Yilan sat beside him, her hands gripping his as if he might disappear again. Her tears had dried, but the remnants of fear still lingered in her eyes.
Sanlang exhaled slowly, staring at the ceiling. The past was pouring into him, wave after wave, and he could not stop it.
"Yilan…" his voice was hoarse, distant, like it didn't belong to him. "I remember now."
She tensed. "Remember what?"
His fingers curled against the sheets, his throat tightening.
"Everything."
Yilan's breath caught, but she did not speak. She waited.
And Sanlang—he fell into the past.
"I wasn't supposed to be alive, Yilan."
"I was already sold. Already marked."
"But she… she took me."
A voice like the whisper of a blade before it cut.
"You have two choices."
"Repay the hundred billion."
"Or obey."
Sanlang had fought.
Fought like a beast thrown into a cage.
But there were no chains. No whips. No locked doors.
The prison was soft.
And that was what made it unbearable.
"I was given everything, Yilan." His voice was low, almost haunted. "The best doctors. The finest clothes. They treated me like a prince."
His hands clenched.
"But I was not free."
Yilan's fingers trembled against his own. "Did she—?"
"No." His answer was immediate. "She never hurt me."
"Then why…?"
Sanlang let out a bitter laugh. "Because she did not have to."
Yilan looked confused, but Sanlang did not explain.
Sanlang exhaled slowly, his fingers pressing against his temples. The storm outside had faded, but the one inside him still raged, tearing through the cracks in his memory.
Yilan sat across from him, motionless, waiting.
Sanlang leaned forward, his silver eyes dark with something Yilan had never seen before.
"You think you know what happened to me, Yilan?" His voice was quiet, almost fragile. "You don't."
Yilan's fingers curled against her knee. "Then tell me."
Sanlang let out a slow, bitter chuckle.
"She never chained me. Never locked me away. But I was a prisoner all the same."
Yilan frowned. "Who?"
His throat tightened.
"The woman in the veil."
The name burned against his tongue, but he didn't say it.
"She took me to a mansion. A place so vast and silent, it felt like the world outside had ceased to exist. They treated me like a prince. Fed me like a king. Left me to wander through endless halls."
He clenched his fists.
"But I refused it all."
"Why?" Yilan whispered.
Sanlang's eyes flickered with something—something broken, something searching.
"Because I wasn't the only one who was taken."
Yilan inhaled sharply.
"There was a girl." His voice was softer now, almost hesitant. "Before I was bought. In the dungeon. She was different from the others. Not begging. Not crying. Just... waiting."
Yilan frowned. "Waiting for what?"
Sanlang's breath hitched.
"To die, I think."
Yilan's blood ran cold.
"She was unlike anyone I've ever seen. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A kind of beauty that shouldn't exist in a place like that. But she wasn't alive, Yilan. Not really."
His voice cracked, just slightly.
"That I'd find a way. But she never even looked at me long enough to hope."
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration leaking into his voice.
"And then, after I was bought, after I was taken to that mansion, she was all I could see."
"You saw her again?" Yilan asked carefully.
Sanlang hesitated.
"I don't know."
A shudder passed through him.
"Every night, when I fell asleep, when the exhaustion finally won—she was there."
Yilan's breath caught.
"Standing in the corner of my room."
Her pulse hammered.
"Not moving. Not speaking. Just watching me."
Sanlang's voice dropped to a whisper.
"And I wanted to save her. But I couldn't."
His fingers curled against his wrist, his breath uneven.
"I'd wake up drenched in sweat, feeling her eyes on me. But when I looked—" He swallowed.
"The room was empty."
A long silence.
Then—Sanlang met Yilan's gaze, his emerald eyes haunted.
"But I knew, Yilan."
His voice was barely a breath.
"I knew she never left."
Scene 11: Blood and Fire
"Not a single soul walked out of that mansion, Yilan."
Sanlang's voice was cold, hollow. A voice scraped raw from something that had never healed.
"Not. One."
The fire clawed at the sky, its embers swirling like fallen stars, turning the night into a second sun. The air was thick—thick with burning flesh, with the scent of something too human, too raw, too irreversible.
They had walked in laughing. Gold-lined robes, jeweled hands, voices dipped in wine and sin. Hundreds of them.
And then—
The walls ran red.
The screams choked on smoke.
And the bodies—God, the bodies—weren't bodies anymore.
"It wasn't a massacre." Sanlang exhaled, his fingers digging into the bedsheet as if trying to hold onto something solid, something real. "It was… something else."
