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墨書 Inktalez
The fabric on Shen Yan's back was charred by the flames, revealing a crisscross pattern of whip marks. As he rushed out of the inferno with the Second Mistress, I clearly saw the blood seeping from the junction of his severed limb and prosthetic limb, trailing like a curse on the blue brick floor.
"Mother!" He knelt and laid the Second Mistress flat on the ground, her damp hair revealing a scar from a blade. The moonlight illuminated the loosened collar of her qipao, where a mark identical to Shen Yan's was burned into her collarbone.
"Beast! Is this where you should touch?" The master's jade ring scraped Shen Yan's eye, blood splattering onto the Second Mistress's pale chest. I noticed a half-wilted peony tattooed on his mouth, with the character "Yun" hidden in its center.
Shen Yan sank into the mud, his prosthetic knee pressing against his opponent's abdomen. "Eighteen years ago, when you strangled my mother, you were in this very position when you struck down."
As I rushed to support the master, I heard the sound of Shen Yan tearing open the Second Mistress's garment. In that moment he leaned down, I clearly saw his tongue curling around a Silver Whistle —identical to the one tied around the Second Mistress's neck with a red string.
"Sister..." The Second Mistress murmured between breaths during artificial respiration, her scarlet nails clawing at Shen Yan's back. "Ah Yun hurts so much..."
Suddenly, Shen Yan yanked that red string apart. The Silver Whistle fell to the ground and shattered into two pieces, revealing a curled fetus inside as torrential rain washed over the master's twisted face. He roared for the servants to cut out everyone's tongues, but no one dared approach the burning ancestral hall.
Amidst the crackling sounds of the tablets in the fire, I picked up a charred piece of wood. With what remained of its gilded paint, I could make out the words "The Qin Clan of the Shen Sect," recalling that it was three years ago when I was sold into Shen Mansion.
As the midnight bell echoed through the air, I found myself beneath the ginkgo tree in front of the ancestral hall. Shen Yan knelt in the rain, blood seeping from his bandages and staining the ground with paper money. Last night, he had bitten my earlobe; now his lips were pressed into a sharp line. The burn scars that made me shudder glimmered with a fish-belly white sheen in the rain.
"You'll catch cold," I draped an outer garment over his shoulders. The soaked bellyband suddenly snapped, its embroidered pattern perfectly aligning with the bite marks on his severed limb.
Shen Yan's Adam's apple bobbed violently. His remaining left leg suddenly wrapped around my ankle, locking my joint in place. "How does Father like this body of Stepmother?"
The torrential rain washed away the stench of charred wood from the ancestral hall as his fingertips traced over my burn—the one inflicted by the master with an everlasting lamp last night. When his lips touched that scar, I realized his tongue was covered in tiny barbs.
"Young Master..." I struggled to reach for the hairpin, but he bound my wrist with a red string. The rope still carried the scent of Second Mistress's rouge, digging into the bruise he had left on me last night.
"Do you know why Father chose you?" he suddenly tore open my inner garment, rainwater flowing down the contours of my muscles into my navel. "When you gasp for breath... you resemble that child bride I accidentally suffocated."
In the moment when thunder split the night sky, I saw my reflection in his pupils—soaked to the skin like a newborn, taking on a lotus shape. The scene was disturbingly familiar, as if it had already played out in some erased cycle.
From the ruins of Shen Yan's Prosthetic Limb shrine came the sound of a baby crying, shaking my entire being. Blood dripped from the torn wounds of severed limbs onto my lower abdomen, scorching a Sheng Chen character identical to that of the Qin tablet.
"So it was you." He laughed maniacally, tearing open my collar to reveal a mole. "You should have been dealt with back then along with that bastard..."
I grasped the damp, charred wooden tablet and smashed it against his temple. Just before darkness consumed my consciousness, the last thing I saw was his bloodied lips moving silently, uttering the same words from three years ago when my mother was pushed into the well.
"You must live to bite back, Ying Niang."
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