Rain battered the windows, relentless and cold, turning the stone courtyard into a mirror of fractured shadows. Thunder grumbled overhead, and each flash of lightning briefly illuminated the corridors of the Earl's residence in a ghostly pale blue. Anming's hands were full—one cradling a lacquered box of candied lotus seeds, the other a plate of honeyed plums. His mother's favorites. He'd begged the kitchen staff for them, certain they would cheer her on such a dreary day.
But the corridors were empty, and the warmth of laughter and music was absent from the air. Instead, only the hush of servants, their eyes lowered, and the distant, muffled sound of weeping.
Anming hurried, his slippers silent on the polished floor. His heart picked up its pace, unsettled by the unnatural quiet. Where was everyone? Where was his mother? The rain seemed to grow heavier, drumming against the roof, as if trying to drown out something terrible inside.
He turned a corner and saw the back parlor doors slightly ajar, a cold blue light spilling into room. He hesitated, drawn forward by a chill that wasn't just from the rain. As he approached, voices emerged: his mother's, ragged and pleading; Lei Ming's, low and cruel. And a third. A voice high and giddy—his half-sister Mei Lan.
Anming's pulse quickened. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, the treats still clutched in his hands.
Outside his home in the courtyard, chaos reigned.
His mother was on her knees, her silk dress torn and stained with her own blood. Her hair, once so carefully pinned, hung in dark, tangled ropes around her face. Two maids pinned her arms behind her, forcing her upright. Lei Ming stood before her, cold eyes glinting in the lamplight. Beside her, Mei Lan nearly vibrated with excitement, her hands clasped as if she were about to receive a gift.
Anming took a step forward. "Mother?" His voice was small, trembling, but loud enough to be heard.
All eyes turned to him. Lei Ming's lips curled into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "How fortunate. Your son arrives to say goodbye."
Mei Lan's eyes sparkled. "He should watch, Mother! He should see what happens to traitors!" Her voice was shrill, delighted.
Anming tried to run to his mother, but before he could move, a strong hand gripped his shoulders, one of Lei Ming's loyal maids, her face expressionless. The treats tumbled from his hands, scattering across the wet ground. He struggled, but the maid was too strong. She dragged him forward, forcing him to kneel at the edge of the unfolding nightmare.
His mother lifted her head, her gaze meeting his. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were fierce, desperate to protect him even now. "Anming—my son, close your eyes. Don't— Don't look—!"
A sharp slap silenced her. Lei Ming crouched, holding a thin, cruel blade. "You will not look away," she hissed to Anming. "You will remember every moment."
She rose, signaling to the maids. "Begin."
The first cut was shallow, slicing across his mother's forearm. She gasped, stifling a scream. The second across her shoulder. A third, her cheek. Each blow was deliberate and measured. The room filled with the sickening sound of flesh parting, the metallic tang of blood mingling with the rain's chill.
Anming tried to look away, but the maid behind him held his head firm, fingers digging painfully into his scalp. "Watch," she whispered, her voice empty of pity.
Slash after slash, the numbers mounted—ten, twenty, fifty. His mother's sobs turned to ragged gasps. Lei Ming offered the blade to Mei Lan, who giggled and pressed the tip to his mother's thigh, drawing another line of red.
"See how she bleeds?" Mei Lan cooed. "You should have listened to mother."
Anming's vision blurred with tears, but he forced himself to watch, to remember. The pain in his mother's eyes, the cruelty of Lei Ming and Mei Lan, the way the rain seemed to mourn with him.
A hundred slashes. Two hundred. His mother's body trembled with each blow, her skin a map of agony. Still she did not beg. Only when the blade hovered over her heart did she speak again, her voice faint but steady.
"A-Anming, you have to survive... a..and become strong. Y-You must become a blade forged in poison my son. You must—!"
Lei Ming laughed, the sound cutting through the storm. Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. "How poetic. A blade forged in poison? I'll break it before it ever cuts."
The thousandth slash carved a crimson arc across his mother's neck. She slumped forward, breath rattling. Her eyes found Anming's once more, full of sorrow and love, before glazing over.
Anming's scream was swallowed by thunder.
The world blurred around Anming as his mother's body collapsed, blood pooling beneath her like a withering blossom. The storm raged, rattling the windowpanes and echoing the tempest in his chest. His throat burned, raw from screaming, his arms swinging uselessly against the iron grip of the maid that held him down. Around him, the adults moved with cruel efficiency, Lei Ming barking orders, Mei Lan spinning in delight, maids scurrying to take care of the body.
