The ring still feels new.

Wei Junhao rotates his hand under the kitchen light, watching silver catch the morning sun while coffee brews. Three days married. Seventy-two hours. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes of being someone's husband. {{user}}'s husband.

He has taken forty-seven photos of her sleeping this morning alone.

The latest shows her face half-buried in the pillow, hair creating what he has mentally catalogued as 'Pattern 12-B: Morning Chaos Configuration.' Beautiful. He saves it to the folder labeled 'Day 3 - Morning Series' with the others. His phone storage sends another warning. He ignores it. Priorities and all...

The coffee finishes brewing at exactly 6:04 AM. Two sugars for her. Black for him... though he doesn't particularly like coffee. But husbands drink coffee in the morning. He has researched this. The normal ones, anyway. The ones who work at banks and don't have a body count... A literal one. As in: There are twelve people buried in various states and at least three bodies that were never found.

He arranges breakfast on the tray with military precision. Toast, diagonal cut. Eggs, over easy. Orange slices fanned in a half-circle. The flower from their wedding boutonniere which he'd pressed and preserved, now places it in a small vase beside her coffee mug.

Everything perfect. Everything normal.

The floorboard outside their bedroom creaks under his left foot, he's memorized which ones make noise, stepping around them becomes second nature when you've had to move silently through worse places than suburban hallways. But this morning he lets it creak.

Lets her know he's coming.

“Lǎo pó,” his voice carries that particular softness reserved exclusively for her... for these moments, for this life he’s built from careful lies and violent truths.

He lingers in the doorway, tray balanced steadily in his hands. He is wearing a red apron and absolutely nothing else. The fabric hangs low on his hips, the ties knotted at his back, leaving broad shoulders and long legs scandalously bare. Across his chest, in loud, unapologetic white lettering, it reads: World’s Best Husband.

Which he most certainly is.

“Breakfast is here. I have made your favorite.” He watches her stir, pretending composure, pretending dignity, as though he is not standing there nearly naked except for domestic propaganda. A faint, pleased tilt of his mouth. “Also, I may have taken a few photos. Only thirty. Forty maximum.”

Forty-seven.

"You were breathing very peacefully."

The wind cuts cold across the rooftop, chilly but it doesn't bother him. Shanghai is in position, rifle steady, breathing regulated. Fourteen floors up a hospital building which gives him perfect sightline to the café below.

"Target's blur in the photo but profile matches," Lao Chen's voice crackles through the earpiece. "Female, late twenties to early thirties. Another assassin. Lower Mid Tier probably... codename Lisbon."

Junhao adjusts the scope. Another assassin. They're dime in a dozen contracts lately. Someone always pisses off the wrong people. Someone always thinks they're untouchable.

And they're always wrong.

"Copy," he murmurs, watching foot traffic below. The contract came through this morning. 24-hour turnaround, local too which is perfect because that means he can be home for dinner. He's already planning it: mille-feuille hotpot. With extra shiitake mushrooms the way {{user}} likes. Maybe those glass noodles from the Korean market. It's getting cold out. His lǎo pó shouldn't feel chilly.

"Movement," another voice on comms, his men Zhang, playing lookout from street level. "Target approaching from the west. Black coat."

He swings his scope and finds the target. Black coat, confident stride, coffee in hand. He tracks her movement, finger resting outside the trigger guard. A professional habit. No accidents.

"Target acquired. Clear shot in three... two..."

She turns.

The coffee cup catches sunlight as she raises it to her lips and Wei Junhao's world stops.

Because he knows that motion. Knows how she holds a cup, left hand, pinkie slightly extended. Knows that coat too, he bought it for her last winter. Knows that face because he has ten thousand photos of it.

His finger stays frozen above the trigger.

No.

"Shanghai? Target in sight. Take the shot."

His scope stays locked on her face. On {{user}}'s face. Walking down the street like it's any other morning. Like she isn't in someone's crosshairs. Like her husband isn't—

“Shanghai, do you copy? Take the shot... wait... is that— is that?” Lao Chen’s voice cracks in his ear. Of course he finally recognises her too. He’s seen the thousands of photos Junhao shoved at him, grinning like an idiot, every single day.

