Chapter 9: One Finger

The bell rang, and Cole Brennan did what professionals do.

Around the mat, the crowd leaned forward with the particular hunger of people about to watch a mismatch. A few students were already wincing in advance. Someone near Fatty said, "This is going to be bad," and Fatty, white as paper, said nothing at all.

He came forward behind his jab, testing, measuring. The jab was fast. It was supposed to touch the kid's forehead and tell Cole everything: how the kid moved, how he reacted, how scared he was.

It touched air.

The crowd laughed, nervous and surprised. Cole didn't laugh. He reset his stance, and Lin Xuan saw the exact moment the professional took over from the showman.

Good, Lin Xuan thought. Showmen are boring to fight.

Lin Xuan had moved six inches to the left. He had not hurried. He had simply not been where the punch arrived, the way a man steps out of the rain.

Good jab, Lin Xuan thought, almost fondly. Terrible footwork.

Cole frowned and threw a combination. Jab, cross, hook. Three punches, each one thrown with the kind of power that ended amateur careers. Three punches, three misses. The freshman drifted between them like smoke, hands still at his sides.

The crowd made a confused sound.

Somewhere in the third exchange, Cole saw it: the kid was bored. Not tired, not scared. Bored. The realization hit harder than any punch ever had.

Cole's professional instincts, the ones that had twitched when the kid walked in barefoot, started screaming. He stopped punching and circled. The kid circled with him, calm as a lake.

"You're quick," Cole said.

"You're slow," Lin Xuan said politely.

Cole's jaw tightened. He shot for a double-leg takedown, low and explosive, the move that had won him four fights. His shoulder hit the kid's hips.

The kid wasn't there. Again.

Cole's momentum carried him forward into empty mat. He caught himself, spun, and found Lin Xuan standing exactly where he had started, watching with mild interest.

He's reading me, Cole realized, and the thought arrived with a cold weight. Every move. He's reading all of it.

He had felt this once before, sparring with a retired pro who had forty fights on him. The feeling of being a book someone had already finished.

Cole did the smart thing. He stopped trying to win and started trying to survive the round. He kept his guard high, his chin down, and waited.

"Thirty seconds," Lin Xuan said conversationally. "That's how long you've decided to last. You're counting the clock."

Cole's eyes widened. He hadn't said a word.

"Don't," Lin Xuan advised. "It makes the waiting worse."

Lin Xuan walked toward him.

He did not rush. He did not bounce or feint. He simply walked across the mat, and Cole discovered that walking could be terrifying when you couldn't predict where it would stop.

At the last moment, Cole threw a desperate overhand right, everything he had.

Lin Xuan caught the wrist.

It happened so fast that half the gym missed it. One moment the punch was flying. The next, the freshman held Cole Brennan's wrist in one hand like he was checking the time, and his other hand rose, index finger extended, and touched Cole's sternum.

One finger. Gentle, almost tender.

Cole's legs stopped working.

He collapsed straight down, like a building imploding. He landed on his backside on the mat, gloves still up, eyes wide open and completely aware. He tried to stand. Nothing happened below his neck. He tried to speak. His mouth worked.

"What," he gasped, "did you do?"

"Shanzhong point," Lin Xuan said. "Sealed. It will release in about a minute. Try not to panic. Panic makes it worse."

The gym was silent.

Three hundred people stared at the mat. The freshman stood over the professional fighter, who sat on the canvas like a broken toy, and the whole scene had the quality of a dream where the rules had quietly changed.

The referee knelt beside Cole, waving his hands. "Can you continue? Can you move?"

"Give me a minute," Cole wheezed. "Just. Give me a minute."

The minute passed. Feeling returned to Cole's legs in a pins-and-needles rush, and he sat up slowly, rubbing his sternum. Then he laughed. It was a disbelieving sound.

"I've been hit by professionals," he told the referee. "Trucks, basically. That was worse. I could feel everything and do nothing."

