Sissy finished her resignation letter, read it over twice, hit Enter to send, and lit a cigarette.
She hadn't smoked in the office all this time, always maintaining her image as the good-girl designer.
But now she didn't have to. With sixty million, she could do whatever she wanted.
Where to start? First, buy a big apartment. Then get her teeth fixed. And if the timing worked out, she'd go to Italy to study painting for two years—her childhood dream.
She exhaled a practiced smoke ring, smirked, and clicked open Manager Hu's reply email:
"Finish this proposal before I approve your resignation. Tomorrow's project is important—Marcus and you may need to lead the pitch."
She gave a contemptuous snort and flipped off the floor below.
This advertising agency was on the top floor of the Sunshine 100 building on Dawang Road—a duplex setup. First floor was the copy team; second floor held the design group and the boss's office. Manager Hu ruled the first floor and was the lead on tomorrow's major pitch to a Fortune 500 company.
He looked polished in his suit and seemed refined, but he was a passive-aggressive PUA monster.
Sissy had lost count of the times she'd watched Marcus stand silently behind Hu's computer, enduring what she considered utterly degrading insults and mockery.
"Big-name university grad, huh? Your presentation looks like a drunk's vomit on the side of the road."
"How does someone like you survive in Beijing? Waiting for your PhD girlfriend to show up so you can sponge off her?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that she looked at your professional ability and decided to trade trash for an upgrade? Looking at your physique, I don't think you've got any natural talent anywhere else either?"
Marcus's face was like stone, but the fist behind his back had veins popping like live creatures, throbbing with each pulse.
She thought for a moment, then replied with an email. The content was simple:
"I'm sorry. This lady doesn't need the money, and I'm done serving a psycho like you."
This time, when she slammed Enter, she felt the satisfaction of avenging Marcus.
After sending it, she finished her cigarette in three quick drags and pulled out her phone for the 81st time to admire the bank account showing sixty million.
She was so absorbed that she didn't hear the muffled footsteps on the wooden stairs behind her, or the creak of the door opening.
"Where should I start spending?" She was in a fantastic mood. Besides, her renunciation item seemed almost trivial compared to what others might have sacrificed—she'd just drink from a big ceramic mug from now on.
Until she saw, in the reflection of her screen, a face crimson with rage.
Smack!
Before she could turn around, Old Hu grabbed her by the throat like she was a kitten. A body forged through years of daily gym sessions was no joke. That iron-clamp hand hoisted her entire body off the ground.
"Cough—let go! No—LET GO! Are you insane?! You fucking psycho!!!" Sissy grabbed at things on the desk and hurled them at Hu. A pair of scissors flew out and stabbed a bloody hole in his arm before his grip loosened and she crashed to the floor on her butt.
"You're trying to kill me, you psycho! How does a freak like you even have a wife? You absolute lunatic, I'm going to report you! A maniac like you belongs in prison! Let the big guys in there teach you some manners!" Sissy was seeing red, curses pouring out of her mouth like a machine gun—only to realize that Hu was acting even more wrong by the second.
First, his eyes were bloodred. His arms were visibly swelling—one-third larger—as she screamed at him.
Most critically, he hadn't spoken a single word. When he opened his mouth, only incomprehensible low growls came out.
Old Hu stood up and lunged toward Sissy in two steps.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
Sissy dodged the direct punch. His fist crashed into the computer monitor, cracking it completely.
But fortunately, Hu's entire arm was now stuck in the monitor.
In that instant, Sissy recalled a strange line from Hu's email:
"Tomorrow Marcus and you may need to lead the pitch."
So that was it. Sissy figured it out.
"You got the sixty million too. What you gave up was—the ability to speak, wasn't it!"
Sissy shouted this as she fled the room, practically tumbling down the stairs, then bursting out of the office toward the street.
But this was a skyscraper—over thirty floors tall. The elevators were all at lower floors during rush hour. Sissy saw the fire escape door was still open and bolted for the stairs.
