Night fell like ink spilled from the sky.
A heavy stillness pressed upon the Lin estate. The wind was absent, yet the trees rustled softly, as though whispering secrets to one another. In the servants' quarters, oil lamps flickered even when the shutters were sealed. The maid in charge of night rounds paused before the west wing and muttered a charm beneath her breath before scurrying away.
Within the bridal chamber, time had slowed.
Ruyan sat before her dressing table, as she did each evening since the miscarriage. Her cheeks were pallid, her lips colorless. A band of faded red lingered across the lower hem of her gown—dried blood that the washerwoman had refused to scrub again. No one dared approach her room.
The bronze mirror before her was still cracked from that night. Its edges now bore dried crimson threads, like veins spreading across its surface. Ruyan raised the brush and combed her hair slowly, carefully, methodically. Stroke after stroke, her movement so steady it could be mistaken for ritual.
And perhaps, it was.
The room was silent—until it wasn't.
A creak, soft as breath. The candle flickered.
In the mirror, her hand moved—yet the reflection lagged behind. For a heartbeat too long, her image stared back… but did not follow.
Then came the voice.
It wasn't spoken aloud, but it echoed within her ribs.
"Still you grieve…"
Ruyan froze.
She looked up into the mirror. Her own eyes stared back. But beneath them—another gaze. A shadow beneath the glass, watching her from behind her own reflection.
"He tore from you what could have saved you… but I can give you something in return."
Ruyan did not answer. She couldn't. Her lips were sealed, not by fear, but by the unbearable pressure of knowing.She wasn't alone anymore.
A drop of blood fell from her fingertip.
She hadn't realized her palm was cut. The shard of mirror she gripped had sunk into flesh. Yet there was no pain. The blood slipped down the curve of the mirror and vanished as if consumed.
The candle flared blue. In the mirror, the shadow smiled.
Elsewhere in the estate, Lin Shirong tossed in his bed.
He dreamed—or believed he did.
In his dream, he lay paralyzed beneath the crimson bridal canopy. Ruyan stood at the foot of the bed, her face obscured by the heavy veil. She combed her hair slowly, strands trailing across the covers toward him like black silk threads. The sound of the comb—shhh—shhh—shhh—grew louder until it scratched like claws on wood.
He tried to move. To scream.
But her head turned toward him—slowly, inch by inch.
And though her veil still covered her face, he knew:She had no eyes.
He awoke gasping, cold sweat soaking his collar. The candle beside him had gone out. In its place, the mirror from Ruyan's casket lay at his bedside.
He hadn't brought it there.
The next morning, servants whispered.
Someone had seen Ruyan near the old well before sunrise, hair unbound, barefoot on wet stone. When called to, she didn't respond. She merely stood still, head tilted toward the water, as though listening to something deep below.
Another claimed she passed by the ancestral shrine in the middle of the night, dragging her wedding train behind her, her reflection missing from the polished floor tiles.
A chambermaid refused to serve breakfast. She said the food turned bitter in her mouth when she crossed the west wing. Her hands shook too much to carry a tray.
That evening, Lin Shirong stood in the corridor outside the bridal chamber.
He had not spoken to Ruyan in days. Guilt gnawed at him, though he would never name it as such. Rather, it was a gnawing unease—as if the house no longer recognized him.
He pressed his palm against the door. Inside, no sound.
Then… a comb.
Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.
Slow, dragging strokes, drawn through endless hair.
He opened the door.
The room was empty—save for the mirror.
On its surface, words had appeared in red, scrawled as if with a finger dipped in blood:
"Feed me. Night by night. Let the debt ripen."
The mirror's surface shimmered.
Behind the glass, a woman waited.