Ning Zhuo and Shan Feibai were taking a post-meal stroll.
Ning Zhuo’s face was numb, his body slightly stiff.
This had nothing to do with last night’s events.
It was simply that he didn’t know how to “relax.”
Since age thirteen, he’d been in a constant sprint, sleeping little, even dreaming as if awake.
In prison, he kept charging forward on sheer momentum.
Now, with the brakes gradually applied, he was expected to play, enjoy, and act carefree, ready to adapt on the fly.
But in truth, he was deeply unaccustomed to this sudden slowdown.
Ning Zhuo had no idea how to play or enjoy.
The best entertainment he could think of was walking.
After observing him, Shan Feibai vaguely guessed his struggle and decided to break the ice by being annoying. “The food’s still bad.”
Ning Zhuo turned, glancing at him sharply. “You can choose to starve.”
Shan Feibai’s face scrunched into vivid, lively distress.
Seeing him unhappy oddly cheered Ning Zhuo up. He pinched Shan Feibai’s handsome face. “Do your job well before you start picking and choosing.”
Shan Feibai let out a sincere “Ah.” “Was last night’s job no good?”
Ning Zhuo: “…If you can’t learn to talk like a human, sit with the dogs next time, not at the table.”
Shan Feibai laughed, his small dimples appearing, tempting someone to poke them. “What’re we doing now?”
Ning Zhuo dismissed the stray thought, answering curtly, “Walking.”
Shan Feibai: “Walking’s boring.”
Ning Zhuo stared at the sky, deadpan. “It’s interesting.”
Shan Feibai: “It’s not! Let’s play games.”
Ning Zhuo paused. “Not interested.”
Shan Feibai grabbed his sleeve.
Ning Zhuo: “Tch.”
He pointed at Shan Feibai, warning him not to touch.
Shan Feibai eyed the steel-like finger, seizing it before Ning Zhuo could pull back, spinning happily. “I’ll teach you.”
Stunned by his audacity, Ning Zhuo’s fingers twitched but didn’t break free.
“Haina” had a game room.
Ning Zhuo had only entered to meet Boss Fu, otherwise steering clear.
Surveying the VIP prison zone’s game area, Ning Zhuo suspected Boss Fu would never want to leave.
The electronic game zone spanned over 700 square meters, packed with everything from 3D holographic projectors to virtual reality VR, from classic FC consoles to old-school arcade machines, from ancient tic-tac-toe games to Interest Company’s latest hit, Happy Silver Hammer Island.
Loathing anything tied to Interest Company, Ning Zhuo let Shan Feibai dig up a cartridge-based game from some corner—simple, easy to learn. The goal: drive a tank, charge through enemies, and rescue hostages.
Growing up, Ning Zhuo was cut off from any entertainment requiring money. When Shan Feibai shoved the controller into his hands, he held it upside down.
Noticing, Shan Feibai stifled a laugh, patiently explaining each button’s function.
At first, Ning Zhuo’s tank barreled recklessly, exploding repeatedly under enemy fire.
But he approached everything seriously, treating the game like a critical task.
Gradually, he got the hang of it, playing competently, though his spine stayed ramrod straight, posture rigid, less like relaxing and more like striving for perfection in a work assignment.
Shan Feibai, less tense, cleared his side’s enemies with quick reflexes, then, with nothing to do, drove his tank in circles around Ning Zhuo’s.
“You herding me?” Ning Zhuo, too focused to spare a glance, nudged Shan Feibai’s knee with his own. “Watch the road.”
Kicked, Shan Feibai: “…” Ning-ge, cute.
His tank zipped ahead.
After a while, Shan Feibai called to Ning Zhuo, parked his tank in a hidden spot, and leaned down, rubbing his eyes intently.
Ning Zhuo caught the movement from the corner of his eye. “What’s wrong?”
Shan Feibai: “Eyes are sore.”
His color perception was poor, and this retro game’s enemies blended into the background.
Moving objects were manageable, but bunkers? He only spotted them when they fired, revealing they weren’t just buildings.
To distinguish the similar colors, Shan Feibai strained his eyes, naturally tiring them.
As he rubbed, Ning Zhuo kept clearing monsters nearing him on screen. “Where’re those glasses I gave you?”
Mid-question, Ning Zhuo recalled asking before, answering himself, “Oh, someone smashed them.”
Shan Feibai paused, thinking back to that distant day.
He chuckled.
Ning Zhuo: “What’s funny?”
“Nothing.” Shan Feibai: “By the way, Ning-ge, why’d you give me those glasses?”
Ning Zhuo didn’t turn. “Didn’t I make it clear back then?”
He had.
Very clear.
Both stared at the game’s blood-and-fire chaos, their minds slipping into a shared memory.
…
Shan Feibai’s eye condition was congenital.
While he couldn’t discern the world’s colors, Shan Feibai’s vision was exceptionally sharp, hardly a waste of the scenery.
As a child, a checkup revealed his color weakness.
