The world was divided into two halves.
Xingcheng stood up with the fluid grace of a ghost.
"Keep your eyes on him. I dropped my… napkin. It's right behind this tree. I'll be back before he flies away."
He walked away from the bench. He didn't run; he moved with the casual, terrifying pace of a man who had already decided the outcome.
The second he stepped behind the massive, century-old oak, the "Cheng" persona evaporated.
The assassin in the blue jacket saw his target leave the girl. He adjusted his grip, twenty feet from the bench. He didn't see Xingcheng behind the tree; he only saw an opening.
THWIP.
The assassin's suppressed 9mm coughed once. The bullet hissed through the air, whispering past the oak's bark.
Simultaneously, a CRACK echoed through the park—a high-caliber sniper round from the clock tower shattered a stone birdhouse ten feet away. It was a distraction, a "gift" from Lao K's team.
In that micro-second of the assassin flinching, Xingcheng struck.
He didn't just step out; he launched. He was a blur of navy-blue fabric and raw, silent power.
He closed the ten-foot gap in two strides.
Before the assassin could re-center his sights, Xingcheng's hand—scarred and steady—clamped over the man's mouth and the gun's slide simultaneously.
The metal of the pistol bit into Xingcheng's palm, but he didn't feel it. He drove the man backward into the rough bark of the oak tree with a force that knocked the air from the assassin's lungs.
Xingcheng's eyes were inches from the man's face, cold and devoid of any human heat.
"You picked a very bad day to interrupt my dinner," he whispered, his voice a jagged edge of silk. "And an even worse day… to point a gun at her."
The assassin tried to bring his knee up, a desperate, street-fighter move. Xingcheng caught the strike with his hip, twisting the man's arm until the sound of popping tendons filled the small space behind the tree.
He didn't use a weapon. He used leverage. One hand on the chin, one on the base of the skull. A singular, sickeningly wet CRACK echoed in the hollow space.
The assassin's body went limp. With the smooth movement of a dancer, Xingcheng caught the man's weight before his boots could hit the gravel, sliding the body behind a dense hedge of azaleas.
He reached down, plucked the suppressed pistol from the grass, and tucked it into the small of his back, hidden by the "BOB" shirt.
"Cheng? Did you find it? 'Stubby' is getting restless!" Joey called out from the fountain.
Xingcheng took a deep breath, forcing his heart rate to drop from 140 to 60. He smoothed his hair and adjusted the collar of his shirt.
He looked at his hands—the small cut from the car antenna was now masked by a fresh, hot smear of red on his cuff.
"Yes," he said, stepping back into the light, his voice returning to that gentle, low-octane honey. "It was caught in the wind."
He sat back down, but he didn't look at the bird. He looked at the back of Joey's head, his hand hovering just an inch from her hair, trembling with a strange, terrifying protectiveness he couldn't name.
"Ready to go home, Peppercorn? The sun is gone."
"Yeah," Joey turned around, smiling brightly. "I'm starving anyway. That hot dog was just an appetizer."
The sun had fully dipped below the horizon now. The warm gold was replaced by the harsh, artificial white of the park's streetlamps.
Joey stood up, reaching for Xingcheng's arm to steady herself.
Her eyes traveled down his sleeve, following the navy-blue fabric until they hit a single, thick drop of dark crimson blood blooming over his bicep.
It didn't look like mustard. It didn't look like sauce. It looked like life leaving a body.
The smile died. Joey's breath hitched, her hand frozen in mid-air.
"Cheng…" her voice was small, trembling with a sudden, icy realization.
She reached out, her finger hovering just millimeters from the wet stain.
"Your shirt. You're... you're bleeding. But you didn't have this a minute ago."
Xingcheng looked down at the blood. He didn't flinch. He looked back at her, his eyes unreadable, the "Shadow" and the "Man" clashing behind his pupils as the artificial lights cast long, jagged shadows across his face.
"It's nothing," he said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming the dangerous silk of a King again. "Just a scratch from the tree."
Joey looked at the tree, then back at the red stain that was growing larger by the second.
Her "Peppercorn" intuition, the one that kept her alive in the slums, was screaming.
"That's not a scratch, Cheng. That's... that's too much."