Lee Man, the great performer and great artist, slowly recounted the fascinating story he had concocted, wearing a somewhat feigned look of resignation.
Lee Man's account differed little from what Zhou Quan knew.
However, because Wu Xiuqing had been exposed, Lee Man brought her out into the open.
In Lee Man's story, both he and Wu Xiuqing were victims.
He himself had been forced to draw counterfeit printing plates and produce color-changing ink for Painter.
Wu Xiuqing, meanwhile, had originally been the counterfeiting expert for the Malin Guerrilla Force in the Golden Triangle. After Painter took revenge on the Malin Guerrilla Force, she had been the sole survivor.
Wu Xiuqing eventually became Lee Man's assistant, helping her produce Super Dollars.
Because they had suffered together, feelings gradually developed between them.
However, when the Malin Guerrilla Force in the Golden Triangle was destroyed, a large part of Wu Xiuqing's body had been burned.
While arranging treatment for Wu Xiuqing, Painter took it upon himself to have her face surgically altered to look like Yuen Man's.
Later, at the hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Painter and the others suddenly turned on one another.
Because Wu Xiuqing had not been in the hotel at the time, she had been able to rescue him, gravely wounded and unconscious, from the hotel.
According to Lee Man, he had originally thought Painter had died in that bout of infighting at the hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui.
But after he and Wu Xiuqing went into hiding, he happened to learn that Wu Xin, a Macau native and member of the Painter Group, had been murdered along with his entire family of five to silence them.
That immediately alerted him that Yuen Man would be in danger, so he prepared to leave his hiding place to protect her.