*Chapter One: The Red Umbrella*
Rain fell in heavy sheets, turning the alleyways of Shanghai into rivers of shadow and neon. The city didn't sleep—it watched, whispered, and waited. And tonight, it was watching a girl with trembling hands and a red umbrella.
Ojy Lin pulled her coat tighter around her body as thunder cracked above her. Her umbrella trembled in her grip, not from the wind, but from the weight of fear she couldn't shake. The streets were slick, glowing under red lanterns and the flickering signs of convenience stores that never closed.
She shouldn't have been out this late. Her bodyguard had warned her. Her father had warned her. But seventeen-year-old Ojy had something to prove—to herself, maybe, or to the city that didn't seem to notice she existed.
She cut through the narrow alley behind her family's teahouse, hoping to save a few minutes on her way back home. That's when she heard it—*a low groan*, sharp, masculine, and full of pain.
Her steps slowed. The rain had muffled most of the city's sounds, but this one echoed in the pit of her stomach. Carefully, she edged closer to the sound, her black flats splashing through shallow puddles.
Then she saw him.
A boy—maybe eighteen, maybe older—was slumped against the wall. His dark shirt was soaked, but not just from rain. Blood painted his sleeve, his chest, and pooled beneath him. Tattoos curled along his neck and down his arm like inked flames, half-hidden under the torn collar of his shirt.
Ojy gasped, stepping forward. "Are you okay?"
The boy lifted his head slowly. His face was sharp—cut from shadow and bone. Even soaked and bloodied, there was something feral in the way he looked at her. Not afraid. Not grateful.
Dangerous.
"Go," he muttered, voice raw. "You don't want to be here."
"You're bleeding," she whispered.
"I've been worse."
"I don't care." She knelt beside him, placing the red umbrella over both their heads. "I'm not leaving you here to die."
His eyes flicked to hers—steel-gray, rimmed with pain, but alert. "You shouldn't help men like me."
"I don't help men," Ojy said quietly. "I help people."
He gave a broken laugh that turned into a cough. She took off her scarf and pressed it to his wound. He flinched but didn't stop her.
"I'm going to call for help."
"No," he snapped. "No cops. No ambulance."
She stared. "Then what am I supposed to do? Let you bleed out in a gutter?"
"You can walk away." His voice dropped, gentler. "Forget you ever saw me."
But she couldn't.
Not when their eyes met like that.
Not when his pain felt like a reflection of her own.
"I'm not that kind of girl," she said.
Something in his gaze shifted—softened.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She hesitated. "Does it matter?"
"…No," he admitted. "Probably better that way."
She gave a soft smile and pulled the umbrella closer over his head. "What's your name?"
He didn't answer.
And she didn't press.
They sat in silence for minutes—rain, breath, heartbeat.
Then headlights flickered at the far end of the alley. The boy cursed and pushed himself upright with a hiss. "They found me."
"Who?" Ojy asked, heart jumping.
"People who want me dead."
She stood with him, bracing his weight. "You can't outrun them like this."
"I've got to try."
He looked down at her again—this soaked, stubborn girl with fire in her eyes and blood on her hands—and something unreadable passed through him.
"If I don't make it," he murmured, "remember this."
Ojy blinked. "Remember what?"
This moment. The rain. The red umbrella." He touched it with a shaky finger. "Maybe it'll be the only soft thing I've ever known."
Before she could speak, he leaned forward—close enough she could smell the rain and iron on him—and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Then he turned and vanished into the storm.
She stood there alone, umbrella trembling in her hand, heart slamming against her ribs.
She never got his name.
But years later, she'd see him again—with steel eyes, tattoos, and a name the whole city feared.
And he wouldn't remember her.
But she remembered everything.