Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“So, young lady, can you see anything?”

He kept his eyes on the road ahead, his tone suggesting nothing more than casual small talk.

I froze for a moment, then turned back and swallowed hard.

“Your eyebrows are shapeless and messy. It seems you have quite a temper, Driver.”

He tapped the steering wheel twice and chuckled. “You got that right. I’ve had a violent streak since I was a kid. Got beaten plenty for it, too.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all.”

I looked out the window, feeling guilty.

In truth, there was more.

His cheekbones were prominent and fleshless-the facial features of someone cruel and malicious.

Furthermore, his jaw was so wide it was visible from behind, a sign of someone likely to ‘slaughter the donkey once it’s finished the haul’-a person prone to betrayal.

If I had caught a glimpse of him before getting in, I never would have dared to step into this taxi.

But now that I was already on this ‘thief’s boat,’ I had no intention of provoking him. My best hope was to get through this peacefully.

Streetlights flickered outside the window. The road seemed uneven, perhaps due to a deep pothole.

*Thump.*

The taxi lurched violently, and a heavy, dull thud echoed from the trunk.

It sounded like a heavy object had bounced and hit the side of the compartment, followed by a faint groan.

*Thump-thump, thump-thump.*

That was the sound of my own heart racing.

I instinctively leaned toward the car door, staring at the blurred scenery outside to hide my trembling fingertips.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the Driver glance at me.

He lit a cigarette and offered a casual, vague explanation: “Just some local specialties I’m bringing back from my hometown in the trunk.”

I didn’t respond.

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but a sour, foul stench began to permeate the air-a mix of sweat, cigarette smoke, and the metallic tang of blood.

It was the first time I felt that a two-kilometer journey was exceptionally long.

There was no air conditioning in the car. The smell of blood grew thicker, and I could even hear a faint, dripping sound.

The Driver muttered a soft curse. His ‘sanpaku’ eyes-showing white on three sides-constantly flickered toward me through the reflection in the glass.

He didn’t seem to notice that my back was drenched in sweat. Maintaining his casual demeanor, he joked, “My grandad insisted on giving me a deer. It wasn’t even fully dead when it arrived.”

“Look at all that deer blood being wasted. What a shame.”

Fearing that silence would arouse his suspicion, I played along. “You look like you’re in good health, Driver. You don’t need that much deer blood to supplement your constitution.”

“Yeah, my health has always been pretty good,” he grunted, biting down on his cigarette.

Silence fell over the car again as we entered a dim tunnel. The overhead lights flashed past one after another.

As a beam of light hit his face, my eyes abruptly met a pair of wary, cold pupils through the glass reflection. The large amount of white in his eyes reminded me of a cold-blooded animal.

He whipped his gaze away instantly.

“Do you only know how to read faces, young lady?”

I held back my anxiety, checking the remaining distance on the navigation: three hundred meters.

“I know a bit of everything. I learned some things from my grandfather. Face reading is too imprecise; a person’s Bazi-their birth date and time-allows for a more detailed reading.”

Two hundred meters.

“Bazi, huh?” he repeated, seemingly searching his memory.

One hundred meters.

I quietly reached for the door handle, angling my body slightly to hide the movement of my hand.

In the distance, I could already see the entrance to my residential compound and the friendly old man in the security booth.

Ten meters!

Suddenly, there was the sound of fabric rubbing against fabric. A coarse, large hand clamped down over mine.

He violently yanked me back.

At the same time, the car let out a roar. The tires screeched against the pavement as the vehicle surged forward, bolting far away from my stop.