A bit of red, like a wavering candle flame, flickered to life. Through the gauze curtain, it showed an uncanny, vivid crimson. The glint of red reflected into Luo Yuan’s eyes through the crack of the door, covering her suddenly tightened pupils.
The footsteps of the man outside suddenly stopped. He happened to be standing right in front of Luo Yuan’s door. With only a door between them, Luo Yuan could even clearly hear the sound of the man swallowing.
Fear—shapeless fear—tightened in the air like an ever-stretching string.
“What the hell…” The voice outside revealed a kind of weakness, breath lacking.
All at once, the single red lamp behind the curtain became several. One after another, red lamps lit up, dyeing the inside of the shenkan entirely crimson. The structure of the shenkan was only covered by a few layers of curtains; now, with red light shining through, they could clearly see a shadow swaying into view within.
She… or he… walked out from the darkness into the red glow, a thin, jutting figure, moving with an odd posture. From the shadow, it looked as though a long garment was being dragged behind.
The door suddenly made a soft sound. Luo Yuan’s vision was blocked—because the man outside had unconsciously stepped back, just happening to stand in front of her line of sight.
Luo Yuan took a step back and looked up, finding the red glow outside even brighter. She could clearly see the shadow of the man pressed against the door.
“Someone? Who’s pretending to be a ghost… guu… gu…”
The man’s curses cut off abruptly. A muddled sound gurgled from his throat, a sound that made the imagination run wild and the skin crawl. Luo Yuan stared blankly at the wet stain spreading across the door; she could almost imagine how that stain had been splattered onto it just moments ago.
Immediately afterward, a sharp scream rang out—a scream from another female prisoner. The piercing cry, thick with terror, mixed with the faint sounds of a man dying. Near or far, they stabbed into her ears. She hadn’t seen what kind of attack the man suffered, but the two people in the rooms to her left and right definitely saw everything.
Before coming here, Luo Yuan had spent half a month in Yulin District Prison, surrounded by death-row inmates—most far colder than ordinary people. The female prisoner next door was said to have, together with her husband, committed dozens of major robbery-murder cases over ten years, and later killed her husband over dissatisfaction with the division of their spoils. A woman like that was now screaming in utter terror.
Luo Yuan watched stiffly as the shadow outside disappeared, watched the light return through the crack of the door, and slowly leaned forward.
The first thing she saw was a foot at the edge of the corridor outside—a single foot, thrown aside.
In an instant, all her senses awakened, especially her sense of smell. It was as if she only now realized she had been holding her breath. With a sudden gasp, that heavy, blood-tinged scent mixed with an unknown floral fragrance crashed violently into her senses.
A severed foot wasn’t enough to frighten her like this. Half a month ago, she had already seen scenes far more terrifying. But the blood flowing from that foot slowly became strands of red thread, extending into the shenkan—this kind of eerie sight exceeded anything she could imagine.
How could blood turn into red threads? And it wasn’t just one. Scattered in the shadows on the ground, even the fragments of flesh writhed with red threads, as though pulled by some force, drawing into the shenkan.
Luo Yuan saw the strange shadow standing upright inside the shenkan. The threads were attached to him, making him look like a marionette controlled by strings. The blood-threads pulled the puppet, and the shadow expanded across the curtain, as though about to step out of the shenkan.
Unknown fear nailed itself into her chest. Luo Yuan didn’t dare keep watching, yet her body was too stiff to move. She could only press her hand uselessly against the door, hoping it could protect her from being seized by the monster in the shenkan.
But such hope was clearly futile. With two screams and the sound of doors bursting open, Luo Yuan felt her body grow light—as if she were thrown backward in her confusion.
The door in front of her was wide open. Several red threads grabbed her, dragging her out toward that terrifying world. The world she had glimpsed only through a crack in the door suddenly unfolded before her eyes. She saw the floor drenched in red, and the other doors thrown wide open—two more people dragged out of their hiding places by the threads.
The woman struggled desperately. The man clawed frantically at the red lines on his body. As for Luo Yuan—she didn’t dare move at all. Her eyes were fixed on the brightly glowing shenkan, terror reaching its peak.
The shadow covered in countless red threads approached a curtain. The blood-colored strings pulled the curtain aside, revealing the figure’s true appearance.
The head hung low, face hidden beneath long, black, watery hair. The body was completely wrapped in a strangely shaped white garment, the inside empty as though without flesh or blood. Long white sleeves trailed across the ground, and from beneath them extended countless blood threads.
Human… yet not human.
At some unknown moment, the entire courtyard had become a cage woven from red threads. The threads crisscrossed, dividing the world before her into fractured pieces. The white-sleeved monster stepped on those threads, like a white spider clinging to a crimson web.
Blood threads lifted the chunks of flesh before him. The sleeve, as if alive, draped over them, and after a bout of chewing sounds from no discernible place, the flesh rapidly disappeared.
A jolt of realization suddenly struck Luo Yuan. The four of them—death-row prisoners—had been brought here as food! What she had thought was a path to survival was, in truth, an abyss of death. The moment this understanding surfaced, she saw the monster step along the blood threads toward another man.
That man struggled violently, shouting incoherently in panic. Perhaps it was his “noise” that made the monster choose him first.
The sleeve that had just devoured flesh remained spotlessly white. Like a drifting cloud, it floated down over the man’s head. In an instant, a spray of red turned into countless blood threads extending from beneath the sleeve, weaving the courtyard’s net of red even denser.
