Only Monsters Can Kill Monsters

United States of America, Pennsylvania.

The tranquil night flowed like an endless stream, gliding effortlessly from one place to another, claiming the sky as time passed. The skyscrapers in the steel jungle, now stripped of daytime clamor, were left with only the faintest glimmer of city lights.

1:00 a.m.

Ji Ning felt the cold press of a gun against his forehead.

Perhaps it was just a cheap cosplay prop, but Ji Ning was not foolish enough to gamble on whether the muzzle would blaze hot in three seconds. There was no need to stake his life on pride.

Silence is like a rule, always waiting to be broken—and it’s always the young who act first.

With a week left until his twentieth birthday, Ji Ning, after mustering courage for a long while, finally spat out the loosely stuffed napkin from his mouth and spoke his first words of the night.

“Friend, shouldn’t you say something? Whether it’s robbery or something else, at least give me a chance to negotiate. Even if you want my kidney, we can talk—I’ll pay double whatever they’re offering…”

Ji Ning tried for a peaceful dialogue as best he could.

The man in black responded in the briefest, most fitting way possible—a nondescript jab of the gunstock that taught Ji Ning how to keep his mouth shut without anything stuffed inside it.

Not every international student walking alone at night in a foreign land gets hit with a gunstock. Ji Ning, whose life had been barren enough, was wholly unprepared.

When Ji Ning awoke from unconsciousness, he had already mastered the art of