His grandmother wanted to treat it, but young Shan Feibai, feeling that “losing color” didn’t affect his life much, feared treatment would cut into playtime. He clung to her, wheedling playfully.
His grandmother wasn’t one to force things.
If he didn’t want treatment, so be it—it wasn’t a serious issue.
After she passed, no one cared whether his eyes saw color.
His father didn’t even know about his condition.
Shan Feibai never told anyone else, not Ning Zhuo, not “Panqiao.”
He grew accustomed to a black-white-gray world, as if it were meant to be.
One day, Shan Feibai took a job.
The task: protect a shipment of black-market counterfeit drugs. His partner: Ning Zhuo.
In Silver Hammer City, their feud was legendary.
The city’s factions were a tangled web. When someone wanted something done, opposing interests always sought to sabotage it.
Thus, Ning Zhuo and Shan Feibai were often hired by rival factions, wielded as weapons against each other.
To ensure success, some cleverly hired both “Haina” and “Panqiao” to guard the same job, stripping their enemies of the chance to exploit their rivalry.
As mercenaries, they didn’t turn down money.
On this job, Ning Zhuo, as usual, ignored him.
Shan Feibai barely got two words in.
The transport, predictably, hit a snag.
United Health wouldn’t tolerate counterfeit drugs cutting into their profits.
The manufacturer, cunning as a fox, had gone into hiding.
This overt transport route naturally became United Health’s prime target.
They came with a kill-to-warn mindset, aiming to hurt them so badly that Silver Hammer’s mercenaries would never touch counterfeit drug jobs again.
The two sides met, exchanged no words, and dove straight into a deathmatch.
The fight erupted at an old dock by the seaport.
Residents had long moved out. Straggling vagrants, startled by gunfire, scurried into basements like frightened birds.
Knowing they had a sniper, the enemy had set up an automated turret, using infrared to indiscriminately track lifeforms on nearby high-rises.
Amid a fireworks-like barrage, Shan Feibai, sniper rifle in hand, fired, relocated, and darted through abandoned buildings like a deer, bullets chasing him in typewriter bursts, spraying cement and shattering tiles.
During a brief lull as the turret’s magazine emptied and reloaded, he spun, firing a single shot that hit the turret’s ammo feed.
It went silent.
Whistling smugly in the gunfire’s echo, Shan Feibai peered down from a window, catching Ning Zhuo sweep a bioroid off a truck with a kick, roll to the ground, grab its twisted neck, and hurl it into the sea.
The splash was followed by a muffled boom, the water erupting in a towering spray.
—An explosive bioroid.
Ning Zhuo, close to the blast, staggered back two steps, barely steadying himself when iron-like arms lunged from behind, locking him in a crushing embrace.
Another explosive bioroid.
Ning Zhuo reacted swiftly, blasting half the bioroid’s arm off with a right-hand strike, gaining a sliver of freedom.
But the bioroid felt no pain.
It slithered back like an eel, entangling Ning Zhuo like an octopus.
At point-blank range, a sharp, cold mechanical countdown ticked in Ning Zhuo’s ear.
Fifty meters away, that sound pierced Shan Feibai’s eardrums like a spike.
Blood roared to his head.
As he raised his rifle, footsteps crunched on gravel behind him.
—Someone was coming.
Shan Feibai didn’t care.
He aimed at the bioroid’s left rear chest and fired.
He knew he was gambling.
Hit the core, and it would shut down, no explosion.
But his shot could also detonate the explosives inside, turning Ning Zhuo into a fireball.
His heart sizzled like it was frying, yet his aim was eerily steady.
No time. Bet on luck. Bet on fate.
With a gunshot, the bioroid lurched forward, pinning Ning Zhuo beneath it.
Good news: no explosion.
Bad news: it didn’t stop.
And the footsteps behind Shan Feibai were closing in.
Straddling the window ledge, legs dangling, calm as still water, he aimed at the bioroid’s right chest and fired again.
Simultaneously, a blast from Ning Zhuo’s direction made Shan Feibai’s eyelids twitch so hard it hurt.
Ning Zhuo had blown off most of the bioroid’s right leg but still couldn’t break free from its suffocating grip.
Explosive bioroids were built for one purpose: mutual destruction with people, objects, or buildings.
It was set to fulfill its mission.
Shan Feibai clearly heard the approaching footsteps and the click of a gun being cocked behind him.
He didn’t glance back—there was no time.
His third shot, fired in sync with the enemy behind, targeted the bioroid’s head.
He’d avoided the head earlier, not for lack of confidence, but because its size made it a risky target. If it held explosives instead of the core, disaster.
But he had no choice now.
As a bead of cold sweat slid down his cheek, his bullet flew, and with a gunshot from behind, his body pitched forward, plummeting from the high-rise.
Ning Zhuo didn’t die in an explosion.
The bioroid, stubbornly clinging to him, intent on shared destruction, went limp at the last second, its mangled head slumping onto Ning Zhuo’s shoulder, motionless.
Ning Zhuo paid it no mind.
Because he’d just watched Shan Feibai fall.
