The dark storm clouds hung over the sky above Xinchuan City, threatening to rain at any moment. The city's outskirts bustled with excitement as the crowd rushed to get home before the first drops fell. In a run-down apartment near the market, a young lady was preparing to leave.
"Make sure to carry an umbrella," a voice rang from the depths of the apartment.
The girl, who seemed to be in a rush, was already at the door. She rushed back in a hurry.
An old man stepped out carrying an umbrella and handed it over to her.
"Thank you, Mr. Li. I almost forgot," she said.
"It's alright, Lu'er. It is the least I can do. You have done so much for us." The old man's voice was warm.
"The last two months have been easy for my wife and I, thanks to you. Ever since she found you by the roadside that morning… " He paused "Well. We are glad you stayed."
'Lu'er' the name Mr. Li had given her, because she had not known her own, smiled at him. It was a smile of gratitude, after two months of small kindnesses and warm soup and an old couple who asked nothing of her except that she eat properly and wear sensible shoes.
"I will be back before the rain," she said.
"You always say that." He said squinting his eyes at the sky. "You will not be back before the rain."
She laughed and stepped out into the grey afternoon.
she walked graciously on the small road to the market. Wearing a blue short sleeved blouse and a pair of mid-length jean shorts that covered her thighs looking fresh and beautiful. Her face was elegant and refined even with no make up on. Her hair was tied in a ponytail tied up revealing her long slender neck. Her smooth jade white skin made her appearance even more alluring making many heads turn her way as she walked down the streets.
---
The market on the edge of Xin Chuan was a different world from the city's glass towers, narrower, louder, smelling of wet concrete and roasting meat and the particular sweetness of fruit stacked too close together in warm weather. Lu'er moved through it easily. She knew the vendors by now, knew which stall had the freshest vegetables which stall had the best discount and so on.
She had learned all of this in the two months she had been staying here
She still did not know who she was. She had stopped expecting the memories to return the way people kept telling her they would, in a rush, all at once, like a dam breaking. They did not return that way. They came in fragments, if they came at all: a feeling of familiarity with certain fabrics, an instinct for numbers that Mr. Li's wife had noticed when Lu'er balanced their household accounts without effort, a recurring dream of rain on glass and the sensation of falling that left no image behind, only the feeling.
She had stopped waiting. She had started living in the present, which was small and warm and smelled of Mr. Li's cooking, and she had decided that was enough. For now.
She paid for the vegetables, tucked them under one arm, and turned toward home.
She noticed a man standing by a nearby stall. Although he tried to hide it she clearly saw him looking at her before turning his head in a hurry to avoid her gaze.
Lu'er did not know why she noticed this. She did not know that she had once been trained to notice exactly this kind of movements, that in another life she had killed countless targets and had learned to read the difference between a person who was waiting and a person who was hunting.
Her chest stiffened and a voice echoed in her head 'move'.
Trusting her own instincts she moved.
She slipped between two stalls, changed direction, kept walking. Behind her she heard movements. Someone was really after her. More than one person.
She looked back once. There were three of them. They were not pretending to shop anymore. She quickly picked up her pace. The small steps turned to strides then transitioned to sprinting. She ran. She did not know wht the men wnted form her and she was definetly not willing to sstay behind and find out. Thinking of this she clutched her bag and ran as fast as she could.
---
The market narrowed ahead of her into a lane of close-packed stalls and tarps. The path ahead seemed dangerous. She took it anyway because there was nowhere else to go. The vegetables she had been carrying had fallen somewhere but she did not stop for them.
The men pursuing her were faster than she expected or she was slower. She had been ill for weeks after Mrs Li found her and her body had not fully recovered
She felt a hand catch her sleeve she tore free and kept moving.
The small shortcut seemed to come to an end when she met a dead end
Hehe little miss you have nowhere to run the burly man said licking his lips in a vulgar manner.
Lu'er wanted to scream but she knew her voice would only be drowned in the many noises in the market place.
The burly man who seemed to be the leadr of the three stepped forward stretching his hand. he ripped her blouse exposing her fair skin and plumb breasts that were being held by a blue bra.
Seeing this the man's face was filled with lust as he sized her up.
'although boss said to get rid of you we might as well enjoy ourselves before sending you to meet your maker' he said swallowing hard.
He was just about to rip her bra off and expose her breasts when they heard a screech behind them. They all turned their heads subconsciously and saw a black range rover pull up behind them.
The doors burst open and a man wearing a brand suit stepped out. His face was refined and he had a slim build. That of someone who worked out every single day.
He was tall. Dark eyes.
He looked at her his face slightly twitched before turning his attention to the three men standing beside her. The three men froze when they saw him. They clearly knew who this was.
A second man stepped out of the car, broader, quieter. The man's bodyguard. He did not say anything. He looked at the three men the way a door looks at something trying to open it.
The man glanced at the bodyguard. Then he looked back at Lu'er he walked towards her. None of the men dared to move a muscle he took off his coat and wrapped it around her exposed skin "Stay here," in a firm tone that expected obedience and was not asking.
He handed her, gently and precisely, to the bodyguard, who positioned her behind him with one arm.
Then the man walked toward the three men.
What happened next was brief. She watched from behind the bodyguard's shoulder, her breath still ragged, rain beginning to fall in the first heavy drops against the street. The man moved like he was directly from a movie scene, no wasted motion in a split second two man lay on the ground screaming in pain.
The third man tried to run but was taken care of by the bodyguard with equal efficiency.
It lasted perhaps forty seconds.
When it was over the man straightened his shirts sleeves and walked back to where she was standing.
He was not breathing hard. He looked at her. Before hugging her tightly. Then he said, quite simply:
"You're okay." His voice a bit warmer than before.
Lu'er stood in the beginning of the rain, in a street she did not know, with vegetables she had lost somewhere in a market lane and two months of borrowed identity and no idea who she was or who this man was, and she thought' the way he hugged her and the look of worry on his face was genuine this man truly cared about her.'
"Who are you?" she asked.
A surprised expression crossed his face. But was gone in a split second.
"Someone who has been looking for you," he said.
The scattered rain drops now clumped together and a heavy rain poured. They were soaked immediately She was still in tattered clothes covered by his coat She was shaking slightly, though not from cold.
He noticed this and offered please join me inside the car its warmer
Thank you very much sir but I live nearby I will be alright she rejected his offer and sped off in to the rain disappearing in a corner.
He did not chase her he just entered the car and ordered the man follow her.