Taoist priest goes to America

Ise Akibō is very happy tonight.

As he drove his black car through the bumpy roads of Brooklyn's old industrial district, his fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel in time with the beat of the car's audio system.

Yuzu proactively sent him a mission invitation. It wasn't a mass message or an assignment from an organization; it was a private, encrypted message from her, specifically requesting that he join her in tonight's operation.

That alone was enough for him to take three screenshots of the message and back them up in different places, in folders named "Important Files Do Not Delete".

He was originally planning to continue giving her the silent treatment for a few more days. Last time she went on a mission with that guy, when he tried to talk to her after they came back, she barely responded. She only replied with an "um" after he said ten sentences, without even looking at him.

He felt as if a piece of his heart had been ripped out with a knife. After returning home, he became increasingly angry, so angry that he couldn't sleep all night. He decided to teach her a lesson.

He needs to let her know that he can get angry too, and that he's a man with a temper.

The planned period of cold violence was five days, and today is the third day. But since Yuzuo took the initiative to invite him, it would seem like he lacked the magnanimity of a man if he didn't agree.

A man with a broad perspective should know when to let go and when to forgive, and should not be petty with women.

He generously deleted the memo from his phone that was filled with "Ignore her, ignore her, ignore her".

As expected, Yuzu has feelings for him.

No one in the world understands Yuzu better than him, because they grew up together in an orphanage—no, that place wasn't called an orphanage, it was called a "training center".

Because neither he nor Yuzu had parents, they could only sleep in a dormitory with white-tiled walls with another group of children, eat the same nutritious meals in the cafeteria, and undergo drug treatment together.

When those drugs were injected into his veins, it hurt like being stabbed in the flesh with a red-hot cigarette butt. Every time he finished the injection, he would lie on the bed and cry, sobbing uncontrollably, his pillow covered in tears and snot.

Yuzu was three years younger than him, shorter, and as thin as a little wildcat, but she never cried.

Once, after an injection, she climbed over from the bed next to his, sat down beside him, and awkwardly wiped away his tears with a pink handkerchief in her small hand.

She still had a band-aid on her hand from the injection, and several purplish needle marks on the back of her hand, but she wiped his tears very gently, as if afraid of hurting him.

She said, "Don't cry, you won't be handsome if you cry." She was four years old that year, and he was seven.

Ise Kibo parked his car in the middle of the road, reached into his pocket, and felt a soft handkerchief. He carefully pulled out the pink handkerchief.

The handkerchief was worn and frayed from washing, with some loose threads. The embroidered rabbit pattern was so blurred that only two long ears remained, but it was folded neatly and was in excellent condition.

Ise Kibo unfolded the handkerchief, held it in both hands as if it were a priceless treasure, then reverently buried his face in it and took a deep breath.

That breath was so powerful and exhilarating that his shoulders rose and his chest heaved with each inhale, his entire upper body immersed in the act of inhaling.

Then he slowly exhaled, and the expression on his face gradually relaxed from the excitement and pride he had just displayed, turning into a blissful, dazed tranquility.

Ise Kibo closed his eyes, rubbed his face back and forth on the handkerchief a couple of times, and took another deep breath, burying his entire face in it.

"ah--"

He let out a long sigh, his face beaming with indescribable enjoyment—this was the scent.

Even after all these years, he could still clearly distinguish the lingering scent of Yuzu on it.

This scent is something no perfume can replicate; a faint milky fragrance mixed with a hint of saltiness left after the sweat has dried, like a breeze blowing across the grass in the backyard of an orphanage on a summer evening.

More than a decade has passed, but his memory of that smell has not diminished at all.

"Mmm—mmm—" He carefully folded the handkerchief, put it back in his suit pocket, and patted it gently, as if he were coaxing a sleeping pet.

He leaned back in the driver's seat and began to fantasize about the wonderful life ahead.

Judging from today's situation, Yuzu's cold face and scolding towards him before were actually just girlish shyness.

She has never been good at expressing her feelings since she was a child. She was like this when she was in the orphanage. She clearly liked the kitten but always said that the kitten was annoying. She clearly wanted to eat with him but always put on a "whatever" expression.

It got worse as I grew up. Every time I saw him, I would ignore him and never speak to him with a friendly expression. Sometimes I would even kick him in the face.

But isn't that just being too shy to express your feelings after someone has guessed your feelings? You can only pretend to be aloof to hide your excitement, right?

So cute!

Yuzu will turn eighteen next month. An eighteen-year-old woman, an adult woman, it seems she has reached the age where she can face her own heart with equanimity.

That's why I took the initiative to invite him to go on the mission with me, wanting to express my love in this subtle and tactful way, and even deliberately giving him the credit!

She had already wounded that target; all that was needed was for him to clean up the mess. This was clearly a way to hand over the spoils to him, giving him more credit within the organization.

But she knew a man's pride couldn't be taken for granted, so she made it seem like a casual collaboration. How thoughtful of her; he wasn't even ready yet, hehe.

He adjusted his bangs in the rearview mirror and straightened his shirt collar, making sure he looked handsome enough before restarting the car and driving off.

On the second floor of the factory, Yuzuo and Li An were still waiting for Ise Akibō to take the bait.

"Wait!" Yuzu's face suddenly turned extremely ugly. The lazy smile from before vanished from her face, and she lowered her voice to curse.

"This idiot has someone following him! There's also a bioelectric signal."

Ang Lee turned to look at her, his voice turning serious: "What's going on? Didn't you promise he'd come alone?"

Yuzu gritted her teeth, then covered her face with her left hand, sliding it from her forehead to her chin, distorting her pure and cute loli face.

"That good-for-nothing is being followed!"

"The signal was far away from him, but it kept following him, always trailing behind him."

Her voice came muffled from between her fingers, carrying a sense of exasperation and disappointment, "He's one of the top six professional assassins in the organization, and he wasn't even noticed he was being followed the whole way..."

As she finished speaking, her voice trembled with anger, whether from embarrassment or not, it was hard to tell.

Ang Lee was silent for a moment, then he also raised his hand to cover his face.

"Does your assassin organization only have six people?"

Under the moonlight, two people on the roof of an abandoned building maintained the same gesture of covering their faces.

"No." Yuzuo took her hand off her face, took a deep breath, and said quickly, "After his black mist spreads out, the radius is very large, and it will automatically detect any living thing that enters the range."

"So his counter-surveillance awareness has always been poor, because the black mist keeps watch for him, so he never needs to find the enemy himself—forget it, I won't try to make excuses for him, he's just a complete idiot."

"Someone who's made a living as an assassin for so many years, and he didn't even realize he was being followed in an environment without the pre-laid black fog? What else could he be but a complete idiot?!"

She got annoyed with herself by the end, shook her head violently, and the ends of her mullet-like hair slapped back and forth on her shoulders.

"What do we do now?" Ang Lee didn't waste any more time on this topic. Complaining about what had already happened was pointless. The important thing was what to do next.

Yuzu took out her phone, checked the time, and said, "We have no choice but to continue."

"To avoid being discovered, we kept our tracks outside the detection range of the black fog."

"He was at least five or six hundred meters away from Ise-Keibo, which means there was a gap in time between when he attacked that idiot and when the stalker arrived at the scene."

"As long as we take care of him during this time and then retreat immediately, the trackers will only find a corpse when they arrive."