Hotel, outside the room door.
Time for a routine check on their employers.
Sika, the younger twin, removed his noise-canceling earmuffs.
His hearing was too keen; normally, he relied on this sound insulation to avoid being overwhelmed by the world’s ambient noise.
He leaned in and pressed an ear against the door panel, holding his breath.
What he caught was an unusual noise.
“Luca,” he gave his older brother a look.
Luca nodded slightly, turning his gaze toward the door.
His X-ray vision activated quietly.
The wooden texture gradually faded from his view, and the interior scene emerged like a developing photograph.
Vanessa, the boy…
*Hiss—* Luca’s pupils contracted, and he sucked in a cold breath.
His sight lingered a moment too long as if glued, before he finally pulled away.
When he turned back, his expression was immensely complicated.
“What is it?” Sika noticed his oddness and reached out to open the door.
“Don’t!” Luca grabbed his wrist in a tight grip.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Sika shoved his hand off.
Luca’s mind descended into a chaotic storm.
Professional ethics demanded he protect his employer’s privacy, but human decency urged him to break in immediately and put a stop to it.
“It’s just an overly doting mother making a little mistake,” he finally heard himself say.
“If she wants to nurse him, let her nurse him; if she wants to spank him, let her spank him.” He chose the former.
He’d tactfully remind Kingpin later and demand compensation for mental anguish—after all, the visual was far too shocking.
“…What?” Sika was utterly baffled.
He figured his brother had finally lost his mind from work stress.
“It means you listen to me, Sika.” Luca snapped the earmuffs back onto Sika’s head and turned around himself.
Yet in his eyes, a strange trance lingered.
*I kind of want to try…* Outside the room, Sika hadn’t worn the earmuffs properly, secretly loosening one side.
Suspicion was already brewing in his mind.
“Hmm…
Looks like the plan was a success.
Time to move.” Faint sounds of argument and a door handle turning then stopping filtered through the gap.
Green stood up from behind an armchair and switched the command.
The two on the armchair ceased their movements.
Choubao vomited out the Inverted Spear of Heaven.
Green took it, held it in a reverse grip, drove it into the floor, and smoothly carved out a circle, lifting the entire slab of stone.
Then he dropped down, landing squarely on the poker table in the room below.
The curtains were drawn, illuminated only by a single incandescent bulb.
A group of men sat around the table puffing cigarettes and playing Texas Hold’em.
Smoke swirled in the room; the weed mixed in their tobacco made them assume Green was merely a high-induced hallucination.
“Is that…
the God of Gamblers?!” The same thought crossed their minds simultaneously.
Green casually glanced at the hand of the guy closest to him.
“Tsk…
terrible hand.” The guy being judged was the first to lose his cool.
The rest reacted a second later—isn’t this motherfucker the target from the photo on their phones?!
*Buzz—* An arc of cold light swept in a circle.
The lightbulb swayed in the draft, light and shadow washing over their instantly frozen faces.
Red lines appeared across their necks simultaneously as blood beaded up, and heads tumbled off.
Green reached up to catch the two dropping down from above, casually stuffed them into a room service cart nearby, and calmly pushed the door open.
On one end of the hallway, patrol guards had just passed by.
Green pushed the cart, unhurriedly walking toward the trash chute where he had tied a rappel rope in advance.
He had observed earlier that near the trash dumpster was a weak spot in their defenses.
He whistled the tune used by the female assassin in the hospital from *Kill Bill*, the cart’s wheels making a rhythmic *clack-clack* sound.
Meanwhile, in the hallway above, Sika took off his noise-canceling earmuffs, hung them around his neck, and turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Luca shouted behind him.
“Pissing.” Sika didn’t look back.
“Make it quick.” “Got it.” What Luca failed to see was the ferocious twist on Sika’s face.
He had heard it—that extremely brief, almost imperceptible hum of a blade.
Though fleeting, he had caught it.
The enemy must have chosen a stealthy evacuation due to being outnumbered.
And this gave him his chance.
He was going to find him, and then empty an entire magazine into his back!
Rounding the corner, Sika’s pace grew faster and faster—from a brisk walk to a jog, and finally to a full sprint down the stairs.
That whistling sound!
That whistling sound!!
Sika had never told Luca, but at the scene of that tragic massacre years ago, he had found an audio cassette meant to record a cult choir.
Midway through the tape, the massacre occurred.
After all the screams, wails, and the agony of deathly silence, the only thing clearly preserved was this whistle tune.
And at the end, the whistling had grown clearer, meaning the killer had approached, perhaps even picked up the tape, and deliberately left it behind.
Why?
Just for fun?!
He sprinted furiously.
Bursting into the hallway, the whistling coming from the corner at the far end was identical to the one in his memory.
He charged ahead, pulling his pistol.
Sweat dripping from his brow blurred his vision, but he didn’t care.