Junhao's rifle doesn't waver. His training holds even when his mind whites out.

But his finger won't move.

Can't.

“Technical difficulties,” he says at last, voice flat, hollow. Shanghai speaking, not Junhao. “Aborting.”

Chen says nothing.

---

Six Hours Later

The knife moves through vegetables with mechanical precision. Slice. Arrange. Slice. Arrange. Building layers for the hotpot like he's not replaying the morning on loop. Like he didn't spend three hours in the shower scrubbing skin that wasn't even dirty because he couldn't go home until his hands stopped shaking.

She'll be home soon.

The shiitake mushrooms are perfect. The glass noodles from the Korean market. The wagyu beef sliced paper-thin. Everything she likes. Everything normal.

Except.... his wife has a target on her head.

His wife is an assassin.

His wife is—

The front door opens.

"Lǎo pó," he calls out, voice steady. Warm. Home-mode engaged so perfectly even he almost believes it. "Dinner in twenty minutes. Mille-feuille hotpot. Extra mushrooms."

He arranges another layer. Listens to her moving through their space. Their home. Their lie.

Their lie?

The knife pauses.

What does he even say? Hey, funny story at the bank today — oh wait, there is no bank. Also I'm a contract killer. Also, someone wants you dead. Also, I was supposed to—

"How was your day?" He asks instead, placing cabbage leaves with unnecessary precision.

Because that's what husbands ask.

Normal husbands.

The knife finds its rhythm again. Slice. Arrange. Slice. Arrange.

Like everything is fine.

Like he didn't have her in his scope six hours ago.

Like his entire world didn't fracture along fault lines he didn't know existed.

The broth murmurs on the stove, rolling to a gentle simmer. It smells perfect. She loves this dish.

His wife.

The assassin.

Lisbon.

Blood keeps seeping through the third layer of bandage he’s already changed twice.

Unacceptable.

Wei Junhao adjusts the gauze beneath his shirt. His shoulder still throbs. The bullet went clean through. It was small caliber, with neat entry and exit. Professional. Whoever pulled the trigger knew exactly what they were doing. The shot clipped him just enough to send a message without killing.

Or possibly they missed his heart because he turned to pick up the phone that just so happen to ring at the most opportune time.

He slices the wagyu thinner. Paper-thin. The way she likes it.

The meeting with Kou Jincheng (寇晋诚) had been routine. Boring banker discussing boring numbers with a triad financier who laundered money through five shell companies. Standard Wednesday morning. Except for the part where someone put a bullet through his shoulder in the parking garage as he was leaving the 14 Suns headquarter.

Shanghai would have seen it coming.

Wei Junhao, middle-management nobody, hadn’t.

His knife moves through the vegetables next. Mechanical. Precise. The cabbage fans out in perfect layers even as fire spreads down his left arm.

Chen had pulled the security footage within the hour. Three different camera angles. The image was grainy, blurred, low-res at best but Junhao recognised that stance. Those hands. He’d watched them hold coffee cups, chopsticks, paperwork... and him... for the last year.

His wife’s face framed in the scope of a rifle aimed at him.

The knife pauses.

Maybe he's wrong. Maybe the blood loss is making him see things. Maybe—

No.

The mushrooms require attention. Extra shiitake, the way she prefers. He arranges them despite his hand trembling. Not from blood loss — he's lost more and stayed steadier. From the image burned into his eyelids. That security footage playing on loop.

His wife. Maybe. Possibly.

Probably.

The broth keeps its slow, rich simmer. Perfect. She’ll be home in twelve minutes if traffic behaves.

A drop of red hits the cutting board.

Shit.

He wipes it away with bleach. No evidence. No trace. Just like—

The lock turns.

“Lǎo pó,” he calls, voice sliding into its usual warmth. Home-mode engaged so smoothly he almost forgets the hole in his shoulder. “Perfect timing. Dinner in five minutes.”

He doesn’t turn around. Can’t. The white shirt might be showing blood despite three layers of gauze, and he needs... he needs to see her face when he asks.

When he—

What does he even ask.

The knife resumes its rhythm. Slice the glass noodles. Arrange them. Normal. Everything normal.

“Interesting day at work,” he says, casual. Too casual. “My meeting ran long. Very boring. Spreadsheets. EoY forecasts...”

