Tang Ruàn clutched the *Surrogate Handbook* until her knuckles whitened. The blank third clause coiled on the page like a venomous serpent. Old Madam Huo's jade-handled cane jabbed beneath her chin: "Three spritzes of Wanwan's perfume here before entering the master bedroom at 10 PM sharp."
The cold glass vial pressed into her clavicle, releasing gardenia notes laced with medicinal bitterness. The matriarch's jade bangles clinked like skeletal wind chimes. "Miss one application," she hissed, "and your father's fingers will garnish tomorrow's truffle omelette."
The walk-in mirror was one-way glass. In the adjacent room, Huo Chenzhou polished ballet slippers, moonlight slicing his profile into chiaroscuro planes—a disassembled anatomy lab specimen.
"Turn." He didn't look up. "Wanwan's scapulae protruded two fingers higher."
Tang Ruàn's trembling fingers undid the silk pajama ties as rain lashed the stained glass. Three days ago flashed through her mind—a 50-yuan sundress from the night market still soaking in a tenement bathroom basin, steeped in the neighbors' shattered drugstore perfume.
Her phone vibrated against the bone china soup bowl. Huo's assistant had sent CCTV stills—her glancing at the convenience store cashier while buying sanitary pads.
"Eye-fuck strangers again," Huo dragged her by the nape toward the surveillance monitors, "and I'll install a GPS tracker in your uterus." The magnified receipt burned her retinas. "You think my sheets deserve your flea market tampons?"
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Tang Ruàn crouched in the dressing room mending torn lace when stilettos shattered the silence. "Counterfeit bitch playing Cinderella?" Lin Chuchu's crimson nails scraped the birthmark behind her ear. "My sister left a message before jumping—"
"Who touches Huo Chenzhou," she breathed, "feeds the tiger sharks."
The security feed glowed cobalt. Onscreen, Huo twirled Lin's chestnut curls—the exact caramel spiral Tang Ruàn's morning iron had scorched. Helicopter blades churned the air like meat grinders beyond the bulletproof glass.
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Laundry steam clung to Tang Ruàn's skin as she retrieved a blood-crusted tutu. Faded embroidery read *Swan Lake 2009*—her high school production souvenir, the one they'd burned with her childhood diaries.
A guttural roar pierced the penthouse. She sprinted toward the elevator clutching the costume, catching Old Madam's reflection in the closing doors—crimson droplets plinking onto the "Lin Wanwan Memorial Display" below.
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*(Continued)*
Tang Ruàn knelt in the dressing room counting lace perforations, the wool carpet needling her numb knees. *Click. Click.* Huo Chenzhou wound the gilded pocket watch for the thirty-second time—the same relic Lin Wanwan had clutched when she plunged into the sea.
"Know how Wanwan applied perfume?" The man scooped gardenia balm with a silver spoon, smearing the icy unguent across her collarbones. "She'd hum *La Vie en Rose* in French, reapplying thrice even on her ankles." The filigreed spoon suddenly pressed against her Adam's apple. "Yet you require tutoring to mimic a ghost."
Tang Ruàn stared at the "Lin Pharmaceuticals" watermark on the balm tin. Three nights ago flashed before her—the misdelivered parcel containing ten identical tins, shredded shipping manifests labeled *Laboratory Grade*. Beneath the bottom tin's instructions glared a blood-red warning: Fetal Neurotoxicity Risk Upon Gestational Exposure
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Three Days Earlier: The Slums
Rain sizzled against neon signs as Tang Ruàn scrubbed her floral dress in a tin shack. Next door's lovers shattered another perfume bottle, cheap jasmine and kimchi brine seeping through cracks.
"Ruàn, your father's finger—" Her mother's sobs distorted the video feed, revealing bandages oozing crimson on the hospital bed. Old Madam Huo's voice slithered through the speakers: "I want Wanwan's gardenia scent by ten tomorrow."
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Present: Dressing Room
"Still trembling?" Huo yanked her silk negligee open. The floor-length mirror reflected fading pink welts—last night's punishment for failing to replicate Lin Wanwan's pirouettes.
Tang Ruàn watched his bloodshot eyes in the glass—the telltale flare of his bipolar mania. Like that snowbound night three years prior, when he'd pinned her against the piano room's glass, playing *Moonlight Sonata* as he hissed: "These eyes exist solely to witness how I loved *her*."
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The Study Incident
While dusting the century-old grandfather clock, Tang Ruàn caught a glint in the brass pendulum—a hidden door with a combination lock set to 2009.03.17, the date of her adoption.
Mahogany shelves displayed ballet slippers arranged with military precision, each toe box crusted brown. Yellowed medical files screamed horrors: Electroconvulsive Therapy Logs 2008-2013 Patient Exhibits Auditory Hallucinations & Self-Mutilation. The bottom steel box sprang open, revealing her eighteen-year-old self in a rain-soaked sundress, lips pressed to an unconscious boy's mouth at Qinglan Lake.
"Thievery began earlier than I thought." His voice detonated behind her.
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Crimson Revelations
As Huo's alligator belt buckle crushed her windpipe, Tang Ruàn smashed the box through the one-way mirror. Shards erupted with seven years of secrets: "I saved you! Lin Wanwan stole my student ID!"
His pupils dilated as scarlet rivulets snaked down her thighs.
"Blasphemy!" The butler burst in to find Tang Ruàn clutching blood-smeared records: "March 17, 2013—Lin Wanwan used your jade bracelet..." Her crimson finger stabbed his chest, "...to perforate her uterus. Like you're... killing ours..." Thunder devoured her words.
Huo staggered outside with her limp form, only for Tang Ruàn to bite his earlobe: "How many coffins... do you think Madam prepared?"
Lightning illuminated Lin Chuchu filming from the garden, her live-stream caption blazing: Huo Heir Murders Unborn Child.
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