Zhang Yue walked towards the ancestral hall like she was heading to another set of public scrutiny she didn't particularly care for. She never cared about the ancestral rites or prayer ceremonies.
If it wasn't because of Zhang Yan, she would never have turned her heels in this direction. He and the face reader on a random street, somehow convinced that she has some unfinished business with her ancestors, otherwise she will suffer a pitfall in her life. Anyway her life already hit its rock bottom, what's there left to go down? She just wanted to test their theory.
The afternoon sun flared behind her like a spotlight, catching the anxious glances of women with tightly pursed lips and gossip jammed in their throats.
People were trickling out of the hall, heads lowered, lips moving fast. Their eyes darted toward her like moths that knew the flame was dangerous but couldn't resist it. She didn't flinch. She never did.
"Who gave her the right to show her face here?" one woman whispered sharply, like her words could scratch Yue from a distance. Her face was drawn tight, voice soaked in theatrical horror. "She killed her own parents, and now…"
"Shh, she'll hear you."
And?
Zhang Yue tilted her head just enough for the whisperers to panic. She didn't stop walking. Didn't need to. Her silence was its own kind of violence.
"I heard she was involved with a mafia boss when she was in university." another one said, voice low, deliciously scandalous. "Got pregnant. Tried to kill the baby. And her parents."
Zhang Yue stepped over a fallen flower petal like it was a memory she had no intention of picking up.
"Honestly, the whole car accident sounded fishy. Both of her parents died, her child went missing. But she somehow managed to survive." someone else chimed in. "Who survives something like that unless it's planned?"
"Planned by her mafia lover." They nodded, as if they'd cracked some sacred code.
"Anyway, her lover disappeared and also, the Zhang family disowned her. No way she can survive on her own."
"Well, that's very evident." They looked at her and cackled up.
"And now that the Zhang family cast her out, what does she even have left?"
Zhang Yue's eyes scanned the red-and-black pillars of the hall, unmoved. The whispers crawled behind her like shadows afraid to touch.
Let them talk.
She didn't come here to belong.
She came to remind them,
That monsters don't need permission to walk among the living.
Zhang Yue stepped into the ancestral hall, her footsteps echoing softly against the cold stone floor. The scent of burning sandalwood and the low hum of ancient prayers clung to the air, reminding her to calm down.
She lit three sticks of incense, bowed thrice, and placed them in the urn before her parents' memorial tablets,father on the left, mother on the right. Her fingers brushed the wooden offering tray as she set down folded joss paper, a peeled mandarin, and a small porcelain cup filled with rice wine.
When she finished, she didn't linger. Reverence was never loud. And her mourning had expired long ago.
As she turned to leave, the wind outside stirred the hanging red banners. And so did trouble.
"It's been a while, Zhang Yue." The voice came clipped and cool, like old porcelain with a hairline crack.
She paused.
Standing at the stone threshold was Yuan Meiling,eldest cousin. She was the perfect daughter, family darling, high-achiever, decorated by awards and resentment in equal measure. They had never spoken without an audience or an agenda. Since girlhood, the elders made sure of that. Zhang Yue had outshined her in every arena until fate knocked her to the dirt five years ago,and Yuan Meiling had danced on that ground ever since.
"Really? I thought we last met when you accused me of seducing your husband in front of everyone. " Zhang Yue replied, not bothering to smile.
"What?"
Zhang Yue didn't need to explain. They both remembered the man who used to run her café,the one who left without warning after a single visit from Meiling's husband. And Meiling had done everything in her power to ruin that place afterward. Called the landlord. Pulled strings with the health inspector. Made sure the café emptied out one way or another.
Because her perfect little life couldn't handle the truth: her husband once had a crush on Zhang Yue. And maybe still did.
"Nothing. Your scars are showing again. Maybe lay off the needles and eat something green?" Zhang Yue scoffed as she didn't want to linger on the topic, but it has already done the damage.
Meiling frantically touched her cheek bones, that recently went under an expensive cosmetic procedure. It took her a second to realise that Zhang Yue was just joking.
Before Meiling could respond, a voice from the side cut in, fake-sweet and dripping vinegar.
