In the dilapidated Monastery hall, the air was so thick it seemed ready to drip.
Selene was like a leopardess cornered with nowhere to retreat. Behind her, Maggie huddled against the wall, coughing as though her lungs would burst.
"Kill her! Drag the little one away!" The thug leader whose nose had been shattered by a kick rolled on the floor, clutching his face. Blood streamed between his fingers, and his voice was as shrill as a stray cat with its tail stepped on.
The two remaining thugs exchanged a glance, tightened their grips on their switchblades, and closed in from either side.
Selene held her short dagger in a reverse grip and hunched her back. She drew a deep breath, trying to squeeze one last burst of strength from her body.
The thug on the left, with a rat tattoo on his neck, struck first. With a wild yell, he swept his switchblade upward in a vicious slash at Selene's lower abdomen.
Selene's gaze hardened. She pushed off sharply with her right foot, ready to repeat her earlier move and shatter his knee with a side kick.
Her brain gave the command. But her body betrayed her.
Back at the Underground Clinic, Yang Ming's two fingers had precisely penetrated the joint capsule behind the greater trochanter. Although he had eventually released the pressure, the disruption to her bioelectric signals caused by forcibly blocking the main sciatic nerve was not something that could fully recover in half an hour.
The quadriceps in Selene's left thigh suffered a fatal half-second spasm the instant she exerted force.
Just half a second.
The sidestep that should have carried her clear of the blade abruptly stalled. Her thigh muscles felt heavy as lead, and the compensatory shift of her pelvis threw her completely off balance.
Riiip-
The sharp tip of the switchblade scraped across Selene's waist, effortlessly tearing a long slit in her fitted black leather jacket. The cold blade sliced through her skin, drawing a vivid trail of blood.
Selene grunted and staggered backward, slamming her back into the wall with its peeling paint.
"Sis!" Maggie cried out in anguish. The violent surge of emotion instantly worsened her asthma, and terrifying rasping sounds came from her throat as she nearly passed out.
"Nowhere to run, little wildcat." The thug on the right seized the opening with a vicious grin.
He gave Selene no chance to regain her balance. Like a hyena scenting blood, he lunged at her. His right hand rose high with the switchblade, its tip aimed straight at her abdomen as his forward momentum drove it toward her.
There was no escape.
Selene had lost all feeling in her left leg, and every ragged breath made her lungs hurt as though they were filled with broken glass.
She watched the glint of steel draw closer, a flicker of despair crossing her eyes.
She did not beg. She spun around, shielding Maggie with her back, and closed her eyes.
One second. Two seconds.
The anticipated agony of a blade piercing her organs never came.
Clang!
An unbearably sharp, piercing metallic impact exploded through the empty hall, drowning out even the thunder outside.
Then came a distorted, inhuman scream.
"Aaaah-my hand!"
Selene's eyes flew open, and she turned her head.
The thug who had been about to stab her was kneeling in a mixture of muddy water and oatmeal, convulsing as though he had been electrocuted.
A No. 11 high-carbon steel scalpel gleaming with cold silver light was embedded in his right wrist.
The blade had cut precisely through the center of the transverse carpal ligament, passed through the entire carpal tunnel, and cleanly severed the median nerve and all nine flexor tendons. Its tip was buried firmly in the blackened wooden support pillar behind him.
Deep into the wood.
His cheap switchblade lay on the floor, covered in muck.
This was no ordinary knife-throwing technique. It required an almost pathological familiarity with human anatomy and terrifying explosive strength in the fingertips.
A deathly silence fell over the hall. Only the thug with the ruined hand wailed on the floor.
Selene and the remaining thug turned together toward the wooden hall door with a gaping hole in it.
Outside, rain fell in dense sheets.
A solid-black, long-handled umbrella slowly pushed aside a half-collapsed section of the doorframe.
Black leather shoes stepped through the standing water with an unhurried tap, tap.
Wearing his deep-black trench coat and holding the umbrella in one hand, Yang Ming crossed the threshold out of the endless darkness and torrential rain.
His hat brim sat low, concealing most of his face and leaving only his emotionless eyes, ringed by heavy dark circles, visible.
"The wrist contains eight small bones, with very little space between them." Yang Ming sounded as though he were reading anatomy lecture notes in a university lecture hall. "The blade can avoid the bones entirely and sever only the nerves and tendons. I normally use this knife to incise the pleura."
He stopped and raised his head slightly.
His gaze passed over the wailing thug on the floor and swept coldly across the last Rat Gang member still standing with a knife in his hand.
"Since when did sewer rats get to lay hands on my patient and my errand runner?"
There was not a single curse in that sentence, yet its oppressive weight chilled them to the marrow.
The standing thug swallowed, his legs trembling uncontrollably. He looked at his two crippled companions on the floor, then at the man holding an umbrella like the Grim Reaper.
"Who... who the fuck are you? This is Rat Gang business! Stay out of it!" the thug shouted, blustering through his fear as he tried to bolster his courage with his gang's name.
Yang Ming did not answer. He did not even change the way he held his umbrella.
