Washington D.C., a drizzly night rain.
Steve Rogers's apartment was pitch black, with only the neon light filtering through the window faintly outlining the furniture. The air was filled with the sound of jazz from an old record player, and... a faint smell of something burnt and the metallic tang of blood.
Nick Fury sat in a single armchair deep in the shadows. His iconic leather trench coat was in tatters, his arm wrapped in a makeshift bandage. While not on death's door, as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he had never been in such a sorry state.
"Don't turn on the light."
Seeing Steve, who had just entered, reach for the switch, Fury immediately whispered to stop him. He struggled to sit up straight, pointed at the ceiling, then at his ear, and quickly typed a line on his phone screen, showing it to Steve.
[The walls have ears.]
[S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised. I trust no one but you.]
Steve frowned, preparing to move closer to ask questions.
Suddenly, the old record player, which wasn't even plugged in, automatically changed tracks. A cheerful circus tune, utterly incongruous with the tense atmosphere, abruptly blared out (FC Circus BGM).
"I say, you two, it's not the time for charades, is it?"
With a lazy voice, the apartment's slightly ajar window was pushed open, letting in a gust of damp, cold air. Lin Huai jumped down from the windowsill like a guest making himself at home, casually tossing a silver coin in his hand.
"Lin?" Steve lowered the shield he had raised, his face full of bewilderment. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to give spoilers." Lin Huai walked between the two men, glanced at Fury on the sofa. "Director, your men—those HYDRA brats—should already be on their way here to 'clean up the scene,' right? Oh, and I took something out of your place."
Lin Huai pulled a blood-stained USB drive from his pocket—the very one he had taken from S.H.I.E.L.D.—and tossed it directly to Fury.
Fury caught the USB drive, his single eye widening sharply. "You hacked the internal network?"
"That's spoils of war." Lin Huai didn't elaborate further, but his expression suddenly turned cold, his gaze shooting towards the dark night sky outside the window. "But now's not the time for that. Get down!!"
A spiritual intuition, sharp as needles, instantly exploded across Lin Huai's entire body!
At the exact same moment he shouted.
"Bang—!"
Hundreds of meters away, on the roof of an office building, a special silenced sniper rifle spat fire. A specially made, large-caliber armor-piercing round tore through the curtain of rain, easily piercing the apartment's brick wall, aiming straight for Fury's heart!
Under the horrified gazes of Steve and Fury, Lin Huai didn't dodge. Instead, with astonishing speed, he raised his left hand, his fingertips holding a thin, yellow paper effigy he had been playing with just moments before, and placed it with pinpoint accuracy in the bullet's path!
"Hiss!"
A high-speed impact impossible for the naked eye to follow.
The bullet, powerful enough to Pierce an armored vehicle, upon touching the fragile paper effigy, was as if it had hit an invisible wall of sighs. Its kinetic energy bizarrely vanished completely.
The next second.
"Whoosh—"
The paper effigy in Lin Huai's hand spontaneously combusted without fire, instantly turning into a cloud of orange-red ashes that scattered.
[Paper Clone Substitutes]!
Lin Huai used the paper effigy to "substitute" for Fury, taking this certain-death blow.
"Who?!"
Steve reacted with lightning speed, grabbing his shield and rushing to the window. He saw a dark figure on the opposite rooftop quickly packing up the rifle and retreating.
"Wait a bit before chasing." Lin Huai shook his slightly numb fingers, stopping Steve. He turned to look at Fury, whose face was pale and who had finally realized how close he had come to death, a hint of madness curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Nick, see that? Pierce wants you dead. And he's willing to go to any lengths, even using 'that asset,' to silence you."
Lin Huai pointed outside the window.
"Since they're so eager to hold your funeral... why don't we oblige them?"
"What do you mean?" Fury pressed on his wound, narrowing his eyes.
"It means you have to 'die' once today." Lin Huai's tone brooked no argument. "Only the dead can completely disappear from HYDRA's surveillance net. And only when you're 'dead' will Pierce think he's won, will he reveal his flaws and activate that damned Insight Project, giving us the chance to wipe them all out."
"You want me to fake my death?" As a spymaster, Fury instantly grasped the intent.
"Not just fake death." Lin Huai, who now held a bottle of dark green, pungent-smelling potion in his hand (actually concocted from several sedative herbs using a Magician's technique), said, "This is also a magic show prepared for your old friend."
He looked at Steve.
"Captain, you saw it too. That assassin has a metal arm beyond normal human capability. Your mission is to chase him, but don't catch him. Let him see you. We need him to appear at a specific place at a specific time. Then do the most coin-brained thing. (Blacked out with affection)"
Though full of doubts, Steve trusted Lin Huai, and trusted his own intuition even more. That assassin's figure did give him a strangely familiar and heart-wrenching feeling.
"Alright. I'll leave this to you." Steve crashed through the window and pursued into the rainy night.
Only Lin Huai and Fury remained in the room.
"Drink this." Lin Huai handed over the bottle. "It will stop your heartbeat and breathing completely for the next six hours. Even the most advanced medical equipment won't detect a thing. Don't worry, it tastes like rotten tomato juice, but it won't kill you."
Fury stared at the bottle, a glint in his single eye. He was a ruthless man, ruthless to his enemies, and even more so to himself.
"If I don't wake up, I'll haunt you as a ghost."
After saying that, Fury threw his head back and downed it in one gulp.
In just a few seconds, his pupils began to dilate, his breathing rapidly weakened until it ceased. His whole body slumped onto the sofa like a broken sack, exactly like a corpse that had just been shot.
"Now that's professionalism."
Lin Huai praised.
Immediately after, the muscles on his face began to writhe.
A few seconds later, his originally youthful face was gone. Standing in the living room was a gray-haired, panicked-looking emergency Doctor—the exact likeness of the Doctor who would arrive with the ambulance in ten minutes.
"Alright, the show begins."
Lin Huai—now "Doctor George"—picked up the fruit knife on the table and made a few more slashes on Fury's clothes (without cutting the skin), creating an even more gruesome "crime scene."
Then, he picked up Steve's landline phone, dialed 911, his voice filled with an Oscar-worthy tremor and panic:
"Hello?! Help! Someone's been shot here! I'm a Doctor! But I can't stop the bleeding! This is...! God Almighty, send someone quick!"
...One hour later, Washington Central Hospital.
The red light of the operating room was still on.
Maria Hill stood in the corridor, her face like frost. Next to her were Natasha, who had just rushed back, and Steve, soaked through and looking dazed.
Just then, the operating room doors opened.
Lin Huai, disguised as the Lead Surgeon, walked out. He took off his mask, his face etched with profound sorrow and exhaustion, his forehead even covered with "sweat" from the "rescue effort."
He shook his head at Hill, his voice hoarse:
"I'm sorry, ma'am. The injuries were too severe, it was... a mortal wound. Time of death, 1:07 AM."
Hill swayed. Natasha covered her mouth.
Amidst this genuine wave of grief, only Steve keenly caught a flicker of... playfulness? in the "Lead Surgeon's" eyes.
As the Doctor passed by Steve, he didn't stop. But under the pretense of wiping sweat, he made an extremely subtle gesture only Steve could understand—it was a Magician's curtain call.
It was Lin Huai.
Steve's heart skipped a beat. He lowered his head, masking all his shock beneath a sorrowful expression.