Lewis reacted fast but still a moment too late.
The man’s gun swung up without a hint of hesitation, aimed squarely at Jiang Yun.
The bullet tore through the air, slicing past the edge of Jiang Yun’s cloak and with a sharp crack struck the glass bottle beside his hand.
The bottle exploded instantly. Wine splashed across the table, glimmering shards scattering everywhere, soaking into the sleeve of Jiang Yun’s tailored suit.
Yet his expression did not change. It was as if he had already anticipated the attempt on his life.
He didn’t even glance at the man who had fired, nor at the bullet now buried deep in the wooden tabletop.
Jiang Yun’s gaze lowered to the honey-colored stain spreading over his cuff, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
“Damn it. This gun is a nightmare to use.” The man rubbed his wrist with irritation and muttered, “Should’ve taken that deck of cards instead.”
Lewis barely had time to exhale in relief before the man lifted the gun again, smiling faintly. “Still, a bit more practice should help, don’t you think?”
“Minister Jiang, look out!”
Lewis’s body moved before his mind could.
He kicked the wooden table beside him with all his strength. The table flipped over with a crash just as the man pulled the trigger again. Bullets slammed into the overturned surface in a rapid barrage, peppering it with gaping holes.
The falling table hit the floor with a thunderous boom, marking the beginning of the chaos that would later be known as the tavern assassination.
“Requesting backup! I repeat, requesting backup!” Lewis shouted into his earpiece, keeping Jiang Yun shielded behind him. “All units, protect Minister Jiang!”
But even before his call for help reached anyone, soldiers from the Olin army who had been stationed in the shadows burst through the doors. Within moments, they surrounded the assailant.
The man now stood alone, facing a dozen guns yet there wasn’t the slightest trace of fear in his eyes.
His gaze flicked toward a wooden wine barrel in the corner. Without hesitation, he turned his gun and fired.
The barrel burst open with a deafening crack, a torrent of wine flooding across the floor. In the same breath, the man grabbed the oil lamp beside him and hurled it into the spill.
The moment the flame touched liquid, a wall of fire roared to life. The sudden blaze forced the soldiers to stumble back, shielding their faces from the heat.
Lewis instinctively raised his arm to block the flare. In that instant, the man slipped behind him, lightning-fast and in one smooth motion disarmed him.
Lewis froze in disbelief.
“This one should work better,” the man said lightly, blowing on the barrel of Lewis’s own gun before leveling it toward Jiang Yun. “Let’s give it another try.”
Just as he pulled the trigger, a metallic clang rang through the air. A sheet of alloy armor had dropped between Jiang Yun and the bullet, deflecting the shot.
The Olin military forces quickly formed a defensive ring around Jiang Yun. He stood unharmed behind the armored shield, raising a brow in quiet surprise.
So this was the assassin Politt had paid for.
Not bad. His reflexes and aim were impressive. Another five years of training and he might have rivaled Jiang Yun’s late husband.
Politt’s money had not been wasted.
Still, there was something strange. Why was the man alone?
Politt might be arrogant but even he wouldn’t send a single mercenary to kill a foreign minister.
Jiang Yun had no time to dwell on it. The tavern had erupted into chaos.
“S-someone’s been shot! There’s a killer!”
The tavern owner ducked behind the counter with a terrified squeak. Patrons screamed and stumbled over one another, overturning chairs and smashing lamps as they fled. Fires began to spread from table to table, small but fast.
It was the height of confusion.
If there was ever a time to escape, this was it.
Lewis, now unarmed, had been forced back from the front line. Even so, he tried to reassure his charge. “Please don’t worry, Minister Jiang. We’ll keep you safe. Stay behind me.”
No one answered.
“Minister Jiang?” He turned left and right, eyes scanning the smoke-filled room. The figure who always commanded attention wherever he stood was nowhere to be seen. “Minister Jiang!”
A cold dread crept up from the soles of his feet.
Jiang Yun was gone.
In this primitive district there were no security cameras, no city surveillance and every Olin soldier who had been assigned to tail Jiang Yun was now focused on the attack inside the tavern.
No one saw where he went.
At that moment, the Olin side completely lost their control over Jiang Yun’s movements.
The night deepened and snow began to fall harder.
Far from the heart of the shanty settlement, the streets lay empty and silent. The snow-covered ground held no trace of life, save for a few scattered lights glowing weakly through the storm.
Calling them streets would be generous. They were little more than narrow alleys between ramshackle huts, twisting and suffocating, disappearing into darkness.
Jiang Yun walked alone through the passageway. His breath turned into faint clouds of white, vanishing quietly into the frozen air.