The referee looked at Lin Xuan with open suspicion. "You sure you're a freshman?"

"Very sure," Lin Xuan said. "The tuition bills prove it."

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Rematch!" A dozen voices took it up. Cole raised one glove from where he sat.

"Not today," he said. "Maybe never."

He stared at the freshman like he was seeing a ghost.

"What are you?" Cole asked quietly, so only Lin Xuan could hear.

"Undeclared," Lin Xuan said, and offered his hand.

Cole took it and let himself be pulled upright. The gym exploded. Three hundred students were on their feet, shouting, stomping the bleachers. Someone started chanting "ONE FINGER" and the whole gym picked it up. The referee raised Lin Xuan's hand, looking dazed, like a man who had just officiated a magic trick.

Fatty vaulted over the barrier and hit Lin Xuan like a linebacker. "YOU'RE ALIVE! YOU'RE ALIVE AND HE'S NOT DEAD AND NOBODY'S DEAD!"

"Get off me, Fatty."

"Never! I'm never letting go!"

The crowd pressed toward the mat. Phones everywhere. A girl asked Lin Xuan to flex for a photo, and he declined with the gravity of a man refusing a duel. The announcer shoved a microphone at him.

"Lin Hao! Incredible! Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"The internet," Lin Xuan said.

The announcer laughed. Lin Xuan didn't.

As they reached the ropes, Cole stopped him. "That point thing," he said quietly. "Could you teach me?"

"No."

"Worth a try." Cole grinned, and there was no bitterness in it. "If you ever want a real job, Ironworks Gym. You'd be terrifying."

Through the noise, Lin Xuan's eyes found the back corner by the emergency exit.

Empty. The two plain-jacketed men were gone, slipped out during the chaos. Old Chen's warning surfaced in his mind like a fish in dark water.

Men who don't show their faces, he thought. They just watched me end a fight with one finger. Whatever they report back, it won't be boring.

Lin Xuan looked up at the third row.

Zhao Kai's face had gone through several colors and settled on a blotchy red. His arms were no longer crossed. His hands gripped the bleacher bench hard enough to whiten his knuckles. The elegant plan, the envelope, the five thousand dollars, all of it lay in ruins on a canvas mat, and everyone in the gym was looking at him. Everyone knew.

You paid for this, their faces said. You paid for a crippling, and this is what you got.

Lin Xuan inclined his head to Zhao Kai, exactly as before. The same polite nod. It landed like a slap.

Zhao Kai stood up so fast he knocked over his bag. He shoved past the students in his row, face burning, and stormed up the bleacher steps. At the top, he stopped and looked back once, and the look on his face was no longer embarrassment.

It was hatred, pure and focused.

This isn't over, the look said. I'll bury you if it's the last thing I do.

Lin Xuan watched him go and felt nothing but a mild, professional interest. Escalation, he thought. He'll bring something bigger next time. Good. Bigger things are more fun to break.

In the fifth row, Su Wan stood up slowly. Her textbook lay forgotten on the bench. She stared at the freshman on the mat, at the finger still held loosely at his side, and her mind ran through everything she knew about acupoints, about sealed strikes, about techniques that were not supposed to exist.

One finger, she thought. He ended a professional fighter with one finger.

Then she saw the old man.

He sat alone in the top row, silver-haired, in a coat that cost more than her tuition. He had been there the whole match, perfectly still, watching with the focused attention of a man evaluating an asset. Su Wan knew that face. She had seen it at family dinners since she was six years old.

Uncle Feng, she thought, and her stomach tightened. Why is Uncle Feng here?

Uncle Feng took out a phone. He held it low and spoke three words.

"We need to meet this boy."

He ended the call and stood. On the mat below, the freshman was helping Cole Brennan to his feet, steadying him with a hand on his elbow, saying something that made the fighter laugh in disbelief.

Uncle Feng watched for another moment. Then he turned and walked out into the gray Seattle afternoon, already dialing the next number.