Chapter 7: The Music Room
The stairs were endless in the dark, each worn stone step a jolt to his bruised knee. The lancet was a slippery secret in his fist. Above, the music swelled and dipped—a waltz, elegant and absurd, floating down like ash from a distant fire.
He emerged not into light, but into deeper shadow.
A heavy velvet curtain, thick with dust, brushed his face as he pushed through the small, concealed door. He was in a narrow space behind a balustrade, a gallery overlooking the cavernous ballroom. The air here was cooler, smelling of old wood polish and that same cloying lavender-perfume overlay, undercut now by the sour tang of his own sweat and the laundry’s chemical stink.
He crouched, peering through the intricate scrollwork of the railing.
The ballroom below was a vision of frozen opulence. The three crystal chandeliers blazed, scattering light across the marble floor. The string quartet in the corner played with mechanical precision, their bows moving in flawless unison. And the guests… they danced.
They moved in wide, graceful circles, waltzing under the brilliant lights. The women in gowns of silk and taffeta, the men in tailored suits. From this height, it could almost pass for normal. Almost.
But the light caught their faces at the wrong angles. It gleamed on smooth, hard surfaces. Porcelain. Not a single eye blinked. Not a single mouth laughed or spoke. Their faces were uniform masks, each one serene, empty, and subtly different in the paint of its lips or the arch of its brows, but fundamentally the same unseeing void. They were elegant mannequins, gliding silently across the floor, their steps never missing a beat, never colliding. A room full of beautiful, breathing furniture.
陈子轩’s stomach turned. He recognized a gown—the blue one Li Wei had been so excited to wear. He saw a tie he thought belonged to the loud business student from Shanghai. They were all here. Dancing.
A figure moved at the edge of the dance floor, a splash of stark black against the pastel swirl of the dolls.
The庄园主人.
He stood beside a marble column, one hand resting lightly on its top, observing his collection. His mask, covering the upper half of his face, was black lacquer, reflecting no light. His chin was pale, sharp. He was smiling, just a faint upturn of his thin lips. He looked… pleased. A curator admiring a successful exhibition.
Then, as if sensing a mote of dust in the perfect machine, the man’s head tilted upward. Slowly. Deliberately.
He was looking directly at the dark gallery.
陈子轩 froze, his breath clotting in his throat. The man couldn’t possibly see him in this gloom. It was impossible.
The主人’s smile didn’t change. He lifted his hand from the column and gave a small, almost imperceptible wave. Not a greeting. A summons.
From doors concealed in the wall panels below, two servants emerged. They were different from the laundry workers—taller, their livery a more formal cut. Their blank faces were polished to a higher sheen. They did not look up at the gallery. They simply turned and began to walk, with that same dreadful patience, toward the grand staircase that curved up to this level.
They were coming for him.
Panic was a live wire in his chest. He scanned the gallery. It was a dead end, a viewing corridor that ran the length of the ballroom’s rear wall. The only exit was the concealed door he’d come through, leading back down to the laundry, to the管家 and his silent crew.
Trapped.
The music below swelled to a crescendo. The porcelain faces turned in unison, a gesture mimicking rapture. The主人 had returned his gaze to the dancers, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He was waiting.
Think. Think.
The balustrade. He looked at its construction. The scrollwork was solid, but between the gallery floor and the top of the railing was a wide, flat shelf of mahogany, a decorative ledge about a foot deep. It ran the entire length of the wall, just below the windows.
Without allowing himself to consider the drop, he hoisted himself up and over the railing, dropping softly onto the ledge. It was narrower than it looked. His back pressed against the cold, panelled wall. Below his heels, there was a ten-foot drop to the ballroom floor. One slip, and he’d shatter amongst the dancing dolls.
He began to edge sideways, away from the approaching servants. The lancet was useless here; he needed both hands to balance. He slid it into his trouser pocket, the cold metal a shock against his thigh.
He heard the door to the gallery whisper open behind the curtain. Muted footsteps on the carpet. They were in the space he’d just vacated.
He kept moving, his eyes fixed on the next window, the next stretch of wall. The music was louder here, the vibrations of the cello thrumming through the stone. A waltz ended. A smattering of soft, dry, soundless applause rustled through the crowd below, like leaves skittering on stone.
