In Jiang City, a midsummer afternoon felt like a sealed steamer. The asphalt had softened under the blazing sun, and the air was thick with the acrid smell of scorching tar.
In the training yard behind the Jiang Family Martial Arts School, more than thirty teenagers in training uniforms were working up a sweat. The whoosh of fists and feet cutting through the air rose and fell without pause. Sunlight filtered through the sparse leaves of the plane trees, casting dappled shadows on the ground and illuminating a figure at the edge of the yard who seemed completely out of place.
