The city didn't sleep, not truly. It merely shifted its breath, exhaling the frantic energy of the day and inhaling the cooler, denser pulse of the night. Qí Hǔ moved through it like a shadow detaching itself from the deeper darkness, his worn running shoes silent on the damp pavement. His nightly run wasn't about fitness, not primarily. It was ritual. A way to stretch the coiled tension that lived permanently in his muscles, to let the rhythmic pounding of his feet on the ground momentarily drown out the quieter, more persistent pounding inside his skull. The hood of his dark grey sweatshirt was pulled low, casting his face into an anonymity he preferred. He knew these streets, these alleys, the way his own hands knew the texture of raw silk – intimately, without conscious thought. The daytime symphony of shouts, horns, and commerce had faded, replaced by the lower register of the city's nightlife: the distant thump of bass from a hidden club, the clatter of late-night delivery bikes, the murmured conversations drifting from dimly lit noodle stalls, the pervasive, damp smell of stone and the ever-present, slightly sour tang of the Huangpu carried on the breeze.
He kept to the narrower arteries, away from the glaring neon veins of the main thoroughfares. Past shuttered storefronts with their corrugated metal blinds locked down tight, past apartment blocks where flickering blue light leaked from curtained windows, past overflowing dumpsters that released their own pungent perfume into the humid air. His route was a circuit, a tightening loop that always brought him back to the alley mouth where Qi's Silken Threads stood, a silent sentinel in the perpetual twilight. Tonight, like every night, the final stretch involved a detour to the fluorescent oasis of the 'Lucky Star' 24-hour supermarket, a garish beacon at the corner where his alley met a slightly wider, busier lane.
Pushing through the humming glass doors felt like stepping onto a sterile stage. The air-conditioning was aggressive, instantly chilling the sweat on his neck beneath the hoodie. The lighting was unforgiving, bleaching colour and casting hard, angular shadows. The lone cashier, a young man with a constellation of acne across his forehead and eyes heavy with boredom, barely glanced up from his phone as the bell jangled. Qí Hǔ moved down the familiar aisles with the same silent efficiency he applied to everything. Breakfast was functional, not indulgent. A small bag of plain rice cakes, a bottle of cheap, chilled green tea, a single banana. He added a small carton of long-life milk – the kind that didn't require refrigeration until opened. He paid with exact, crumpled bills, avoiding the cashier's dull gaze, the coins landing in the tray with a flat clink. The plastic bag swung lightly from his hand as he stepped back into the embrace of the warm, humid night, the supermarket's harsh glare receding behind him like a bad dream.
The alley welcomed him back with its familiar cloak of shadows and damp stone. His footsteps echoed slightly louder now, the only sound beyond the distant, muffled thrum of the city. He passed Old Man Li's shuttered newsstand, the lingering scent of newsprint faint in the air. He passed the darkened mouth of Widow Feng's cramped haberdashery, its window display of dusty buttons and zippers invisible in the gloom. The comforting, resinous scent of sandalwood from his own shop, faint but distinct, began to reach him as he neared the familiar, weathered wooden door of Qi's Silken Threads. Almost home. The thought brought no warmth, only the promise of temporary cessation.
He was perhaps twenty paces from his door, the bag of groceries swinging rhythmically against his leg, when the shadows at the alley's dead end, just past his shop, seemed to solidify. Figures detached themselves from the deeper darkness near the overflowing dumpster. Not casual loiterers. Their posture spoke of coiled anticipation, of purpose. Five of them, young men, clad in dark, cheap synthetic tracksuits or baggy jeans and hoodies pulled up like his own, but worn as a uniform of intimidation, not anonymity. They moved with a loose-limbed swagger that didn't quite mask an underlying tension. They fanned out casually, blocking the alleyway ahead of him, cutting off his path to the shop door.
