The checkpoint was drawing closer.
Jiang Nuan checked the silenced pistol and small bomb tucked inside her coat, then hit the brakes.
The car came to a steady stop before the barricade.
Several high-powered flashlights shone into the driver’s seat at once. The blinding white light made Jiang Nuan squint instinctively. All she could see were beams of light twisting through the downpour and curtains of rain.
Bang. Bang.
A gun butt rapped impatiently against the window.
Jiang Nuan forced her breathing to steady, then rolled down the window.
Behind the beam of light was a face thick with flesh.
The moment the man saw her, his flashlight wavered.
He turned aside and murmured something into his terminal.
When he looked back, his gaze had changed.
Complicated. Contemptuous. Wary. And something Jiang Nuan couldn’t quite make out.
Fear, perhaps.
“...Confirmed. It’s her.”
He put away his terminal and slowly bent down.
That broad, fleshy face moved closer to the open window. Rainwater streamed down his cheekbones as he lowered himself until he was nearly eye level with Jiang Nuan.
His gaze slithered over her face, then swept across the empty passenger seat.
“Miss Jiang,” he drawled. “Where are you heading all alone in weather like this?”
Her heartbeat quickened.
But she couldn’t allow the slightest crack to show on her face.
She thought of a pair of eyes.
Cold and indifferent—eyes that looked upon everything as if it were beneath notice, as if people were mere insects.
Ye Que’s eyes.
She imitated that expression and curled her lips into a faint smile.
“Since when,” she said, meeting his stare without flinching, “do I need to report my whereabouts to you?”
It was both a bluff and a test.
A test of just how far that order—“Do not harm her”—would protect her.
The man choked on his reply.
His gaze lingered on Jiang Nuan’s face for several seconds, searching for any sign that her composure was forced.
But she was unnervingly calm.
Interesting.
Was this woman merely putting on a show, or did she truly have something to rely on?
Then he recalled the boss’s expression when he had issued the order. Though his face had been blank, his tone had been unusually grave.
“She must not be harmed in the slightest.”
Not harmed in the slightest.
In the year or so since the Scavengers had been founded, no one had ever received such treatment.
He had no idea what relationship this woman had with the boss. But anyone who could make the boss say those words was not someone he could afford to offend.
...Yet he couldn’t simply wave through a suspicious vehicle traveling alone late at night.
Fear and duty wrestled in his mind, until a compromise occurred to him.
The order only said they weren’t to harm her personally. Searching the vehicle was standard procedure; it didn’t count as breaking the rules.
“Of course not.” The man straightened and took a step back, forcing a stiff smile onto his face. He raised both hands in a harmless gesture. “It’s just that things have been unsettled in the city lately. We’re only concerned for your safety.”
Then his tone shifted as he waved to the group behind him.
“Since Miss Jiang has nothing to hide, you won’t mind if we inspect the vehicle, will you?”
Jiang Nuan’s heart sank. Quietly, she reached for the pistol and bomb concealed inside her coat.
One of his men yanked open the rear door. A powerful flashlight immediately swept across the back seat.
No one was there.
Jiang Nuan secretly let out a breath of relief. Ye Que must have climbed into the trunk while the car had been stopped just now.
But the next second, the flashlight beam froze on the back seat.
“Captain, there’s blood here!”
It was a large, horrifying pool of dark-red blood, not yet congealed.
“Miss Jiang.” The man’s voice lost its earlier, feigned politeness and turned cold. “This bloodstain on the back seat... you’d better give me a reasonable explanation.”
The roar of the torrential rain thundered in her ears.
Jiang Nuan’s right hand remained at her side, resting casually against the metal body of her gun.
“I took care of some disobedient trash on the road.”
She lifted her eyes and met the man’s gaze directly.
“What? Didn’t the boss tell you not to meddle in my affairs?”
The man’s shoulders tensed for an instant.
Jiang Nuan gave him no time to react. A trace of mockery entered her voice.
“Or are you planning to manage me on your boss’s behalf?”
With those words, she had elevated an ordinary inspection into a challenge to the authority of those at the top.
Even though she had no idea who their boss was supposed to be.
The rain hammered madly against the roof and the road.
The man’s expression shifted between green and white.
He had no idea what relationship this woman had with the boss.
But she was a woman the boss had personally ordered them to keep “completely unharmed.”
And with her utterly fearless air—her natural, lofty arrogance...
His brow furrowed.
The boss’s thoughts were an abyss.
Look down into that abyss once, and it would swallow you whole.
“I’m only carrying out my duties,” the man finally forced out through clenched teeth. “For your safety, we’ll let you pass as soon as we finish checking.”
