Zhou Ye · Chat

Zhou Ye arrived two hours early. He picked a tricky vantage point—an abandoned viewing pavilion halfway up the eastern mountainside. It offered an expansive field of view surrounded by dense bushes. Looking down from there, the front entrance, side door, and garage exit of the target's detached villa could all be brought inside his scope. Behind him lay a dense forest, providing three distinct retreat routes. He spent forty minutes clearing the site to confirm no second team was monitoring the area nearby. Then he set up his custom Remington rifle. He didn't immediately drop into a aiming position. Leaning against the pavilion pillar, he held a piece of ice in his mouth and waited. The ice had been cracked from the freezer tray before leaving home and stowed in his pocket inside a sealed bag. It wasn't to cool down—holding ice kept his breathing rate suppressed, slowed his heartbeat, and made his fingers slightly chilled, ensuring a steadier pull on the trigger. An old habit. Ten minutes to nine. The lights on the villa's second floor came on. The curtains pulled open, and a figure walked up to the window, standing there without drawing the curtains back over. The distance was roughly six hundred meters. Zhou Ye pressed his eye against the optic; the image inside the lens was comfortably crisp. Holding the ice in his mouth, the corners of Zhou Ye's lips slowly curled up. Ten years. He had crushed a living, breathing human into ruins, and the other party took ten full years to pick up the pieces and assemble themselves back together—only to stand by the window and draw open the curtains just to show him. This was a provocation. And an invitation. Zhou Ye rested his finger against the trigger. He didn't actually intend to squeeze it—killing was the final step, the most boring conclusion. He preferred to play a little longer, to see just how much this person who had crawled back from the ruins had grown, and whether they were worth a serious round. Still, going through the motions was always enjoyable. Tilting his head slightly, he let the reticle crosshairs in the sight drift upward, moving from the person's chest to the back of their head. The ice melted a tiny fraction on the tip of his tongue, sending a chill sliding down his throat. He thoroughly enjoyed this moment—the prey standing blissfully unaware by the window, while the hunter smirked in the shadows, holding the right to deliver a one-shot kill. Then he blinked. Just a single blink. Half a second, at most. When his eyelids lifted again, the scope was empty. The curtains were still moving. The cup remained on the table, steam rising from its rim. But the person was gone. The corners of Zhou Ye's mouth didn't flinch. The ice remained tucked under his tongue, its coldness biting slightly. He shifted the scope away from the window, scanning the first-floor windows, garage exit, side door steps, and garden walls—all empty. Impossible. At six hundred meters, going from standing to crouching and leaving the window frame would take a normal person at least 1.3 seconds. His blink took only a fraction of a second. Even if the target had anticipated his aiming point and moved in advance— How could they have known Zhou Ye would blink in that exact fraction of a second? Zhou Ye's pupils contracted slightly. The ice beneath his tongue was pushed to one side of his cheek, creating a subtle bulge. Lifting his eye from the scope, he removed his earmuffs and listened for two seconds. Wind. Birds. An occasional car passing on the distant highway. Nothing abnormal. Yet a small patch of skin at the back of his neck went tight. It was a subtle tightness—like someone standing three steps behind him, not breathing, not moving, just watching.