His heart dropped three stories, only to see the kid sling his rifle strap, hooking a protruding rebar on the outer wall with perfect precision.
Holding the rifle horizontally, Shan Feibai made a cheeky face at the sky, then leaped through a drafty, broken window, vanishing sprightly into the dark building.
Three pricey explosive cyborgs: one hurled into the sea by Ning Zhuo, one thwarted in a suicide attack, dismantled into scrap by their combined efforts, and the last detonated early by Shan Feibai, bursting into a dazzling mini-firework.
The enemy’s plan collapsed, and they retreated in disgrace.
Ning Zhuo and Shan Feibai preserved both the cargo and their reputation, with minimal damage—a major victory.
Feeling he’d done a stellar job, Shan Feibai bounded over to Ning Zhuo, only to be met with a tirade. “Shan, are you blind or deaf? Someone was behind you—couldn’t see or hear them?”
Shan Feibai scratched his ear, grazed by a bullet, and quipped, “Blind, blind. If you were dying, I wouldn’t see a thing.”
Just a cheeky jab.
Ning Zhuo ignored him and walked off.
Three days later, at the “Panqiao” base, Shan Feibai received a delivery.
Inside was a pair of round-framed glasses with pink-tinted lenses.
—He knew they were pink from the manual, which clearly stated: “Girly Pink.”
A note came with it: “If you’re blind, get it fixed.”
“Panqiao” members saw the pink lenses and erupted.
A guy wearing *that*?
Ning Rabbit’s mocking them!
It’s a trap—probably a bomb!
They hated it, but Shan Feibai liked it.
He held up the glasses to inspect them closely.
Then, he froze.
Beyond the lenses, he saw a strange new world.
He couldn’t describe it, but the gray, dreary world he’d grown tired of suddenly blazed with vividness.
Clouds were lead-gray, not the dead ash he knew, edged with a radiant halo, a beauty he’d never seen.
Turning to his comrades, glasses raised, the washed-out people in his eyes burst into vibrant color.
At the lens’s edge, the boundary of this colorful world, he spotted half a fingerprint.
Ning Zhuo’s, from trying them on.
Shan Feibai didn’t suspect anyone else—store clerks wouldn’t be so careless, and no subordinate had the guts to mishandle Ning-ge’s gift.
Without lingering, he pocketed the glasses and left the “Panqiao” base.
In a rush, he slung a cello case with his sniper rifle over his shoulder, racing through half of foggy Silver Hammer City.
He didn’t know where Ning Zhuo was.
He just had to find him.
Find him and ask how he’d uncovered his eye secret.
After all those years…
When he hadn’t told him.
As sunlight pierced the thick clouds like a spear, casting a glow on his shoulder, he spotted Ning Zhuo ten kilometers from “Haina” on a street.
By chance, Ning Zhuo, having lost a rock-paper-scissors bet, was out buying afternoon tea.
Carrying a bag of drinks, he leaned against the red-brick wall outside a bakery.
Min Min was inside picking bread.
With bad weather emptying the streets, Shan Feibai had ample time to ask his questions.
But he didn’t approach.
He chose a high vantage point, lying low.
Gasping, he pulled out the glasses, carefully placed them on his nose, opened the cello case, and took out his trusty sniper rifle. Through the scope, he gazed at Ning Zhuo from afar.
His first time wearing the corrective glasses, his first time truly seeing someone.
Ning Zhuo sensed something, looking up.
Those cold, restrained, gem-pure eyes met Shan Feibai’s, piercing his heart.
Shan Feibai’s scope glinted, and Ning Zhuo saw him. Raising his right hand, steel index finger curled, he mimed a gun, pointing at Shan Feibai’s position—a silent “I see you.”
Shan Feibai didn’t move, just stowed his rifle, showing only his glassed face, watching Ning Zhuo from a distance.
Ning Zhuo smirked, finding him childish, flaunting the gift as if Ning Zhuo cared whether he’d received it.
Meanwhile, Shan Feibai’s heart burned, tightening. He pressed a hand to it to quiet its loud thumping.
Murmuring to himself, “My green eyes.”
…
Shan Feibai focused on the game screen, saying softly, “The day I got the glasses, I used them to look at the stars.”
Ning Zhuo recalled parts of that day.
It was a smoggy day.
He’d barely made out Shan Feibai’s face.
Impressed by the kid’s lying skills, he called him out. “Silver Hammer City had no stars that day.”
Shan Feibai was stubbornly insistent. “There were.”
Ning Zhuo kept steering his tank in-game, humoring his nonsense. “What, the whole sky?”
Shan Feibai: “Not that many. Just two. Took me a while to find them.”
His tone slowed, unusually gentle, head dipping with a rare tenderness. “They were beautiful… really great. I’m just bad at describing.”
Ning Zhuo let out a short, skeptical hum. “…Hm?”
Half for Shan Feibai’s vague words, half for someone approaching swiftly behind them.
Jin Hu arrived, standing there, cutting to the chase. “…Mr. Motobu Takeshi wants to see you.”
