A Ray of Sunshine Brought by Natasha

Xia Yu had returned from another round of killing. This time, he had crushed seventeen people's throats. His gaze had grown colder still; everyone he looked at might as well have been dead.

Killing was a dangerous business, especially without the right beliefs to sustain someone. Xia Yu had received his mission unprepared, then backed himself into a corner, forcing himself to start killing so he could get used to it beforehand. What he was doing was different from killing on a battlefield: it was too immediate, with blood and flesh flying everywhere. Faced with scenes like that, ordinary people would either break down or become killing maniacs—the so-called addiction to killing.

Xia Yu had already fallen into that dangerous situation. Worse, he had no family or friends in this world, making it all the easier to sink deeper.

As mentioned before, Xia Yu's grandfather had left him a three-story building. The ground floor was rented to a pharmacy on a Chinatown street, so Xia Yu had to use the stairs at the back to get home. They were old-fashioned iron stairs, with a small landing outside the doors on both the second and third floors. To get home, he had to pass the second floor first.

Usually, the second floor was closed by the time Xia Yu got off work at night, but someone was in his studio today. His five senses were incredibly sharp now; he could feel a fly beating its wings within fifty meters, let alone a living person breathing in the room. He not only knew someone was there, but also that the person was sitting on the sofa.

Confident in his skills, Xia Yu walked straight to the door, ready to get out his key. He made no attempt to conceal his footsteps, and as he approached, he could clearly sense the person on the sofa moving to the door and quieting their breathing. Xia Yu paid it no mind. Pretending he knew nothing, he casually took out his key, unlocked the door, and went in.

The instant he entered, someone to his left raised a handgun and aimed it at his head. Xia Yu shoved the gun aside with his left palm. The person flowed with the movement, spinning into a kick and trying to clamp their legs around his neck. With his quick reflexes, Xia Yu blocked and pushed with his left hand, sending the person flying sideways more than a meter. Having just finished killing, Xia Yu felt killing intent surge through him. The person had only just landed when he turned, stepped forward, and drove his right fist toward their neck, filled with boundless killing intent.

If Xia Yu's punch landed squarely on the throat, even Captain America would be half dead, let alone anyone else. His fist shot out like the wind, and just as another life was about to be lost, Xia Yu finally saw who it was. Startled, he lost all killing intent and forcibly stopped his fist in front of her neck. Xia Yu did not yet know how to hold back. He had thrown that punch with all his strength and internal energy, and forcing it to a stop was like punching himself. Unable to hold it in, he sprayed a mouthful of blood all over her face. He unclenched his fist and dropped to the floor.

The reversal had come so fast that the woman, certain she was about to die, had never imagined such an outcome. For a moment, she did not know how to react. Xia Yu could not understand why she was here at this hour either. The two stared at each other for a long while before Xia Yu finally spoke. "How about we turn on the lights first?"

She nodded in agreement. Xia Yu got up, switched on the lights, and, out of habit, ushered her to a seat at the tea table. Unsure what to say, he silently began making tea. He did not know how to explain why he had suddenly stopped. Was he supposed to say, I know you. You're Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, Scarlett Johansson, the goddess of my dreams?

Natasha did not know what to say either. She had gone to gather intelligence on a mission, only to end up being hunted. There were no S.H.I.E.L.D. bases nearby, and they could not send anyone to support her, because doing so would expose her official affiliation. So, following Nick Fury's directions, she had come here to lie low. According to Nick Fury, no one would be here at night. It was normal enough for the owner to come back at night, but according to Nick Fury, the young man from the East in front of her should have been an ordinary person who posed no threat. His skills and strength just now, and the killing intent surrounding him, made it clear that he was anything but ordinary. Why hadn't Nick seen that? And why had he stopped himself at the cost of injury after seeing her face? Did he know her?

Both were afraid of revealing their secrets, so neither spoke for a while. The atmosphere was unusually strange.

In the end, Natasha spoke first, probing. "Do you know me?"