Luo Yuan shut her eyes. She did not scream helplessly like the other female prisoner. She only shut her eyes tightly, just as she always did whenever facing something she could not bear.
Soon, the woman’s screams also ended abruptly. The blend of heavy floral fragrance and iron rust in the air grew even thicker—so thick it was suffocating. Luo Yuan knew what had happened, and she knew what would happen next. She did not scream, but she could not stop her entire body from trembling.
The monster approached her. Its sleeve, soft as a drifting cloud and carrying a strange floral scent, floated down over her.
It’s here! It’s here!
A sharp pain struck her neck, like something had bitten her. Luo Yuan imagined her head being severed the next instant, leaving nothing behind, just like the other three.
The pain at her neck continued, but the sharper agony she expected never came. The sleeve covering her stopped, then suddenly began to tremble.
Light burst into her vision. She could once again see the sky above her, split into countless fragments by the blood threads. The threads binding her slackened and fell away, and the monster standing before her suddenly bent forward—
“Urgh…”
Sitting on the ground, Luo Yuan stared blankly as the monster slowly lowered itself to the ground and vomited a mouthful of blood. His arched back jutted upward like protruding bone spikes, as if ready to pierce through the thin white garment.
After retching subsided, he was hoisted up again by the blood threads, his long sleeves hanging at his sides. Luo Yuan felt as if he glanced at her once, then retreated swiftly into the glowing red shenkan like a kite being pulled back.
The blood threads remained around her. In the silent courtyard, there was no sound—only her, alone.
A violent shiver ran through her. Luo Yuan pushed herself up and staggered toward the courtyard’s only exit. The door was locked, and outside she heard the calm voices of the two elderly women.
“There’s no more sound inside. The Clan Deity must have finished absorbing this cycle of ‘evil’. Tomorrow it will form its cocoon again.”
“Mm. Everything needed for the ritual is already prepared. Don’t worry.”
Luo Yuan’s hand trembled just before touching the door, and she drew it back. At last, she awakened from the shock of death and monsters, realizing that if she knocked now, the two people outside wouldn’t respond—worse, they might kill her.
She didn’t know where this place was, but from everything she had seen and heard during her transport, she understood she had been brought to a secret, ancient place belonging to some privileged and special existence. Killing her would be as easy as crushing an ant.
There was no escape. This four-sided courtyard…
Luo Yuan turned, panic tightening her chest as she looked at the traces on the ground and the gaping black doors. She had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Once tomorrow came, they would find her—kill her, or send her back to Yulin District Prison to face her original sentence.
In that moment, Luo Yuan suddenly thought of her younger sister. Her weakened gaze and faltering steps grew firm once again.
“No, I can’t die yet.”
Dawn broke.
Ghost Month, the fifteenth day.
The round moon still lingering at the horizon carried a faint red tint. Two white-haired shinu carried red lanterns as they opened the courtyard gate, preparing, as always, for the Clan Deity’s rebirth ritual. But what greeted them was not an empty courtyard—rather, the blood threads lying everywhere exactly as they had been the night before.
“Bang—”
The red lantern rolled to the ground and quickly caught fire. In the blaze, the faces of the two elderly women froze, turning deathly pale.
“How could this be!”
“Why hasn’t the Clan Deity begun its slumber?”
The three patches of blood in the courtyard were clearly visible. With a single glance, they saw them—yet no matter how they searched, they couldn’t find the fourth trace.
“This is bad. Something went wrong with this batch of sacrifice!”
“How could such a mistake happen!”
“Hurry, tell them to send another sacrifice. We can’t afford any more delay!”
In their panic, the courtyard gate was shut again. She didn’t know how much time passed before it opened once more. Hiding in the dark hollow beneath the corridor, Luo Yuan heard disordered footsteps echo above her.
It sounded like someone had been tied up and placed on the corridor floor. The footsteps that delivered the person left, followed by a long, long silence.
Luo Yuan curled up tightly, arms wrapped around herself, eyes wide open as she watched sunlight shine through the cracks above—and red liquid drip down through those same cracks.
“Drip, drip…”
The quiet dripping continued until Luo Yuan’s entire body turned stiff. At last, she moved a finger, then slowly tried to pull herself out from her hiding place. Carefully, she peeked her head through the gap beneath the corridor. The courtyard outside was empty. The threads of blood covering the sky were gone. Afternoon sunlight—around three or four o’clock—lit up more than half the courtyard, and the splendid shenkan at the center gleamed brilliantly under the light.
If not for the dried stains of blood nearby, she would almost think the nightmare of last night had only been a dream.
Suddenly, the courtyard gate rattled. Luo Yuan immediately hid herself again. She heard several people enter the courtyard—every one of them silent, their movements deliberately light. The two elderly women lowered their voices:
“We must find that person!”
“She disturbed the Clan Deity’s cocooning. We can’t let her remain here to disrupt its rest!”
“Hurry. Even if the Clan Deity has begun its ‘sleep’, we can’t disturb it for long.”
“Shinu, once we find her—what do we do?”
“Kill her.”
The cold, detached voices passed right above her. Luo Yuan trembled. The fear of being discovered and killed at any moment forced her to curl herself deeper into the narrow space. But she knew all too well—this courtyard was only so big. They would find her soon.
Her despairing gaze drifted toward the shenkan. A wild, reckless thought surfaced in her mind—
