Chapter One:Encounter in the alleyway
It was raining hard in City A. It was late past ten o'clock and the streets near the high school were empty.
Lin Xinyi was walking down the street her hands in her pockets. She was wearing her school uniform. She looked like a normal student.
She had just finished a training session at a secret place she owned. She had been practicing arts and her body was sore. She felt alive and that was a good feeling.
Then she heard a noise. It was a thud and it sounded like someone was hurt. Xinyi stopped walking.
She saw three men in clothes and they were standing over someone who was lying on the ground. The air was tense. Xinyi could tell that these men were not just normal thugs. They were professionals. They were trying to kill the person on the ground.
One of the men said "lets finish this". He was going to shoot the person. Xinyi was too fast. She moved quickly and quietly like a ghost. She grabbed the mans wrist. Twisted it making him drop his gun. Then she hit him in the jaw. He fell to the ground.
The other two men tried to attack her. The sound of bone breaking was heard. She kicked one of them. He fell down and then she hit the other one in the neck and he fell down too.
It all happened quickly in less than eight seconds. Xinyi was standing there looking at the men on the ground.
Then she looked at the person who was lying on the ground. It was Gu Jue, a powerful man in City A. He was hurt badly and he was bleeding a lot. Xinyi knelt down beside him. She did not seem to care that she was getting bloody.
Gu Jue’s vision was blurring but he could clearly see the girl towering over him. She looked absurdly young, dressed in a high school uniform, yet her eyes were completely void of fear. They were an intense, icy depth. He tried to speak, to demand who she was, but only a bloody cough escaped his lips.
"Don't move if you want to live," Xinyi commanded. Her voice surprisingly smooth, cold, and laced with an unquestionable authority.
With practiced, lightning-fast movements, she reached into a concealed inner pocket of her blazer and pulled out a small pouch.
Opening it, she revealed a set of gleaming silver acupuncture needles. She’s a master of traditional Chinese medicine, possessing a deep knowledge about body meridian.
Gu Jue watched through a haze of pain as her slender fingers danced over his chest. With terrifying accuracy, Xinyi drove the silver needles into precise vital pressure points surrounding his arterial wound.
One to dull the agonizing pain.
Two to force the frantic heart rate to stabilize.
Three to constrict the ruptured blood vessels.
Instantly, the violent rush of blood slowed to a sluggish trickle, then stopped completely. The agonizing pain consuming Gu Jue’s chest receded into a manageable, cool numbness. His breathing stabilized. It was a medical miracle performed in the dirt of a rainy alleyway.
He looked at Xinyi with a lot of interest. He wanted to know who she was.
"Who... are you?" he managed to growl out, his voice thick with a dark, awakening obsession.
Xinyi didn't answer. Her sharp ears picked up the distant, frantic wail of high-end sirens and the screech of tires spinning around the block.
Gu Jue’s elite personal security detail had finally breached the perimeter blockers and were seconds away.
Without a word, Xinyi plucked her secondary needles back into her pouch, leaving only the primary stabilizing needles in his chest. She stood up, looking down at the supreme tycoon one last time with an enigmatic, icy expression.
Before his hand could clamp down on her, she turned and vanished into the rain.
Seconds later, a dozen heavily armed men in flawless black suits erupted into the alley, led by Gu Jue’s frantic head of security.
"Master Jue! Oh God, Master Jue!" the man cried out, dropping to his knees, horrified by the c*****e of the three unconscious assassins and the pool of blood.
But as his eyes drifted to Gu Jue’s chest, he gasped. "The... the bleeding has stopped? These needles..."
Gu Jue ignored his subordinate entirely. He stared blankly at the empty mouth of the alley where the girl had disappeared. His hand slowly closed into a tight fist, capturing only the empty, rainy air.
A dark, possessive infatuation flared deep within his chest, burning hotter than any wound.
"Find her," Gu Jue commanded, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that promised a storm. "Run a global intelligence sweep. Every database, every camera. I don't care what it takes. Find a girl in uniform."