I'm nauseous. My stomach keeps rolling like I swallowed bad water.
The man who confessed to me yesterday is already dead.
And Gu Chen—the only man in this village who scares me more than the corpse—is staring straight at me.
⸻
The smell hits first. Iron. Wet soil.
I gag, pressing a rough, patched sleeve to my mouth. God, it's scratchy. My skin isn't used to this fabric. Or this body. This isn't my room. This isn't the life I remember. Yesterday, I was arguing over a spreadsheet. Today, I'm a ghost in a faded blue tunic.
Memories hit in broken flashes—sunlight, Li Feng smiling like a nervous kid, a confession by the well, then darkness swallowing the world.
"Lin Yue, don't get up!" an old woman whispers. Her hands shake so badly she drops the basin. Clang. The metal hits the dirt floor with a jarring crack. "You fainted when they found him."
"Found who?" My voice is hoarse. Too thin. It doesn't belong to me.
"Li Feng. By the well. They pulled him out at dawn."
Shit. My chest tightens. My brain starts running the numbers. Dead man plus a public confession to me equals an easy villain for the locals. I'm either a suspect or a village ghost story, and both end with me buried.
I swing my legs off the bed. My knees wobble, but I lock them anyway. I need to see the damage before they decide my fate for me.
Outside, the village is a swarm of whispers.
"That's her."
"The plague girl."
"Don't meet her eyes."
The crowd parts before I even reach them. They don't just move; they recoil. Like I'm a bad omen walking.
Li Feng lies on a straw mat. Too still. Too quiet. His lips are a bruised blue, his neck bent at an angle that makes the skin on my own nape prickle. No water in his mouth. No mud under his nails. No struggle marks. Just a clean, violent break.
"He talked to her yesterday," a man mutters. "Then he died."
I feel the heat of their stares. Fear is already curdling into anger, and anger always needs a target. Right now, it's mine. I scan the crowd. I need a shield. Fast.
The noise dies when he arrives. No shout. No command. Just a heavy, suffocating presence.
Gu Chen.
He walks into the circle, and people step back without being told. He doesn't see a grieving girl; he sees a puzzle. He crouches by the body, his fingers pressing the neck—calm, practiced, clinical.
"Not drowning," he says. His voice is a low vibration in the dirt. "Neck first. Water later."
He stands. Turns. His gaze finds me and stays. Locked.
"You spoke to him last."
Not a question. A blade.
"He liked me," I say. I don't cry. Not here. "He confessed. I told him to go home."
"Did he quarrel with anyone?" Gu Chen steps closer. I smell leather and cold, mountain air. He's the only one not shrinking away from me. To the village, I'm a curse. To him, I'm evidence.
A memory surfaces—Li Feng arguing near the grain store last night. A tall man. Aggressive.
"Someone was yelling at him," I say. "Near the grain store. Tall. Dark cap."
"A dark cap?" Gu Chen's gaze sharpens. "Half the men here wear one."
"Then start searching," I snap. "Unless you prefer more bodies."
A ripple runs through the crowd. Maybe I shouldn't have talked back, but playing the victim will get me stoned.
Suddenly, a young man pushes forward from the edge. He's red-faced and sweating. An idiot.
"Lin Yue… I don't believe the rumors. You're brave. I've liked you for a long time—"
No. No, no, no. "Shut up," I whisper, my throat closing up.
"I really like—"
The air turns cold. A sharp, high whine drills into my ears, drowning out the crowd. The curse. It's reactive. It's fast.
I step back like he slapped me. "Stop talking!"
He looks confused. Hurt. Still smiling that doomed, boyish smile. A dead man walking.
I don't wait for the fallout. I turn and bolt, whispers chasing me like hounds. I slam my hut door shut and shove the latch down. My pulse beats in my fingertips. I need the rules before this world buries me.
Knock. Knock.
The door shudders. Not a polite tap. A demand.
"Lin Yue. Open up."
Gu Chen.
Running makes me guilty. Hiding makes me a target. I open the door. He stands there, lantern behind him, face half in shadow.
"The boy," he says quietly. "The one who spoke."
My stomach drops. "What happened?"
"He tripped. Onto a sharpened fence post." A pause. "It went through his throat."
My lungs forget how to breathe. I hold his gaze, refusing to let the panic show. "That was fast."
"Too fast." He steps in, crowding me back until the mud wall scrapes my spine. "You're not unlucky, Lin Yue. You're dangerous."
He looks at me like a weapon he already chose.
"I'm a girl who wants to stay alive," I whisper.
"Liar." His thumb presses into my jaw—not gentle, not cruel. Testing. "You're a trap."
His eyes don't see a curse. They see prey. For the first time, I'm not sure who should be afraid.
A scream rips through the night.
"The stables! The horses—something's wrong!"
More shouting follows. "Two are dead! Their hearts just stopped!"
My heart stutters. It's spreading. Not just men now. The curse is widening. If the animals die, the village won't just whisper. They'll fix it the old way. Fire. Rope. Stones.
I grab Gu Chen's sleeve. It's impulsive. It's stupid. But I'm desperate.
"You can't let them decide this is me," I say. "If they panic, I'm dead before sunrise."
His gaze drops to my hand on his arm. Slow. Deliberate.
"You're asking for my protection?" he asks.
I hate the answer. "Yes."
He studies my face like he's reading a death warrant. "And what do I get?"
"I'll tell you everything. Every detail of what I saw last night."
A beat. His jaw tightens. Outside, the panic is growing. The village is waking up, and they're coming for someone to blame.
He could leave me. He should. But he doesn't. Instead, he steps closer. Too close.
"If this curse follows desire," he says quietly, his voice a dark rasp, "then staying near me is the worst choice you could make."
I swallow hard. "I know."
Still, I don't step away. I choose the monster I can see over the mob I can hear.
He watches me, a grim satisfaction in his eyes. He knows he has me.
Another scream erupts outside. Closer. Much closer.
Gu Chen leans in, his face inches from mine. "If I die because of you, Lin Yue…"
His thumb tilts my chin up, forcing me to look into the abyss of his gaze.
"…I'll make sure you're the last thing I see."
Outside, a man screams my name, and the sound of heavy footsteps hits the porch.
They're here.
⸻
The door isn't going to hold another minute.