The man made a phone call, got into his car, and stared intently in the other party's direction, speaking in a low voice:
"I saw an interesting kid over at Hejing. He looks a lot like a female assassin I once knew."
"Who?"
The man... White Sparrow, smiled softly. The curve spread from the corners of his mouth but never reached his eyes. "A boy. He looks exactly like his mother. Harbinger Bird, do you remember that woman?"
White Sparrow recalled a rainy night over a decade ago, when a woman in a black trench coat stood up from a pile of corpses.
She had killed seven of them—seven of his comrades who had trained and gone on missions with him.
"I remember," the person on the phone replied. "A boy who looks like her...? Can you confirm his identity?"
"Not for sure. I've decided to test him."
While White Sparrow was observing the boy, it was obvious that the boy's reaction time was not slow; he possessed a caution far beyond that of ordinary people.
He had immediately ducked into a car.
Watching the vehicle disappear before him, White Sparrow immediately pursued the car Shen Xun was in, refusing to let it go.
As he drove, White Sparrow urged, "Lock onto this license plate for me. Help me block that car on the road."
The person on the phone was still hesitant. "Are you sure? And even if it is Harbinger Bird's child, what if the kid is innocent?"
White Sparrow's smile instantly vanished from his eyes. "The kid is innocent? That woman killed so many of my comrades. Doesn't she deserve to die?"
The other party fell silent.
But strictly speaking.
Over the years, they hadn't killed any fewer of that woman's comrades.
The blood debt between the two sides had long become a tangled mess.
But the assassin Harbinger Bird was different.
Her skills could not be measured by common sense. With so many people surrounding her, she was the only one who could retreat unscathed.
They didn't dare clash with her head-on, so if that boy really was related to her—
Targeting her child might just yield miraculous results.
"Oh, right. There's also a girl who got into another car. Go help catch up to her and block her car too."
"Once I kill this boy, I'll go take care of the girl."
White Sparrow hung up the phone. Thinking of Xu Meng's devastated expression at the dojo, he prepared to avenge his little disciple, planning to eliminate that girl as well once the deed was done.
Shen Xun sat in the car, observing the vehicle relentlessly tailing them.
The tricky part about a grassroots organization like Heguang was their collective nature.
Anyone seen anywhere could very well be one of their members.
Observing the distance between the two cars, Shen Xun knew there was absolutely no escape.
They wouldn't let him get away so easily, either.
As it happened.
Shen Xun had no intention of running.
If he ran, that man would definitely turn around and go after Shen Yi.
That was not an outcome he wanted to see.
Shen Xun told the driver to floor the gas pedal. He was very familiar with this area.
Last year, The Archive organization had conducted a field mission nearby. To find the best evacuation route, Shen Xun had studied the floor plans of this industrial zone over a dozen times.
The car stopped. Shen Xun got out, slipped through a gap in the iron fence of an abandoned chemical plant, and ducked through the workshop door bearing a Danger: Do Not Enter warning sign.
The pursuer arrived just moments later, quickly driving up to follow him.
Footsteps followed him inside.
"Little assassin," the voice echoed from the other end of the cavernous workshop. "Who is your family? What is your mother's codename?"
Shen Xun did not answer.
He hid in the shadows of the control console.
By the faint light slanting in through the shattered skylight, he could clearly make out the man's silhouette.
Wearing a dark jacket, with a rather lean build.
"I'm guessing Harbinger Bird must be your mother," White Sparrow stopped beside a reaction kettle, his gaze landing accurately in the direction of the control console, the corners of his mouth curving slightly. "You're pretty good at running. That sister of yours probably isn't as good at running as you are."
"Once I kill you, it'll be her turn."
Shen Xun did not move, his breathing remaining steady.
He took a step back.
Behind him was the back door of the abandoned workshop. Up the stairs were two large liquid nitrogen storage tanks.
White Sparrow's explosive power was faster than Shen Xun had anticipated, taking less than two seconds to go from a standstill to close quarters.
Shen Xun turned and ran, pushing open the back door and taking the iron stairs two at a time.
Grabbing the corner of the handrail, he vaulted himself upward, flipped over the railing, and jumped from the outside of the stairs onto the third-floor platform.
The third floor was a warehouse piled high with discarded oil drums, which still bore faded hazardous chemical labels.
Tetrahydrofuran. Flammable. Explosive.
Shen Xun crouched behind the drums.
White Sparrow walked up the stairs to the third floor.
He stood at the warehouse door, glanced at the oil drums scattered across the floor, and did not enter.
He wasn't a fool. In a place like this, a single spark could blow the entire floor sky-high.
The man leaned against the doorframe, lightly tapping the iron sheet of the frame with the tip of his knife. "Did you think I wouldn't be able to do anything to you just because you hid inside?"
Shen Xun's voice was equally calm. "Then you are more than welcome to come in."
An enclosed, high-risk space was perfectly suited for mutual destruction. White Sparrow absolutely dared not act rashly.
Taking advantage of the stalemate, Shen Xun twisted open the cap of an oil drum by his feet, poured it onto the ground, and laid out an invisible explosive fuse.
Outside the door, White Sparrow finally dropped his smile, his tone darkening. "You're trapped inside too. Aren't you afraid of getting blown up? How do you plan to escape?"
Shen Xun had no intention of getting out.
From the moment he first stepped into this factory area, he had never planned to leave himself a way out.
In reality, this White Sparrow was a madman.
The man could clearly see his intention to take them both down, yet he still refused to leave such a place.
Then, he should know.
Today, both of them would be staying here permanently.
Shen Xun took out the folding knife he carried with him, pressed the blade against the gravel on the ground, and struck it hard.
In an instant.
The steel and the stone floor scraped together, producing a string of tiny sparks.
The moment the flames flared up, they spread rapidly.
Burning from the inside of the warehouse straight out the door.
Seeing this, White Sparrow decisively retreated to the stairwell.
Under the cover of the wall of fire, Shen Xun crawled out through the maintenance passage at the back of the warehouse and quickly made his way to the rooftop.
Two liquid nitrogen storage tanks were located here, their old exteriors covered in a layer of frost. Wisps of white, freezing mist leaked from the pressure relief valves.
Shen Xun crouched beside the tanks, quickly running through the layout of the piping system in his mind.
The pressure relief pipes for the liquid nitrogen tanks were on the back, about two fingers thick, connected to a manual relief valve.
The relief valve could not be touched barehanded. Shen Xun took off his school uniform, wrapped it around the valve, and decisively wrenched it open with force.
The valve's handwheel let out a sharp grating sound as it slowly turned a full circle.
The white nitrogen gas rapidly condensed into mist in the air, spreading downward along the rooftop floor.
If a person stood in the mist for more than a few minutes, they would lose consciousness first.
Shen Xun had no protection whatsoever. After opening it, he sat on the leeward side of the tank, his whole body already beginning to grow stiff.
White Sparrow also quickly found his way up from another direction.
By the time the man came up, the rooftop was already blanketed in freezing mist.
He stood at the rooftop entrance, squinting at the vast expanse of white mist before him. "You're really good at running, kid."
Pressed against the freezing, curved exterior of the tank, Shen Xun heard the faint crunch of White Sparrow's shoe soles stepping onto the frosted ground.
Shen Xun was terrifyingly calm.
His family's assessment of him was that he was a natural-born killer.
He possessed an absolute calmness, matched only by a profound indifference toward life and death.
He had exhibited obvious personality flaws ever since he was a child. If he hadn't been so pressed for time, Shen Xun had even considered luring them elsewhere, leaving the other assassins from the Archive to act as his scapegoats.
