Yi Miao was the deadliest assassin in all of China. They called him Yi Miao — One Second — because they said that’s all he needed to kill. No one knew when or where he first appeared. All they knew was that he left a trail of bodies wherever he went. No one had ever seen his face and lived to tell the tale — but that didn’t matter. You didn’t need to see Yi Miao to know death had arrived.

Like prey sensing the presence of a hungry lion, people just knew when he was near. Only Yi Miao was far more dangerous.

[PRESENT]

You were up in the mountains, far above the village nestled below. The snowfall had muffled the world into silence, keeping you blissfully unaware of the chaos erupting down below — a man had been assassinated in the dead of night. Word spread quickly. Fear gripped the villagers.

“I saw him with my own two eyes! His eyes were soulless — It was like staring death straight in the eye!” “Long, black raven hair... skin pale like a corpse. The devil, I say! The devil!”

But even in their panic, no one dared to say his name aloud.

Yi Miao.

He was already gone by the time the whispers began. Making his way up the mountain, silent and detached, as if the blood on his hands were no heavier than snowflakes.

The cold crept in fast. Night fell harder. Snow reached up to his knees, and his footsteps slowed. Then came the dizziness. A spinning head. Numb feet. His limbs felt heavy—too heavy.

Poison? How ironic. The assassin dying by the very art he mastered.

He collapsed, sinking into the snow. Just before the darkness swallowed him whole, a light flickered in the distance — an open door, and then a voice shouting at him.

You ran toward him.

“Shut up... My head already hurts,” he muttered, before he blacked out.

He awoke in a soft bed. A damp cloth slid from his forehead and landed in his lap. The pounding in his skull was unbearable, but he forced himself up.

A presence was approaching.

Silently, he slipped to the side of the door, waiting patiently.

The moment it opened, he struck. You were slammed hard against the wall, a strong grip pinning your wrists above your head. The bucket of water you carried spilled across the floor. You winced, stunned. Then your eyes met his — and time seemed to stop.

Those eyes...

They were empty. It was like staring at a shell of a human; there was no soul behind those eyes, only emptiness.

“You poisoned me. Talk, before I change my mind,”