Chapter Four: Velvet and Gunmetal
I am twenty years old when they stop pretending I am just a blade.
They start calling me an asset instead.
That is always worse.
---
By the time Lin Yuexin turned twenty, the Pavilion had learned something crucial:
violence alone did not open every door.
Beauty did.
She stood in front of a mirror in one of the Pavilion's upper safehouses, smoke curling lazily from the cigarette between her fingers. The city of Jinzhou glimmered below the glass like a living organism—neon veins, pulsing light, endless hunger.
The dress clung to her like it had been designed by someone who understood anatomy and sin equally well. Black silk. Open back. High slit. No visible weapons.
Visible was the problem.
She exhaled slowly.
They dress you like this when they want you close enough to smell a man's breath, she thought. And far enough that he never sees the knife.
"You'll ruin the fabric if you ash on it," Madam Qiao said from behind her.
Yuexin didn't turn. "Then you shouldn't have put me in something flammable."
Madam Qiao approached, gaze sharp as ever, eyes scanning for imperfections. "You know why you were chosen."
"Yes," Yuexin replied. "Everyone else here is either ugly, obvious, or dead."
A pause.
Then a quiet laugh. "You've grown unpleasant."
"I've always been unpleasant," Yuexin said. "You're just paying attention now."
---
The Pavilion had discovered early that Yuexin did not look like an assassin.
She looked like an heir.
Like someone who belonged in penthouses and private clubs, in dynasty banquets where bloodlines mattered more than laws. Her beauty was not loud. It did not beg. It observed.
Men leaned toward her without realizing why. Women underestimated her and regretted it quietly.
I don't smile because I'm kind, Yuexin narrated internally.
I smile because people relax around teeth they think won't bite.
Elder Han entered the room then, hands folded behind his back.
"Tonight's target is Zhou Kaifan," he said. "Pharmaceutical magnate. Human. Secretly funding illegal mythic experimentation."
Yuexin finally turned. "So he's stupid."
"He's careful," Elder Han corrected. "No guards within ten feet. No drinks he didn't pour himself."
"And yet," Yuexin said calmly, stubbing out her cigarette, "he's dead by morning."
Madam Qiao handed her a silver case.
Inside: a needle so thin it barely existed.
"Poison?" Yuexin asked.
"Airborne activation," Madam Qiao said. "Triggered by heat."
Yuexin hummed. "Intimate."
---
The party was held in a sky-palace above the city, glass walls and artificial waterfalls masking how high they truly were. Music pulsed low and expensive. Power gathered in tailored suits and glittering gowns.
Yuexin stepped inside and felt it immediately—the shift.
Eyes turned.
Not openly. Never openly.
This is the part they don't train you for, she narrated.
Being watched without being seen.
She accepted a drink she wouldn't touch. Laughed at jokes that weren't funny. Let her fingers brush sleeves, wrists, shoulders.
Zhou Kaifan found her within ten minutes.
"You're new," he said, smiling too widely.
"So are my regrets," Yuexin replied lightly.
He laughed, delighted. "Come. I want to show you something."
Of course you do, she thought.
He led her toward the balcony.
The city yawned beneath them.
"You smoke?" he asked.
Yuexin pulled out her cigarettes.
He leaned closer to light it for her.
That was his mistake.
She cupped the flame, activating the needle hidden beneath her nail as she inhaled.
"I don't like to rush," she said softly.
The poison transferred through heat, breath, proximity.
Zhou Kaifan swayed slightly.
"Are you—" he began.
Yuexin steadied him, smiling sweetly.
"Feeling dizzy?" she asked. "Happens when you aim too high."
He collapsed quietly moments later. Heart failure. Clean. Untraceable.
Yuexin stepped back, already invisible again.
---
Later, alone in the stairwell, she lit another cigarette.
Her hands were steady.
People think killing hardens you, she narrated.
It doesn't. It clarifies you.
She exhaled smoke and listened to distant sirens that were already too late.
She didn't feel powerful.
She felt efficient.
And efficiency, she had learned, was a language the city respected.
Above her, the dynasties drank and laughed.
Below, Jinzhou slept unaware.
And Lin Yuexin—Black Magnolia, Pavilion blade, beautiful problem—walked calmly back into the shadows, already thinking about the next name on the list.
This isn't the beginning, she thought.
It's just the part where people start noticing.