The scream did not fade.
If anything, it grew, splitting into something that no longer sounded like a single voice—layered instead, overlapping, decades of the same grief screamed in unison until the sound itself seemed to have texture, weight, a physical presence pressing down against every surface in the cellar.
The wedding gowns thrashed on their hooks, red silk snapping through the air in wild, violent arcs, and the shattered mirror fragments scattered across the floor lifted—slowly, impossibly—hovering a few inches above the stone as though gravity itself had lost interest in them. From the ceiling, thin lines of crimson ink began to seep downward, tracing crooked paths along the old wooden beams before dripping, one slow drop at a time, into the dark.
Every candle went out.
Every candle except one—the single flame flickering at Lin Yue's side, small and stubborn, casting the only real light left in the room.