Facing the threat of death, her mind cleared. As she ran, she listened for sounds above. By the time she reached the 24th floor, she heard rapid footsteps in the stairwell.
Hu was catching up!
She instantly thought of that scene from Infernal Affairs—just going down wouldn't work. Hu's current strength and speed weren't normal. She'd definitely be caught.
Sissy ducked back into the corridor from the fire escape. The hallway was empty, but at the far end was an abandoned office—left behind by some startup kids who'd come and gone. She crouched and slipped inside.
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
28, 27, 26, 25...
24!
23, 22, 21, 20...
Sissy exhaled and whispered:
"Finally lost that psycho."
Just then, the footsteps stopped.
20! 21! 22! 23!
24!!!
The steps grew louder and louder.
Sissy knew there was no time. She pushed open a window, trying to climb down the drainpipe.
Her upper body was just over the sill, one foot pushing off—when an irresistible force yanked her back inside by the waist.
He was here!
Sissy threw her arms over her head. Before she could react, she felt as if she'd been hit by a truck. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came—just a spray of blood erupting from her lips.
She was slammed onto a desk with such force that the wood cracked. Debris scattered in all directions. She lay crumpled on the desktop like a butterfly struck by lightning, the cracks in the wood spreading like her broken wings.
Two thick hands clamped around her neck. She knew death was coming.
She squeezed her eyes shut—then realized Hu's grip was noticeably weaker than before.
She still couldn't breathe, but that fist that had punched through a monitor screen—breaking her neck should have taken one second.
Why was he strangling her instead?
Wait—how had Hu found her? She definitely wasn't wearing a tracker.
Hu had spotted her 60 million bank screen from behind and decided to kill her on the spot.
Was it because of the words she'd just whispered?
Lightning struck Sissy's mind. She remembered Marcus passionately recommending Dragon Raja 3 to her.
Words—Word Spirit?
Could it be that whoever voluntarily gave up the ability to speak gained power from other people's words?
The pressure on her neck was increasing. Hu had been bodybuilding for years and outweighed her by over a hundred pounds. He didn't need any extra strength enhancement to finish the job.
Sissy started convulsing. Her throat couldn't draw air. Her brain felt like it was boiling in a pot of water.
"I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die!"
Sissy reached toward the wound on her back. She vaguely remembered—when she'd been thrown onto the desk, there'd been a familiar sound of something shattering.
A moment later, she pulled out a blood-stained shard. She raised it with difficulty, her gaze locked on Hu with unwavering determination.
Hu seemed to think she was at her last gasp—ridiculous, really. Facing an opponent this much larger, what could she possibly do with a piece of broken glass?
Sissy smiled. A painful, strained smile.
She didn't hesitate.
The arc of her hand didn't sweep outward. It curved inward—straight toward her own chest.
Puncture!
A sharp glass shard drove into Sissy's chest.
"My renunciation item is never seeing any glass in this world for the rest of my life, you bastard!"
In an instant—perhaps less than a second—Sissy felt a power beyond anything she'd ever experienced pouring through the empty air of her palm and flooding into her heart.
"Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real."
Was this what it meant?
She opened her eyes. She struck. Butterfly wings sliced through the dusty air, reaching straight for his chest.
By the time Hu sensed something was wrong, it was too late.
He looked down in disbelief at his deeply caved-in sternum, trying desperately to draw a breath.
But his lungs no longer existed. He collapsed like a falling mountain.
Sissy pulled herself up. Her wounds were healing at a rate visible to the naked eye. After surviving that brush with death, she was no longer the girl who could be preyed upon.
The weak Sissy was dead!
She had to make it to the end. There were still so many dreams she hadn't fulfilled.
She leaned down, narrowing her eyes like a lion gazing at a throttled antelope, staring into Hu's eyes.
In the depths of Hu's steadily disintegrating pupils, a new line of text was emerging:
"03 Victor Hu — Hunt Complete. Next target: 04 Marcus. Location: Beijing."