When many people think about this season and try to describe it, one word comes to mind—pale.
Winter can make everything disappear, lose its original color, and most of the earth's land is dyed a desolate gray-white. Glaciers thousands of miles away remain unchanged, hoping that the world will also be frozen forever.
Only the warm sun hanging in the sky remains unaffected, making the sunshine in this season all the more precious, bathing the city of Lanjing in a golden hue in the afternoon.
Two days have passed since the assassination on Fengyang Street. Gu Qingwan has proven with her formidable strength that no outside force can interfere with any part of Jiangcheng. This is a powerful warning, a resounding echo.
The assassins were almost completely wiped out, turning into corpses in the desolate wind on the rooftop within two minutes, their eyes devoid of life.
However, only one person survived, but she lost half of her right arm. When she woke up, it was two days later.
Midway through, September, probably with a hazy consciousness, opened her eyes once.
What came into her view was an empty room, the rectangular copper and iron walls gleaming with a cold silver hue, the corners sharp and pointed, causing a stinging sensation in her eyes.
She looked up, but the ceiling was so dark and there wasn't even a light. Then she felt pain and numbness in her mouth. She opened her mouth but could only whimper and make no sound. She felt like her jaw had disappeared.
In September, she tried to move her arm. Her dry lips were chapped, her cheeks were bloodless, and she was unusually weak. As she moved, a sharp pain shot through her right hand. She looked down and saw the glaring white bandage.
She was certain she was alive, because the pain was still there, and those jumbled memories were gradually becoming clearer in her mind. Gu Qingwan's cold eyes, the way she kicked out, that monstrous, blade-like hand...
"I...I'm not dead," September said to herself.
This was undoubtedly the worst possible outcome. She imagined that when she opened her eyes, she would see a heaven filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers, with pure white buildings everywhere, and butterflies and birds fluttering among the lush forests. In the misty haze, God sat on the treetops, extending a loving hand to her.
My illusions have been shattered.
Death means the end of torment in this world. The soul ascends to the heavens, the spirit falls into the abyss; the living suffer, the dead find peace.
Now, in September, she had a clear understanding of her situation. She was tightly bound to a disc, her hands and feet were restricted and she couldn't move. Her bones were a little sore from being restrained for so long, and this position was quite uncomfortable.
September was puzzled as to why that monstrous woman didn't kill her, even though she knew it.
To live is to continue suffering.
The poison in the groove of her molar had been removed. She tilted her head, suddenly felt very tired, and then fainted again.
I don't know how long I slept like that, until the whole world started to become chaotic.
A bright light shone on her face, forcing September to wake up. Faced with this light, she felt as if she had gone blind, and kept shrinking back, turning her head to a place without light. A voice rang out.
This was the most emotionless voice she had ever heard in her life.
"Your name is September, and you come from Hokkaido. Ten days ago, you received orders from the Tokuzen family, a high-ranking family in Japan, to assassinate Dean Jiang. Your adoptive mother is Qiao Muwuxiang. To date, you have carried out forty-eight assassination missions, and you even killed a prosecutor from the Han Kingdom."
"We don't have detailed information about your age, so we had a doctor measure your bone age. You're 17. The result is a bit surprising. At this age, you've become a fearsome assassin. The Japanese are really quite perverse."
The light hadn't dimmed, and in the hazy September light, she could see a figure. She was almost certain that this was the woman who had kicked her so hard on the rooftop that day.
The next second, the world suddenly went dark. After adjusting for a while, September could finally see Gu Qingwan clearly. She was wearing office attire today. As if she wasn't afraid of the cold, she wore a bodycon skirt that perfectly accentuated her curves, a shirt and a blazer on top, and black-rimmed glasses. A delicate pendant adorned her earlobe, sparkling brightly.
In response to what she said, September could only remain silent. The only thing she was curious about was the matter of being seventeen years old. Because even she herself had forgotten how many years of her short and pitiful life had actually passed.
"Too much talk leads to mistakes," and even though she wasn't particularly bright, she understood this principle. The fact that China spared her life undoubtedly indicated a greater scheme, and regardless of whether the visitor was right or wrong, she had no intention of responding to a single word.
But in the next second, September broke through her defenses.
Gu Qingwan then said, "You should be curious why we know these things. Did we do some research? Just a little bit." As she spoke, she took out a photo from her pocket. The light shone on it, and the moment Jiu Yue saw it, her pupils contracted.
That photo is proof that she is still alive in this world; it's the only photograph from her seventeen years of life.
September is a code name; she's going to die sooner or later. So things that are essential to ordinary people, like identity, name, and age, are not important to her. Even if she dies a violent death in the street one day, no one will care, just like what she said to her mother when she walked out of the courtyard, "I won't even be able to bring my body back."
However, she selfishly kept a group photo and placed it in the second drawer on the left in the old room in the courtyard with the towering cypress trees, under a book.
The photo, reflecting a shimmering light, clearly shows her standing awkwardly under the trees in the courtyard, wearing a pink dress that clashes with her usual style. She seems terrified of being in front of the camera, something she's never done before. Beside her, Qiao Muwuxiang wears a rare, motherly smile. Her hands, hanging down, are rough, the hands of a woman who has done much manual labor.
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