A new piece began. Something slower. A pavane.
A voice spoke, calm and resonant, cutting through the music from below. It didn’t need to shout.
“I admire your tenacity, 陈先生. Truly. Most guests are content with the surface. The champagne, the conversation.” It was the主人. He hadn’t moved from his spot by the column. He was speaking up toward the gallery, his voice carrying with eerie clarity. “You dug. You inspected the plumbing. It’s a vulgar impulse, but a human one.”
陈子轩 stopped, pressed against the wall. He dared a glance down.
The主人 was looking up, not at the gallery proper, but directly at his precarious perch on the ledge. The mask seemed to drink the light. “You’ve seen the unfinished work. The workshop. It’s messy, I grant you. Art always is, in its intermediate stages.”
“This isn’t art,” 陈子轩 called back, his voice thin and cracked against the ballroom’s grandeur. “It’s… it’s slaughter.”
“Slaughter implies waste,” the man replied, his tone one of gentle correction. “Nothing is wasted here. The noisy ego, the clumsy desires, the painful self-awareness… all chaff. We remove it. What remains is pure form. Eternal. Untroubled.” He gestured to the dancers. “Are they not beautiful? Serene? They will never know heartbreak, or anxiety, or the profound loneliness of a misspent life. I have given them peace.”
“You’ve turned them into things!”
“I’ve elevated them.” The主人 took a single step forward. “Consider the alternative. Out there, they would grow old, fat, corrupt. Their beauty would rot, their minds would curdle with petty regrets. Here, they are perfected. A captured moment of potential, made permanent.” He tilted his head. “You have potential, 陈子轩. A keen mind. Observant. It’s why you’re still… noisy. But the noise can be tuned. The draft can be corrected.”
On the ledge, 陈子轩 felt a wave of dizzying comprehension. The主人 wasn’t just collecting people. He was collecting qualities. Observations. Keenness. He was a curator of human traits, stripping away the flesh to keep the single note he admired.
“You want my eyes,” 陈子轩 whispered, but in the acoustic of the ballroom, it carried.
“I want your sight,” the主人 clarified, his voice softening almost to intimacy. “The way you see the world. The connections you make. It’s vibrant. It’s currently trapped in a fragile, fearful vessel that will one day fail. Let me preserve it. Let me give it a proper setting.”
From the corner of his eye, 陈子轩 saw movement. One of the tall servants had emerged onto the ledge at the far end, moving toward him with placid, balanced steps. The other would be coming from behind.
He was out of ledge.
The主人 spread his hands, a benevolent, welcoming gesture. “The fall will not kill you. My staff are quite adept at repair. But it would be… undignified. Come down. Let’s discuss your commission like civilized beings.”
Below, the porcelain faces were all turned upward now, a silent, expectant audience.
There was a door. He saw it. A small, plain servants’ door set into the ballroom wall, almost directly below him and to the left. It was his only chance.
“I prefer the noise,” 陈子轩 said.
And he jumped.
He didn’t aim for the dance floor. He pushed off sideways, toward the wall. The air rushed past. The marble floor soared up to meet him. He twisted, aiming his shoulder for the heavy velvet drape that flanked the servant’s door.
He hit the fabric with a brutal, bone-jarring thud. The curtain rod shrieked in protest, the velvet tearing. He crashed through, entangling in the heavy cloth, and landed in a heap on a stone floor in near-total darkness. Pain, white and brilliant, exploded in his shoulder. The lancet dug into his hip.
Gasping, he kicked free of the curtain. He was in a cramped, plain hallway. Supply closets. The backstage of the grandeur.
From the ballroom, through the torn drape, he heard the first genuine emotion he’d ever heard from the主人: a faint, irritated sigh, like a sculptor spotting a flaw in his clay.
Then, the music started again, smoothly, without missing a beat. The dance resumed.
But the pursuit did not. It would be quieter now. It would be everywhere.
Clutching his throbbing shoulder, 陈子轩 stumbled to his feet and ran down the narrow, dark hall, away from the perfect, terrible music.