Chapter Three: The Quivering Bullet

The entire world, within Xiao Ran’s perception, began to twist and distort.

[Flashback – Auditory]

The shouts of her team in the bookstore, the growls of the criminal, even the pounding of her own heart—all of it receded and faded swiftly. In their place surged the amplified, ragged “huh-huh” sounds from the child’s throat. This sound, buried deep in her memory, overlapped perfectly with the dying, blood-choked gasps of her partner years ago in that bloody warehouse—a partner she’d wounded by mistake, whose breath gurgled with death.

[Flashback – Visual]

The yellowed bookstore lights and crowded bookshelves melted and wavered like wax. Another vision, ghostly and insistent, forced itself into her sight—the dark, damp warehouse, the air thick with blood and gunpowder, the terrorists’ twisted grins, the hostages’ terrified faces, and then—her partner, sprawled in a pool of blood, eyes shifting from shock and confusion to the emptiness of death.

Two timelines frantically interlaced and flashed through her mind!

[Flashback – Tactile]

She instinctively raised her hand and drew her sidearm from her belt. Yet the weapon, once so familiar it felt like part of her body, was no longer cold metal in her grip. Now it was searing, heavy, and sticky, as though forever stained with hot, unyielding blood.

“Leader? Leader!” Her subordinate’s anxious voice crackled through the earpiece, distant and muffled as if from behind a thick curtain of water.

She raised her gun.

She aimed the sight squarely at the criminal’s brow.

But in her vision, the criminal’s face kept shifting and merging with that terrorist’s visage from years ago. And the child in his arms, clad in Ultraman pajamas, transformed into her fallen partner’s face—twisted in pain, questioning her.

No…no…once again, it’s a child…

You’ll lose control…just as you did back then…

You’ll kill him!

The curse from her past gripped her throat mercilessly.

She froze in place, pallid, pupils dilated, breath quick and ragged.

And her hand—once the steadiest in the entire system, capable of hitting the edge of a coin from a hundred meters—now trembled uncontrollably, violently.

The muzzle wavered so fiercely she couldn’t lock onto her target at all.

At this moment, her psyche had been completely hijacked by traumatic memory.

“Choose.”

A cold, unfamiliar voice suddenly echoed within her.

It was the “rational” Xiao Ran, issuing a final ultimatum to the Xiao Ran seized by trauma.

Either pull the trigger, stake everything, and repeat the tragedy of the past.

Or…let go.

Xiao Ran bit hard into her tongue, the sharp pain slicing through her chaos and restoring a sliver of clarity.

She made a move that left everyone dumbstruck.

Slowly, she bent down and gently placed her loaded pistol on the cold floor.

Then she straightened, raised both hands with palms facing forward, signaling no threat.

It was an act of painful self-shedding; she forcibly cast aside her identity as a “sharpshooter”—that source of endless glory and pain—along with her gun.

“What…what are you doing?” The criminal was bewildered by her unexpected action.

Xiao Ran drew a deep breath. When she spoke again, the tremor had vanished from her voice; she was once more the “absolutely composed” state security agent.

“You don’t really want to kill,” she said, advancing toward him step by step. “You’re a handler. You’re after money, not lives.”

As she spoke, she discreetly tapped her old scar on her left wrist twice with her right thumb—a prearranged “Plan B” signal with the leader of Team A, indicating a coordinated surround.

“You’re holding a child hostage. In the city center. Do you really think you can escape this street?”

Her voice, sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, began peeling away the criminal’s psychological defenses.

He was intimidated by her presence, stepping back instinctively, attention fixed entirely on her. He didn’t notice the shadowy figures on the second-floor gallery above—team members silently taking position like spiders.

“If you release him now, it’s just a financial crime and resisting arrest—ten years at most,” Xiao Ran continued, each word hammering into his mind. “But if you hurt him, it’s murder and kidnapping. That’s life or death. And when that happens, not only you, but the sharks behind you will wipe out everyone who knows you for their own safety…including your parents back home, and the wife waiting for you to return…”

Her gaze locked onto the “Fisherman’s” eyes. When she mentioned “parents” and “wife,” she saw fear, but he withstood it.

Moments earlier, in a fit of agitation, his free hand had instinctively touched the inner pocket of his jacket—a protective gesture she caught perfectly.

Now, it was time to throw the fatal blow.

She paused deliberately, then spoke with piercing certainty.

“…If I’m not mistaken, the photo you keep by your heart is your son—still in elementary school, isn’t it?”

Boom—

Her words detonated like a nuclear blast in the “Fisherman’s” mind.

He was utterly stunned, the color draining from his face, his eyes wide with disbelief and terror.

A devil! This woman was a devil—how could she possibly know his deepest secret?

His last psychological defense collapsed completely. His grip on the knife faltered, trembling with fear.

Now!

“Choose!”

Xiao Ran’s final command sounded the call to action.

At that instant, Team A’s operatives, long hidden on the second floor, descended in silence on rappelling ropes—appearing behind and to the sides of the criminal like gods from the sky.

Simultaneously, agents on the ground floor sprang forth from between the bookshelves and the emergency exit, pouncing like leopards.

A three-dimensional assault from all directions gave the criminal no time to react.

With a heavy thud, he was pinned to the ground, his knife flying from his hand.

The entire operation flowed seamlessly, lasting less than three seconds.

The crisis was over.

The little boy was rescued. A female officer rushed to him, wrapping him in her coat and cradling him.

Relieved sighs filled the bookstore as the team’s tension melted away.

Xiao Ran walked silently to the wall, retrieved her gun, and slid it back into its holster. Leaning against the cold bookshelf, she realized her back was soaked with cold sweat.

“Leader.” Her subordinate, Old K, approached, his expression grave as he handed her a sealed evidence bag containing a USB drive. “We found this on him.”

Xiao Ran took the USB. “Have the tech team examine it…”

She went on to reassure the mother and child. Once they were calm and the team prepared to withdraw, Old K hurried over, a trace of shock in his voice.

“The tech team did a preliminary crack… The encryption method inside—it’s exactly the same as that case five years ago, when Senior Lu Hongsheng was killed in action…”

Xiao Ran’s pupils contracted sharply.

Two lines that once seemed destined never to cross, now, because of this tiny USB drive, began to converge upon a single point.

She turned to gaze into the unfathomable night outside the window, murmuring softly,

“It seems I must…pay a visit to an old acquaintance.”