The pain was a live wire, hooked directly into his nervous system. Every jolting step down the narrow Mong Kok staircase sent a fresh bolt of white-hot agony from his shoulder down to his fingertips. Kai gritted his teeth, the taste of blood from his bitten cheek still sharp and metallic on his tongue. Lok's arm was around his waist, half-holding him up, his own body trembling with a cocktail of fear and exhilaration.
"Almost there, brother, almost there," Lok kept muttering, more to himself than to Kai.
The rain had softened to a persistent drizzle, cooling Kai's feverish skin. They stumbled into a side alley, a canyon of dripping air conditioner units and stacked crates, the neon from the main street casting everything in a sickly, pulsating glow. Lok propped him against a damp wall next to a metal door stenciled with a faded character for "Phoenix."
"Old Man Teng," Lok explained, rapping a frantic rhythm on the door. "He doesn't ask questions. Just… let me do the talking."
The door creaked open a slit, a single, wary eye peering out. It saw Lok, then dropped to Kai's slumped, battered form. The door swung open to reveal a tiny, cluttered space that was part herbalist shop, part back-alley clinic. Jars of unidentifiable roots and dried creatures lined sagging shelves, and the air was thick with the smell of camphor, menthol, and stale tobacco. An old man with a face like a wrinkled walnut and hands that seemed too large for his body gestured them inside.
"What trouble have you brought to my door, Little Lok?" the old man rasped, his voice like grinding stones.
"No trouble, Uncle Teng. My brother, he had a… disagreement."
Old Man Teng clicked his tongue, guiding Kai to a wooden stool. With surprising strength, he peeled back the leather jacket. The shirt beneath was soaked with sweat and blood. Teng prodded the blossoming, dark purple bruise on Kai's side and then examined the swollen, already-discolored shoulder. Kai hissed, sucking air through his teeth.
"Disagreement with a truck, maybe," Teng grunted. "No broken ribs. Lucky. The shoulder is not dislocated, but the muscle is torn. You will not be punching anyone for a while." He shuffled away to prepare a poultice.
Lok hovered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "You see? You see what you did? Sai Lo! You stood up to Sai Lo! No one does that!"
Kai closed his eyes, focusing on the pain, using it to ground himself. This wasn't an academy training exercise with foam batons. This was real. The bat had been real. The intent behind it had been lethal. He had calculated the risk, but feeling the consequence was a different thing entirely.
"I did what I had to," Kai managed, his voice hoarse. "He was going to kill that man. And then where would you be?"
Lok's nervous energy stilled. The truth of it hung in the herbal-scented air. He'd be associated with a failure, his standing diminished, maybe even punished for the transgression. He looked at Kai, a complex mix of gratitude and shame in his eyes.
"Why are you really here, Kai?" he asked, his voice quieter now. "After all this time. You were the smart one. You got out."
This was the dance. The most dangerous part of the operation wasn't the triad enforcers; it was the people who knew you from Before. They could see the ghosts in your eyes.
Kai opened his own and met Lok's gaze. He let the mask slip, just a little. He let the young man's frustration, his sense of failure, show through.
"I told you. The security job was a lie. I was driving a delivery van for a logistics company in Kwun Tong. The boss was skimming, the company collapsed. I had… a girlfriend. She left. Took what little I had." He shrugged with his good shoulder, a gesture of pure, defeated weariness. It wasn't the whole truth, but it was a truth, woven from the lives of a dozen dead-end guys he'd arrested over the years. It was believable. "There was nothing for me there. So I came back to the only place that ever felt like home. To the only person who ever felt like family."
The words tasted like ash, but they had the desired effect. Lok's defensiveness melted away, replaced by a surge of brotherly pride. He clapped Kai gently on his good shoulder.
"Family. Yeah. You came to the right place. This… this is a new start. You saw Sai Lo's face! He was impressed! With us!"
Old Man Teng returned with a foul-smelling, greenish poultice and started slathering it on Kai's injuries. The paste was shockingly cold, then began to generate a deep, penetrating heat that slowly muted the sharpest edges of the pain.
"Keep this on for twenty-four hours," Teng instructed. "No heavy lifting. No fighting." He gave a dry, wheezing laugh that turned into a cough. "But who am I kidding? You are Wo Shing now. The fighting has just begun."
As they left, Lok pressing a wad of crumpled bills into Teng's hand, the sky was beginning to lighten from black to a deep, bruised grey. The city was stirring. Delivery trucks rumbled down the main arteries, and elderly shopkeepers began rolling up their metal gates with a deafening clatter.
Lok took him to a tong lau walk-up in Yau Ma Tei, a building that leaned wearily against its neighbors. The apartment was a single room, dominated by a bunk bed, with a hot plate and a small fridge in one corner. Clothes were strewn everywhere. It was a young man's place, messy and transient.
"Home sweet home," Lok said, gesturing grandly. "You get the bottom bunk. Don't snore."
Kai lowered himself onto the thin mattress, every muscle protesting. The poultice was working, leaving a deep, throbbing ache in its wake. He watched Lok bustle about, boiling water for instant noodles, his earlier fear completely replaced by a giddy excitement. He was already crafting the story, the legend of his long-lost brother Jin Kai, who walked in and faced down the mighty Sai Lo.
Kai lay back, staring at the springs of the bunk above him. This was it. The first layer of the ghost. He had a name, he had a place to sleep, and he had the beginnings of a reputation. But as he listened to Lok's cheerful whistling, a cold knot tightened in his stomach, separate from the physical pain.
He had used their history, their shared childhood, as a tool. He had looked his oldest friend in the eye and lied. For the mission. For justice. But right now, in this grimy little room as dawn broke over Hong Kong, justice felt very far away. All that felt real was the ache in his body, the bitterness of the lies on his tongue, and the terrifying realization that to survive this, he would have to become Jin Kai for real.