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In the fog, Garden Bridge looked like the spine of a giant beast, half-submerged in the black water. The lamps along the parapets glowed like smudges. Their light could not pierce the damp mist rising from Suzhou Creek.
Chuuya arrived early. He’d been told: the target would be here. A date and a grainy photo on yellowed paper. No details. No explanations. Strange. But then again, what did it matter? Just another job for a hitman who didn’t miss.
He waited, standing in the shadow of a cast-iron arch. Two years in the mob had taught him patience. He no longer flinched at every rustle or raised his weapon at the sound of a voice—or another’s breathing. Moisture beaded on the collar of his coat, trickling down his neck. The Shanghai wind—always smelling of the port and distant lands—today carried only a cold, ocean-bound melancholy. Miserable weather.
Footsteps came from the embankment. Light. Almost casual. Soles scraped against the metal decking.
Chuuya waited until the figure reached the middle of the bridge—where the lamps burned most steadily, where the water ran deepest beneath the railing.
The figure stopped, leaning against the railing. Convenient, Chuuya noted.
The Mauser settled into his hand with practiced ease. Heavy. Substantial. They’d told him a gun like that was too much for his hand—that he was too small, too short for it. Chuuya didn’t care.
The sight lined up squarely between the target’s shoulder blades.
Chuuya held his breath. Usually, at this moment, the world shrank to the size of a bullet. But now he heard something he shouldn’t have:
“Well, hello there, Chuuya.”
A shiver marched down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
His name. His name. Chuuya stood twenty paces away, hidden by the fog. How?
The figure turned. From this distance, he couldn’t make out a face—only a silhouette: a long pale coat, hair plastered to a damp forehead. A languid, relaxed posture. Chuuya instinctively shifted the barrel, re-centering the aim on the chest. His index finger rested against the trigger guard.
“A fine day for dying, don’t you think?”
“You know me?” Chuuya’s voice came out rougher than he intended.
“Oh, do I?”
Silence. Only the water churning heavily below, slamming against the bridge’s piers.
Chuuya moved forward, keeping the target in his sights. He forced himself to breathe evenly, focusing on each step. Ten steps. Fifteen. The fog thinned, features beginning to take shape.
“A gun? Really?” The stranger’s voice sounded tired, almost bored. “How boring, Chuuya. You’re better than that.”
“Who are you?”
Instead of an answer—a smile. A crooked, mocking thing, as if he himself were part of someone else’s long-conceived joke.
Chuuya blinked. That moment was all it took.
The stranger pushed off from the railing. Not backward—upward, in a motion too quick to follow. The tails of his coat billowed as he went over the railing, falling back-first into the darkness.
A splash. Heavy. Solid.
Chuuya lunged for the railing, raising his gun, but there was nothing left to shoot at. The water closed over him and rippled outward. No bubbles. No body. Nothing.
He waited a minute. Two. Five.
Chuuya lowered the Mauser.
“You absolute fucking maniac!” His voice shattered against the damp gloom, unanswered.
He turned and walked off the bridge, knowing only one thing: that man—the one who had called him by name and vanished into the dark water—was alive. And the next time they met, he’d shoot first. No questions asked.