“She’s fine, she’s just sleeping,” Uncle Zhang muttered, his voice a jagged edge of guilt. “I worked with her parents for years… I watched her grow up. I don’t want to hurt her.”
He stood looming behind Lu Zhiling, one hand heavy on her shoulder while the other white-knuckled a dagger. The air in the room felt thick, suffocating.
“Not wanting to hurt her,” Lu Zhiling whispered, her voice trembling, “means hurting me instead.”
She stood frozen, the cold realization dawning. “Why? Uncle Zhang, I have no grudge against you.” They were practically strangers; they had barely exchanged words a handful of times.
“You’re right, there is no grudge. And I don’t want to—” He cut himself off, his arm suddenly snaking around her throat in a punishing chokehold. He hauled her back against his chest, the blade biting into the soft skin of her neck. “Don’t make a sound!”
The steel was mercilessly sharp. Lu Zhiling felt a hot, stinging line open on her skin—the first bloom of blood.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, a silhouette appeared in the corridor. Bo Wang walked with a predatory, effortless grace, one hand shoved casually in his pocket. Following him was a man in a hoodie [a common trope in Chinese internet slang/urban thrillers for a ‘shadow’ assistant or silent enforcer], carrying a document stained with fresh crimson.
Lu Zhiling’s heart leaped. Her mouth opened instinctively to cry out, but the pressure on her windpipe doubled.
“Don’t move, or I’ll kill you right here!” uncle Zhang hissed, his breath hot and ragged against her ear.
Suffocation surged over her. She was trapped in a terrifying paradox: Bo Wang was so close she could see the cold light in his eyes, yet she was being swallowed by the shadows just inches away. Suddenly, Bo Wang stopped. He stared at the floor, his gaze sharp as a needle.
“What’s wrong, Brother Wang?” the man in the hoodie asked.
Lu Zhiling’s heart plummeted. That voice—it was Li Minghuai, the captain of her own security detail. He was Bo Wang’s man. Was her entire life a staged play? Had he been spying [acting as a ‘yanxian’ or ‘eye’ for the boss] on her this whole time?
Bo Wang stooped to pick something up. As he straightened, he turned his head toward the glass. His eyes were dark, abyssal pools. Inside the room, Uncle Zhang’s nerves snapped. His hand jerked, and a fresh spray of blood from Lu Zhiling’s neck coated his fingers.
Her vision began to fray at the edges, a gray mist creeping in from the lack of oxygen. She met Bo Wang’s gaze through the tinted pane. She knew the glass was one-way—that to him, she was just a reflection of the hallway—but she screamed for him in her soul. Save me.
Bo Wang stood there, the embodiment of cold indifference. He reached up, his long, elegant fingers rhythmically thumbing the Buddhist prayer beads [a ‘shouchuan’—often worn by powerful or ‘dark’ men in Chinese media to signify a suppressed, violent nature or a facade of piety] on his wrist. His face remained a mask of stone.
Without a word, he turned and walked away.
Despair, cold and heavy as lead, settled in her chest. She watched him vanish, her last tether to safety snapping.
Uncle Zhang didn’t waste time. He dragged her toward the window. Below, in the courtyard, she saw Li Minghuai holding the door of a black SUV open for Bo Wang.
Nearby, a small crack in the window revealed a tiny plastic pot holding a succulent—a small, pathetic burst of life in this death trap. Lu Zhiling saw her own reflection: pale, trembling, a ghost already. Her fingers, numb and clumsy, reached out. She felt the grit of the soil. Little by little, she pushed the pot toward the gap.
It fell. A silent, desperate prayer.
The soil landed behind Bo Wang as he entered the car. The engine roared, and the SUV sped away, leaving nothing but dust.
“Don’t move!” Zhang barked, his grip loosening just enough for her to gasp in the metallic scent of her own blood. He didn’t give her a moment to recover, binding her wrists behind her back with nylon cable ties [the cheap, unbreakable tool of choice for kidnappers]. He pressed the dagger into the small of her back, the point threatening to pierce her spine. “Go. Down the stairs. One sound and I gut you.”
He forced her down the exterior metal stairs, the clanging echoing like a funeral knell. He threw her into the back of his car like a sack of grain, binding her ankles and ratcheting the seatbelt tight across her chest until she could barely breathe.
The SUV tore down the highway. In the passenger seat, Bo Wang leaned back, his posture deceptively relaxed. Between his slender, manicured fingers, he twirled a long, thin strand of black hair—hers.
“Are the lounge windows truly one-way?” he asked suddenly.
Li Minghuai blinked, startled. “Yes, Brother Wang. Totally opaque from the outside.” He assumed the boss was worried about being seen doing ‘business.’
Bo Wang let out a low, chilling sneer. “Is that so?”
His eyes fixed on the hair in his hand. Rage, dark and intoxicating, began to simmer in his gut. She had told him she liked him. She had acted the part of the devoted, smitten woman. Yet, when he was right there, she hadn’t even tried to reach him? Two-faced woman. [In Chinese: ‘liangmian san dao’—someone who acts one way to your face and another behind your back].
“Go back,” he commanded, his voice a low vibration of impending violence.
“Uncle Zhang… is it money?” Lu Zhiling asked, her voice cracking. “You know my family. If I die, they have nothing.”
Zhang’s eyes flickered in the rearview mirror, a momentary flash of pity drowning in desperation. “Young Madam… just consider this a family reunion in the afterlife. If you meet the King of Hell [Yan Wang—the ruler of the underworld], tell him I’ll take the punishment.”
“You’re going to kill me?” she gasped.
“I have no choice! I need my family to live!” he roared, slamming the accelerator. “We are just fish on the chopping block [a Chinese proverb meaning to be completely at the mercy of others]! Accept your fate. You aren’t a protected lady anymore. You’re alone.”
He steered the car toward the steep, rocky embankment of the Qingjiang River. The water below was a mirror of deep, silent green. Zhang pulled out his phone, sobbing as he looked at a photo of a chubby infant. “My grandson… he’s only a month old.”
He let the brakes go. The car began its slow, agonizing tilt down the 60-degree slope.
“I don’t want to die!” Lu Zhiling screamed. She slammed her bound body against the window, her blood smearing the glass in frantic streaks. The car lurched, the nose dipping toward the water.
Then, a roar of an engine.
A black SUV launched off the top of the hill, flying through the air like a predatory bird. It crashed onto the slope, tires screaming as it tore toward them.
Bang!
The SUV slammed into Zhang’s sedan, the impact rattling Lu Zhiling’s bones. The SUV wedged itself between them and the watery grave, its frame deforming under the pressure.
A gunshot shattered the air. The windshield exploded as a bullet found Zhang’s chest. He slumped, lifeless.
As the cars began to slide further into the depths, a figure climbed out of the SUV’s window. He stepped onto the hood of the sinking sedan with the balance of a tightrope walker.
It was him.
Bo Wang crouched on the hood, his long lashes lifting to reveal eyes burning with a wicked, territorial fire. Through the cracked glass, he smiled—a sharp, dangerous expression that made her blood run hot even in the face of death.
“Lu Zhiling,” he purred, the sound vibrating through the car. “It really is you.”
He kicked the remaining glass inward and vaulted into the car as the river water began to pour in, cold and relentless. He sat beside her, the space between them vanishing. As the car tilted into its final plunge, he drew his gun again, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Bo Wang, go…” she sobbed, trying to pull away so he could escape the sinking trap. “Save yourself!”
He didn’t move. He reached out, his hand gripping her nape, pulling her into his orbit as the water rose to their chests.