Suddenly, the man holding the walkie-talkie collapsed to the ground.
Blood was spurting from his neck.
His carotid artery had probably been cut.
The other man froze, forgetting to shout for a moment.
Then he collapsed as well. A Tai's voice came through my earpiece. "Get in the car!"
I quickly got into the car and saw A Tai already sitting in the driver's seat, a dagger still in his hand.
Ye Jinghong got into the back seat.
So A Tai had killed both of them.
The car was already moving, racing back the way we had come like an arrow leaving the bowstring.
Ye Jinghong spoke. "A Tai, you should have acted sooner."
A Tai said, "The outcome would have been the same. Whether we acted sooner or later, they would have known it was us. If I hadn't been afraid they would stop us, I wouldn't have wanted to kill anyone."
We all took off our hats then, so we could naturally see one another.
Ye Jinghong asked, "You've never killed anyone?"
I was stunned. A Tai had dealt with those two men so swiftly and cleanly, without even the slightest tremor in his hands, yet Ye Jinghong was asking whether he had never killed anyone.
Just based on where he had struck, one slash had severed the carotid artery, sending blood spraying everywhere. A person would bleed out and die within moments.
And that counted as never having killed anyone? Even if it had been me, I could not have done it any better than he had.
"Because his heart was filled with fear, but he had an extremely strong ability to suppress that fear," Ye Jinghong said.
A Tai glanced at Ye Jinghong through the rearview mirror, his expression calm. "How could you tell? You shouldn't