He expected to see a look of panic on Mao Akai's face, but the blonde woman who had been toying with him all this time merely looked entirely at ease.
"Go ahead." Mao Akai stopped her pursuit, looking at the man as if watching a farce.
A wave of ominous foreboding washed over the man. He roared, "You did this on purpose! You were playing with me, weren't you?"
Mao Akai shook her head. She spread her arms, and the razor blades wedged between her fingers clattered to the ground one by one.
"Come on. Shoot me."
Mao Akai looked at the man with a gaze full of pity. She stood right where she was, motionless, a bizarre smile hanging on her pretty face.
"Ah! Ahhh!" Unable to take the psychological torment, the man raised his gun with both hands and pulled the trigger. Yet the scene he had imagined did not happen; Mao Akai stood there completely unharmed.
What is going on?!
What is going on?!
The man pulled the trigger like a madman, the pistol clicking rapidly as he pressed it, but the weapon seemed broken, unable to fire a single bullet.
"How can this be? How can this be?" The man was on the verge of a breakdown. He shook the pistol, and soon he discovered that the magazine was gone.
"I believe you are looking for this." Mao Akai drew a magazine from her chest pocket.
"When did you get it?" The man's voice was dry, and his body began to tremble.
"When?" Mao Akai twirled the magazine in her fingers. "Probably the first time I got close to you. Speaking of which, you really weren't very careful, actually leaving your gun in such an obvious spot."
As she spoke, she closed in on the man, backing him into a corner.
"No... Please, don't..." He looked helplessly past Mao Akai, hoping that the fat man would come to his rescue.
Unfortunately, that person didn't even glance their way.
"Well, it's time to say goodbye to this world." Mao Akai gently took the gun from his hand and inserted the magazine.
Just as she raised the weapon, the front door was thrown open, and the fat man scrambled frantically toward the exit.
Bang!
Bang!
After two gunshots, the hope frozen on the fat man's face solidified as he collapsed in the doorway. Meanwhile, the battered man right in front of Mao Akai fell to the ground before her, sheer despair written all over his face.
Mao Akai stowed both guns away. "Too bad. My left hand is just as nimble as my right."
Stepping out of the secluded warehouse, Mao Akai started the car of some unfortunate soul who wouldn't be needing it anymore and headed for the target's hidden safe house. Shortly after her departure, Gin dispatched a peripheral operative to check on things. Before the man even drew close, he caught the heavy stench of blood.
"Lord Gin..." The operative dialed Gin's number, his face drained of color. "Dead! Everyone in the warehouse is dead!"
Upon hearing this news, Gin initially thought he must have misheard. Scarlet had died just like that? Narrowing his eyes with suspicion, he ordered the peripheral operative to report every single detail of what he had seen.
When he realized that everyone except Mao Akai was dead, he cursed under his breath for useless trash and abruptly hung up the phone.
The poor peripheral operative assumed Gin was chewing him out. He slumped to the ground in despair, shivering all over.
This very scene happened to be witnessed by the police who had rushed to the scene after receiving a report. Unable to find the real killer through their investigation, this innocent peripheral operative became the scapegoat for the entire incident.
Meanwhile, Mao Akai drove deep into the mountains; the target's safe house was located right at the peak.
She knew the location so well because her previous targets happened to be three people connected to this operation.
After eliminating the first two, she found she could no longer locate the third. Pulling strings through various channels, she finally discovered that the individual had gone into hiding. Just as she finished making preparations to deal with that person, Rum informed her that the mission was terminated and she needed to report to a specific location to receive a new assignment.
Upon arriving at the rendezvous point, she learned that Rum had thrust her into a qualification test for a ranked agent, and the assignment happened to be identical to her unfinished mission. That was why she had asked Gin to confirm if it was indeed their task.
What she hadn't anticipated, however, was how well-informed Gin was. The moment she asked that question, Gin knew that the trial he had arranged had been disrupted by Rum, which was why he stipulated that only a single person could pass the evaluation.
Although Gin had heard that Scarlet was reckless during missions, he never expected that the drug he had left behind would have so little effect on Mao Akai, nor that the three Organization members would prove so utterly incompetent, posing no threat to her whatsoever.
Yet just as Gin had used Organization members to undermine Mao Akai, Mao Akai could use those three individuals to transmit certain information back to MI6.
She had eliminated two of them using the bullets and techniques she customarily employed as a bounty hunter. Once those bodies were discovered, her handler and Madam M would undoubtedly recognize that those three had been dispatched by her.
Ever since she had infiltrated the Organization, she had been out of contact for over half a year. Seeing the traces she left behind once again, her superiors would surely deduce that the events in that room were linked to the Organization.
Just as she predicted, the horrifying warehouse murders alarmed the local police. MI6 agents stationed in the area uploaded the intelligence, and upon seeing the red bullet among the evidence, Mao Akai's handler quickly realized that this must be a message she was sending them.
Knowing that his student was still alive, he used his authority to suppress the matter. They had the local MI6 operative covertly obstruct the police investigation while pinning the blame on the suspicious individual who had appeared at the scene.
Unable to make any headway after half a month of investigation and desperate to appease public pressure, the police officially named that person the murderer. While in custody, that individual was silenced by the Organization, turning the warehouse murders into an unsolved mystery whose case file was permanently shelved.
...
Mao Akai parked her car amidst a secluded patch of bushes, put on her gloves, tucked her cuffs and pant legs in, and braided her hair up to tuck it inside a cap. She then hiked up the mountain, stopping on the mountainside about a thousand meters away from the safe house.
She had scouted the location beforehand and knew that a perimeter of security cameras began about five hundred meters from the safe house, with bodyguards patrolling around the clock. Anyone attempting to sneak in would be intercepted by the target's hired guards.
Aside from the cameras and bodyguards, a ring of landmines surrounded the safe house, and the safe path was known only to the person who had laid them.
Although the safe house was stocked with supplies, it obviously wasn't enough to sustain that shady gentleman and his guards indefinitely. Thus, once a week, a supply vehicle would arrive to deliver the necessary provisions for the security personnel and their employer.
This week's supply truck was due to arrive in a single day—and it was Mao Akai's only way to slip past the surveillance.