The Regent Hotel's presidential suite seemed to have become an isolated island floating above the city.
Su Enxi could no longer remember how long she had been living here. Heavy velvet curtains hung shut all day, completely sealing out the daylight and noise beyond, leaving only a few wall lamps casting their steady, dim yellow glow over the extravagant silence of the room.
The air was thick with a mingled scent: the faint sweetness of high-end perfume's lingering notes, the stuffiness of a space kept sealed for too long, and the stubborn smell of fried food and spices left behind by opened snack bags.
She had barely ever stepped outside this door. Whenever hunger struck, a few swipes across her phone screen would bring either a smartly dressed waiter or a hurried deliveryman, silently leaving an elegant food cart laden with delicacies or logo-stamped paper bags outside her door.
A soft knock on the gate would be followed by rapidly retreating footsteps, like the tide washing over a beach and receding without a trace.
She went through snacks at an alarming rate. Bags of every variety lay scattered across the expensive Persian carpet, wedged into the seams of the Italian leather sofa, or piled at one corner of the ebony dining table large enough for ten people, alongside half-finished cans of coffee and bottles of soda.
She was like some creature lying dormant deep within its nest, her only remaining links to the outside world being those ever-lit screens and a thin, fragile supply line made up of countless delivery orders.
Mai Sakatoku had been sent by the Boss to the Americas to investigate the Feathered Serpent God, while Three-No Girl was still living her life as a princess in Moscow.
Though Su Enxi appeared to be rotting away in