He had been walking for a long time.
His black cloak was now almost white, covered with snow. Meltwater clung to his lashes, blurring the deep darkness of his eyes with a soft shimmer.
He stopped once more and looked back.
The alley was still empty.
Only a trail of footprints stretched behind him, endless in the snow.
He turned away again, tucking his nearly frozen hands into his cloak, lowering his gaze in silence.
He could not understand.
He had already shaken off the Olin agents following him, so why hadn’t Colonel Lu come to find him yet?
Had he missed something? Had he not walked far enough, or waited long enough?
Why wasn’t Lu here?
Jiang Yun exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the cold. He was about to take another step when his communicator suddenly lit up.
Confidential Priority: S-Level.
Source: Intelligence Bureau Director, Agatha May.
After inputting his passcode, a stream of classified data appeared before his eyes.
[Good evening, Minister Jiang.]
[I’ve received word from the military that the beautiful you is currently being hunted by a group of mercenaries on Ice Desolation Star.]
[Thanks to the tireless efforts of our diligent and utterly charming intelligence officers, we’ve identified the mercenary group.]
[Below are their files. I hope they’ll be useful to you.]
Agatha had sent eight profiles in total.
Jiang Yun skimmed through them but before he could read further, several new messages appeared.
[Also, the Bureau has re-established contact with Puppet.]
[Puppet has claimed responsibility for Wickliffe’s death.]
[Yes, the same Puppet who blew Wickliffe’s head off with a single shot.]
[Surprising, isn’t it? I didn’t expect it either. When did that kid’s aim become so good?]
Jiang Yun’s fingers trembled.
The communicator slipped from his grasp, tracing a cold arc through the air before landing in the snow. Its pale light flickered like a dying star before fading into the whiteness.
He stood frozen and then, unexpectedly, laughed.
What was he even doing?
Why couldn’t he ever learn?
After all these years, he still hadn’t learned how to accept the truth.
Just because he had shared two fleeting months with him. Just because they had lived together, pretending at a newlywed’s peace for those two short months.
Seventeen years had passed and he was still the same fool as he had been in the first, the second, the third year after losing him.
Still clinging to an impossible hope.
Seventeen years.
When would he finally let go of something so painfully unreachable, a possibility so faint it might as well not exist at all?
Maybe Maurice had been right.
When it came to Colonel Lu, he had lost all sense of reason.
He didn’t know Lu as well as he thought.
His instincts, his heartbeat, meant nothing.
In the end, Colonel Lu simply refused to let him win.
Expressionless, Jiang Yun lifted his right hand and grasped his trembling left wrist. He bent down and picked the communicator out of the snow.
Opening his contact list, he found Morris’s name and typed three words.
I lost…..
His finger hovered above the send button but didn’t press it.
Because he still couldn’t make himself believe it.
No, he couldn’t.
How could Colonel Lu ever let him lose?
That was his chosen Alpha, his shining Colonel Lu.
How could Lu ever bear to see him defeated?
Realizing he still hadn’t given up, Jiang Yun let out a quiet, bitter laugh.
How stubborn could one man be?
Was he planning to keep clinging to this forever?
With a sigh that sounded almost like resignation, he deleted the message. Then, without another word, he opened the mercenaries’ files again.
It was obvious that Politt had spared no expense in his quest for revenge for his son.
Eight mercenaries in total. Men and women, Alphas and Betas, each with a record so “remarkable” it was almost absurd.
Massacres of civilians. Environmental poisoning. Child trafficking. Every single one of them carried crimes that, in the Alliance, were punishable only by death.
After reading through all eight profiles, Jiang Yun quickly realized something was wrong. The man who had attacked him in the tavern was not among them.
The faces did not match, nor did the build.
Even if one could disguise his appearance, how could such a stark difference in physique be explained?
If that man was not one of the hired assassins, then who was he?
Jiang Yun had made his share of enemies through the years. It was not impossible that one of his defeated rivals had sent someone after his life.
But the more he thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. That man had skill, yes but every shot he fired narrowly missed its mark. Each bullet had come close enough to frighten, never to kill.
Could it really be a coincidence?
No. Not at all.
Rather than an assassin sent to take his life, that man had behaved more like someone helping him. Someone deliberately created chaos.
Jiang Yun’s heartbeat quickened as a thought flashed through his mind. Almost without thinking, his hand slipped into his coat pocket.
And there it was.
A small slip of paper that he had certainly not placed there himself.
He didn’t recognize the handwriting but the codename written neatly at the bottom was one he knew all too well.