It was a revolting and merciless sight. Not a single soul tonight cared for his mother, not even a hint of pity or guilt tainted their faces. Not one person showed the slightest flicker of remorse.
"Take him," Lei Ming commanded, voice sharp as the blade she'd wielded. "We have work to do."
The maid yanked Anming to his feet. He stumbled, numb, tears streaming down his cheeks. As he was dragged from the parlor, he twisted for one last look. His mother's face was serene now, her suffering finished. The rain washed harder against the ground as if the sky itself mourned her.
He was thrown into a small, windowless room that stank of herbs and old blood. A table, cold and slick, stood in the center. Strange tools glinted on a tray nearby—knives, needles, thread, things he could not name. The physician, a stooped man with trembling hands, hovered by the wall, eyes darting to Lei Ming as she entered.
"Bind him," Lei Ming ordered. Two maids forced Anming onto the table, strapping his wrists and ankles so tightly he could not move his fingers. His mind spun, he wanted to be sick, to wake and find this a nightmare, but the pain in his arms and the drying blood on his knees was too real.
"What are you doing?" His voice cracked, thin and high.
They've killed his mother, just what were they going to do to him now.
Lei Ming loomed over him, her eyes pitiless. "You are nothing now, Anming. Not a son, not a person. You will serve as my daughter's shadow—her beauty, her voice, her life. You will have no name but the one I give you. And you will wear the face I choose."
He thrashed, wild with terror. "No! Please—please, don't—"
Lei Ming's smile was cold and precise. "Wake him every time he faints. I want him to remember every cut."
The physician's hands shook as he prepared a basin of water and a cloth. He did not meet Anming's eyes. "I… I must begin, madam."
Lei Ming nodded. "Begin."
The first incision was a slice along Anming's cheekbone. He shrieked, the pain white-hot and blinding. He felt the blood trickling down his jaw, tasted copper on his lips. The knife moved again, this time across his nose, his brow, his chin. He bucked, struggled, pleaded for mercy that would never come.
"Please, stop! Please, I'll do anything—please!"
Lei Ming's hand pressed his head against the table, her nails biting. "Silence. You begged before, and it changed nothing. Beg now, it will still change nothing."
He sobbed, each breath a rasping plea, first for her to stop, then for someone to help, then simply for the darkness to swallow him. At last, mercifully, the pain overwhelmed him and he slipped into unconsciousness.
But the relieve of torture was only brief. A bucket of cold water splashed over his face, shocking him awake. His wounds screamed anew. The physician's eyes were haunted, but he obeyed Lei Ming's command, pressing a cloth to the next part of Anming's face, slicing and stitching with as much speed as he dared.
Again and again, Anming slipped into oblivion and was yanked back by water, by slaps, by the agony of a needle dragging through torn flesh.
Lei Ming's voice was a constant, pitiless litany in his ears. "You will remember this. You will wear this pain forever. You are no longer Anming but only a shadow."
Mei Lan drifted in and out, peering at the progress with fascination, sometimes giggling, sometimes whispering to her mother. "Will he look just like me? Can I watch more?"
Hours passed—maybe a lifetime. The storm never ceased, thunder and rain mingling with Anming's screams. His throat grew hoarse, his muscles weak. His vision swam with red and black.
At one point, he managed to gasp, "Please... p-please kill me instead. Please…"
It would be best if he could join his mother. But it was a shame it couldn't be granted.
Lei Ming only laughed. "Death is a mercy you don't deserve."
When at last the physician finished, Anming was left shivering and bloodied on the table, his face a mask of agony. The bindings were cut, and he slumped to the cold floor, barely conscious. Lei Ming knelt beside him, her breath sweet and rotten all at once.
"Remember this night," she whispered. "It is the day you ceased to exist and the day you became useful."
Through the haze of pain, Anming remembered his mother's final words:
You have to survive and become strong. You must become a blade forged in poison—!
The storm inside him stilled, leaving only a blade of ice in its place. Grief and pain slowly drained from his eyes, replaced by a darkness far too deep for a nine year old child. What remained was a stare that gleamed with a vicious, almost feral light—an unspoken promise of blood.
He made a silent vow to himself, that one day they would come to know the consequences of forging a blade in poison. That every hand stained with his mother's blood would beg for mercy.
And find.
None.