"Go back and take care of both of them." Dressed in his expensive suit, the man who had drugged a beautiful woman at the bar stuffed her in the passenger seat of his sports car and himself sat in the driver’s seat. "After that, you know the drill. Don’t follow me tonight and come back tomorrow morning to deal with the woman."

Vrooom!

Leaving his cold words, the man drove away without any worry in the world, leaving behind a gust of dirty wind.

"What’s with him? Treating us like he owns us." The guard who had killed Ivan scoffed in annoyance.

"Stop it. You know, it was your fault for not controlling your power. Now we are both into this mess." Turning around, the other guard adjusted his black suit and walked towards the alley where they had left the two friends injured. "Come on, let’s get this over with before the petrol cops notice something."

The two of them stepped into the alley only to freeze.

"Where are they?!" The second guard bellowed, "Did you make not sure the other guy ispassed out?"

"What do you think?" The other guard retorted, "I was too focused on the fact that you had killed someone. Now, Stop shifting blame and find them. We cannot let him get to the cops."

While the two guards were panicking, Shen Yuan watched them from his car, a black sedan, parked under the shadow of a tree. He was the one who had taken Iavn’s corpse and stuffed it in his car’s trunk.

All this time, he did not even wince from the pain. Even now, he just sat behind the steering wheel with a cold look on his face while the blood dripped from his forehead and lips.

There were bruises all over his body. But even in his condition, Shen Yuan did not seem worried.

’This is my fault.’ Shen Yuan thought to himself while reaching out from the glove box. ’had it not been for me, you would have been alive."

Inside of it, he pulled out two things. One was a photo, a memory of their graduation day. Ivan and Shen Yuan were both standing before the university with their arms around each other. Shen Yuan had a faint cocky smirk on his face while Ivan was just laughing like he had heard the funniest joke of his life.

"Is this what you meant, old man?" Whispering to himself, Shen Yuan clutched the photo tightly. "If I don’t help others or even pretend to, I will end up burning everything and everyone around me one day... I guess you were right."

He looked at the second thing he had pulled out, a phone. After fiddling around on it, he pulled up the maps, which showed a red dot moving away from it.

During the scuffle against the man at the bar, Shen Yuan had placed his phone in his pocket in case the man tried to run away.

"I am not letting you get away twice." Stepping on the pedal, Shen Yuan started his chase after the kidnapper.

Drifting through the streets of the bustling city skillfully, Shen Yuan found a house in the middle of nowhere. It was like an outhouse, a small cottage in the woods.

"So you do your dirty work here, huh?" Shen Yuan saw the shadows flickering inside the house through the window and stopped his car, killing the engine. ’It will help me clean up as well.’

Then he proceeded to open the glove compartment once more and stared at it for a few seconds. Inside there was a pair of gloves along with a steel thread attached to two wooden handles, enough to fit in his hands.

’Am I really going through with it?’ Shen Yuan wondered; it was not a question of hesitation or self-doubt but a question of morality.

...

While Shen Yuan was lost in his thought, the man who had kidnapped the young woman from the bar walked into his bedroom, carrying the lady in his arms.

His face was covered in sweat and his arms were trembling from her weight.

"Just a little more." Cheering himself up, he walked up to his super king-sized bed and threw her on the mattress. Taking a deep breath, he leaned closer to the woman and caressed her cheeks while whispering in her ear, "Just you wait, dear; I will freshen up and give you the best time of your life. By the time we are done, you will scream my name in your sleep... Every. Night. Hehe..."

Letting out a deranged laugh, the man straightened up and walked towards the bathroom.

When he came back out, he was wearing nothing but a bathrobe. The silence in the room brought a smile to his face and a predatory gleam in his eyes.

’Time for a feast.’ Stepping forward, he reached out to untie the bathrobe when something in the room shifted.

The shadow behind the man moved, and a dark figure emerged. The figure was none other than Shen Yuan, dressed in his black suit, wearing a baseball cap that covered his face and a silver cross on his neck that shone slightly in the dark.

Shen Yuan moved so silently that the man before him did not even realize someone was behind him until Shen Yuan was right before him.

By the time his instincts warned him, it was too late.

"Take your final breath." With swift movements, he wrapped the steel wire around the man’s throat and pulled hard, making him choke.

"Argh!!" The wire was not only strong, but it was also sharp. A little pull was enough to make the man scream in agony as it proceeded to draw a line of blood across his neck.

"Ugh! Get away!" The man did not take the attack lying down and kicked back at Shen Yuan with all of his strength.

The kick connected, making Shen Yuan stagger back while he created a distance between them. "Who are you?" He demanded while frantically looking for something to defend himself.

Shen Yuan kept his head low to hide his face from the camera that was hidden in the room. But it also makes it impossible for the man to recognize him.

Picking up the lamp placed on the bed, he swung it at the approaching Shen Yuan, who dodged it with ease.

"I am just like you, you see. But at the same time, I am different." Shen Yuan answered him in a deep voice.

"What are you spouting?!" The man was demanding, shaking in fear.

"I am a killer. But the difference between us is that I am just getting started, and I will get rid of scums like you from the face of the earth and save innocent people from monsters who try to harm them."

The man let out a mocking laugh hearing Shen Yuan’s words. "Are you retarded? Do you think this is a movie or something and you are a hero who will come and save the beauty?"

Spreading his arms, the man laughed maniacally, "do you know who I am? Who is my father? He is a congressman, and no matter what I do, no one can touch me. But who are you? Do you think you can get away with killing someone?"

Shen Yuan stayed silent as he closed in the distance between them.

Terrified, the man threw the lamp at Shen Yuan.

"Die!" Using the cover, he pulled out a knife he had hidden inside the bedside table, aiming at Shen Yuan’s throat.

Shen Yuan paused, but his eyes followed the tip of the blade as it closed on him. His hands moved with practised ease, he punched the wrist of the hand holding the blade making the man’s grip on the handle loosen.

It all happened in an instant, so the man did not even have the time to react. By the time he came to, Shen Yuan had already snatched the knife from his hands somehow and stabbed it in his heart with his glove hands.

"You..." the young man struggled to breath, clutching the blade. "—will not be able to esc—arghhh!!!"

Before the words could leave his mouth, Shen Yuan twisted the blade that was still in his hands coldly and whispered, "I know. I walked in this place with my mind made up. After all, at the end of the day, we all die."

The man slowly slumped on the ground with the blood draining from his body. Shen Yuan watched him silently for a second before asking in a voice lower than whisper, "I never understood it. Why do I have to be afraid of death? it’s not like my life had been some joyride. Even if it was, I wouldn’t have felt it."

His voice drifted into the coldness of the night, leaving nothing but solitude behind. Shen Yuan looked at the woman lying in the bed one last time before walking away with no change in his heart. He did not feel the panic of killing someone for the first time, nor did he feel the happiness for saving someone.

The only thing he felt was... emptiness.