[Please come to this location. Someone is waiting for you , from your most sincere Puppet.]
[Also, I hope my earlier gunfire didn’t startle you. I am truly sorry but I had to make the act convincing enough to draw all the Olin soldiers away from you.]
[And for the record, my aim really isn’t that good. Everything I did was by his order.]
Jiang Yun froze.
No! not froze. He was stunned.
His eyes widened, long lashes trembling like still wings, his face fixed in the same look of disbelief he’d worn all those years ago when Colonel Lu had awkwardly presented him with that ugly little homemade cake.
Puppet… The man in the tavern had been a Puppet.
And the Puppet had said… it was all under his command.
The puppet had said someone was waiting for him. He was waiting for him.
A wave of emotion crashed through Jiang Yun so violently it nearly drowned him.
His breath came fast and shallow, turning into clouds of white mist. His legs went weak, trembling beneath him. His heart pounded as though it might burst through his chest.
With effort that bordered on desperation, he forced himself to remain standing and fumbled to turn the note over.
On the back was a map, a rough outline of the area, with one location circled in red.
His current position was marked too. The two points were separated by only half an alley.
Half an alley.
If he just kept walking a little farther… just a few more steps…
A faint beam of light suddenly spilled out from between the makeshift walls ahead, slicing through the darkness like a thread of gold.
The brightness made him instinctively want to shield his eyes yet when he looked up, he realized the light wasn’t harsh at all.
It was soft.
It didn’t hurt. It reached for him gently, glowing with a warmth that reminded him of the bedside lamp that used to keep him company before sleep, casting a quiet halo that divided the narrow alley in two, one half bathed in amber glow, the other swallowed by shadow.
For a fleeting instant, Jiang Yun felt as though he had stepped back into the bedroom on Shallowwater Road, Number Five.
He could almost smell the faint sweetness of roses. He could see the checkered wool carpet under his feet, the cream-colored curtains swaying with the evening breeze.
And in that soft light, standing by the window, was Colonel Lu, fresh from the military headquarters, still wearing his uniform, his posture tall and steady.
That had always been the place where Jiang Yun felt safest in the entire universe.
Under the calm, steady gleam of the light before him, Jiang Yun’s chaotic pulse began to slow. His thoughts, trembling on the edge of collapse, finally steadied.
He took a deep breath. Then, quietly and deliberately, he stepped forward, toward the darkness ahead.
His steps were not hurried. The soles of his shoes pressed softly into the snow, each movement leaving behind a small, pale hollow, as though the ground itself was exhaling beneath him.
For seventeen long years, Jiang Yun had imagined this very scene.
Even at Lu’s funeral, even that first time he had worn a black suit, bowing to the guests one by one before the framed portrait of the man he had loved, he had imagined it.
This moment.
This walk toward the light, or perhaps toward the darkness that hid it.
Seventeen years of grief, denial and futile hope had all led him here.
And now, only half an alley stood between him and the truth.
He had always thought it would be like before, like the days when Colonel Lu used to come to pick him up after class.
He thought he would run to him without hesitation, the way he once did, arms open, heart racing, straight into Colonel Lu’s waiting embrace.
But when the moment truly came, when he finally found himself standing on the edge of that long-awaited reunion, he realized something he had never expected.
He was walking very slowly.
Maybe it was because he was afraid, afraid that the darkness ahead would be empty after all, that there would be no one waiting for him at the end of it.
Or maybe, simply, it was because he had grown up.
A lifeless body, soaked in blood, lay sprawled before him. Jiang Yun did not even flinch.
The man was large and powerfully built, a middle-aged mercenary whose body was twisted grotesquely in the snow. His eyes were wide open in fury and disbelief, the pupils already losing focus. Thick veins stood out along his neck and hands, fingers clawed tight around his own throat as if trying, in vain, to pull out the weapon that had stolen his life.
A single playing card.
The King of Hearts.
Jiang Yun stopped walking. His throat moved slightly as he looked down at the face, a face he had just seen hours ago in the files of the mercenaries.
Of course.
If the man in the tavern had been Puppet, then where was Colonel Lu?
The answer came almost naturally.
He had come here to deal with the real assassins.
What else could it be?
Colonel Lu would never allow true mercenaries to even come near his wife.
Jiang Yun stepped over the corpse without hesitation, his expression calm and continued walking toward the deeper darkness ahead.
The second body appeared soon after, then the third, the fourth.
By the time he reached the end of the alley, there were eight in total. Not one more, not one less.
Each corpse told the same story, mercenaries armed to the teeth, all brought down by weapons from a bygone age. Cold steel. Precise, merciless.
