---
Ah Zhu opened the outer door to reveal Xiao Yue—Shen Yulan's favored maid. The girl was pale, soaked through, and shaking, her eyes wide with frantic desperation.
"Please," she said, her voice breaking, "Miss Shen… Elder Miss… my lady—Miss Yulan—isn't well. She's seeing things."
Shen Yuhan tilted her head. "Things?"
"She says she saw a woman in white standing in her mirror. Her own reflection—warped and grinning. We tried to cover the glass, but she tore the cloth off and started crying about being dragged into the grave…"
Ah Zhu raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Xiao Yue clutched the soaked hem of her sleeve. "Madam Su isn't in her room. No one knows where she's gone. The physician was called, but he wouldn't come. Said he won't step into Orchid Courtyard after dark."
Shen Yuhan let the silence stretch just long enough to weigh on the girl's heart.
Then, slowly, she moved to the table and poured a cup of tea—deliberately, gracefully.
"You came here because you think I can fix it?"
"I—" Xiao Yue swallowed hard. "I don't know who else to beg. No one listens to me anymore."
Ming'er looked at Shen Yuhan, waiting. Ah Zhu remained still as a shadow.
Then Shen Yuhan finally spoke.
"I can help," she said, "but everything comes with a price."
Xiao Yue dropped to her knees instantly, forehead touching the rain-wet floor. "I'll do anything."
"Good," Shen Yuhan murmured. "Then go back. Do not tell your lady I agreed. Let her suffer for one more night. Tell her you were turned away. Watch what she does. Report back before the second watch."
Xiao Yue looked up, confused. "You… want her to get worse?"
"I want to know what she does when she believes even I have abandoned her," Shen Yuhan said softly. "Because only then will I know who she truly is."
Xiao Yue hesitated. Her lips parted. But she saw something in Shen Yuhan's eyes then—something cold and unreadable—and the words died in her throat. She bowed low again and left without another word.
After the door shut, Ming'er whispered, "You really aren't going to help?"
"I will," Shen Yuhan said, eyes still on the door. "But not yet. The night is young—and ghosts walk slow."
Lightning flashed again, and in its glow, the shadows on Shen Yuhan's face made her look not entirely of this world.
Behind her, the Ghost Bride sat open once more—on the chapter where the spirit began to haunt not the wicked husband, but the scheming sister who had dressed in white to impersonate the bride and claim her dowry.
The parallels wrote themselves.
---
It was the second watch of the night.
Wind lashed through the Shen estate, rattling windows and whistling through the bamboo groves. Rain fell harder now, soaking the flagstones and turning the dirt paths between courtyards into slick veins of mud. Somewhere, a dog barked once—then fell silent.
In the darkness of Orchid Courtyard, Shen Yulan sat curled in the corner of her bed, eyes bloodshot and wild.
She hadn't slept.
Couldn't.
The red silk curtain around her bed had been torn down hours ago—she'd done it herself, screaming that something was hiding behind it. Her maid, Xiao Tong, had tried to calm her, only to receive a slap and be sent away.
The mirror across the room—once the pride of her dowry chest—was now cracked straight down the center. She'd thrown a porcelain hairpin stand at it after seeing the white-robed figure again, the one whose mouth moved just a second out of sync with her own.
But the worst part wasn't the visions. It was the silence.
No one believed her. Not her maids. Not the stewards. Not even her mother.
Su Wanning had not returned since that morning's confrontation in Osmanthus Courtyard.
She was alone.
And the ghost knew it.
Another bolt of lightning split the sky—and in that flash of pale light, Shen Yulan saw something at the edge of her vision.
A flicker of white.
Standing just outside the threshold of her room, unmoving, watching.
Her breath caught.
She scrambled backward across the floor, knocking into the lacquered chest where she kept her embroidery silks. Threads tumbled like spilled blood. "Who's there? WHO'S THERE?!"
No answer. Just rain.
And then—
A voice. Soft. Like breath over her shoulder.
"Why did you wear my dress…?"
Shen Yulan screamed.
She stumbled to the window and threw it open, heedless of the rain. "Xiao Yue! Xiao Tong! Anyone!"
But no footsteps came.
Only thunder.
And laughter—soft and lilting—echoing from behind her.
She turned slowly, face pale, lips trembling. "Please… please… I didn't mean to… I didn't know it was real…"
The wind blew through the room again.
And this time, the cracked mirror did not show her reflection at all.
It showed a girl in bridal red, her face veiled, her feet bare.
And she was walking forward.
---
Meanwhile, in Osmanthus Courtyard, Shen Yuhan finished changing into dry robes and sat calmly beneath the eaves, sipping warm chrysanthemum tea as Ah Zhu lit the last lantern.
"She'll break tonight," Ah Zhu said, adjusting the wick. "If she hasn't already."
"She's already broken," Shen Yuhan replied. "Now we see what crawls out of the cracks."
Ming'er entered then, shaking out a wet cloak. "Xiao Yue came back. She left this." She handed over a folded silk handkerchief, inside which was a torn scrap of paper. Shen Yuhan unfolded it.
A few hasty, smudged lines:
["She said she's sorry. She begged me to find a monk. Then she tried to burn the storybook—The Ghost Bride—but it wouldn't catch fire."
"She's not herself anymore. Please come tomorrow. Before she hurts herself.]
Shen Yuhan smiled faintly.
"She tried to burn the storybook?"
Ah Zhu chuckled. "That old thing? It's been damp since the first rain. Of course it wouldn't burn."
"But fear doesn't wait for logic," Shen Yuhan murmured. "And now she's bargaining. That's the final stage. Fear, denial, rage, and finally… surrender."
She stood, stretching her limbs with the ease of someone in total control. "Tell the steward to prepare incense and lanterns tomorrow morning. I'll go visit Second Sister. With care and concern, of course."
Ming'er hesitated. "Won't that make it look like you're gloating?"
"Not if I bring her warm congee and calming tonics. A sister's duty," Shen Yuhan said lightly, her eyes gleaming.
"And when Madam Su returns?" Ah Zhu asked, arching a brow.
Shen Yuhan turned to the rainy night with a calm smile.
"She will return. But by then, it won't be me she has to explain herself to. It'll be her daughter—mad with fear, screaming of ghosts. And a house full of servants whispering that Second Miss was the one cursed all along."
She stepped into the doorway, watching the downpour.
"She started this game by stealing my life," Shen Yuhan murmured. "Now she can keep it."
A clap of thunder echoed in the distance. Shen Yuhan didn't flinch.
She had already become the storm.