It was during the waning years of the Yong Dynasty, in the city of Yan, where the Qinhuai River glimmered with the reflections of lantern-lit boats and the air trembled with the distant echoes of flutes and silk-draped laughter. Amid this fragile prosperity stood the Lin Mansion—stone-walled, iron-gated, veiled in the scent of wealth and silence.
The Lin family's only son, Lin Shirong, was in his twenty-first year. By face, he could be called striking, yet few dared speak of his nature without a bitter frown. He was capricious, cruel when crossed, and known for his sudden fits of violence. Wine fueled his temper, and servants often bore the price of a single misplaced glance. The young women of Yan City spoke of him only in whispers—if at all.
And yet, in such a house, there lacked an heir.
It was then that the Lin patriarch turned his gaze southward, to the declining Liu household. Once proud in scholarship and lineage, the Liu family had fallen into misfortune. The family's elder son, Cheng'an, ensnared in a gambling scheme—rumored to be laid by the Lin household themselves—had squandered their final fortunes. Their house, once fragrant with ink and incense, now echoed with creditors' threats.
Liu Ruyan, the younger daughter, lived alone with her mother, surviving each day like a shadow on cracked porcelain.
Then came a knock—an offer in crimson and gold.
The Lin family sent forth a matchmaker bearing silks, silver, and a promise: if Ruyan were to marry into the Lin household, her mother would be provided for in her final years. There would be food. There would be warmth. There would be no debt.
They did not speak of Lin Shirong's name, though everyone already knew it.
Ruyan's mother, worn and desperate, wept not with relief, but with resignation. Her hands trembled as she touched her daughter's hair.
"A woman's fate," she whispered, "is sometimes decided by storms she cannot see."
Ruyan said nothing. Her eyes, once clear, had long since dulled.
On the day of the wedding, the capital bustled with chatter. The Lin dowry procession stretched like a crimson serpent through the streets, silks fluttering, drums echoing. But behind the heavy veil, Ruyan could barely breathe. The phoenix crown on her head felt like stone pressing against her skull, every footstep toward the sedan chair like a walk to her own burial.
Before she departed, her mother pressed into her hands a lacquered bridal casket—vermilion with faded gold, adorned with peonies and butterflies whose wings were worn thin by time.
"It belonged to your great-grandmother," her mother said, voice raw and low. "Inside is a mirror… said to reveal the heart's true shape. On a wedding night, it must not be used. But if your path darkens—keep it close."
Ruyan accepted the box in silence. It was cold to the touch. Heavy. As though it carried the weight of generations of sorrow.
She hid it beneath her robes as the sedan jolted forward. Each creak of the carriage wheel beat like a drum against her ribs. She did not cry. Her tears had long since dried. Her hands, clenched in her lap, trembled not from fear, but from the vast emptiness of what lay ahead.
The wedding chamber was draped in crimson. Candles flickered behind gauze curtains. On the bed's edge, Ruyan sat motionless, her red sleeves pooling like blood on white silk.
She heard him before she saw him—his staggered steps, the clink of a wine flask. Lin Shirong entered without a word, the scent of wine thick on him. He stared at her, eyes clouded by liquor and something darker.
"Still pretending to be virtuous?" he sneered, voice slurred.
Before she could respond, he stepped forward, yanked at her robes. She flinched, but made no sound. Her throat seized, her body stiffened. The casket slipped from her sleeve and struck the floor with a dull clang. Its lid creaked open, and the edge of the bronze mirror within caught the candlelight.
For the briefest moment, the mirror shimmered.
And in it—Lin Shirong's face, twisted and looming, flickered with inky shadows, as if tendrils of dark smoke coiled about his brow. His reflection warped, uncanny, yet the mirror remained pristine.
Ruyan's breath caught.
But he noticed nothing. In his drunken haze, he assumed the flicker a trick of light. With a grunt, he kicked the fallen casket aside, sending it skidding beneath the bed.
And then he descended upon her again.
She closed her eyes.
The mirror, half-hidden in shadow, shimmered once more. A faint pulse. A flicker.And then—stillness.
That night, beneath the eaves of the Lin Mansion, a cry was heard—soft, sorrowful, like a lost bird calling into the wind.
By morning, it was gone.