[Thatched Hut · Night]
Wind seeped through the broken window, dragging cold into the room. Moonlight spilled in mottled patches across the damp floorboards.
"Brother… danger!"
The cry tore her out of a nightmare.
Ling Dang jolted upright, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. The last image still clung to her mind like blood-smoke: chaos, screams, a fog so thick it tasted like rust.
She stared around in a daze.
This wasn't the inn.
It was a strange thatched hut, its walls stained and flaking, a candle guttering in the corner as if it might die at any breath. She lifted her hand, then froze.
A thin silver chain circled her wrist.
Not tight enough to cut, but heavy enough to announce one thing clearly: you are not free.
"Where… am I?"
Before she could steady her thoughts, memory surged back like a tide breaking a dam.
Not long ago, she had still been seated at the inn's chessboard, laughing with her elder brother, Ling Shuo. Luo Ye arrived, intent on taking Ling Dang back to the Yao Estate.
Ling Shuo smiled, polite as ever.
"Young Master Luo, I know you've taken good care of my sister. But now that I've returned, it's only right I shoulder a brother's duty. I'll find a place for Dang'er and me to settle down. After all, there has been no matchmaker, no formal betrothal between you. Living together at the Yao Estate would be… improper."
Luo Ye's face darkened instantly.
"How long have you been back," he snapped, "that you think you can decide for her?!"
The air between them tightened like a drawn bowstring.
Caught in the middle, Ling Dang could only stammer, "Brother… Luo-ge… please don't fight, alright?"
Ling Shuo's tone stayed gentle, but a glint flashed in his eyes, cold and hard to name.
"Dang'er, I'm doing this for your own good. Young Master Luo has a violent temper and acts on impulse. You're soft by nature. You may not be suited."
Then, with a softness that pressed like a blade's flat edge:
"And what you feel for him… is it gratitude, or… genuine love?"
The words struck like a needle in her heart.
Ling Dang went pale. Her fingers trembled.
"Is it… gratitude? I… I don't know."
Luo Ye's anger surged, flame with nowhere to go. He didn't even know who he was angrier at: Ling Shuo's provocation, or her hesitation.
His jaw clenched. He forced his voice flat as ice and cut his gaze toward Ling Shuo.
"Her affairs don't require an outsider to teach me how to act."
Then he turned sharply and left.
Ling Dang lurched forward to chase him, but Ling Shuo caught her wrist.
"Dang'er," he murmured, close and calm, "if you run after him now, you'll be answering his feelings. But are you certain what you call love isn't simply dependence?"
"Remember this. In an age of chaos, the word 'love' misleads more than any blade."
His voice was warm, but something inside it pressed down on her, invisible and suffocating.
Ling Dang's feet rooted to the floor. Her chest tightened until it hurt.
She looked up at that familiar face, and for the first time, a chill crawled through her bones.
Noise erupted outside.
Before she could untangle her thoughts, a guard burst into the hall, face drained of color.
"Bad news! Young Lord Ling!" he gasped. "The citizens have gone mad. They're attacking anyone they see! The inn's surroundings have fallen into chaos. Please evacuate at once!"
Ling Shuo's chess piece paused between his fingers.
He rotated it lightly and placed it down with a crisp tap, expression still unnervingly composed.
"Oh?" he said softly. "So soon?"
The guard shook with panic. "They've already reached the street entrance! We can't hold them!"
Ling Dang's heart squeezed.
"Brother, we have to go!" she cried, reaching for his hand.
But in that instant, she saw it, just for a heartbeat: a strange darkness in his eyes, too calm to be human.
Then the crash of objects and screaming flooded in.
The inn's guests scattered in terror. Tables overturned. People fell and cried out. Chaos surged through the building like a wave.
"Brother!" Ling Dang clutched his hand desperately. "Run!"
Before she finished, several crazed townsfolk lunged at them.
She raised an arm to block, but a force she couldn't understand slammed into her, knocking her backward. A table toppled behind her with a heavy thud.
She fought wildly, and in the corner of her vision, she caught Ling Shuo turning his head.
"Don't be afraid," he said, voice gentle enough to calm a child. "I'm here."
He lifted his gaze toward the mob.
Faces gray with dust. Eyes flooded with black light. They howled and threw themselves at innocent travelers, yet the moment they neared Ling Shuo…
They stopped.
All of them.
Air congealed. The world turned wrong.
The mob's eyes were empty, wrapped in black fog, as if seized by invisible strings. They avoided Ling Dang and her "brother" completely, surging past them to rip into others instead.
"Why… why aren't they attacking us?" Ling Dang whispered, horrified.
Ling Shuo's lips curved, faint and slow.
"Because," he said, "they know who the master is."
Ling Dang's mind blanked.
"What are you… talking about?"
"No time to explain." His voice remained tender.
And then his hand lifted.
A flicker of cold light.
A sharp strike to the back of her neck.
