Tòumíng grinned at the four armed men like they were old friends rather than security personnel who could kill him without consequence.
He walked closer, actually walked toward the guns, his hands dropping from their raised position to adjust a tie that didn't exist and wipe away imaginary blood from his nose in what he apparently thought was a cool action-hero gesture.
"Ehehehehe," he giggled, the sound completely unhinged.
Ghost Claw watched in absolute horror, unable to believe what she was witnessing.
Tòumíng stopped a few feet from the guards, struck what he probably thought was a badass pose, and delivered his line in that terrible American accent:
"You know what you get for being a hero? Nothin'. You get shot at."
He paused dramatically, as if waiting for a soundtrack to kick in. When no music materialized, because of course it didn't, this was real life, he started making his own theme song, whispering it like he was in a movie trailer.
"Dodododooooooo… doddodododod…"
The guards stared at him in complete confusion. One of them, a bald guy with a scar across his left eyebrow, looked particularly pissed off by whatever the hell this was.
The bald guard strode forward, clearly having run out of patience with this bizarre display. He pressed his gun directly against Tòumíng's forehead, the metal cold and hard, the pressure enough to push Tòumíng's head back slightly.
"ARE YOU STUPID?!" The bald guard's voice exploded with rage, his face going red. "DID YOU NOT GO TO HIGH SCHOOL?! OR ARE YOU JUST PLAIN SUICIDAL?! HELL, YOU MIGHT BE ALL THREE!"
The other guards were struggling to hold in their laughter, their professional composure cracking at the absurdity of watching their colleague lose it at this delusional teenager who apparently thought he was in an action movie.
But Tòumíng just kept grinning, his eyes slightly unfocused, his brain clearly running on pure adrenaline and movie quotes rather than any kind of survival instinct.
"I was in junior high, dickhead," he said, delivering the line with way too much confidence for someone with a gun pressed to his skull.
Another pause
.
Another whispered theme song.
"Dodododooooooo… doddodododod…"
The bald guard's face went from red to purple. He pressed the gun harder, his finger visibly tightening on the trigger, his voice rising to a near-scream.
"SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THAT NOISE! I WILL SHOOT YOU RIGHT NOW! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! RIGHT NOW!"
And then Tòumíng did the stupidest thing Ghost Claw had ever witnessed in her entire military and intelligence career.
He grabbed for the gun.
Not in a trained disarming technique. Not with proper hand positioning or leverage. Just reached up and grabbed the barrel like he was taking a toy from a child.
The bald guard was so shocked by the sheer stupidity and unpredictability of the action that he didn't react fast enough. His brain couldn't process that someone would actually try to grab a loaded gun that was pressed against their own forehead. It was so idiotic, so completely divorced from rational self-preservation, that it created a split-second of hesitation.
And in that split second, Tòumíng yanked the gun away.
The weapon came free from the guard's grip, mostly because the guard was too stunned to maintain proper weapon retention,and Tòumíng stumbled backward with it, his finger finding the trigger through pure luck rather than skill.
BANG.
The gun fired.
The bullet hit the bald guard's foot, punching through his boot and into the concrete floor beneath. The man screamed, his leg buckling, his hands going to the wound instinctively.
Tòumíng, riding a wave of adrenaline and complete delusion, swung the gun like a club and connected with the guard's jaw in a wild sucker punch that had more luck than technique behind it. The impact sent the already-off-balance guard stumbling sideways.
Then Tòumíng kicked out his leg, tripping the wounded man who fell hard onto his back, his head hitting the concrete with a painful thud.
Tòumíng stood over him, gun held awkwardly in both hands, his grin somehow even wider now, his eyes absolutely manic.
This was the coolest moment of his life. He was John McClane. He was an action hero. He was—
"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuc—"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Three shots rang out simultaneously from the other guards who had finally processed what was happening and reacted with trained precision.
All three bullets hit Tòumíng in the head.
One caught him just above the right ear. Another punched through his left temple. The third hit him dead center in the forehead, right where the bald guard's gun had been pressed moments ago.
Tòumíng's body went rigid, the stolen gun falling from his hands and clattering on the concrete. His eyes went wide, his mouth still open mid-quote, his brain trying to process the sudden catastrophic trauma before all neural function ceased.
Then he collapsed backward like a puppet with cut strings, his body hitting the floor hard, blood already pooling beneath his shattered skull.
Ghost Claw screamed—a sound of pure horror and disbelief, as the teenager she'd dragged into this insane operation died in front of her, killed because he'd thought he was in a fucking action movie.
The three remaining guards kept their weapons trained on his fallen body, ready to fire again if he somehow got back up.
He didn't.
Tòumíng lay there, motionless, three bullet wounds leaking brain matter and blood across the concrete floor of the underground storage room.
Dead.
Again.