The city pulsed in silence below, lights blinking like signals she no longer needed to decode.
Lin Xie moved through the penthouse with slow, soundless steps. Her body was still, but her senses were jagged-too sharp for sleep. The movie hadn't helped. Bright. Loud. Unbelievable. The people in it had cried for love and screamed for justice.
She'd watched with a strange, slow ache pressing against her ribs. One she didn't recognize. Didn't like.
After, she'd washed her plate. Checked the corners of the kitchen. Then walked.
Restless.
But not careless.
She felt it before she saw it-pressure shift, air displaced, the faintest creak of a vent cover that wasn't part of her mental map.
Someone was here.
Multiple someones.
Not for her. She could tell from the direction of their steps. They were headed toward the master wing.
The male lead.
Target acquired.
They weren't here to rob. They were here to kill.
Her body reacted before her mind finished the math.
She moved fast.
Bare feet silent on polished floors, she cut through the dark, eyes narrowed like blade slits. She didn't bother with weapons. She didn't need them.
She never had.
The first one stepped out near the wine rack-black mask, fluid stance, knife drawn.
She hit him with a knee to the solar plexus so hard it crushed something inside. As he doubled over, she grabbed his face and slammed it into the edge of the cabinet. Once. Twice. The third time, he didn't get up.
Another lunged from her left, but she was already pivoting-catching his wrist mid-strike and twisting until it shattered in her grip. He screamed.
She twisted again, dragging his body weight downward, used it to launch herself upward-knee to his chin. His jaw snapped with an audible crack.
She let him fall.
Two more rushed from the shadows, but Lin Xie ducked low, swept one clean off his feet, and as he hit the ground, she stomped on his throat. Precise. Cold. Final.
The other tried to tackle her from behind.
She twisted mid-air, let his momentum carry him over her hip-and sent him crashing through the glass coffee table in the lounge.
Shards went flying.
He didn't get up either.
She paused.
Silence.
Breathing measured. Pulse steady.
Blood on her palm. Not hers.
Glass in her foot. She didn't notice.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement again-this time not from the attackers.
From the walls.
Bodyguards. Silent watchers stationed in the dark.
They'd seen everything. But hadn't moved.
She turned slightly, eyes narrowing.
They were still staring at her. Not the corpses. Not the damage.
Her.
Like she was the anomaly.
Like they couldn't believe what she was.
Not student. Not girl.
Not human.
Not really.
She straightened slowly, expression unreadable, when the front door clicked open.
The sound barely registered before Shen Rui stepped inside, phone in one hand, coat folded over his arm, voice still caught mid-sentence-until he saw it.
The room.
The bodies.
The blood.
Lin Xie standing in the middle of it all, barefoot and unflinching.
"What the hell-"
"They came for you," she said, voice flat. "Through the guest wing vent. They bypassed your sensors. No one should've made it this far."
She nudged one of the men with her foot.
"He was holding an injection gun. Toxin, most likely. You would've been dead in under four minutes."
Shen Rui's eyes darted to the twitching corpse. "You... killed them."
She stared at him. "Of course I did."
"I told security to-"
"They didn't move."
He glanced to the corners of the room. The shadows.
"They watched," she said coldly. "And hesitated. If I wasn't here, you'd be on the floor."
He didn't answer.
She walked past him, glass crunching underfoot, and grabbed a towel from the counter. Wiped her hands slowly.
"You need better shadows," she added. "Ones that don't freeze when it counts."
Shen Rui said nothing.
"I strengthened your security," she said, eyes never leaving his. "You're welcome."
Then she turned and disappeared down the hallway.
Blood tracked behind her like a signature.
Shen Rui was still standing in the wreckage-phone forgotten, coat slipping from his arm-as Lin Xie reappeared from the hallway, now wearing clean clothes and bandaging her foot like it was just a paper cut.
She didn't sit. Just leaned against the counter, towel now slung over her shoulder, blood-streaked and drying.
Her gaze snapped to him.
"You're back early," she said, no warmth, just observation.
He blinked, still trying to catch up. "There was a change in schedule. Meeting got cut short."
She crossed her arms. "That change almost got you killed."
"I had security-"
"Security that froze," she interrupted. "Security that hesitated. Security that watches but doesn't react until the subject is already dead."
Her voice was flat, but every word landed like a scalpel.
"I wasn't supposed to be here tonight," she went on. "If I went to the rooftop like I planned, you'd be a corpse and your wallpaper would be someone's splatter."
Shen Rui opened his mouth, closed it again.
She kept going.
"You have cameras. But none with independent AI protocols. You have motion sensors-but they're coded on a static threshold. Anyone with a pulse modulator can walk straight past them."
He blinked. "Pulse-what?"
She stared at him like he was the idiot in a team of surgeons.
"Your biometric locks are fingerprint-based. Outdated. Easy to clone. Your vent system isn't mapped with any thermal grid. You have two guards in the ceiling, but neither of them speak. How are they supposed to communicate? Morse code through blinking?"
Shen Rui held up a hand. "I didn't exactly expect-"
"You live in a penthouse," she snapped. "In the capital. With enemies. Your fridge has smarter algorithms than your perimeter defense."
He looked personally insulted.
She pushed off the counter, starting to pace.
"Add an adaptive AI firewall. Layer your security cameras with real-time thermal overlays. Replace the guards with hybrid drone systems on a closed circuit-no Wi-Fi, no outside signal access. Secure. Internal."
She glanced at the shadows where the guards still hadn't moved. One flinched.
"And for the love of logic, get a lockdown protocol that actually locks something. That front door practically opened when someone sneezed."
Shen Rui exhaled. "Noted."
She finally stopped pacing and looked at him again, tilting her head slightly.
"You should be grateful."
"I am," he said, stunned. "In a...mildly terrified way."
"Good," she said, deadpan. "Means you'll actually fix it."
He stared at her a long moment.
"You really are something else."
"I've been called worse."
She grabbed a bottle of water from the counter and cracked it open with one hand.
"Taste this," she added casually. "If you die, it means they poisoned your drinks too."
He didn't move.
She took a sip herself.
"...Probably safe."
And then she walked away again, not waiting for a reply, leaving Shen Rui standing amid a blood-stained floor, two unconscious assassins, and a fast-growing list of questions he wasn't entirely sure he wanted answered.