The ambush happened in rain.
Lãnh Phong remembered that more clearly than faces.
Rain on tin roofs. Rain in his eyes. Rain turning blood thin on the pavement.
Nghiêm Sư had chosen the alley because it had three exits.
The Union faction chose it because all three could be closed.
That was the lesson Lãnh Phong would remember later.
Knowledge did not protect you when the enemy knew what you knew and prepared around it.
They did not come shouting. They came with seals, umbrellas, and the calm of men who expected paperwork to forgive them afterward.
One of them even apologized to a passing auntie for blocking the way.
She thanked him.
That small courtesy made Lãnh Phong want to break his face before the fight had officially begun.
"Inspector Trần Vĩnh Nghiêm," one said. "You are requested to return for internal questioning."
Nghiêm Sư laughed once.
"Requested?"
Lãnh Phong moved before the first blade showed.
His master caught his sleeve.
"Look," Nghiêm Sư said.
Lãnh Phong looked.
Not at the men.
At the witnesses.
Two shopkeepers had lowered their shutters halfway. A child watched from behind a curtain. A woman with groceries stood frozen under a broken awning.
Union men had chosen a public alley because public fear made private violence easier to rewrite.
If Lãnh Phong attacked first, witnesses would remember rage.
If Nghiêm Sư surrendered, paperwork would remember confession.
If they ran, every exit would become proof of guilt.
The trap was not the alley.
It was interpretation.
Then the first needle hit Nghiêm Sư's shoulder.
Lãnh Phong turned.
Too late.
His master stumbled, one hand on the wall. Poison blackened the veins near his neck.
Nghiêm Sư looked less surprised than disappointed.
He had expected betrayal.
Not this fast.
Lãnh Phong broke the first attacker. Then the second. Then he stopped counting.
He did not fight beautifully.
Beauty required distance from consequence. Lãnh Phong fought like a door slamming on fingers. Elbows into throats. Knees into joints. A wet umbrella handle driven backward into a wrist until the hand forgot its weapon.
Somewhere, someone screamed his name.
He could not tell if it was warning or accusation.
"Enough," Nghiêm Sư said.
"No."
"Lãnh Phong."
The voice cut deeper than the poison.
More men arrived at the alley mouths. One held a camera. One held a warrant. One held a chain engraved with restraint script.
The camera mattered most.
Lãnh Phong understood that too late. The fight had not been arranged to defeat him. It had been arranged to record the exact moment his anger became useful to them.
Nghiêm Sư understood before Lãnh Phong did.
If they took him alive, they would use him as confession, hostage, bait, proof. They would make Lãnh Phong surrender, make his students disappear, make the dead file become a disciplinary matter.
"A dead man cannot be used as a hostage," Nghiêm Sư said quietly.
Lãnh Phong froze.
"No."
"A living disciple can still become a witness."
Lãnh Phong grabbed him.
"I can carry you."
"Then they follow what you carry."
"I can kill them."
"Then they own what you become."
Nghiêm Sư struck once.
Not at the enemy.
At his own heart line.
The old master's body folded into Lãnh Phong's arms.
His last breath smelled of rain and bitter medicine.
"Live long enough," he whispered, "to know who used the law."
Then the alley became noise.
Lãnh Phong escaped.
But something cleaner than him died there.
Later, people would say Nghiêm Sư killed himself because he was guilty.
Others would say Lãnh Phong killed him and rewrote the story.
The Union file would use careful language: self-inflicted termination during enforcement irregularity.
Lãnh Phong kept none of those sentences.
He kept only the weight of his master becoming impossible to use.
Years later, when Minh asked why Lãnh Phong hated clean explanations, Lãnh Phong almost told him this story.
Almost.
Then he remembered the camera in the rain, the warrant, the auntie thanking a man who had come to murder under color of law.
Some stories did not teach boys caution.
They taught them who to hate.
Lãnh Phong was not ready to give Minh that inheritance.
So when Minh later asked why Lãnh Phong always checked exits before sitting down, Lãnh Phong gave him the harmless answer.
"Habit."
It was not a lie.
It was only the smallest surviving piece of the truth.
Lãnh Phong did not carry the ambush as a clean memory. It arrived in pieces: a sleeve caught on broken wood, rain striking roof metal, Nghiêm Sư's hand pressing him toward the only gap in the wall. The city outside stayed ordinary, which made the danger harder to name. Motorbikes passed. Vendors argued over change. Somewhere, a radio kept singing.
The ambush used authority before it used fists.
Two men at the alley mouth showed Union identification and ordered Nghiêm Sư to surrender the stolen research. A third blocked the roof path. Behind them stood Huyền Tinh collectors who wanted the same pages for a different reason. Neither side acknowledged the other.
Nghiêm Sư pushed Lãnh Phong toward the broken wall. "Live first."
Lãnh Phong refused and struck the nearest collector. His speed opened a path and revealed him to every witness. Nghiêm Sư caught his shoulder on the return, redirected the explosive step, and used the force to throw him through the gap.
"Understand second," the master said.
The roof edge hid what happened next. Lãnh Phong heard impact, then the wet crack of timber giving way. By the time he climbed back, the pages were gone and Nghiêm Sư had placed his body where pursuit would have to cross it.
One Union man remained alive long enough to call the death lawful containment. A Huyền Tinh collector called it recovery of stolen property. Both descriptions survived in separate files.
Lãnh Phong took neither file. He took the master's torn sleeve and escaped before grief could make him predictable.
Years later, whenever he counted exits twice, his hand still searched for the gap Nghiêm Sư had forced him through.