The room swam back into focus, the familiar scent of perfume and dust making my head spin. "Yinuo,"a voice chimed, the edges laced with a chilling glee. "Lin Jian died."
My heart, already a hollow echo in my chest, simply acknowledged the news. "Is that so?" I managed, my voice as flat as the stone floor beneath me. I had predicted this, this inevitable outcome, and yet, my body felt like a brittle puppet, devoid of any genuine emotion.
"But, who are you?" I asked, the question hanging heavy in the air. The voice, the way he moved, it was all so familiar. Yet, there was a dissonance, a subtle shift in the rhythm of his being that felt profoundly wrong.
"Guess," he chuckled, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "If you guess right, I'll tell you...everything. How's that? Don't you want to know?" He leaned closer, his fingers ghosting across my hair, tugging a stray strand away.
My breath hitched. This demeanor, this unsettling playfulness - it was Lin Jian.
"Lin Jian," I whispered, taking his hands away, tracing the delicate lines of his fingertips as if to confirm the impossible. "You are...Lin Jian."
He undid the bandage around my eyes, careful, almost reverent.
"I hate looking at them," he said. "Your eyes. They remind me too much of him."
My breath caught. "Who?"
"Your brother, Zhang Li…Or, as you know him, Xinyue."
A jolt ran through me. "Master?"
He laughed quietly, not because it was funny—because it hurt. "Is that what you still call him?"
He stepped closer, the warmth of his palm suddenly pressing against my throat. Not squeezing. Just holding.
"If I had known who you were from the beginning, I wouldn't have wasted my time pretending. I wouldn't have smiled at you. Wouldn't have asked about your stupid tea preferences or told you how the stars looked from the east wall. I would've slit your throat in your sleep."
I flinched, but he didn't tighten his grip. He just looked at me, almost… sad.
"But I didn't know," he whispered. "And that's the worst part."
He pulled his hand away like I burned him.
"It was all my conspiracy. I'm a spy, sent by my kingdom to infiltrate your sect. You see, Zhang Li, your master, he's a monster. He's done terrible things." He paused, his eyes hard and cold. "My sister, she was a victim of his cruelty. The city she lived in, wiped out. My kingdom, we want justice."
He paused, his voice a low growl as he continued, "Zhang Li needs to pay for his crimes." as he held the back of my head.
"No…" I shook my head. "That can't be…That can't be—he—he protected us. He protected me."
"Yes. And that's the only reason you're still breathing."
He leaned in close. I didn't move.
"I could've killed you a hundred times. But I didn't. Because I was weak. Because somewhere along the way, I started thinking of you as real. Not a pawn. Not a sister of a monster."
His voice dropped lower.
"I'm sorry, Yinuo. I'm sorry for ever letting myself think we were friends. I should've known better."
My chest felt hollow. Like my ribs were just paper scaffolding.
"I didn't know," I whispered. "I didn't know anything."
"You should have," he snapped, not loud—but cutting. "You were right there. Laughing. Training. Drinking tea with the monster. You looked at me and smiled, and I thought—gods, I thought maybe I could forget. Just for a little while."
His hands were shaking.
"And now I hate that I still remember the sound of your laugh. I hate that I ever hesitated."
"I didn't mean to—" My voice broke.
He exhaled, turning from me, like he couldn't bear to see my face.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are a part of that sin."
Master... or Zhang Li, my brother didn't die. He survived. Lin Jian will use me as a hostage against him.
"Coward," Lin Jian spat, the word a venomous seed planted in the fertile ground of my fear. "He's a coward, that brother of yours. But he loves you, so he'll be back."
Lin Jian was like clockwork.
Every seven days, without fail, he descended the spiral steps into my dungeon. Always alone at first, his polished boots clicking sharply against the stone, the iron door groaning open like it resented his presence as much as I did.
Sometimes he brought guards. Other times, only tools.
But always—always—he brought pain.
He'd smile, warm and charming, like a gentleman caller. As if the smell of blood and mildew didn't cling to the air. As if the shackles digging into my wrists weren't red from last week's session.
He'd crouch near my corner, where the torchlight barely touched, and tilt his head.
"Where is Zhang Li?"
Silence.
"Did he ever love her?"
Silence again. And that was what angered him most. My refusal to scream. My refusal to break.
The syringe would follow. Slender, precise. The burn was slow. Deliberate. As if the venom he used was designed to remember the veins it traveled.
I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. I never gave him the satisfaction. But oh, I felt it. The fire. The sickness. The splitting of nerve and reason.
Pain was no longer something to flinch from—it was simply there. A constant, like the dampness beneath me, or the chains.
It was the only thing keeping me tethered to this version of myself.
But then, something shifted.
It began days before—weeks, maybe. Time was water down here. Forgettable.
The mice were always there. Soft, scuttling things. Sometimes they watched me. Sometimes they crawled near enough to nibble at crumbs of stale bread he'd toss, mockingly.
One came too close.
I crushed it.
Not in panic. Not in fear.
Just… because.
The snap was quiet, the bones folding inward like damp twigs. I stared at it. It had trusted me. I whispered an apology. Then flicked it away.
No emotion. No remorse.
That was the beginning.
The next time, I strangled one slowly. Its tiny body squirmed in my palm. I listened to its breath vanish.
And I felt…
Peace.
A slow, aching quiet inside.
That's when I knew. I was changing. Something inside me was unraveling, like a thread being pulled too long and too tight.
So when Lin Jian arrived this time, with his guards and his cold smile, I looked at the men and thought—
"I could kill them all."
Not with fantasy. But with intent. That was the difference.
"Rip their throats. Stab his jugular while he laughs. Poison the next tea they pour."
My hands twitched. The thought wrapped around my spine like a lover.
Then I blinked. Hard. Felt myself snap back into my body. Breathing shallow. Skin slick with sweat.
What's happening to me?
That night, Lin Jian brought something new. A strange machine of glass and thin steel, humming faintly.
"This one," he said, "is a gift. From my sister's remains. It helped ease her pain. I wonder if it'll ease yours."
He began the ritual.
Needles in my neck. Something sharp in my thigh. My body seized. My mouth opened in a scream I didn't recognize as mine. I choked on it.
And then—he stopped.
Abruptly.
He crouched in front of me, reached out, and brushed damp strands of hair from my cheek.
"You're burning again," he murmured. His voice was… almost soft.
I tried to recoil. The shackles clanged. But he was already pulling me into his arms.
I thrashed, weakly, but he didn't let go.
He held me.
Cradled my broken body like I was something precious, something to protect.
"I hate you," I whispered, voice hoarse.
He said nothing. Just rocked me slightly, his breath calm and warm against my ear.
He reached for a pill. Pale green.
"No."
"You need it."
"I said no," I rasped, mouth dry.
But he pressed it to my lips anyway, and when I refused, he forced it past them, holding my jaw until I swallowed. Then… silence.
A moment passed.
He stroked my back. Whispered in that terrifyingly gentle voice: "You're mine to keep alive."
And I—
I didn't know if I wanted to die or scream or sleep.
But when he let me go, I curled in on myself, trembling.
Not from pain.
But from the quiet realization that something inside me had shifted.
And it would never shift back.