Qí Hǔ didn't break stride. He didn't speed up or slow down. His pulse, a steady drumbeat moments before, remained unchanged. He simply registered them – threat assessment instantaneous, ingrained. Their stances were amateurish, their centre of gravity high. They smelled of cheap cigarettes, cheaper alcohol, and sweat. His hand holding the plastic bag didn't tighten. He kept walking, eyes fixed straight ahead, looking through them as if they were insubstantial.
"Hey. Old man." The voice came from the largest of the five, a thick-necked youth with a shaved head and a silver chain glinting dully at his throat. He stepped directly into Qí Hǔ's path, forcing him to stop a few feet away. The others closed the semi-circle behind him, cutting off any retreat. Their faces were hard, eyes glittering with a mix of bravado and nervous energy in the dim light filtering down from a single, grimy bulb high on a wall.
Qí Hǔ stopped. He didn't look at the speaker. His gaze remained fixed on a point somewhere over the thug's shoulder, towards his shop door. Silence stretched, thick and heavy. The only sound was the distant city hum and the drip of condensation from a leaking pipe nearby.
The leader shifted, unnerved by the lack of reaction. "You deaf? I'm talking to you. Shopkeeper." He spat the word like an insult. "Qi's Silken Threads. That's you, right?"
Qí Hǔ remained motionless. The plastic bag hung loosely from his fingers.
"We hear you got something," another one piped up, a skinny kid with restless eyes darting everywhere. "Special thread. Cobalt. Real bright. Silk." He licked his lips. "Our boss, he wants it. All of it."
"Yeah," the leader chimed back in, puffing out his chest. "You hand it over, nice and quiet. No fuss. We walk away. You get to keep opening your little rag shop tomorrow." He took a step closer, invading Qí Hǔ's personal space. The smell of stale beer and garlic was strong. "You don't hand it over…" He let the threat hang, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "Well, let's just say silk ain't the only thing getting torn up tonight. Might be hard to thread a needle with broken fingers, old man."
Still, Qí Hǔ said nothing. His face, shadowed by the hood, revealed nothing. No fear, no anger, not even annoyance. It was the utter lack of reaction, the dismissal implicit in his silence, that finally snapped the leader's frayed control. The thug's face contorted. "Think you're tough, huh? Too good to talk?" He swung. A clumsy, telegraphed haymaker aimed at Qí Hǔ's hooded head.
It was the signal the others had been waiting for. They surged forward as one, a wave of cheap fabric and flailing limbs.
Time didn't slow for Qí Hǔ. It clarified. The clumsy punch was a lumbering, obvious trajectory. He didn't flinch. He didn't even seem to move his feet. A subtle shift of his upper body, a tilt of his head no more than an inch, and the fist whistled harmlessly past his ear, the force of the swing throwing the leader slightly off balance. Simultaneously, Qí Hǔ's left hand, the one not holding the groceries, shot out. Not a punch. A precise, lightning-fast strike with the rigid edge of his hand, driven from the shoulder. It connected with terrifying accuracy just below the leader's sternum, precisely over the solar plexus.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating. The leader's breath exploded from his lungs in a choked, agonized wheeze. His eyes bulged, all colour draining from his face. He didn't cry out; he couldn't. He simply folded in half like a puppet with its strings cut, collapsing onto the wet cobblestones, gasping soundlessly, utterly incapacitated.
The shock of seeing their leader drop without a sound froze the others for a split second. It was all the opening Qí Hǔ needed. He didn't wait for them to regroup. He flowed into the space created by the leader's collapse. The skinny kid was next, lunging with a wild, knife-handed stab. Qí Hǔ intercepted the wrist not with a block, but with a crushing grip that twisted tendons and bone. A sharp, sickening *crack* echoed in the alley, followed by a high-pitched shriek of pain as the kid crumpled, clutching his ruined wrist.
The remaining three attacked simultaneously, driven by panic and rage now. One swung a heavy chain he'd pulled from his pocket. Another aimed a kick at Qí Hǔ's knee. The third tried to grapple him from behind.
