Cold steel bit into Chu Mian's wrist as a guard yanked up her arm. The electronic wristband glowed sickly green, projecting holographic text:
*Diagnosis: Schizophrenia
Admission Date: 3 years prior
Identity: Homeless female, 18 at intake*
"Confirmed lunatic, Mr. Li."
"Full profile."
"21 years old. No registered family. Presumed gutter trash." The guard spat. "Delusional episodes since..."
"Twenty-one." Li Tianque repeated the number like a curse. His gloved thumb stroked the wristband's edge. "How did this gutter-born wretch roam free until eighteen?"
*Gutter-born?* The insult coiled around her trachea. Chu Mian kept her gaze vacant, mimicking the thousand-yard stare perfected through years of survival.
Obsidian overcoat swirling like liquid night, Li crouched before her. His tailored trousers stretched taut over muscled thighs—a panther descending from its throne. Decaying leaves crunched beneath his Patek Philippe watch.
Then his hand struck.
Fingers like steel talons seized her jaw. Pain lightning-shot through her molars as he forced her face upward.
Their eyes collided.
He was younger than expected—mid-twenties with the face of a fallen deity. Jet-black hair framed features carved from moonstone: razor-edged jawline, arched brows over phoenix eyes that slanted upward in cruel elegance. A single eyelid crease deepened at the outer edge, creating an otherworldly fold that mirrored the scar bisecting his left brow.
But it was his mouth that chilled her—a blade-thin line of carnivorous pink, the kind that might whisper sonnets while signing execution orders.
Two full minutes ticked by in the staccato rhythm of distant gunfire. Still she held his gaze, her face remaining a porcelain mask while infernos raged beneath her ribs.
A spark ignited in Li's obsidian pupils. His thumb pressed against the gash on her cheekbone, smearing dried blood into a macabre blush. "Schizophrenics don't have eyes like winter lakes," he mused. "Nor the discipline to mute pain responses."
Behind them, gunfire barked. Another body fell.
Li's smile revealed canine teeth filed to subtle points. "Let's see what madness truly looks like."
Li Tianque's palm connected with her cheek—three staccato taps resonating like a shaman's death drum. "This one."
An aide materialized with a monogrammed towel. "Sir, surely we should vet others? The asylum crawls with lunatics."
Li's silence was answer enough.
He scrubbed his patrician hands with monastic precision, each finger caressed as though cleansing sacred relics. The discarded linen fluttered down like a shot dove, staining the mud with its embroidered crest.
As the entourage pivoted, Chu Mian was hauled upright. Rifle barrels bracketed her ribs—a living crucifixion. She let her limbs go slack, the perfect marionette.
"Assistant Meng," a guard whispered, "why fish for madness in this cesspool?"
The bespectacled aide ahead chuckled. Moonlight glinted off his titanium prosthetic hand. "Don't you know curiosity killed the cat?"
The analogy hung like a noose. Even the waves seemed to still.
*Mr. Li.* The title slithered through her mind. What cosmic joke placed this demigod amidst human wreckage?
As they marched toward the roaring helicopters, Chu Mian allowed herself a fractional lift of chin. Through matted hair, she watched Li's silhouette eclipse the moon—a dark star bending reality around his gravitational pull.
No one noticed the change.
Where vacant eyes once pooled like stagnant water, now burned banked fire. The girl who counted blood droplets had glimpsed the chessboard.
And found herself promoted from pawn to wildcard.