He signaled to his subordinates behind him.
“Open the trunk.”
Jiang Nuan crossed her arms over her chest, one finger pressed against a small magnetic bomb.
There were too many people here. A bomb would be more useful than a gun.
In this rain, visibility was poor. If she threw the bomb first and floored the accelerator amid the chaos—
Her chances of getting away were less than fifty percent.
But she had no other choice.
Footsteps moved around toward the rear of the car.
Click.
The trunk sprang open.
Jiang Nuan held her breath, her finger tightening slightly.
“Captain, the trunk is empty. There’s nothing inside,” a subordinate’s voice called through the curtain of rain.
Empty?
How could it be empty?
Her heart gave a violent lurch, but not a trace of it showed on her face. She merely looked at the man with open provocation.
“Seen enough?”
“My apologies for disturbing you, Miss Jiang.” The man stepped back and gave her a slight bow, a stiff smile on his face. “Drive safely. You may go.”
His men swiftly removed the barricade ahead and cleared a path.
Jiang Nuan took her hand off the bomb, her palm soaked with sweat.
The moment she pressed the accelerator, both her legs felt weak.
The car passed through the checkpoint and entered a dark street shrouded in torrential rain. She stared straight ahead, maintaining a normal speed that would not arouse suspicion. Inside the car, there was only the roar of the engine and the dull pounding of rain on the roof.
After driving for two full blocks, confirming there were no pursuers behind her and no surveillance cameras, she abruptly turned into a pitch-black alley and slammed on the brakes.
She practically threw herself toward the back seat.
She yanked open the door. It was empty, save for that horrifying pool of blood.
Stumbling, she ran to the rear of the car and lifted the trunk lid.
It was empty too.
Spotlessly empty. There was nothing there.
In that instant, Jiang Nuan felt as if every drop of blood in her body had frozen solid.
Ye Que wasn’t in the car.
He wasn’t in the back seat. Nor was he in the trunk.
Then where was he?
Had he jumped out of the vehicle?
Impossible. In his condition, there was no way he could have left on his own.
Jiang Nuan looked out at the street. Through the curtain of rain, the neon lights in the distance blurred into desperate, indistinct halos.
Then—
A faint sound came from beneath the car.
It was followed by a muffled groan, suppressed to the utmost, nearly swallowed by the roar of the rain.
Jiang Nuan shuddered.
She dropped to her knees in the pooled water of the alley and lay flat, rain soaking through the front of her clothes.
She peered beneath the car.
Ye Que was there.
He was clinging to the narrow space beneath the chassis. It was only possible because the SUV sat high off the ground; otherwise, he would have been pressed directly against the pavement.
The wounds that had stopped bleeding thanks to his astonishing recovery ability had split open again. Muddy water and blood covered his entire body.
During those few minutes when she had been confronting the Cleaners, while everyone’s attention had been fixed on her, this man—badly injured and doubly suppressed by ability inhibitors and anesthetics—had somehow drawn on an unimaginable force of will. He had climbed out of the trunk and silently made his way beneath the vehicle.
The torrential rain had provided perfect cover. The blood that flowed from him had been washed away, leaving no trace on the ground.
“Ye Que…”
She reached out to pull him free, only to find his fingers locked around a metal crossbeam beneath the chassis.
She could only pry them loose, one finger at a time.
Jiang Nuan didn’t know how she managed to get him out.
She dragged and half-carried him, splashing herself with mud from head to toe.
He was far heavier than she was, yet in that moment, she seemed to possess endless strength.
After settling him into the back seat, she reached out with trembling fingers and held them beneath his nose.
A faint breath brushed against her fingertips.
He was still alive.
All the strength drained from Jiang Nuan at once. She collapsed into the back seat, her vision going dark in waves.
She took out an energy candy and put it in her mouth, intending to rest for a minute before setting off again so she wouldn’t collapse from exhaustion.
Just then, the person beside her moved.
Ye Que’s eyes remained closed, but his body leaned toward her.
As if his consciousness had already faded, yet his body still wanted to draw close to her.
He buried his head in the hollow of her neck.
His scorching breath washed over her skin, making Jiang Nuan tremble all over.
His arm moved, curling around her waist and slowly tightening.
Even at the brink of unconsciousness, his possessiveness remained unreasonable.
Jiang Nuan went still for a moment. Then the hand she had raised finally came down. Carefully avoiding his gruesome wounds, she stroked him in slow, soothing motions.
Something warm slid down her cheek and dripped into his hair.
“Madman.”
Her palm rested against his back, feeling the heartbeat beneath it.
“You reckless, death-wishing madman.”