Xia Yu's hand trembled as he made the tea. At a loss for an answer, he could only change the subject. "You're hurt? You've got a broken rib. It'll be dangerous if you don't treat it. Let me take care of it for you."

Natasha was an ace among spies—a real Mission: Impossible kind of spy. She was certain Xia Yu knew her, and had known her for more than a day or two.

Though Natasha was full of questions, she saw the sincere concern in Xia Yu's eyes, and the moment he had pulled back his punch at the cost of injury kept replaying in her mind. She silently nodded.

Xia Yu rose and waved for Natasha to stay seated. He placed a hand against her back and used his internal energy to sense where her rib had broken. With a gentle palm strike, he jolted it back into place, then steadily channeled the Nine Yang Divine Skill into her to nourish the break. His secret was out anyway, so there was no need to hide it.

Natasha was utterly shocked. Even setting aside how a single pat had jolted her rib back into place, it felt as though some kind of energy was steadily flowing from her back to the broken bone. In just that short time, the bone had begun to itch, proof that the broken surfaces had already started to grow back together. What kind of superpower was this? Could it be the legendary, mysterious qigong of the East?

After just a few minutes, Xia Yu withdrew his hand and said, "Your bone has been set, but it's still very fragile. It needs time to heal. If you have enough time, it would be best to stay here for a few days. I can treat you, and you'll be completely recovered in a few days."

Natasha did not answer him. Instead, she suddenly asked, "What about you? You seemed to hurt yourself just now too. Are you all right?"

Just those few words of concern nearly brought Xia Yu to tears. The killing intent and coldness that had built up in him lately were violently torn open. Struggling not to choke up, he said, "I-I'm fine. I'll be better by tomorrow."

But Natasha's next words made Xia Yu break down completely. "You killed someone tonight, didn't you? But you don't seem happy about it. Can you tell me about it?" (An explanation here: Natasha follows the film setting only. She was born in 1984 and was twenty-three at this point, without the extensive romantic history of her comics counterpart.)

Those words made Xia Yu sink to the floor and burst into tears with a "Wah!" like a child. Natasha turned around and gently rested his head on her lap, and Xia Yu cried even harder.

Their meeting tonight looked quite strange so far. But from Xia Yu's side, he had followed the Avengers films for some ten years and had deep feelings for many of the characters, let alone Natasha, a goddess whose appearance had dazzled countless people. As someone who had lost both parents just after coming of age and was something of an orphan, he had no close friends in his original world and had never had a proper relationship in any real sense. At heart, he was lonely; otherwise, he would not have had more friends in games than in real life.

He had suddenly been thrown into a world full of danger, made to become a superhero and fight. Once the initial novelty and excitement wore off, there was indeed a great deal of pressure on a young man who had grown up in peace and only recently entered society. On top of that, this mission required him to kill. He could not escape it, so he could only force himself to grow cold. Two caring remarks filled with maternal warmth were enough to make him break down.

For Natasha, on one hand, the system had boosted her favorable impression of Xia Yu. On the other, he had been willing to injure himself rather than hurt her just now. She had never experienced that before: concern solely for her as a person, not from a comrade-in-arms or a colleague. Most importantly, there were Natasha's experiences in the Red Room and the KGB. She had not wanted to kill but had been forced to, until she made herself cold and ruthless. Natasha knew that state all too well.

In the films, Natasha was full of maternal warmth. This could be seen in the Avengers: everyone treated Hulk as a violent, battle-crazed maniac, but Natasha alone truly treated him like a child and comforted him, even falling in love with Banner because of that concern. In essence, Hulk really was a child, as could be seen in Thor: Ragnarok.

For all these reasons, combined with the system's deliberate arrangement, their meeting today seemed incredibly strange. Yet it pulled Xia Yu back from a path of killing he had been traveling farther and farther down. Having a dark side was not frightening; what was frightening was being unable to find the light. Had this continued, he would probably have become a killing machine before he even finished this mission.

But Natasha's appearance tonight brought a timely ray of sunshine into his heart, shining directly on its most vulnerable and helpless place.

Xia Yu cried for more than an hour before finally falling asleep against Natasha.