The scream cut through the house like shattered glass.
Shen Liang froze, every muscle locked in place. The sound was raw, frantic—a human reaction to something unspeakable. His mind raced. Only one person could have screamed like that: the family servant.
But there was no one else in the house.
The hallway stretched before him, dark and silent, save for the occasional drip of blood from the ceiling beams or the faint scuff of his own boots. He forced himself forward, each step measured, careful not to make a sound—but the scream had already marked him.
He reached the inner chamber. The servant stood at the doorway, eyes wide, body trembling.
"Master… m-m-my lord…" the woman stammered, her voice breaking. Her hands clutched at her chest as though to hold herself together, but they shook uncontrollably.
Shen Liang's mind went cold. There was no hesitation, no internal debate. In her eyes, the accusation was already clear. He was the only one there. He had been in the house. His mother was dead.
He saw it in the servant's gaze before it was spoken.
"You… you did this!" she gasped.
"No," he said, voice low, deliberate. "I did not."
Her scream rose again, piercing, raw. "You were the only one here! I… I saw—"
He stepped closer, slowly, deliberately. His hands remained empty, palms out. "Listen. Calm down. I found her like this. I did not—"
The servant shrank back, eyes darting to the floor, to the blood, to the corpse. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle another sob. "Then… then who—who could have—"
Shen Liang's chest tightened. He wanted to answer, to explain, but the truth was unthinkable. Whatever force had touched the images, the void, the process of deletion—it was not bound by reason or morality. It had begun with his mother. And it would continue.
The servant's gaze fell on the black-and-white images now lying at his feet. Her eyes widened. "Those…" she whispered. "What are…?"
"They are not important right now," Shen Liang said. But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. The images were everything. They were proof. They were warning. And they were why he would now be suspected of murder.
The servant trembled, backing away, her fear turning to panic. "I… I have to call… someone!"
Shen Liang's mind worked in precise, icy logic. He could not let her leave. Not yet. If anyone else entered this house, if anyone saw what had happened… there would be questions. There would be investigations. And investigations were dangerous—too dangerous.
He moved with measured calm. "No one needs to know. Not yet. Stay here. Sit."
She shook her head violently, taking a step back, tripping over the threshold, nearly falling into the pool of blood. "No! I won't! I—"
"Sit," Shen Liang repeated, voice sharper this time. There was no anger in it—only inevitability. A command not born of cruelty, but of necessity.
The servant froze. Her eyes darted to his, searching for the boy she thought she knew. But something in him had changed—his sharp rationality now intertwined with something colder, more precise, something that carried the weight of the unseen.
Slowly, she sank to the floor, knees trembling. She pressed her hands to her mouth and stifled a sob.
Shen Liang knelt beside her, careful to keep a calm façade. "Listen," he said softly, "you did not see anything. You will tell no one that you were here. You will tell no one that you found her body. Do you understand?"
She nodded quickly, tears spilling over. "Y-yes… yes, my lord…"
"Good," he said. His eyes flicked to the images at his feet. "And these must never leave this room. Not a word, not a whisper, to anyone."
The servant shuddered but nodded again. Shen Liang stood, brushing blood from his robes. He felt no relief—only the tightening certainty that nothing would ever be normal again.
Outside the walls of his home, the world carried on as it always had. But inside, the process had begun. And now, not only had he inherited the void, he had inherited its consequence: suspicion. Guilt would cling to him as surely as blood to the floor.
And the next erasure would not wait.
Shen Liang turned his back to the corpse, to the servant, to the past. His mind raced ahead, calculating, planning. One thing was clear: he could not stay. Not here. Not if the world, or whatever force lingered beyond it, intended to continue its work.
And as he prepared to leave, he felt it again—a faint, almost imperceptible pressure against his awareness, like the void brushing a fingertip against the surface of his mind.