Night Lily Garden was a private club, but it wasn’t the kind of place where customers simply chose to go. The club chose its customers. No matter how influential someone was, they wouldn’t be admitted without recommendations from at least two members.
Since Skok had accepted the job, he’d have to find a way to get Wuxue and the others inside.
“Had your fill of looking?” Wuxue asked a guard, one hand on her hip and impatience written all over her face. “The Countess gave me this invitation. How long are you planning to inspect it? I thought this place was supposed to offer good service. Is this how you do business?”
“But…” The invitation was genuine, but the guard hadn’t been told to expect any guests today.
“But what?” Wuxue frowned. “Are you saying it’s fake?”
“The invitation is genuine,” the guard admitted.
“And yet you still won’t let us in.” Wuxue gave a cold laugh. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“…”
The guard had no answer. Everyone who came here was someone important, but he couldn’t afford to offend her. He certainly couldn’t talk back.
“Madam, please wait a moment. I’ll check with the manager.”
The guard knew he was only a doorman and couldn’t afford to offend anyone. He assumed someone upstairs had simply forgotten to tell them guests were coming today.
As soon as the guard reached for his radio, Wuxue grabbed Luo Shisan and strode inside. Several other guards hurried over. They couldn’t lay hands on a guest, so they spread their arms to block the way.
“You useless idiot. Can’t you do anything to help me?” Wuxue hissed under her breath. She couldn’t afford to start a fight—not here. She gave the completely vacant Luo Shisan a hard pinch. No wonder they couldn’t get in with this blockhead in tow.
“How am I supposed to help?” Shisan whispered back. She looked at Wuxue with an innocent expression that seemed to say, I’m just a scavenger. What do you expect me to do?
“Get lost!” Wuxue snapped. Shisan was dead weight. She couldn’t help with anything.
Wuxue was starting to panic. Skok had told her the invitation would get them inside, and now she had no idea what had gone wrong. If they couldn’t get in, the assassination would be a failure before it even began. She knew exactly what that meant for her. A chill crept up her spine.
There was no time to hesitate. Wuxue couldn’t afford to back down. She lifted her chin and held herself with the haughty air expected of the noblewoman she was pretending to be. But her arrogance didn’t seem to have much effect. The guards merely raised their arms and began edging toward her, preparing to escort the pair out in this “polite” fashion.
“Get lost.”
The unexpected command stopped the guards in their tracks.
“You lowborn trash.” Luo Shisan stepped between Wuxue and the guards. “Who gave you the right to be so rude? How dare you block my wife’s way?”
Wuxue was just as stunned as the guards. She stared at Shisan’s back, unable to see her expression. That lazy voice of hers had held a cold edge—nothing like the voice of a scavenger.
Shisan continued forward. The guards wouldn’t get close enough to touch her, but they followed at a cautious distance, backing away as she advanced. She didn’t charge into the club. Instead, she sauntered over to a sofa in the lobby and sat down, leaning back. Then she patted the empty cushion beside her, signaling Su Wuxue to join her.
“Weren’t you going to call the manager?” Shisan crossed one leg over the other. “I’ll wait right here. Let’s see whether the Countess’s own invitation means anything, or whether some little manager’s word matters more.”
Unlike Wuxue, Shisan had been silent from the start. Her sudden speech, and the effortless poise with which she delivered it, already gave her an air of authority. Her words finished the job, leaving the guards with nothing to say.
“Well…” One guard hesitated. “Maybe we should let it go.”
“Let what go?” Wuxue pressed, sensing the tide turning. “Go on. Bring the manager over. We’ll wait here.”
The three guards exchanged uncertain looks. They didn’t know what to do with this sudden change of events.
An older guard stepped up to Wuxue and bowed politely. “Please don’t hold it against us, madam. My young colleague hasn’t been here long. He doesn’t know how things work yet. I hope you’ll forgive him.”
Wuxue didn’t want to waste any more time with them. They were only one step away from being inside, so she pretended to relent. “I won’t hold it against you.”
“Right this way, then.”
The guard stepped aside and called over a guest services attendant. They acted as though nothing had happened, respectfully escorting the two guests inside.
Once the attendant had shown them to their room and closed the door, Wuxue finally let out a breath. She briskly stripped off the formal gown that had been hindering her movements. Wearing nothing but her underwear, she stood naked in the room, enjoying the freedom.
“You’re not changing?” Wuxue asked, looking at Shisan, who sat meekly on the edge of the bed. She seemed like a completely different person from the woman downstairs.
“These clothes are so fancy. I want to wear them a little longer.”
Shisan held her hands against her chest to cover herself.
“…” Wuxue shook her head, speechless. “Anyway, you had some nerve downstairs.”