"Actually, we've been looking for someone to help out with housekeeping. If you're available, why not join our staff?" It was Wu Lifen, Meiling's mother-in-law, every word carefully calibrated to mock.
Zhang Yue didn't blink. "Why? Not worried I'll seduce your husband? Or maybe his sons too?"
"You little,"
"Enough, Mother," Meiling snapped, her composure cracking. "Why waste time talking to a murderer who killed their family?"
Zhang Yue turned her head slightly, her gaze unreadable. "Lingling, I think your memory's slipping. It was an accident. Or did the doctors lie too?"
"Oh yes. It was an accident, indeed. But your child…" Wu Lifen's voice sharpened like a cleaver. "A real mother wouldn't abandon her baby in danger. But you did. If that's not murder, what is?"
Zhang Yue's lips twitched,halfway between a smirk and a snarl.
"I didn't abandon anyone," she said. "But if you're so sure I did… maybe you're just looking for a monster to blame for your own nightmares."
She walked past them without waiting for a reply.
Let them talk.
She had prayed.
She had paid her dues.
Zhang Yue had no plans to stay. She had already done what was required. Liy the incense, bowed three times, and endured the gazes that followed her like curses wrapped in silk. She didn't owe anyone anything more. Not the cold food. Not the bitter wine. And definitely not the people who pretended her presence was a stain on tradition.
But Zhang Yan stopped her, standing with that annoyingly steady calm he always carried, like a mountain pretending to be a man.
"Just a sip of ceremonial wine," he said, "then you can disappear again."
"Don't tempt me. I have to return to Xi city." she muttered, but she stayed. Because it was him.
She trusted no one else.
Still, even Zhang Yan couldn't ask her to remain longer.
The air was too sharp with judgment, and she had an interview to attend. Her life was somewhere else now, not buried in ancestral ash.
But as she crossed the threshold toward the gate, his voice came again, softer this time.
"You're not going to the shrine?"
She didn't stop walking. But she heard him.
"At least… for your child's sake. He's there, Yue. He might be waiting."
That made her pause.
Not so far away from the Zhang mansion, stood the shrine, in a mysterious thicket of osmanthus forest.
Within it, the presence of Wuqian Jun, the Guardian of the Zhang bloodline. The warrior deity who bore the karmic weight of every soul the Zhang men had slain in war.
He was no gentle God. He didn't offer forgiveness,only protection, in exchange for remembrance.
When a child in Zhang family line died prematurely, they believed Wuqian Jun took the soul under his wing. Not to cradle it,but to hold it until it was ready. Until it had seen enough past lives to return whole.
Zhang Yue's child had never been named.
Never cried.
Barely lived.
But he was still a Zhang.
"Why would he wait for a mother who let him die?" she said, her voice clear but quiet.
Zhang Yan walked closer, hands in his pockets, not pushing. Just near enough to hold the weight with her.
"You carried him through hell. You brought him to this world when no one else stood with you."
"And I led him to the grave."
"That's not true," he said, firm now.
She turned to look at him. Younger than a typical uncle, older than a brother, and yet,he always looked at her like she was a kid who got lost at the train station. Not pathetic. Just someone worth finding.
"You know what they say, uncle Yan," she whispered. "That I brought this on myself. That I left the hospital too early. That I was too proud. Too angry. Too wild."
"Let them say it."
"Because it's true. If I had stayed, he'd be alive. My parents would be alive."
"It was an accident."
"Accidents don't come with blood on their hands," she said, sharp and sudden.
Then quieter,
"And it started long before that. Nine months before. A wretched night at a hotel. A stranger I didn't even see in the morning."
Her hands clenched.
"You're not a monster, Yue," he said.
She laughed once, humorless. "Tell that to the ones who glare like I burned down the family tree."
"You didn't burn it down." Zhang Yan said. "You were just the only one brave enough to walk away from it when it was already on fire."
She looked at the path leading to the shrine.
Maybe Wuqian Jun waited.
Maybe her child did too.
Maybe neither.
She didn't know if she was ready to find out. But something in the forest path called her name.