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墨書 Inktalez
The sound of the medicine spoon clinking against the porcelain bowl startled me awake. The Second Mistress's prayer beads slipped from her wrist and fell over the edge of the bed, the scent of sandalwood mingling with a faint, sweet metallic tang. "Ying Niang, it's time to drink the throat-soothing soup."
I stared at the peony tattoo peeking out from her qipao collar. The torn fabric from last night's torrential rain was now neatly fastened, yet it couldn't hide the fresh bite marks on her collarbone—definitely adult teeth impressions.
"Yan'er went to the dock before dawn to scoop up the amber-colored medicine," she said. "I heard that foreigners are bringing in new-style wheelchairs. This child always complains that the wooden wheels are too rough on his legs."
As the medicine slid down my throat, I suddenly tasted a familiar metallic flavor. The Second Mistress's nails dug into my wrist. "Drink slowly. When I used to nurse Yan'er, he would always choke in his eagerness..."
In the beam of light filtering through the window, I noticed tiny pinpricks on her neck. Those scars arranged like lotus petals reminded me of Shen Yan's burn marks and the sensation of his severed limb pressing against my thigh last night.
"Are you saying Young Master was raised on breast milk?" I deliberately let some of the medicine spill from the corner of my mouth.
The Second Mistress froze mid-motion as she reached for her handkerchief. When her silk cloth embroidered with intertwined lotuses brushed against her chest, I clearly saw the dark bruises surrounding her areola—definitely not injuries caused by an infant's suckling.
"Twenty-Five Years Ago, I knelt in mourning clothes at the altar," she suddenly tore open her collar, her aged breasts sagging in the twilight. "While nursing Yan'er, I listened to Master unfastening his belt behind the coffin."
The porcelain bowl suddenly fell and shattered on the floor. I stared at the stretch marks on her abdomen; they were certainly not remnants from Twenty-Five Years Ago.
As I changed clothes, the copper mirror reflected bruises on my back. The red rope Shen Yan had tied around me last night left lotus-shaped patterns on my waist, eerily similar to those of the Second Mistress.
"This Chuanbei Loquat Syrup..." I traced my fingers over the carved markings on the green porcelain medicine jar, where a flowing script spelled out "Yun."
Suddenly, her prayer beads snapped, and sandalwood beads rolled under the bed. "Yan'er said you were particularly... at night..."
A loud thud echoed from outside the courtyard. When we rushed out, we saw the steward directing servants to move a carved wooden box. From within it rolled out a blood-stained swaddling cloth, lined with embroidery depicting "the Qin Wan Yun."
"This is Madam's relic!" The Second Mistress suddenly screamed as she lunged forward, the veins in her neck bulging. "You touched the items from the west chamber?"
In the chaos, I picked up a half-torn piece of paper, the ink bleeding into a horrifying fragment: 【......Twin Swap, do not forget your promise...... Qing Yun's final words】.
"!"
Amidst the butler's gasp, a pair of scissors suddenly slid from the bottom of the box. The Second Mistress clutched the scissors and smiled at me, "I used this to cut that child's Umbilical Cord back then."
The twilight thickened at that moment. I looked into her distorted pupils and finally understood the origin of those needles—they were old scars from where the scissors had pierced.
As the clock struck midnight, I reached for the west chamber. A wheelchair stood beneath the moon gate, its chrome metal glinting coldly in the moonlight. He was wrapping bandages around his Prosthetic Limb, blood seeping from the stump and staining the dark patterns on the bandages—endless lotus flowers.
"Young Master's leg..."
"When I was eight, I caught my father violating Nurse in front of my mother's spirit tablet." He suddenly tore at his own bones. "My mother's coffin began to bleed."
The stench of blood mixed with a milky fragrance rushed towards me. Only then did I notice that the armrests of the wheelchair were etched with tiny bite marks, resembling Shen.
"Later, I learned that turning the Prosthetic Limb made a mechanical grinding sound," he continued. "That night, what bled from the coffin was human blood—it splattered when my father slit Nurse's throat."
The night wind lifted his shirt to reveal a tattoo of Sheng Chen's eight characters on his lower back. My blood ran cold—I realized that was the day I was sold into Shen Mansion.
"Do you want to know why I chose you?" He suddenly gripped my neck and pressed it against the wheelchair, the metal armrest digging into my burned chest. "Because when you breathe..."
Suddenly, a crash echoed from the east chamber. As we rushed in, we saw Master shoving a jar of Loquat Syrup into the Second Mistress's lower body, shredded swaddling cloth scattered all over the floor.
"Back then, you couldn't feed me, Yan'er... How about now, feeding you here?"
Shen Yan's prosthetic limb suddenly lodged in the master's throat. In the chaos, I stumbled upon that torn letter, the last line of which bled under the moonlight: [Twin Swap, the Shen Family's fortune requires the blood of a close relative.]
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