Taoist priest goes to America

After the first grenade exploded, Li An gave the assassin inside no chance to catch his breath, and the second grenade flew directly from his hand.

The grenade crossed the threshold and rolled into the ruins of room 304. It bounced on the rubble and came to rest next to the crooked bed frame.

Ang Lee had already shrunk to the outside of the door frame, his back against the corridor wall, his left hand protecting the side of his head, and his right hand holding a pistol horizontally against his chest.

The explosion came quickly; a white light burst out from the doorway, illuminating the entire corridor for a moment.

A blast of scorching wind shot out from the doorway, carrying brick dust, sawdust, and fragments of plaster, striking the wall opposite in the corridor with a crisp "smack".

The shockwave, carrying debris, rushed out of the doorway and struck the wall opposite in the corridor, causing plaster to fall down in a torrent.

The smoke and dust kicked up by the blast billowed out like a moving wall, pouring out from the doorway and covering the carpet with a layer of gray powder.

Ang Lee took a step forward before the dust had completely settled. His boots crunched over the dust from the broken glass on the carpet.

The events of this afternoon flashed through my mind.

The person knocking on the door was the receptionist. When Ang Lee opened the door, the receptionist was standing in the doorway. He was a middle-aged man in a gray polo shirt with a standard service smile on his face. He was holding a tray with several packets of instant coffee, two bottles of mineral water, a bar of soap, and shampoo on it.

"Sir, would you like some room amenities replenished? It'll only cost $30."

Ang Lee looked at him, took a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket, and held it between his fingers. The bill was new; he didn't hand it over, but just let it stand there so the receptionist could see the number.

"Where are your fire exits? How often do you replace that old fire extinguisher on the third floor? The emergency exit door at the end of the corridor is locked. Do you know what level of violation it is according to New York City fire regulations?"

"If I call the fire department to report it, will this hotel be able to open tomorrow?"

The receptionist's face turned awkward. He looked at the banknotes, then at Li An's face. "Sir, what's this?"

"Change rooms." Li An handed over the money. "Those empty rooms next to 304. Just give me any one."

The receptionist didn't answer immediately, hesitated for a moment, and said, "303 is empty, sir."

"The locks were just changed, and I have the key."

"There's one more thing: don't tell anyone about me changing rooms."

The receptionist opened her mouth, as if to say something. Ang Lee took another hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and tucked it next to the first one.

The receptionist glanced at the two banknotes, took them, folded them, and stuffed them into his pocket.

"Don't worry, sir, I won't tell anyone. You can rest assured." He nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.

Once the footsteps of the receptionist disappeared at the end of the corridor, Li An closed the door and placed the puppets of Isya and Doyle on the bedside table.

His spiritual power probed into the bodies of the two corpse servants and found their exact locations.

With a swift chop, he peeled away the skin and flesh around the two trackers, then pinched the trackers with his fingers and gently pulled them outwards.

Two metal pieces, each the size of a grain of rice, were pushed out from under his skin and landed in his palm, covered with a thin layer of sticky fluid.

He cleaned the tracker and taped it to the back of the air vent of the air conditioner unit in room 304.

After doing all that, he used his key to open the door to 303, closed the door, and waited in the darkness until nightfall.

Two men and a woman moved into room 304 next door. They whispered sweet nothings to each other for a while before stopping, and then a very soft noise came from the corridor.

Before he could figure it out, the lock on the door next door made a short cracking sound.

A gunshot rang out, the sound as if filtered through a silencer, like someone smashing wet wood with a hammer. A second shot followed immediately, then a third. There was the sound of shattered glass hitting the floor, the splashing of water in the bathroom, someone screaming for a long time, and Ang Lee hearing a woman crying.

Then the fourth shot rang out, the sound of water in the bathroom continued, but the woman's crying stopped.

He opened the door to 303, walked to the door of 304, stood sideways outside the door frame, and threw the first grenade. Now it was the second one, and the last one he had taken from Idel.

The smoke and dust were still thick, and visibility in the doorway was less than two steps. He held up his Glock, the muzzle pointed at the gray mist in the doorway, and was about to step inside.

When footsteps came from the stairwell, Ang Lee had already stepped through the broken glass into the door of room 304.

The choking smoke was thick. He waved his hand twice to clear away some of the black haze. He had just made out the outline of half a bed frame when he heard the receptionist's voice behind him.

He turned around and saw the figure in the gray polo shirt rushing out of the stairwell, clutching a revolver in his hand.

It was that receptionist; the muzzle of his gun was dangling in the air, he was covered in sweat, and his voice was hoarse and broken.

"What the hell did you do?!" the receptionist yelled, his gun pointed directly at Li An's head, forcing Li An to stop in his tracks.

"You blew up my hotel! This is my hotel!"

Ang Lee turned around, looked at him, and said, "It's dangerous here, let's go."

"I'm not leaving! You threw a bomb here! You bastard!" the receptionist yelled, rushing from the other end of the corridor, bypassing Li An, and heading towards the blown-up door of 304.

He held up the revolver, his hand on the trigger, pointing it at Li An while squinting to see exactly how the room had been blown up.

Fragments of plaster fell from the ceiling with a whooshing sound. The receptionist inhaled a mouthful of dust, coughed twice, and stepped into the smoke-filled room 304.

"Boom—" A sudden gunshot rang out, and a hole exploded in the receptionist's forehead. White and dark red substances sprayed out from the other side, splattering on the corridor walls.

The receptionist froze, blood gushing from the wounds on his temple and cheek. The revolver slipped from his hand, bounced on the carpet, and he fell forward, his face slamming into broken glass, shards covering his face.

The moment the gunshot rang out, Ang Lee had already dodged to the side. He turned his gaze away from the direction where the woman on the front desk had fallen and focused it again on the dissipating smoke and dust in the doorway.

The person inside is still alive and kicking. Despite being hit by two grenades, he's still full of energy and can even fire back, accurately blowing people's heads off.

But he didn't have any more grenades; that was the last one he'd gotten from Idel.

He glanced down at his waist; the puppet of Isya was still hanging from the rightmost ribbon. Li An reached out and took it down; it felt cooler to the touch than the puppet of Doyle.

Ang Lee gave it a hard flick and threw the puppet into the doorway.

The puppet crossed the threshold. Before it even landed, it had already begun to change while still tumbling in the air.

The grain on the surface of the willow wood doll had cracked, as if something had split the wood from the inside. The outlines of its limbs separated from the wood, and the joints made a sound like dry branches breaking.

When it landed, it was already as tall as a person. Its gray-white paws crushed a tile on the floor.

The moment the mental connection was established, a hazy gray image appeared in Ang Lee's vision, from Isya's perspective, looking into the room from a height of about 1.7 meters.

What he saw was a floor piled with broken bricks and sawdust, a crooked bed frame, curtain fragments fluttering in the broken window, thick smoke and dust, and the surrounding walls were charred.

He controlled Isya to turn his head, scanning from left to right, trying to find the person hiding in the smoke.

Suddenly, a grayish-white blur rushed in from the smoke to the left and behind. Isya saw only the outline of an arm for a fleeting moment, then the whole screen shook violently, as if someone had slammed the "camera" to the ground.

The cracking sound of skull deformation traveled through the mental lines, and a heavy punch landed on Isya's head, so powerful that Ang Lee's own head instinctively tilted to the side.

Isya's body flew sideways and crashed into the tiled wall of the bathroom. The tiles shattered, and shards scattered all over the floor.

Its entire back was embedded in the wall, cracks spread outwards from the recessed edge, and several loose tiles fell from above, breaking into pieces as they hit the edge of the bathtub.