The afternoon sun did not bring warmth; it only cast long, skeletal shadows across the courtyard of Grandpa Shentu’s villa. Wang Fan stood in the center of a windowless stone shed, his body a map of darkening bruises from the morning’s "core conditioning." Every time he inhaled, his ribs reminded him of Cuihua’s efficiency.
Cuihua stood by the heavy oak door, holding a length of black silk. In her other hand, she toyed with a handful of small, translucent glass marbles.
"Speed is a lie," she said, her voice echoing off the damp stone walls. "Amateurs think that dodging a bullet or a blade is about being faster than the projectile. It isn’t. Even the fastest man on earth cannot outrun a piece of lead traveling at eight hundred meters per second."
Wang Fan wiped a bead of cold sweat from
