The Turn of Events

Shen Yingzi looked at his mother, whose expression was vicious and grim, and felt a stab of heartache.

His mother had truly left this world far too soon.

Over the years, Shen Yingzi often found himself thinking that his mother had only been a young woman in her early twenties back then.

She had been in the prime of her life, yet she had died so young.

Of all the flavors of life, perhaps all she had ever tasted was regret.

“Mother… can I really trade my life for yours?”

“You can.”

The woman’s spirit reached out and gently stroked his face. Though she was a ghost and he was alive, separated by the boundary between life and death, unable to truly touch him, it was as if she could feel the warmth beneath her palm.

That was the warmth of the living…

It was truly enchanting.

“So, Yingzi, will you let Mother live?”

Shen Yingzi watched her hand hover beside his face, sensing only a faint chill.

His mother had been down there for too long. She must have been lonely and miserable…

He lowered his trembling lashes and thought of his father.

If his mother came back to life, his father would surely be happy too…

He was just about to agree when his gaze fell upon the bamboo flute in his hand.

Once he gave that answer, his life would come to an end.

Could he really do it?

He tightened his grip around the bamboo flute, and reluctance spread through his heart in ripples.

He had not yet finished writing his new composition.

Seeing his hesitation, the woman’s lips curved into a faint smile. She was just about to speak when—

Suddenly, dark clouds churned overhead, accompanied by thunder and flashes of lightning!

Each thick bolt seemed capable of splitting the sky apart. Layer upon layer of clouds piled up until their depths could no longer be seen.

Before long, it looked as though the sky had truly cracked open. One fissure after another appeared, and dazzling light burst from within, so bright that no one could look directly at it.

Wisps of inconspicuous black energy crept into this world along the edges of the cracks, slowly winding their way into the roiling clouds.

With this sudden change, Shen Yingzi felt the pool of blood beneath him shift as well.

The once-still pool began to bubble and churn, as though it were suddenly boiling.

The heat seared his knees and calves, leaving them burning with pain.

At the same time, the woman’s spirit underwent a startling transformation!

Her originally dark eyes were now suffused with a sinister red glow, while her once-pale skin began to take on a cold, bluish pallor.

Her neatly arranged hair came loose in an instant, streaming wildly through the air as a fierce wind rose around her.

She walked behind Shen Yingzi. Her body, already as insubstantial as smoke and mist, suddenly expanded, surrounding him from every direction and wrapping tightly around him as he knelt on the ground.

“Since you refuse, then come down and keep Mother company…”

The moment she finished speaking, the shallow pool of blood beneath Shen Yingzi abruptly transformed into a thick, bottomless swamp of blood.

His body sank uncontrollably.

He leaned forward and reached out, trying to seize the solid ground beyond the blood swamp. But the instant his hand extended toward it, the yellow earth spread with blood as well.

With nothing to support his outstretched body, he lost his balance and fell in.

The nauseating stench of blood filled his mouth and nose.

In that instant, his vision blurred, and he felt the entire world twist out of shape.

As he was slowly swallowed by the blood swamp, Xuanyuan Haoyue was facing something that she had once believed could never be more bewildering or terrifying than her family’s confiscation and exile.

Not long before, their life in exile had been poor but peaceful, proceeding in relative stability.

Xuanyuan Haoyue had thought that their future would remain that way.

She had never imagined that the thunder and lightning in the sky would shatter their quiet life in an instant.

She had just finished washing the rice and was standing in the small courtyard, looking up in shock at the thunder overhead, when the gate behind her was thrown open with a loud bang.

Her father and brothers entered, bringing with them a middle-aged man with a face full of flesh.

The moment the middle-aged man saw her, his eyes lit up. His gaze was as greedy and vicious as that of a poisonous snake, filled with covetous admiration.

Before Xuanyuan Haoyue could understand what was happening, she heard her half-brother fawning over the man.

“Master Wei, there she is. Do you find her acceptable?”

Xuanyuan Haoyue was bewildered. Why did she need to be acceptable to this man her half-brother called “Master Wei”?

Master Wei stared at her without blinking and nodded in satisfaction.

Then Xuanyuan Haoyue watched as her father, who had never shown her the slightest warmth, ingratiatingly pulled a thin sheet of paper from inside his robe and handed it to Master Wei.

A few years earlier, when the household’s authority had still rested with her mother, Xuanyuan Haoyue had seen such a document before.

She knew it was a deed of sale.

The instant she saw it, she understood what had happened.

The small basin of rice slipped from her hands and crashed to the ground. Xuanyuan Haoyue turned and ran for the gate.

But how could a girl barely ten years old escape from three grown men?

The three men seized her with almost no effort. After tying her tightly with coarse hemp rope, they carried her into the waiting carriage outside.

Madam Xuanyuan rushed out when she heard the commotion. Yet no matter how desperately she pleaded and cried, she could not change anyone’s mind.

Through a gap in the carriage curtain, Xuanyuan Haoyue saw her usually dignified and gentle mother throw herself at her father like a madwoman, scratching bloody marks across his face.

Her father responded by slapping her to the ground.

Tears poured uncontrollably from Xuanyuan Haoyue’s eyes.

She knew her mother could not save her.

She wanted to shout out and tell her mother not to struggle anymore, that she would only get hurt, that there was nothing she could do—she could not save her.

But her mouth had been tightly stuffed with cloth. All she could do was make muffled sounds and watch as her mother rose again and threw herself at her violent husband.

Then the carriage began to move, carrying Xuanyuan Haoyue toward an unknown destination.

The last thing she saw was her mother, her mouth covered in blood, being struck to the ground once more by her father.

In Xuanyuan Haoyue’s eyes, it seemed as though the entire world had suddenly been veiled in an indistinct black gauze.

It was as if everything were being dragged along by some unseen force, toward an abyss.

Xuanyuan Haoyue did not know what her father had traded her for.

But none of that mattered anymore after she was taken into a rear courtyard filled with the ceaseless sounds of lewd music, then brought into a bedroom thick with the cheap scent of perfumed powder.

Someone roughly carried her inside and threw her onto a bed draped with bright red and green curtains.

Then the person left. Before long, the middle-aged man with the fleshy face—the man everyone called Master Wei—walked in.

For the first time in her life, Xuanyuan Haoyue was pinned down on a bed by a man.

Looking at him looming over her, she felt wave after wave of nausea.

But her struggles, cries, and resistance were nothing more than feeble attempts to escape beneath his weight.

He even treated them as part of the bedroom games, and they only seemed to further inflame his bestial desires.