Eight of the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy, wiped out completely.
Jiang Yun crossed over the last body, the snow now stained faintly red beneath his feet and then he stopped.
Before him lay the line where light met darkness.
A single step beyond and everything was swallowed by the unknown. The darkness stretched endlessly, mysterious and magnetic, a silent abyss that seemed to whisper and lure those who dared approach.
He closed his eyes. For a moment, he let himself lean toward that darkness, ready to be consumed.
Then, through the howling wind and falling snow, a voice reached him.
It came from within the blackness, traveling through the storm, through the silence, through the long corridor of seventeen lost years until it arrived gently at his ear.
“It’s been a long time, Jiang Yun…… ”
✦ ✧ ✦
Cressilia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The Realm accepts offerings. The translator specifically requests coffee.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Who can compare to Colonel Lu?Chapter 2 · He should be deadChapter 3 · How were we born?Chapter 4 · That’s where Colonel died..Chapter 5 · No one knows my pheromone than Colonel LuChapter 6 · Colonel Lu’s remainsChapter 7 · Heat is approachingChapter 8 · CheckmateChapter 9 · A dream liked married lifeChapter 10 · What might be his pregnancy be like?Chapter 11 · He thought he would be the father of two childrenChapter 12 · So we just hang Colonel Lu on the wall?Chapter 13 · Finally, I have something to say to my wifeChapter 14 · Why doesn’t Colonel Lu understandChapter 15 · He doesn’t Love MeChapter 16 · You’ll see him soonChapter 17 · So casual, so carelessChapter 18 Part 1 · He.. He’s looking at meChapter 18 Part 2 · He..He’s looking at meChapter 19 · Lu Huai is still aliveChapter 20 · Wait until I bring back your zombie Alpha dadChapter 21 · Long time no see, Jiang YunChapter 22 · I still have that qualificationChapter 23 · It still tastes sweet when you kiss itChapter 24 · He seems to have forgotten how to act cuteChapter 25 · The two unfortunate children were completely terrifiedChapter 26 · Please make yourself at home.Chapter 27 · Hello, UncleChapter 28 · Am I not your deceased husband?Chapter 29 · Don’t you love me anymore?Chapter 30 · Our home is No. 5, Qianshui RoadChapter 31 · Is he… here to keep him company?Chapter 32 · What exactly did Alpha bring me?Chapter 33 · Thanks a lot, brothers!Chapter 34 · Hi?Chapter 35 · I only let you take care of the child for one dayChapter 36 · Did you have thoughts when you ‘died’?Chapter 37 · Put a double bed in your homeChapter 38 · They both suffered heavy lossesChapter 39 · Welcome back to the Alphas’ arena.Chapter 40 · Why should I lower myself?Chapter 41 · I have learned that Colonel Lu Huai is still aliveChapter 42 · They are sensitive and vulnerableChapter 43 · He would also feel regret.Chapter 44 · When a child is quiet, they’re definitely up to somethingChapter 45 · Dad, you have such a good eye for choosing a husband!Chapter 46 · Who made it wear a colonel’s uniform?Chapter 47 · I love him very muchChapter 48 · Okay, I believe youChapter 49 · I remember you went pretty hard on him at the end.Chapter 50 · Colonel Lu, don’t be too fierceChapter 51 · To…make up for the regretChapter 52 · A perfect match!Chapter 53 · Colonel Lu, let’s get married!Chapter 54 · When will you finally learn to stop talking nonsense?Chapter 55 · My darlings, we’re homeChapter 56 · Babies, please stopChapter 57 · I’m about to enter my heat cycle, not my due dateChapter 58 · Is he complaining to his wife?Chapter 59 · The only lieChapter 60 · Colonel Lu, the babies are all crying.Chapter 61 · Dad, Colonel Lu bullied me.Chapter 62 · A large number of foreign ministersChapter 63 · Jiang Mu definitely likes handsome guys tooChapter 64 · First time bringing a partner to a major diplomatic occasionChapter 65 · You’re still as handsome as you were back thenChapter 66 · Bedtime Strategic PartnerChapter 67 · How can you be so good at threatening people?Chapter 68 · I’m waiting for youChapter 69 · I’ll stay by your side, from beginning to endChapter 70 · Can you handle Lu Chao’s… educational session for me?Chapter 71 · The First SpringChapter 72 · Extra 1Chapter 73 · Extra 2Chapter 74 · Extra 3Chapter 75 · Extra 4Chapter 76 · Extra 5Chapter 77 · Extra 6Chapter 78 · Extra 7Chapter 79 · Extra 8Chapter 80 · Extra 9