The whistling grew closer and closer.
His index finger pressed hard against the trigger.
The red-carpeted hallway was about fifty meters long, but for the first time, he felt it was so endless—like the long tongue stuck out by a sneering demon.
His heart pounded heavily; his vision shook violently with his sprinting body, his breath burning hot and ragged.
Reaching the corner, he spun swiftly, peeked around, and raised his gun—pointing down the corridor, but it was empty.
“Wh—” “Looking for me?” A light male voice sounded behind him without warning.
Every drop of blood in Sika’s body seemed to freeze instantly.
A chilling, viscous killing intent slithered like deep-sea kelp through the fibers of his tactical vest, wrapping around his skin and crawling upward.
Yet in that peak of sheer terror, his mind unexpectedly cleared.
An absurd question surfaced in his mind: What was he doing?
Hunting down a…
monster?
“I’ll kill—!” Sika reacted lightning-fast.
Dropping his muzzle while twisting his torso, he slammed a textbook tactical front kick straight into the chest line of the person behind him, trying to create distance.
*Click.* The trigger mechanism jammed instantly; Green had locked the trigger dead using only the second knuckle of his index finger.
Against the incoming kick, Green made no attempt to block or deflect.
*Thump!* The dull impact sounded as if he had kicked a solid concrete pillar.
Violent recoil blasted back from his foot all the way up his calf, leaving Sika’s entire right leg completely numb.
His vision swayed; the light before him seemed to dim abruptly under the pressure of a heavy, non-human presence.
*Did I kick a mountain?* Green remained where he was, his figure towering in Sika’s shaking vision, blocking out the light.
He simply stood there, without even a rise or fall in his breathing.
“First time I’ve seen a fish that escaped the net swim back to the butcher on its own.
You’re quite bold.” Green slashed with a smile.
Sika felt a chill at his right wrist as his hand, still gripping the gun, slid off at a clean angle.
“…Ugh!” Sika doubled over, clutching his spurting wrist with his left hand.
His teeth chattered violently, every inch of his facial muscles twisting in agony.
Green tossed the severed hand—still holding the gun—up and down in his palm.
“Look up.” The voice was quiet, yet Sika didn’t dare resist, tilting his face up.
The tip of the blade pressed against the center of his forehead.
“Hah…
hah…” Terrified, Sika opened his mouth wide, gasping in short, panicked breaths like a stranded fish.
Warm blood flowed from the forehead wound, streaming down his brow and soaking his right eye.
His vision was blood-red.
Looking at Green through that crimson veil, there was no hatred left in his eyes—only primal terror.
“I killed your brother.
It wasn’t about right or wrong, just an outcome.
That you two are alive proves that mission was less than ideal on my part.
So don’t make me regret this decision, alright?” He stuffed Sika’s severed hand back into his coat and swiped his walkie-talkie along the way.
The blade tip left his forehead.
Sika froze in place as Green’s back grew smaller and blurrier in his vision.
He just stood there, his mind a complete blank.
On the upper hallway, Luca felt a sudden tug of intuition and frowned.
Sika had been gone too long.
He grabbed his radio.
“All units alert, status change, arm up and stand by.” With that, he rushed in the direction his brother had gone.
“Team 1 copy.” “Team 2 copy.” “Team 3…
Team 4…” The coms responded one after another, but Luca was no longer listening.
He skidded to a halt at the corner.
Sika stood at the far end of the hallway, facing sideways toward him, motionless.
“Hey!
Bro!” Luca clicked off his safety.
Sika slowly turned his head.
Luca’s breath hitched.
He saw a bizarre expression frozen on his brother’s face.
The corners of his mouth turned up instinctively from surviving the ordeal, yet dragged down painfully from the humiliation of being granted life by his enemy—his entire face ripped between two opposing forces.
“Why didn’t he kill me…” Sika’s voice trembled uncontrollably.
Luca froze for two seconds, then suddenly understood.
Sika had run into him, but the man had let him live.
That in itself was a message—a choice.
If he reported it now and mobilized everyone to hunt him down, maybe they’d have a chance.
But what if they failed?
If the man survived the ambush, what would he do?
More importantly, since he appeared down here, it meant the targets upstairs were already compromised.
The mother and son’s sudden strange behavior earlier made complete sense now.
Luca leaned against the wall, head in his hand, suddenly struck by a profound sense of powerlessness.
He hadn’t even laid eyes on the man, yet he had already been forced to make two choices.
The guy was a master at psychological mind games.
Hesitating a moment, he picked up his walkie-talkie.
“Crisis clear.
All units remain on standby.” “Copy that.” A brief response came through the channel; no one asked a single question.
Luca lowered his arm, looking at his despondent brother in the distance, and chuckled bitterly.
“Looks like we’re on the run again, bro.” The hallway ceiling light buzzed twice, casting silent shadows between the two brothers.