“Huh?” Shisan looked bewildered. “What happened?”
“You scared the guards off with one word. You don’t remember?”
Wuxue went to the wardrobe and pulled out a robe. The makeup she’d put on that day was already rather striking, and the robe—with its hint of bedroom allure—suited her all too well.
Instead of answering, Shisan said, “Wuxue, you’re really beautiful.”
“…” Wuxue shook her head. Hearing something that sappy from Shisan was even more terrifying than watching her scare off the guards. “Enough. Let’s talk business. Get the map.”
Shisan took off her shoes, pulled out the insoles, and retrieved a folded piece of paper hidden inside. She handed it to Wuxue and said, perfectly calmly, “The map.”
“…”
Wuxue could barely find words for anything Shisan did.
With trembling fingers, she took the map and carefully unfolded it. Calling it a map wasn’t quite right; it was an electronic display, showing images through the movement of Bicolored Particles in a magnetic field. Wuxue activated it, and a floor plan of Night Lily Garden appeared before her.
She brought up the map of the floor where they were staying. Their positions appeared at once. Then a red dot began blinking at the other end. Wuxue tapped it, and the display shifted to the seventh floor. The dot appeared again in a room to the northwest. That was their target.
According to the map, all they had to do was get to the seventh floor and kill the woman. But the job wasn’t nearly as simple as it looked. After making a scene in the lobby, they were surely under close watch. And Wuxue had noticed on the way up that the seventh floor was reserved for SVIPs. The woman behind the Countess—the club’s star attraction—wasn’t someone they could simply walk in and see.
That meant Wuxue and Shisan would have to meet their target somewhere more public, while also planning an escape route. In a place Wuxue had never set foot in before, that was close to impossible.
“What time is it?”
Wuxue kept her eyes on the map as she asked Shisan.
“Four forty in the afternoon,” Shisan replied. “The Bearded Man said we’d be here for two days. Does that mean we can leave the day after tomorrow?”
“We can leave once that woman’s dead,” Wuxue said coldly.
“What if we can’t kill her?” Shisan asked, but when she saw Wuxue’s look, she obediently fell silent.
“Then you’ll never leave.”
Wuxue folded up the map. A plan was already beginning to take shape in her mind.
On the last two nights of every month, Night Lily Garden held a grand dinner and dance beginning at eight. The festivities lasted for two full days. That was why Skok had been so eager to catch Wuxue. If he missed this month’s event, he’d have to wait another month.
Naturally, Wuxue and Shisan dressed for the occasion. Skok had spared no expense to get them this far. The gowns at the dinner were all a little different. Wuxue’s was still a floor-length evening dress, but it was more voluminous than the one she’d worn earlier, leaving room to hide more weapons. Shisan wore a black shawl over her suit jacket. It looked heavy, but the truth was that she had four bowie knives hidden beneath it. They were Wuxue’s favorite weapons for close combat.
Of course, weapons weren’t supposed to be allowed here. But in this day and age, who trusted anyone else? In the end, everyone brought weapons. That was its own kind of fairness.
Wuxue had no intention of striking right away. The people carrying weapons weren’t limited to the ones she could see. The unseen ones were the real danger. And, just as she’d worried from the beginning, she still had no idea where to escape. Her first priority was to scout the place.
She needed to find the guards hidden in the shadows—and every possible escape route.
Acting came easily to a hunter, especially one who’d seen the world. The real problem was the scavenger. Wuxue still had no idea how Shisan had managed to play her part downstairs that afternoon, but she decided to keep her close.
The ballroom was horseshoe-shaped, with two levels. In the center of the horseshoe on the ground floor, an orchestra played an old waltz from the lost world. The place was full of women, but that didn’t stop them from dancing together. Some preferred to stay on the second-floor balcony, where they strolled hand in hand in elegant or dazzling gowns, whispering sweet nothings to each other.
Wuxue went along with the custom, wandering through the ballroom with Shisan’s hand in hers. She held a glass of wine and pushed another into Shisan’s hand, warning her to smile at everyone they passed. Shisan did that part well enough. She kept the same fixed smile as she followed Wuxue from the first floor to the second, then back down again.
“Do rich people always act like this?” Shisan asked quietly.
“Like what? Do you want a drink?” Wuxue replied. Years ago, when she’d left the slums and entered another world, she hadn’t understood why the nobility loved dinner parties so much either.
“No.” Shisan shook her head and lowered her voice another notch. “Girls do this with girls?”
“Hm?” Wuxue didn’t understand.
Shisan lowered her head and planted a quick kiss on Wuxue’s cheek.
“Making out,” she said with a smile.
