Frank instantly released the ruined pistol from his right hand. His center of gravity dropped sharply, and his left foot slid half a step forward, cutting ruthlessly into Jessica's defensive blind spot. His right hand swept along the outside of his thigh.
Swish.
A black tactical dagger slipped silently into his palm.
Krav Maga-the opening move of a last-ditch CQC counterkill.
He never looked at Jessica's face. Instead, his gaze locked onto the ulnar artery and median nerve on the inside of her right wrist. No matter how strong she was, severing the tendons would instantly disable the muscles.
The blade turned, tracing a vicious arc upward toward Jessica's wrist.
"You kick down the door in the middle of the night, and now you're pulling a knife?!"
Jessica was already seething after spending the entire evening stitching dead pork. She paid no attention to tactical positioning. With a cold snort, she casually swept her left hand out, smashing straight into the dagger's edge.
At the same time, she clenched her right fist and drove it straight at Frank's face, tearing through the air with a shrill howl.
Pure, overwhelming violence. Brute strength crushed every technique.
Frank's eyes sharpened. If that punch landed with all its terrifying momentum, his neck would snap on the spot.
He was forced to abandon the wrist slash. He brought the dagger across to block and bent his left arm to shield his head.
"Stop."
An icy command thundered through the clinic, where the tension had reached breaking point.
Bang.
Yang Ming slammed the mug marked "I LOVE NY" onto the stainless-steel triage counter. A few drops of cold, bitter coffee splashed across its surface.
His white coat was still unbuttoned, his hands tucked into its pockets. He swept a cold gaze over Frank, as though looking at two slabs of dead flesh in a morgue.
"Distended jugular veins, severe cyanosis of the lips, respiratory rate below four breaths per minute." Yang Ming spoke rapidly, his professional authority brooking no argument.
"The toxin has already reached his cardiac pacemaker. Waste another thirty seconds, and ventricular fibrillation will cause irreversible brain death."
Yang Ming pointed at Matt, who had been dumped onto the operating table.
"Then you can carry a corpse out of my territory."
Frank froze midmotion.
His tactical dagger was less than ten centimeters from Jessica's neck, while her fist had stopped two inches from his temple. The rush of air from her punch stung his cheek.
Frank whipped his head around.
On the operating table, Matt's condition had deteriorated to the extreme.
The black blood seeping beneath his dark red cowl had already clotted. His chest barely moved. The dying rasp in his throat was like a rusty, blunt saw dragging mercilessly across Frank's nerves.
He slowly withdrew the dagger and slid it into the sheath at his thigh. Raising both hands, he stepped back half a pace.
"Save him." Frank's voice was hoarse, steeped in the harshness of gun smoke. "Whatever you want, I'll give it to you."
Jessica curled her lip and lowered her fist. She casually wiped the fine sweat from her palm on her jeans, then turned toward Yang Ming.
Yang Ming did not answer immediately.
At the edge of his vision, pale blue characters flickered at a frantic rate.
[Emergency rescue mission: Daredevil's Lament.] [Mission requirement: Save the dying Matt Murdock.] [Mission reward: World-Class Firearms Mastery (includes disassembly and maintenance of light and heavy weapons of all calibers, ballistic wind-drift calculations, and muscle memory for combat shooting).]
Yang Ming's heart skipped a beat.
World-Class Firearms Mastery.
He had only just stuffed the Rat Gang's Thompson submachine guns and Remington shotguns into his Storage Ring amid Gotham City's torrential rain.
He had been worrying that, as a surgeon accustomed to holding a scalpel, his shooting amounted to randomly outlining his targets with bullets.
This system was practically spoon-feeding him.
Despite the excitement raging inside him, Yang Ming's face betrayed nothing. He pulled out a fresh pair of light blue sterile latex gloves and slipped them on unhurriedly.
"Jessica, cabinet two. Prepare the intubation kit, get three ampoules of epinephrine and one of atropine, and bring the defibrillator over."
Yang Ming strode toward the operating table, issuing orders.
Jessica rolled her eyes, but her body obediently carried them out.
After several nights of torment, she knew that row of glass instrument cabinets inside out.
Frank stood beside them like a statue radiating murderous menace, watching the young Asian doctor.
There was no aura of strength about him. Yet the moment he stepped up to the operating table, his absolute command of the situation gave even a battle-hardened veteran like Frank the strange impression of being overpowered.
"Cut his clothes open. Now." Without looking up, Yang Ming grabbed a pair of medical scissors from the instrument tray and tossed them to Frank.
Frank caught the scissors. A few sharp snips brutally cut open Matt's custom bulletproof combat suit at the chest.
The horrific wound lay exposed beneath the surgical light.