"Boss Fiss won't let you-"
Before the thug could finish, Yang Ming moved.
Master-level combat instincts carried him across the five-meter gap in an instant.
There were no flashy moves. Yang Ming snapped the black umbrella shut with his left hand. Its tip tore through the air with a sharp whistle and struck the radial styloid of the thug's knife-wielding wrist with perfect accuracy.
Crack.
Bone snapped cleanly. The thug's wrist instantly bent at an unnatural angle, and the switchblade slipped from his hand.
Before the thug could scream, Yang Ming drove the umbrella handle upward with his right hand.
The solid wooden handle smashed into the thug's lower jaw.
Bang!
Two hundred pounds of impact shattered his jaw. Several bloodstreaked teeth flew from his mouth. His eyes rolled back, and he hit the floor stiff as a board without so much as a grunt, knocked completely unconscious.
The entire process took less than three seconds.
Clean. Efficient. Violence refined to its purest aesthetic.
Yang Ming casually flicked the blood from the umbrella's tip and opened it again to shield himself from the rain leaking through the broken roof.
Without looking at the three heaps of mangled flesh on the floor, he walked straight to Selene.
Selene leaned against the wall, her chest heaving. As she looked at the man before her, the wariness and defiance in her eyes had been replaced by a deeply complicated awe.
She had known he could fight. But only now did she truly understand how extraordinarily merciful he had been to her at the Underground Clinic.
If Yang Ming had truly wanted to kill her, she would never have had the chance to make her first move.
"Your left leg isn't ruined. It's only a temporary nerve conduction block." Looking down at her, Yang Ming glanced at the blood on Selene's waist. "Superficial wound. You won't die."
Selene bit her lower lip and did not argue.
Yang Ming crouched, turning his attention to Maggie, whom Selene had been shielding so fiercely.
The little girl's face had turned a frightening cyanotic purple. With every breath, the hollows above her collarbones and the spaces between her ribs sank deeply inward. Classic retractions.
"Lay her flat. Loosen her collar." Yang Ming's tone allowed no argument.
Selene immediately obeyed, moving with extreme care.
Yang Ming pulled the bottle of powerful relief spray he had given Selene earlier from his trench coat pocket. He gripped Maggie's jaw and forced her mouth open.
"Two presses. Breathe in deeply."
Hiss-hiss-
The medication, containing trace amounts of a cellular activating agent, became an exceptionally fine mist that rushed straight into Maggie's spasming bronchi.
The effect was miraculous.
Within just ten seconds, the broken-bellows wheezing in Maggie's throat began to weaken. Her taut chest muscles gradually relaxed, and the purple hue slowly faded from her face, leaving it pale again.
The little girl gulped down air greedily. She was still weak, but her life had been saved.
"This only treats the symptoms." Yang Ming pushed the spray back into Selene's hand and stood. "For a lasting cure, she has to come to my clinic. She needs both the sterile chamber and targeted medication."
Selene gripped the small aluminum bottle so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
She raised her head and looked up at Yang Ming.
On this rainy Gotham night, the man beneath the black umbrella had become the only lifeline for her and her sister.
"I'll go with you." Selene's voice was slightly hoarse, but utterly resolute.
"As long as you can cure Maggie, my life-Selina Kyle's life-is yours. Whatever you want me to steal, whoever you want me to kill, I won't hesitate."
"I don't need killers or thieves." Yang Ming turned his back on Selene, his voice cold.
"I need an employee who understands the rules, keeps her mouth shut, and can deal with trouble for me. Remember what you said today."
He started toward the door.
"Carry her on your back and keep up. If you don't even have the strength to reach the clinic, you can stay here and keep living like sewer rats."
Selene gritted her teeth, endured the tingling weakness in her left leg and the searing pain in her waist, and hoisted the frail Maggie onto her back.
Just as they were about to follow Yang Ming out.
The thug leader whose wrist had been pinned through endured the agony and dug his uninjured left hand into the gaps between the floorboards. Raising his blood-covered face, he spat out a vicious curse.
"Boss Fiss... won't let you get away with this... the people behind him are too powerful for you to stop... you're dead!"
Yang Ming paused.
He did not turn around.
With his leather shoes planted in the standing water, Yang Ming angled his face slightly and glanced at the thug on the floor from the corner of his eye.
"Go back and tell that bastard Fiss." Yang Ming's voice cut through the curtain of rain, utterly cold.
"He'd better spend the rest of his life hiding in the sewers. If he dares show his face anywhere within sight of 22 Lake Street..."
"I'll take his spine apart with my own hands, one vertebra at a time."
The black umbrella merged into the darkness again.
Carrying Maggie on her back, Selene hurried after him. She gave the three thugs on the floor one last look. There was no pity in her eyes, only the steely confidence of someone who had found a protector.
The rain over Gotham's East End seemed to fall harder.
But Selene knew that from tonight onward, her fate was irrevocably bound to that doctor with the dark circles beneath his eyes.
The Rat Gang? The people behind them?
Gotham's gangs were tumors that could never be fully cut out. Since trouble would come knocking sooner or later, he might as well have his scalpel ready.