Back at the arena, the first round of rapid-fire shooting was nearly over. Milu hurried over and shoved a Glock L into Wei Lai’s hands, half-dragging him to the starting line: “Quick, quick — it’s your turn.”

Wei Lai habitually weighed the gun, ejected the magazine, and checked the chamber, cooperatively letting Milu help him put on his protective goggles and earplugs.

Out of nowhere, he remarked: “I ran into Miss Cen.”

Milu was caught completely off guard: “And… how… how is she?”

Wei Lai smiled slightly and didn’t answer. Then he took his position, raised his arm, steadied his wrist. Ten meters ahead, five circular targets stood in a row.

Rapid-fire — nearly continuous shots. The gunfire was still echoing through the air when the round ended.

When the targets were checked, Milu couldn’t hold back a short, agonized cry.

Wei Lai had scored a 2-ring hit.

What in the actual hell — even a half-trained beginner wouldn’t score a 2-ring!

How is she? Milu no longer needed an answer.

From the moment he’d laid eyes on Bai Pao to now, he’d been lost in a daydream: land Cen Jin as a client, then make contact with the Saudi royal family, a generous Saudi sheikh would gift him an oil well, he’d trade petroleum and become a tycoon, buy a private jet…

All of it — swept away, undone, and reduced to ash in the sound of Wei Lai’s gunshots.

The subsequent combat and short knife events — Milu stopped caring. He hugged his head in his hands, sat cross-legged in a corner of the arena, and worked hard to reconstruct his mental fortitude:

— No, no, no. Don’t blame Wei — it’s his right. He has every right to turn down work he doesn’t want to take.

— Perhaps now isn’t the best moment to build a partnership with wealthy Middle Eastern clients.

— The Middle Eastern crowd is just a passing gust of wind. The long-term play is the partnership with Wei…

By the time the arena program concluded, Milu had finally found his inner peace. Wei Lai came off the floor with two knife slashes on his face — of course, these were specially made training blades, unsharpened, leaving only red paint marks.

Clearly, Wei Lai’s performance had been nothing short of a disaster.

Milu was a little regretful: “Was she really that bad?”

Wei Lai said: “She called bodyguards useless. What do you think about that?”

Oh, so that’s how it was…

Insulting professional dignity — unacceptable of course, naturally one should turn and walk away. But… if she had money, shouldn’t the right approach be to face the challenge head-on and change her opinion?

He only dared think this, not say it aloud — there were times when he was genuinely a little afraid of Wei Lai.

Milu feigned complete indifference: “It’s gotten to this point — no point continuing. Are we leaving now? I’ll go get the car.”

He bent his head and rummaged through his trouser pocket for the car key, simultaneously plotting how to collect the 500 euros.

Wei Lai said: “Hold on.”

Milu looked up at him.

“The final round is a client interview — which means Miss Cen will also be present, right?”

Milu nodded. Cen Jin held one decisive vote.

“Then let’s do the interview.”

“Why?”

Wei Lai thought for a moment: “She paints… and it’s quite beautiful.”

——

Wei Lai had no other motive: he’d seen the photos, he’d heard her voice, and he simply wanted to see her in person, face to face.

The final meeting took place on the second floor, in the sitting room. The Bai Pao in the greenhouse served as the interviewer — wearing a smile, carrying an authoritative bearing, without losing his composure.

Cen Jin was also present. She looked no different from her photos, but the photos had failed to capture her impenetrable air of somber gravity. A slim ladies’ cigarette was held between her fingers, barely smoked — she seemed to use only the scent to keep herself alert.

She and Bai Pao exchanged occasional glances, both perfectly courteous, as if the scene in the greenhouse had never happened: one had never issued a verbal threat; the other had never erupted in fury.

Wei Lai found it amusing. He suddenly felt nostalgic for the reindeer wearing lipstick from the La Pu Lan hallucination — at least that creature hid nothing, was utterly without pretense, and harbored a heart that loved beauty.

In the instant he sat down, he noticed a faint glimmer at Cen Jin’s neck.