He had woken up half-conscious, dragged through a house that had already died. His boots slipped in blood. His vision flickered between fire and flesh.
A hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him forward. Unshaken. Unstained. Unstoppable.
The veiled woman walked ahead, her silk unmoved by the carnage, dragging a boy by her side. A child. Small, fragile, his limbs limp as a broken doll.
Sanlang stumbled, his stomach twisting, his body heaving, but there was no escape—only red, only ruin.
His voice cracked. "What… what did you do?"
She didn't answer.
Because it didn't matter.
Because she was already walking away, leading him through the open doors where no one else had passed through.
He staggered forward, the world spinning, his mind screaming to wake up wake up wake up—
And then she stopped.
Turned.
Lifted the veil.
His vision blurred, but he saw—
Nothing.
Not a face. Not eyes.
Just a whisper, soft as a blade pressing against his throat.
"Noor."
And then—
Darkness.
His fingers curled, remembering the feel of blood-soaked silk beneath them.
"It was already too late."
Sanlang's voice was stripped of warmth.
"That night, not a single soul walked out of that mansion."
Yilan barely swallowed.
"Hundreds of them," Sanlang murmured. "Drinking. Laughing. Owning the world."
A pause. The silence cut deeper than words.
"Then the night shifted."
His hands curled into fists.
"I don't know when the fire started," he continued. "I only remember the smell."
Yilan almost asked—then stopped.
Sanlang answered anyway.
"It wasn't smoke."
A breath.
"It was ______blood."
The air felt colder.
"It was everywhere. Not spilled. Not pooled. Painted. Thick enough to drown in."
His lips twisted.
"I stepped forward. The floor was wet."
Drip.
Drip.
"She was there."
Yilan's grip on the chair tightened.
"She held my shoulder. Steady. Like holding up something broken."
His gaze darkened.
"She dragged a boy behind her. Young. Barely breathing. His eyes—"
Sanlang swallowed.
"His eyes looked like mine."
Yilan didn't speak.
"The screams weren't dying." His voice was almost gentle. "They were already dead."
The mansion roared, flames licking the sky.
Bodies littered the halls like discarded things.
"Through all of it. She walked out like it was nothing."
"And then?"
Sanlang closed his eyes.
"I asked for her name."
His breath hitched.
"She lifted her veil."
A pause.
"I couldn't see her face."
"Why?"
His eyes opened, hollow and far away.
"Because my vision blurred the moment she spoke."
Yilan's hands trembled. "What… what did she say?"
Sanlang leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
The name slashed through the night.
And then—
Darkness.
Sanlang exhaled slowly, his fingers pressing into the blanket as he stared at nothing. "I woke up to the scent of home."
Yilan sat across from him watching every flicker of his expression.
"For a moment, I thought it was a dream," he murmured. "That the chains, the blood, the fire… none of it happened. That I never stood in there that I never heard the screams turning to silence. But then I moved—" He let out a humorless chuckle. "And everything ached."
Yilan's hands clenched in her lap.
"Do you know the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes?" Sanlang asked, his voice distant.
She didn't answer.
"You."
Her lips parted.
"You were crying." He let the words settle between them. "You grabbed my hand, just like this—" He lifted his wrist slightly. "You said my name, over and over, as if saying it enough times would make sure I was real."
Yilan swallowed hard. "You were missing for two weeks." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "No word. No sign. And then—"
"I was just there." His lips twisted. "Back in my own bed, as if none of it had happened."
"What happened to you?" she finally asked.
Sanlang closed his eyes.
"I was dragged. Chained. Beaten. Left hungry, left thirsty. I was bought for a hundred billion like an animal." His voice was steady, but his fingers curled tighter against the sheets. "But that's not what I remember the most."
Yilan didn't breathe.
"It was her."
A flicker of something crossed Yilan's face. "Who?"
"The woman who bought me."
"Who was she?"
Sanlang opened his mouth. Closed it. Laughed under his breath.
He rubbed his face. "She never showed me her face. Not once."
Yilan's brows knitted together.
"She gave me two choices, Yilan. Repay the debt or be hers forever."
A shudder passed through Yilan's spine.
"I refused." His voice was low, almost lost in the room. "And yet… she never came to collect."
He leaned back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling.
"Not until years later. When I finally heard the name again and she was moved past me."
Yilan furrowed her brows. "Who".
Sanlang closed his eyes ,smiled and called the name like a prayer ,"Noor".