pressing it against the stall door. Meticulously, he signed his name, ensuring Li Ang could see he wasn’t leaving any marks or signals.

“In three minutes, the bank teller can fetch two suitcases from the vault. Each can hold $1.5 million—$3 million total. They’re filled with untraceable, non-sequential old bills. Completely safe.”

Richard spoke quickly, his voice earnest. “Our family has a wealth of experience in dealing with kidnappings. Believe me, I wouldn’t risk tampering and getting killed here and now.”

Li Ang took the check and flipped through it briefly before slipping it into his pocket with a satisfied nod.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Sappa. I’ve always despised bullies who prey on the weak. But since you’ve presented your ransom money, killing you now would be most unbecoming of me.”

Without hesitation, Li Ang grasped the mob boss’s neck firmly, ignoring the desperate look in Richard’s eyes as he plunged his head back into the toilet.

“The Guinness World Record for underwater breath-holding is around 20 minutes,” Li Ang remarked with calculated calm, “but that’s under ideal conditions—pure oxygen intake and complete stillness. You, on the other hand, are untrained. So I’ll give you four minutes, okay?”

As Richard’s arms flailed helplessly, Li Ang pinned them down and continued in a detached tone, “Good luck, Mr. Sappa. If you endure these four minutes, you’ll get to breathe the sweet air once more.”

Seconds stretched into eternity. Blood vessels in Richard’s eyes burst, painting them crimson. His face turned a ghastly shade of purple as the lack of oxygen left him numb to everything but the swelling and pain in his abdomen.

Pain coursed through his body, beginning at his skull and creeping down his spine to his toes. Fragments of his life flashed before him—a childhood memory of running through sunlit fields with a golden retriever; the sound of a bell ringing faintly in the background.

He recalled secret trysts in an attic with a slender girl during his youth—a girl who later married his cousin. Richard had swiftly disposed of the poor fool when he seized power in the family.

Most vividly, he remembered the nameless girl delivered to his bed a few nights ago, wrapped in a fur blanket. Eastern European, they said? He hadn’t asked. She’d be discarded soon enough.

Richard’s vision began to blur as his consciousness faded, and he succumbed to the encroaching darkness.

The restroom door creaked open. A tipsy man with flushed cheeks and a cigarette dangling from his lips stumbled in, holding a phone to his ear.

“Hey, pumpkin, miss me? Daddy’s at Bruce Wayne’s big gala. Yeah, that Bruce Wayne...”

He muttered distractedly, wandering toward the stalls. Richard flailed wildly, slapping the door with all his might.

The man froze, eyes widening. “Uh... is someone in there?”

Click. Li Ang opened the stall door and gently propped Richard upright. He pressed his fingers against the mob boss’s abdomen, forcing him to vomit violently, rendering him speechless.

“This gentleman had a bit too much to drink,” Li Ang explained with a weary smile. “I couldn’t reach his wife, so I’m thinking he might need to rest in one of the hotel rooms for a while.”

“Fine.” The man grimaced at the mess of yellow-brown vomit on the floor, stepping back with disdain. “You’ll clean this up later, right? The smell is just—ugh.”

“Of course. I’ll call someone right after he’s done,” Li Ang replied amiably.

The man, still engrossed in the faint chatter of a child’s voice on the other end of his call, washed his hands quickly and left. “Sorry, sweetheart, what did you say earlier?”

As the footsteps receded, Richard gasped weakly for air.

“Sigh, Mr. Sappa, why can’t you just play by the rules?” Li Ang shook his head and dragged the mob boss to another stall. For the third time, he plunged Richard’s head into the toilet.

“Since you can’t behave, I’ll have to extend the time. Five minutes now, okay?”

“No!”

The all-too-familiar suffocation returned. Richard pounded against the porcelain rim, his palms bleeding profusely.

Suddenly, the sprinkler system on the ceiling buzzed to life, releasing a deluge of water accompanied by piercing alarms.

“Hm?” Li Ang frowned as the rhythmic pulses of the sprinklers formed a Morse code message in his mind. “Do not kill.”

“A familiar pattern... Batman, isn’t it? You’re everywhere, aren’t you?” he murmured, releasing Richard, who slumped unconscious against the toilet.

"Those who show love will be loved; those who show respect will be respected; those who kill will themselves be killed."

Li Ang stripped Richard of his clothes, leaving the mob boss sprawled on the floor, reduced to nothing more than a grotesque, corpulent figure.

“Ba Jin once said, ‘Bloodshed, vengeance, hatred, and harm—why does it never end?’” Li Ang muttered, tying Richard’s clothes around his waist as he exited the restroom through a narrow ventilation window.

“Because it’s in our nature...”

He leaped between the walls of two towering buildings, landing gracefully in a shadowed alley. Looking up at the brightly lit hotel above, he sighed.

“Unchecked mercy inevitably bears bitter fruit.”