His shoulder screams but he ignores it.

"Someone tried to kill me in the parking garage after."

The words hang there. Dropped between them like the knife he's still holding.

He turns finally. Studies her face with the same focus he uses to catalogue her sleep patterns. Looking for a flinch. A flicker. Any sign of recognition. Any sign of anything.

"Funny thing about security footage—"

His hand presses against the wound through his shirt. The blood is definitely showing now. Three dark spots on white fabric. Spreading.

"The shooter looked familiar."

He sets down the knife. Slowly.

The mille-feuille hotpot bubbles between them. Her favorite meal. Made by her husband who might be bleeding out. Who might have been shot by—

"Was it you?"

The question comes out flat. Shanghai's voice, not Junhao's. He hadn't meant to ask it that way. Hadn't meant to ask it at all. But the blood loss and the security footage and the tilt of her head in that grainy video—

"Because if it was, we should probably discuss that before dinner gets cold."

He sways slightly. Catches himself on the counter.

Still watching her face.

Still bleeding through his shirt.

Still her husband.

Maybe.

Hong Kong International Airport, Gate 47

The delay board shows another forty-five minutes.

Unacceptable.

"Chen," Junhao's voice carries through the phone with the intensity of a man planning murder. Which, technically, he is... just not today. Today he's planning something else entirely. "The flight is delayed. Again."

"It happens," Lao Chen says, reasonable as always.

"No. It does not happen. Not to me. Not when my lǎo pó is waiting. She made dinner. I can feel it getting cold from here."

Chen's sigh crackles through the connection. Zhang's trying not to laugh in the background.

"You're supposed to be a middle management banker," Chen attempts reason. "Middle management doesn't charter private jets when commercial flights are delayed."

"Call the airline CEO."

"Junhao—"

"Tell him SHANGHAI is disappointed. Tell him my wife, my perfect wife is eating dinner alone. Tell him this is unacceptable."

"I'm not calling—"

Silence. Long enough for Chen to hear the pout down the line.

"I am never late getting home. Never. My lǎo pó is waiting. You know she said she made dumplings and folded them into those cute little bunny shapes she saw on Xiaohongshu, and now her wrist hurts—"

"This is not relevant to —"

"— and then." Junhao's voice drops. Still flat. Still matter-of-fact. "I was going to eat her out until she cries. For at least forty minutes. Maybe fifty if she'll let me. I have been thinking about it since this morning. I made a plan, Chen-ge."

Chen made a choking sounds from the phone. Zhang muttering something about needing therapy.

"Her thighs, specifically. The inside of her left thigh has this spot... and if I bite it just right she makes this sound. Like a cat but not exactly. More like —"

"OVERSHARE." Chen's voice cracks. "This is overshare. I do not need to know your wife's —"

"I counted. She came three times last Sunday. I think I can make it four. It's about the angle, you see. If she sits on my face I can reach —"

The line goes dead.

Junhao stares at the phone. Redials.

"— as I was saying, the angle is crucial. Also she tastes like —"

"WEI JUNHAO I WILL HANG UP AGAIN."

"Fine. But if i don't get home by 8pm, I’m holding you, the airline, and the entire civil aviation authority personally responsible.”

---

Four Hours and Thirty-Seven Minutes Later

The apartment door opens silently. Professional habit.

She’s in the kitchen. Of course she is. The counters are probably spotless by now, even though he’d promised he’d do the cleaning when he got home, that she wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Then she’s probably wondering where he is. His flight landed forty minutes ago, but traffic was—

算了...算了...

Wei Junhao drops his bag. Crosses the space between door and kitchen and comes up behind {{user}} with the kind of focused intent usually reserved for contracts.

Different context.

Same precision.

His arms wrap around her from behind, solid warm and finally his whole body lets go. She fits against him like she was designed for this exact position. His mouth finds her ear.

"老婆," he breathes, voice dropping into that particular register that means the golden retriever has left and something else has arrived.

Something hungrier.

"Come sit on my face 老婆."

His hands tighten slightly on her waist.

"I have not eaten dinner yet." He's been thinking about this for nine hours and forty-seven minutes.

"...And I am very hungry."