The humidity in the Guangzhou training hall was suffocating, but I didn't let it slow me down. The sounds of the court—the squeak of sneakers, the sharp clack of the rattan ball, the rhythmic shouts of the coaches—were the only things that kept my mind from drifting back to Emily's wrist.
I was in the middle of a high-intensity scrimmage. I leaped, twisting my body five feet in the air for a Sunback Spike. My leg snapped like a whip, the ball screaming across the net at a speed that left the defenders frozen.
"Again!" I growled, landing silently on the balls of my feet.
For three hours, I was a machine. I pushed my muscles until they screamed, using the physical pain to drown out the emotional confusion. My teammates looked at me with a mix of awe and fear. To them, I was Andrew Parker, the stoic prodigy. They didn't know that every drop of sweat was a penance.
When the coach finally blew the whistle, I walked toward the locker room, my chest heaving. I reached into my bag and pulled out my phone.
35 Missed Calls: Ethan.
My blood turned to ice. Ethan never called like this. Not unless the world was burning. I ducked into a private shower stall and dialed back. He picked up on the first ring.
"Where the hell have you been?" Ethan's voice was a jagged blade.
"Practice. What happened?"
"The donor. Mr. Zhao. He's not just a donor, Andrew. He's the middleman who handled the payout for your parents' hit. And he's leaving the complex in ten minutes. If he hits the highway, we lose him."
My grip tightened on the phone until the casing groaned. "Location?"
"The private underground garage, Section 4. He has six professional bodyguards. These aren't street thugs, Andrew. They're ex-military."
"Understood," I said, my voice dropping into that cold, dead frequency.
"Listen to me," Ethan hissed. "The 'Hotdog' persona stays on. If they see your face, the National Team is compromised. Kill the lights, kill the targets, get the intel. Go."
I hung up. From the bottom of my bag, I pulled out a compressed black tactical mask and a low-profile cap. I slipped them on, checking my reflection in the small metal mirror. Andrew Parker was gone. Only Hotdog remained—the ghost in the machine, the nameless shadow Ethan used to clean the city's filth.
I dropped into the ventilation shaft of the locker room, moving through the steel tunnels like a predator. When I emerged in the shadows of Garage Section 4, the air was cold and smelled of gasoline.
A black Maybach sat idling in the center. Six men in suits stood in a perimeter, their hands resting near their waistbands. In the back seat, I could see a man with graying hair—Mr. Zhao.
I didn't use a gun. Noise was the enemy.
I cut the main power line. Total darkness.
The panic was instant. "Protect the Chairman!" someone yelled.
I moved. I didn't run; I flowed. I came out of the dark behind the first guard. One hand on his chin, the other on the back of his skull. Snap. He didn't even make a sound.
The second and third guards pulled their weapons, the tactical lights on their pistols cutting through the dark. I used the first guard's body as a shield, closing the distance in a blur. I drove a tactical knife into the second man's thigh and used my elbow to shatter the third man's jaw.
"Who's there?!" Zhao screamed from inside the car.
I stepped into the light of a single flickering emergency lamp.
"A ghost," I whispered.
The remaining three guards charged at once. This was where the "Hotdog" earned his name. I ducked a swinging baton, swept the legs of the fourth man, and delivered a spinning kick to the fifth man's temple—a move perfected on the Sepak Takraw court, now turned lethal.
The sixth man was the largest. He caught my arm and slammed me against a concrete pillar. I felt a rib crack. The pain was white-hot, but it only made me faster. I drove my head into his nose, felt the bone break, and finished him with a flurry of strikes to the vitals.
I walked to the car window. Zhao was trembling, clutching a briefcase. I smashed the glass with my bare fist, ignoring the shards cutting my skin.
"The names," I said, my voice sounding like grinding stones. "The people who paid for the Parker hit. Give me the drive in that briefcase, or you don't leave this garage alive."
Zhao shook as he handed over a small silver USB drive. "They'll kill me for this," he sobbed.
"Then we have something in common," I replied.
I heard sirens. The secondary security team was coming. I had to go. I vanished into the shadows just as the backup arrived.
The adrenaline began to fade as I climbed back through the vents, and that's when the world started to fall apart.
My rib was definitely broken. My shoulder—the one with the previous wound—was bleeding again, the bandages soaked through. My knuckles were shredded, and my vision was beginning to blur. I had pushed my body past the point of failure.
I reached the athlete's wing, but I couldn't go to my room. The guards would be searching the dorms soon. I needed help. I needed someone who wouldn't ask questions.
I stumbled through the garden path toward the medical wing. My mask was torn, hanging loosely around my neck. My cap had fallen off somewhere in the garage.
My legs felt like lead. Every breath felt like a knife in my chest. Emily, my mind whispered. I have to find Emily.
I reached the glass doors of the medical tent. The lights were dim. I saw a silhouette inside—a woman in a white coat, tidying up some vials.
I pushed the door open, my weight hitting the frame with a heavy thud.
Emily turned around, her face calm and professional, until she saw me.
I looked like a nightmare. My shirt was torn, soaked in blood and grease. My face was pale, streaked with dirt and sweat. My eyes were bloodshot, barely able to focus.
"Andrew?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
I took one more step toward her, but my knees gave out. I collapsed, my hands hitting the floor first, then my shoulder. The silver USB drive skidded across the tile, stopping at her feet.
Emily let out a small, stifled cry, her hands flying to her mouth in pure horror. She rushed toward me, dropping to her knees.
"Oh my God! Andrew! What happened to you?"
I looked up at her, my vision swimming. Without the mask, without the armor of the "Hotdog," I felt naked. I saw the crescent moon on her wrist as she reached out to touch my face.
"I... I fell," I managed to choke out, a pathetic lie.
"You didn't fall! These are... these are defensive wounds! You've been in a fight!" Her hands were shaking as she checked my pulse.
I grabbed her wrist—the one with the birthmark—gently. My blood stained her white coat.
"Emily," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Don't... don't tell anyone I was here."
She looked into my eyes, and for a second, the doctor was gone. There was only the girl from the garden. She saw the pain, the secrets, and the desperate plea for safety.
"I've got you," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "I've got you, Andrew. Just stay with me."
As the darkness finally claimed me, the last thing I felt was her warm hand on my cheek, and the last thing I smelled was the jasmine scent of her hair—the scent of a home I hadn't seen in ten years.