Courtyard House: Home Alone

"I'll count to three," Lin Yifan said.

"Young Master..."

"one."

Xu Zheng abruptly closed his eyes. Liu Quande gripped the chair armrests tightly, the wood creaking under the weight.

"two."

Chen Gongshu's pupils suddenly contracted. The instinct honed by twelve years of special agent work made his finger pull the trigger the instant the number "two" fell—not out of hesitation, but out of a deeper fear, the fear that the young man before him would really do what he said.

"boom!"

Gunshots rang out in the closed room, the sound painfully loud. When Xu Zheng opened his eyes again, he saw Lin Yifan still standing there, not even the hem of his clothes moved. And Chen Gongshu's gun was emitting wisps of smoke.

"It's off course?" Zhou Dayong blurted out.

Chen Gongshu's face was ashen. He knew better than anyone that the shot hadn't missed. The crosshairs were perfectly aligned, the sights firmly pressed against Lin Yifan's brow. The moment the trigger was pulled, he even saw his own reflection in the boy's eyes.

But where did the bullets go?

"Continue," Lin Yifan said.

Chen Gongshu's Adam's apple bobbed. Without further hesitation, he pulled the trigger repeatedly.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Five gunshots rang out in quick succession, the spent cartridges clattering onto the blue brick floor, wisps of white smoke rising from them. Chen Gongshu's gun muzzle rose slightly, a natural bounce during bursts of fire, but his eyes never left the target—

Lin Yifan was still standing there.

It wasn't that the shot missed; the bullet that flew out of the muzzle simply disappeared.

Chen Gongshu suddenly looked down; the magazine was empty. He trembled as he removed the magazine and confirmed that the magazine was empty.

"This..." His voice trembled, "This is impossible..."

"Nothing is impossible."

Lin Yifan stretched out his hand, palm up. Six bullets lay there quietly, still warm from the gun barrel, arranged in a neat plum blossom shape.

The room was deathly silent. Xu Zheng's legs went weak, and he had to hold onto the table to keep from kneeling. Liu Quande's eyes were wide open, as if he had seen a ghost. Zhou Dayong's face turned from white to green, then from green to red, and suddenly he knelt on the ground with a "thud," his forehead pressed against the blue brick, his whole body trembling like a leaf.

"Young master...young master's divine skill...Da Yong was blind to recognize Mount Tai..."

Lin Yifan didn't look at him, and placed the bullets one by one back into Chen Gongshu's outstretched palm. The metal burned Chen Gongshu's skin, making him shudder.

"Mr. Chen," the boy's voice remained calm, "do you believe me now?"

Chen Gongshu looked down at the bullet in his palm and suddenly smiled. The smile was filled with relief, yet also with a kind of indescribable desolation.

He remembered the six sparrows in the cellar, and the gun barrel pressed against the back of his head when the boy said "Don't move"—it turned out that he had already died once back then.

"I believe it."

He put away the bullet, clasped his hands in a deep bow, and said, "From this day forward, my life belongs to me, and to 'Ghost'."

Lin Yifan nodded, then turned to Zhou Dayong, who was still kneeling on the ground: "Get up."

Zhou Dayong dared not move. Xu Zheng quickly stepped forward to help him, only to find that his crotch was already soaked, emitting a fishy and foul smell under the heat of the brazier.

"I'd like you to get up!" Xu Zheng said in a low voice.

Zhou Dayong then stood up shakily, his head still lowered, not daring to look Lin Yifan in the eye. His knees were still trembling, and his hands unconsciously gripped the seams of his trousers, creating deep creases in the already wrinkled cotton pants.

"Young Master..." Xu Zheng's voice trembled, "You...you're..."

"A smokescreen?"

Lin Yifan finished speaking for him, a slight smile playing on his lips. There was no mockery in that smile, only a calm that made people even more uneasy. "Captain Xu thinks it's a smokescreen?"

"Mr. Chen," Lin Yifan turned to Chen Gongshu, "your gun has a seven-round magazine. You just fired six rounds, and there's one left."

Chen Gongshu paused, glancing down at the gun. Sure enough, the slide wasn't bolt hold-open, meaning there was still a bullet in the chamber. He clearly remembered pulling the trigger six times…

"This one," Lin Yifan held out his hand, "is for me."

Chen Gongshu hesitated for a moment, but still handed over the gun. Lin Yifan took the gun, his movements so practiced they were unbelievable—unloading, checking the gun, and reloading, all in one smooth motion. He pointed the muzzle at his temple and pulled the trigger before anyone could gasp.

"Click."

The firing pin made a clicking sound. There was no bullet in the chamber.

"Here it is." Lin Yifan spread out his other hand, and the seventh bullet lay in his palm, with a longer section than the previous six... It was a bullet casing filled with gunpowder.

Zhou Dayong knelt down again with a thud. This time, no one helped him up, and Xu Zheng and Liu Quande stood frozen in place, as if their bones had been removed.

"Young Master..." Chen Gongshu's voice was hoarse, "When did you...?"

Lin Yifan handed the gun back to him, paused, and then his gaze swept over each pale face: "Every single shot here is live. If I had been even a fraction of a second slower, I'd be lying on the ground by now."

No one spoke in the room. The charcoal in the brazier popped again, startling Zhou Dayong so much that his forehead hit the ground hard, but he dared not cry out in pain.

"so,"

Lin Yifan's voice softened, yet became even clearer to everyone: "'Ghost' doesn't want you to die. I can remove the bullets before you fire, and I can pull you out one by one from under the guns of the Japanese military police."

He walked up to Zhou Dayong, looked down at the man who was more than twice his height, and said, "Brother Zhou, is that enough of the real skill you wanted?"

Zhou Dayong's forehead pressed against the blue brick, his voice muffled in his throat: "Enough...enough...Young master, my life is yours from now on..."

"It's not mine."

Lin Yifan crouched down to look him in the eye. "It's your own business. 'Ghost' doesn't care about anyone's life, as long as you think it through—if you follow the Military Intelligence Bureau, your families are just bargaining chips; if you follow 'Ghost,' they are human beings."

He stood up, brushed off non-existent dust from his cotton robe, and turned to Chen Gongshu: "Mr. Chen, you take care of the rest."

I'll come back in three days. If you have family, please write down your address; if you don't have family, please write down what you want to do.

Chen Gongshu clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Yes."

Lin Yifan turned and walked outside. The curtain fell, and the wind and snow rushed in for a moment before being shut out again.

The people in the room looked at each other, and after a long while, Liu Quande finally spoke in a hoarse voice: "Station Chief, this... what exactly is this child..."

"Not a child." Chen Gongshu holstered his gun, his voice low and deep. "Never."

He walked to the window and lifted a corner of the cotton curtain. Lin Yifan's figure had already disappeared at the end of the alley, leaving only two shallow footprints on the snow, which were quickly covered by the new snow.

"In the 26th year of the Republic of China,"

He suddenly said, "Before Nanjing fell, I met an old monk at the Xiaguan Wharf. He said that chaotic times breed both monsters and true dragons. I didn't believe him at the time."

"And now?" Xu Zheng asked.

Chen Gongshu lowered the cotton curtain and turned to look at his old subordinates. Zhou Dayong was still kneeling on the ground, the wet patch on his crotch frozen into ice crystals;

Liu Quande held the unlit cigarette, his knuckles white; the others, whether standing or sitting, all had the same look in their eyes—the greed and fear of someone who had been living on the edge for years, finally seeing a straw to grasp at.

"Now I know what a real dragon looks like."