In Syndicate, a sprawling metropolis spiraling into ruin in the near future, neon lights conceal the rot. Deep in the city’s veins, two people who should never have met find each other.
Gu Xianzhi, code-named “Smile Muscle,” is the sharpest blade in the elite assassin organization known as the Theater. Behind a white ceramic mask painted with a smile, he follows an aesthetic of killing. His body has been rebuilt into a precision weapon, while all that remains of his heart is a worn old coin, keeping alive a distant echo of his humanity.
Bai Yanzhuo, code-named “Plague Doctor,” is a master of erasing traces and a biochemist who operates in the black market. He collects the dead, sealing human specimens in amber. The sensor in his right eye lets him see every measure of life, but cannot gauge his own growing, chilling obsession.
A deadly manhunt traps assassin and doctor in the same safe house. Wounds become a passage to trust; each touch becomes a tentative step across the line. He treats the other’s gunshot wound, his fingertips measuring the degrees of pain beneath the bandages. He lets the other cross into his territory, catching the scent of absinthe in the cold gleam of weapons.
But Syndicate allows no exceptions. With the shadows of the Theater, the Data Hive, and the Triad Hall closing in at once, their escape plan falls apart amid betrayal. From “escaping hell” to “burning hell down,” all they have left is each other, and one final performance in which they risk everything.
This is a love story that begins with a wound, and a sacrifice that ends in a specimen jar.
Two stray dogs from the city’s underbelly try to hold each other amid the ruins. The whole of Syndicate will become the tombstone marking their awkward love.
The blurb can’t do it justice. Come read the story~