It was a very fine platinum collarbone chain, with a small red garnet pendant. The garnet was tiny, weightless, resting just below her collarbone like a vermilion mole.

Wei Lai thought Cen Jin’s sense of style could use some improvement.

A black formal evening gown like this would pair better with full, rounded large pearl necklaces, or a necklace with a metallic, weighty sculptural pendant — after all, dressing and accessorizing is itself a kind of confrontation, and clothing and accessories should complement each other, each holding its own ground.

Bai Pao’s questions were sharp.

“Mr. Wei’s rapid-fire pistol results included a 10-ring, an 8-ring, and a 2-ring. In the combat event he placed first, but in the short knife event he ranked last and received two slashes… Can you explain why?”

Wei Lai frowned: “That’s difficult to explain. Sometimes I really do… perform inconsistently.”

“Mr. Wei, don’t you think that as a bodyguard, inconsistent performance is a terrifying flaw? Even a single lapse could cost a client their life.”

Wei Lai agreed readily: “I’ll do my best to overcome that in the future.”

In the future? Who gave you a future? Had it not been for the need to maintain courtesy and composure, Bai Pao truly would have slammed the table and swept out in a rage.

Not far away, Cen Jin idly blew at the slender wisp of smoke rising from her cigarette tip.

Bai Pao kept his tone measured and asked everything that needed to be asked, one by one.

“If we reach an agreement to work together, do you have any requirements of us, Mr. Wei? Or, shall we say, any particular rules… that you’d need us to accommodate? We’ve heard that top-tier bodyguards tend to have certain personal conditions.”

“I don’t like protecting scum.”

Bai Pao didn’t quite follow: “Pardon?”

“If Miss Cen’s moral character is seriously compromised, or if she’s done something she’d rather keep hidden, I’d advise against hiring me — I’d walk off the job midway.”

Bai Pao’s eyes went wide, mouth half open. The room must have been very quiet. On a table not far away stood a specially designed clock — no hands, only a circular metal outer ring, like a stargate.

Cen Jin’s hand holding the cigarette dropped slightly. The outer edge of her palm below the little finger bore a smear of graphite gray from sketching. She remained still for a moment, the ember of the cigarette drawing closer to her fingers — just as Wei Lai expected her to be burned, she flicked the cigarette body, her fingers sliding back in the same motion.

The accumulated ash from the cigarette tip fell in a soft shower.

Bai Pao recovered himself: “Mr. Wei, speaking strictly of the matter at hand — being a bodyguard is a commercial arrangement. What kind of person the employer is, what their moral standing may be, is no concern of yours. You’ve taken their money; you’re obligated to fulfill your duties. Walking off the job midway is a deeply irresponsible thing to do.”

Wei Lai smiled.

“I agree with your view entirely. Which is why I generally give advance notice.”

…

The interview concluded as quickly as expected. Bai Pao was very polite: “We’ll take everything into comprehensive consideration. We very much look forward to reaching a partnership.”

But his eyes were saying: Go to hell.

——

Milu was waiting downstairs. With good sense, he made no mention of the interview, and spoke cheerfully: “I’ll go get the car. If we have time, we can still go grab a drink at Ai Lin’s bar… Oh right, the payment is in the small reception room — see you in a bit.”

He opened the door and went out, the key ring spinning with an appearance of ease on his index finger.

A faint twinge of guilt surfaced in Wei Lai’s heart, but it dissolved quickly: he and Milu, Milu and the Saudis — at their core, it was all business.

He went to the small reception room and accepted the large-denomination 500-euro banknotes from the young Bai Pao’s hands. Being helpful, he offered a suggestion: “We don’t usually use denominations this large — restaurants and supermarkets both refuse them.”

The young Bai Pao was puzzled. Five hundred euros, converted to UAE currency, was only a little over 2,000 dirhams — he didn’t find this denomination particularly large.

Wei Lai didn’t elaborate. He folded up the large note and stuffed it into his pocket, and as he left, he closed the door to the small reception room behind him.

Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, he could see Milu’s old, battered Volkswagen pulling into the driveway some distance away, ready to go. This evening had been reasonably eventful — at the very least, he could now pay off the tab he owed Ai Lin…

Someone called out to him from behind: “Mr. Wei.”

Wei Lai stopped.

Not because the one calling him was Cen Jin, but because it had truly been far too long since he’d heard genuine, authentic Mandarin Chinese.

Her voice held the soft water of the Jiangnan south and the iron hardness of the Jiangbei north — something Milu’s parrot-like mimicry could never replicate. Wei Lai wanted to hear her say a few more words.

He turned around.

Cen Jin stood at a distance, the whole of her like a high-contrast black-and-white photograph — black in the hair, the brows and eyes, the long gown; white in the shoulders and neck, the arms.

All the surroundings fell away, undisturbing the frame. The red of her lips and the vermilion mole at her collarbone — as if someone had dipped a finger in cinnabar red and touched color into the photograph.

Wei Lai asked: “Is there something?”

“Mr. Wei speaks very directly — it leaves quite an impression.”

So?

“I hope it isn’t too abrupt of me to ask, but — what is your impression of me, Mr. Wei?”

Impression?

It was genuinely difficult to say. The entire evening had been about her — the good, the bad, the open, the hidden, what he was meant to hear, what he wasn’t…

Wei Lai didn’t want to add unnecessary complications, so he offered polite pleasantries: “Miss Cen is quite exceptional… Your experience with the Africa aid work is very admirable, very courageous… And I very much look forward to the possibility of working together…”

Cen Jin interrupted him.

“Mr. Wei, I would prefer to hear the honest truth — you can say what you really think, and no one will do anything to you for it.”

Wei Lai couldn’t read her intentions.

But it didn’t matter — since she didn’t mind, he might as well be honest: “My impression… is not particularly great.”

Cen Jin smiled slightly: “I thought as much.”

She gave him a respectful nod of acknowledgment, then turned and left.

He’d expected her to be arrogant and difficult, every word bristling with thorns — but she was so courteous and gracious now. It was inexplicable.

When he got into the car, Milu complained: “So slow!”

Wei Lai pulled out the large banknote, unfolded it, and gave it a couple of demonstrative shakes in front of Milu’s face. If money could radiate light, this moment would have been blinding.

Milu stopped complaining. Trees lined the road on both sides, their trunks dense in the dark, and he began to muse aloud: “Actually, I have quite a few clients who’ve pre-booked you. If you want to take work, there’s always something available. But I think we can afford to wait a little, be more selective. Wei — is it completely… hopeless with the Saudis?”

His heart still wasn’t ready to let go, still clinging to the trembling golden bridge.

“Anyone with even a basic standard of professionalism and responsibility would not choose me.”

Milu let out an “oh,” his tone thick with wistfulness.

“But then again, not necessarily.”

What?

Out of nowhere — a bolt from the blue — Milu went wide-eyed with shock. The car lurched sideways on the road before he pulled it urgently to the shoulder.

Something irreversible had suddenly become “not necessarily”?

The last ember of hope in Milu’s chest was like half-melted sugar pulled desperately upward — stretched thin, drawn out, elongated — his eyes, dead ash moments ago, were fanned back to two glowing points by a spring breeze.

Wei Lai told him about Cen Jin seeking him out.

Milu, gratified and enormously excited: “Why? I was downstairs the whole time — I can tell you, all the other candidates for the interview collected their payment and left. Miss Cen never came down to see any of them off… Wei, could she have taken a liking to you? I knew it! When I saw her photo, I felt the two of you would hit it off!”

Wei Lai smiled: “If she were seventeen, I might barely believe that.”

Cen Jin came from that kind of background — a pair of eyes that had grown accustomed to blood and death, who negotiated silently against Bai Pao for her own interests, who spoke with courteous grace, whose writing cut like blades, and who, not long ago, had received a wind-dried human hand.

She was not the kind of woman who would play out a fairy tale of love at first sight.