Qí Hǔ became a whirlwind of precise, brutal economy. He sidestepped the kick, letting the attacker's momentum carry him past. As the chain whistled through the air where his head had been, he stepped inside the swing, his elbow driving upwards in a short, vicious arc. It connected with the chain-wielder's jaw with a wet crunch. The man's head snapped back, eyes rolling white, and he dropped like a sack of wet rice, unconscious before he hit the ground.
The grappler behind him managed to get an arm around Qí Hǔ's neck. Qí Hǔ didn't struggle. He dropped his centre of gravity instantly, becoming impossibly heavy, then exploded upwards, driving the crown of his head backwards into the man's face. He felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage. The grip loosened with a gurgling cry. Qí Hǔ spun, a single, piston-like punch driving into the exposed diaphragm. The air left the man in a whoosh, and he doubled over, retching.
The kicker, momentarily unbalanced by his missed strike, was turning back when Qí Hǔ closed the distance. A single, precise knuckle strike, delivered with the speed of a viper, landed on the nerve cluster high on the thigh. The man's leg instantly buckled, numb and useless. He crashed to the stones, howling in pain and surprise.
The entire confrontation lasted less than ten seconds. The alley floor was a tableau of groaning, writhing misery. The leader was still curled on his side, gasping like a fish out of water. The skinny kid whimpered over his broken wrist. The chain-wielder lay utterly still. The one who'd tried to grapple was vomiting weakly. The kicker clutched his paralyzed leg, moaning. Qí Hǔ stood in the centre, breathing slightly faster than normal, but otherwise untouched. The plastic bag of groceries still hung from his right hand, undisturbed. He hadn't dropped it.
He looked down at the carnage, his expression unchanged. No triumph. No anger. Just a cold, detached assessment, like a mechanic surveying broken tools. He stepped carefully over the groaning leader, avoiding a puddle of sick, and walked the final few paces to his shop door. He unlocked it calmly, stepped inside, and placed the plastic bag containing the rice cakes, tea, banana, and milk carefully on the counter. Only then did he pull out his phone – an old, battered model – and dial the emergency number.
His voice, when he spoke to the dispatcher, was flat, devoid of inflection. "Alley behind Qi's Silken Threads on Fuxing Road. Five men. Assault. Injured. Send police and ambulance." He gave the address clearly, concisely, then hung up without waiting for a reply.
He didn't go back outside. He stood just inside his doorway, the dim light from within spilling out onto the first few feet of the alley, illuminating the twitching leg of the man he'd kicked. He watched them, listening to their pained groans and whimpers. He didn't offer help. He didn't speak. He simply waited, a silent statue framed by the doorway of his shop, the scent of sandalwood drifting out to mingle with the smells of fear, blood, and vomit.
The police arrived surprisingly quickly, two uniformed officers in a patrol car that couldn't navigate the alley. They approached cautiously, flashlights cutting through the gloom, their expressions shifting from wariness to disbelief as they took in the scene. Five young toughs, clearly the aggressors by their gear and demeanour, scattered on the ground like discarded toys, moaning in various states of distress, while the shopkeeper stood unharmed, looking utterly calm.
"You call this in?" the older officer asked, his flashlight beam lingering on Qí Hǔ's shadowed face under the hood.
"Yes." Qí Hǔ's voice was a low rumble.
"What happened?" The younger officer was already crouching by the leader, who was finally starting to draw ragged, painful breaths.
"They blocked my path," Qí Hǔ stated, his tone factual, unemotional. "Demanded something I don't have. Threatened me. Then attacked. I defended myself."
The older officer shone his light around the alley, taking in the lack of any obvious weapon near Qí Hǔ, the undisturbed bag on the counter just inside the door. He looked at the incapacitated thugs – the precise injuries, the lack of excessive blood or messy brawl damage. It looked… surgical. Efficient. Unnervingly so. "You defend yourself like this often?" he asked, a hint of scepticism in his voice.
"When necessary," Qí Hǔ replied simply.
