The clock on the lobby wall clicked. 3:00 AM.I’d been awake for twenty-seven hours. My eyes felt like someone had rubbed them with sandpaper. My shift at Nova-Tech had officially ended ten hours ago, but the schedule didn't matter when Young Master Zhao had a hangover.Manager Wei had shoved a stack of files into my chest at 5:00 PM. "Zhao isn’t coming in. You’re doing his floor. And don't even think about leaving until these are audited. If there’s one mistake, your sister’s medical subsidy is gone. Clear?"It was Yue’s birthday. I had a plastic rose in my bag and a cupcakes box that was probably stale by now. I didn’t say a word. I just worked."Han Sen! Are you deaf?" I snapped my head up. A courier from the night desk was staring at me. He looked annoyed."The CEO’s son needs these documents at the Grand Imperial Hotel. Room 902. Now. Get moving, trash-boy."I grabbed the confidential manila envelope. My hands shook from the caffeine and the hunger. I didn't care about the hotel

The service elevator opened like a mechanical mouth spitting out filth. "Don't come back, Han," the guard grunted. He shoved me hard.I hit the asphalt. My palms scraped the grit. The rain was a freezing deluge that turned the city’s grime into a slick, black soup. I didn't get up. I just lay there, the water washing the copper taste of blood down my throat."Wait!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "My coat! My phone!" The steel door slammed shut. The bolt slid home. I was alone. Broken. Bankrupt.I dragged myself to my feet, my left ribcage screaming. I didn't go back to the hotel. I couldn't. I ran toward St. Jude’s. It was a rhythmic stumble, my shoes squelching in the puddles.At the hospital’s side entrance, I saw it. A pile of cardboard boxes. A threadbare blanket. A stack of journals and a stuffed rabbit with a missing ear. All of it was sitting in a gutter, soaking up the oily runoff."Hey! You!" I roared at a security guard under the awning. "Why is my sister’s stuff out here?"

The revolving glass doors of Nova-Tech didn't make a sound as I pushed through.The lobby was bustling. It was 8:58 AM. Corporate elites strutted in with $10 coffees and fake smiles. I didn't have a coffee. I didn't have a smile. I had the same suit from last night—torn, stained with dried mud, and stiff with my own crusty blood.I looked like a ghost that had crawled out of a shallow grave. The receptionist looked up. Her jaw dropped. "Han Sen? Is that... is that blood?"I didn't answer. I kept walking. My shoes made a wet, heavy thud on the polished marble."Hey! You! Stop right there!" A shrill, nasal voice pierced the air. Manager Wei.He was standing near the elevators, looking like the mid-level tyrant he was. He saw me. His face turned a violent purple."Han Sen?" Wei barked, storming toward me. "What the hell is this? You look like a goddamn vagrant!"I stopped five feet from him. I didn't say a word. I just watched him."I asked you a question, you piece of trash!" Wei screa

"You’re alive?" The words fell out of Zhao’s mouth like lead. His hand jerked. The crystal glass of 1945 Romanée-Conti slipped from his fingers, hitting the marble floor with a sharp, crystalline explosion. Red wine splattered across his white designer shoes, the color of fresh arterial spray. I didn't blink. I just kept walking.Lin Xiao scrambled backward, her heels clicking frantically against the floor. She ducked behind Zhao, using him as a human shield. Her eyes were wide, darting from the mud on my collar to the cold, dead look in my eyes. I saw the disgust there. I also saw a flickering, strange fear."Han Sen?" She whispered. "What are you... why do you look like that?""I look like the man you left in the rain," I said. My voice was a flat line.Zhao snapped out of his shock, his face contorting into a mask of pure, ugly arrogance. "I don't care how you got past the lobby, you cockroach. You think a black card makes you a king? It just makes you a target." He reached into

The air in the tenement district tasted like soot and desperation. I walked down the narrow alleyway, my blood-stained shirt sticking to my back. Nova-Tech was a mountain of glass and steel, but this place was a gutter. My "home."A thick plume of black smoke rose from the central courtyard. I rounded the corner and stopped.Old Man Geng was there. He was a squat, greasy man with a yellowed undershirt and a face that looked like a crumpled paper bag. He held a shovel in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Behind him stood three thugs—local muscle with cheap tattoos and dull eyes.They were standing around a rusted oil drum. A trash fire roared inside it."Careful with that one, boys," Geng cackled, pointing at a stack of worn textbooks. "Medical science is highly flammable."He kicked a box. My sister’s books—the ones I’d worked three jobs to buy her, spilled into the dirt. A thug grabbed a handful and tossed them into the flames."Stop," I said. My voice was quiet, but it carrie