Between the fourth and fifth ribs on the right was a grotesque, bloody hole. The surrounding skin had turned an eerie green and was badly swollen. The poisoned dart had already been removed, but black blood continued to seep from the wound, accompanied by an unmistakable hiss of escaping air.
"Tension pneumothorax, complicated by high-concentration neurotoxin poisoning." Yang Ming briefly pressed his fingers to Matt's carotid artery. "Extremely weak pulse. Irregular heartbeat."
"A variant of upas-tree extract," Frank said grimly, supplying military intelligence. "Bullseye's poisoned dart. Takes less than ten minutes to kick in."
"Shut up. I don't need you teaching me how to treat a patient," Yang Ming snapped.
The index and middle fingers of his left hand precisely located the second intercostal space along Matt's right midclavicular line. His right hand took the large-bore puncture needle Jessica handed him.
No anesthesia. No disinfection. There simply wasn't time.
Hiss!
The needle plunged perpendicularly into the pleural cavity. A piercing rush of escaping air filled the clinic, carrying a spray of dark red bloody foam. The raised right side of Matt's chest visibly subsided.
The pressure from the pneumothorax was relieved, but Matt's complexion did not improve.
On the nearby monitor, the heart-rate trace suddenly began fluctuating violently, turning into a row of chaotic, jagged waves.
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
The shrill alarm blared.
"He's in V-fib!" Jessica's expression changed as she watched the screen. She might not know medicine, but the night spent memorizing anatomy charts had not been wasted. That waveform meant the heart had lost its ability to pump blood.
"The toxin has bound to the sodium-potassium pumps in his heart muscle cells." Yang Ming's gaze turned utterly cold.
He tore away the remaining scraps of clothing over Matt's chest, exposing pale skin.
"Defibrillator! Charge to 360 joules!"
Jessica quickly pushed the defibrillator into position and pressed the charging button. The machine emitted a low hum.
Yang Ming picked up both paddles and coated them with conductive gel.
"Clear!"
With a low shout, Yang Ming pressed the paddles firmly against Matt's chest.
Thump!
A powerful current surged through Matt's body. He jerked half a foot off the operating table, then slammed back down.
The waveform on the monitor stretched into a long, flat line.
No effect.
Frank clenched his fists so tightly that his nails nearly pierced his palms.
"Charge again! 360 joules!" Yang Ming did not hesitate.
During those few seconds of charging, Yang Ming discreetly swept his right hand inside his white coat pocket. His Storage Ring flickered faintly.
A glass ampoule nestled in shock-absorbing foam appeared in his palm. Inside was a pale green, fluorescent liquid.
It was the leftover targeted cellular activator specially developed by Stark Industries, which he had used when saving Selene's younger sister in Gotham. The drug had originally been intended to block the inflammatory cytokine cascade, but its core component could forcibly activate cells' self-repair mechanisms.
Nothing left to lose.
Yang Ming snapped off the glass tip with one hand and roughly filled a syringe with the drug.
"Jessica, intravenous push!" Yang Ming tossed her the syringe and raised the paddles again.
Jessica caught it, accurately located a vein on the back of Matt's hand, and pushed in the entire syringe of pale green liquid.
"Clear!"
Thump!
The second shock.
Matt's body jerked upward again.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
The deathly still line on the monitor suddenly gave a faint twitch.
Then.
Beep-beep-beep-
A weak but perfectly regular sinus rhythm reappeared on the screen.
A muffled gasp escaped Matt's throat. The cyanosis in his face finally stopped worsening.
Yang Ming let out a long breath and tossed the paddles back onto the machine. The back of his white coat was soaked with cold sweat.
The pale blue characters in his vision froze in place.
[Mission complete.] [Distributing reward...]
An immense torrent of information instantly flooded Yang Ming's brain. Countless muscle memories involving firearm disassembly, ballistic wind-drift calculations, and recoil control were stamped into his central nervous system.
Now, merely closing his eyes, he could clearly sense the tension of every spring inside an M4A1 rifle.
Yang Ming closed his eyes and took two seconds to steady himself, suppressing the swelling ache in his head.
He stripped off his bloodstained latex gloves and casually tossed them into the yellow medical waste bin at his feet.
He turned.
Yang Ming walked up to Frank. His dark-ringed eyes had returned to their stagnant-water calm.
"He'll live. He'll need dialysis to clear the remaining toxin, and a few days in a sterile chamber."
Yang Ming pulled out a tissue and slowly wiped his hands.
"Now, let's discuss the bill." Looking at the Punisher, whose name struck fear throughout Hell's Kitchen, Yang Ming curled his lips into an unabashedly mercenary sneer.
"My surgical fees are expensive. Emergency treatment plus the specialty drug comes to a hundred thousand dollars. Or the equivalent in hard currency. No credit. All that gear you're wearing isn't worth that much put together, so how are you paying?"