The younger officer stood up from the leader. "This one's gonna need the hospital. Broken wrist over here. This one's nose is smashed… Jesus, what did you hit them with?"
"My hands," Qí Hǔ said.
The ambulance arrived then, its flashing lights painting the alley walls in lurid red and blue, adding a garish, chaotic element to the scene. Paramedics bustled in, assessing the groaning men, loading them onto stretchers. The police took Qí Hǔ's statement formally. Name. Address. Occupation. He answered tersely, truthfully. Qi Hǔ. Qi's Silken Threads. Shopkeeper. He described the demand for "cobalt silk thread," the threat, the first punch. He stated he acted only to stop the attack. He didn't elaborate on his methods. The officers exchanged looks. The story, backed by the scene, was plausible. Self-defence. But the sheer imbalance of it… it sat uneasily.
"You know why they'd ask for this… cobalt thread?" the older officer pressed, jotting notes.
"No," Qí Hǔ lied smoothly. The word tasted like ash.
"Know anyone who might have sent them? Anyone you've had trouble with recently?"
"No."
They asked a few more routine questions. He gave minimal, factual answers. They took his contact details. They didn't arrest him. The evidence, and the state of the attackers, spoke for itself. "We might need to speak to you again," the older officer said finally, snapping his notebook shut. "Stay available."
Qí Hǔ nodded once. The ambulance pulled away, siren wailing into the night, carrying its cargo of pain. The police lingered for a few more minutes, taking photos, then left with a final, searching look at the impassive shopkeeper. The alley plunged back into relative quiet, the only sounds the dripping pipe and the distant city. The red and blue lights faded, leaving only the weak glow of the single alley bulb and the dim light spilling from Qi's Silken Threads.
Qí Hǔ stepped back inside. He locked the door. He walked past the groceries still sitting on the counter. He didn't look at them. He climbed the narrow stairs to his room, moving with the same silent precision as always, though the air felt heavier, thicker. In the small, spartan bathroom, he turned on the shower. He stripped off his clothes, dropping them in a heap on the floor. He stood under the hot water, letting it sluice over his skin, over his muscles that felt coiled and humming, not with exertion, but with the cold, controlled fury he'd channelled into precise violence. The water ran grey for a moment, carrying away the grime of the alley, the sweat, perhaps even the faintest trace of blood spray. But it couldn't touch the deeper stain, the one that felt like it had seeped back into his bones.
He scrubbed methodically, focusing on the physical sensation, the heat, the pressure of the water. He didn't think about the shattered wrist, the broken nose, the paralyzing strike. He didn't think about Jin's oily insinuation the day before. He didn't think about cobalt silk thread pulsing faintly in its drawer downstairs. He thought about nothing. He willed his mind blank. The water turned clear, then began to cool. He turned it off.
He dried himself with rough efficiency, pulled on clean, worn cotton sleep pants. He walked back into the small bedroom. The city's glow, muted through the thin curtain, provided the only light. He didn't turn on a lamp. He lay down on the thin mattress. The springs groaned softly. He stared up at the ceiling, invisible in the gloom.
Outside, the city's nocturnal rhythm continued, oblivious. A siren wailed in the distance, unrelated. Laughter echoed briefly from another alley. The familiar hum was a constant. Inside Qi's Silken Threads, the silence was absolute. The sandalwood scent from downstairs couldn't penetrate up here. Only the faint, metallic aftertaste of adrenaline lingered on his tongue, and the cold, hard knot of certainty in his gut. The fragile peace of his carefully constructed isolation hadn't just been threatened; it had been shattered. The unwelcome committee had delivered their message, loud and clear, in broken bones and whimpering pain. The past wasn't just knocking. It was kicking the door down. Qí Hǔ closed his eyes, not seeking sleep, but imposing stillness. The night stretched before him, long and watchful. He didn't move again until the first, grey light of dawn began to seep through the curtain, signalling the start of another day's routine, the threads of his world now visibly frayed.