"Ah—!"
The last thing she saw before darkness took her was Ling Shuo leaning close, eyes gentle and chilling at once, murmuring into her ear:
"Little girl… when you wake up, everything will be different."
Her body went limp into his arms.
He picked her up with one hand and stepped over the inn's threshold.
Outside, firelight roared. The madmen screamed.
And yet, when Ling Shuo carried the unconscious Ling Dang into the street, the frenzied crowd parted as if obeying a silent decree.
They fell to their knees, heads bowed, muttering words she couldn't hear clearly.
He lifted his eyes to the sky half-swallowed by black mist, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"…Good. The timing has come."
Then he vanished into the churning fog with her in his arms.
The night wind swept through, and the sound of things collapsing inside the inn became the final echo of order breaking.
And now she was here.
In this hut.
Ling Dang's gaze swept the corner where faint traces of black mist seemed to drift in the air. She clutched the bamboo whistle at her chest with shaking fingers and whispered:
"Brother… what happened to you?"
The darkness in the hut felt wet and cold, like it could freeze breath midair. The candle flame trembled, barely alive.
Then came the sound that made her stomach drop.
Clink. Clank.
Metal scraping.
The chain at her wrist ran to the wall, and as she shifted, the lock bit into her skin. Fine blood seeped where it rubbed raw.
She stared, dazed, terrified, still trying to believe there was an explanation that didn't shatter her world.
The door creaked open.
Creeeak.
Ling Shuo stepped in.
But the black light in his eyes flickered in the candle glow like a bottomless pool of night. His lips held a smile that didn't belong on a brother's face.
"Brother… are you alright?" Ling Dang's voice shook. "Where are we? Why am I chained?"
Ling Shuo smiled faintly.
The smile made her skin crawl.
"You're a funny little thing," he said lazily. "You're barely keeping yourself alive, and you're worried about other people?"
"Brother, what's wrong with you? Are you hurt?" She tried to move toward him.
The chain snapped taut with a sharp clank, yanking her back.
Ling Shuo bent down and seized her chin. The grip was brutal, squeezing the air from her throat.
Black mist writhed along his fingers like a living snake, coiling against her neck.
He chuckled low.
"Do you have any idea how annoying you are?" he murmured. "These past few days, you've been so noisy I've been sick of it."
His eyes narrowed, and the warmth was gone, stripped to something ugly.
"More than once… I wanted to split you open with a single stroke."
Ling Dang's pupils contracted. Tears flooded her eyes instantly.
"B-brother… what are you saying? What's happening to you… you…"
She couldn't accept it. She couldn't fit this face over the memory of the brother who'd once carried her on his back and scolded her gently when she cried.
Ling Shuo's gaze was cold and unfamiliar, threaded with disgust and mockery.
"Stop calling me your brother," he hissed. "It's maddening."
Smack!
A palm struck her face, whipping her head to the side.
Pain exploded across her cheek. Her hair fell loose. Blood tasted metallic at the corner of her mouth.
She stared, stunned, sobbing soundlessly.
"Brother… you…"
"Enough." He grabbed her chin again, forcing her to look at him.
The black fog in his eyes thickened, unnatural, almost… celebratory.
"He is Ling Shuo," he said softly, "but I am not."
He leaned closer, voice sliding into her ear like a blade.
"This body… is only something I borrowed."
Ling Dang's whole body went rigid.
"Y-you… who are you?"
A single name dropped into the hut like a stone into deep water.
"Ye Yi."
The air seemed to hollow out. Even the candle flame shuddered.
The pressure of him wrapped around her, cold and suffocating, and her blood turned to ice.
Her lips trembled.
"What… did you do to my brother…?"
Ye Yi smiled, thin and cruel, and whispered as if telling a secret meant only for her:
"His soul?" he murmured. "I found a more suitable place for it."
He turned slightly and tapped the air with a fingertip.
Black mist bloomed.
Within it, a blurred female silhouette formed, wavering like a shadow trapped under water.
That figure…
Wan Luo.
Ling Dang's eyes went wide.
"That's…!"
Ye Yi's voice was flat, merciless.
"Yes. He's inside her now. She was originally my sacrificial vessel. Now she's his prison."
Something in Ling Dang broke.
"No—!"
She thrashed violently. The chain cut deeper into skin. Blood smeared the metal. Her wrists burned.
"Give him back! Give me my brother! Give him back!"
Ye Yi looked down at her like she was an amusing insect.
"A body that fits this well, returned?" he laughed quietly. "Impossible."
His gaze sharpened, predatory.
"But you, little girl… you're a bargaining chip I intend to use. So you must live. Properly."
The candle flame wavered.
Black mist climbed the walls like invisible restraints, tightening around her until it felt like the room itself was locking shut.
Tears spilled over, hot and helpless.
And for the first time, truly, she understood:
The person she called "brother" was no longer here.