Chapter 4: Gallery of Screams
The hand remained extended, a pale offer against the dark. Wei stared at it, then at the shears hanging loosely from Mr. Huang’s other hand. The weapon wasn’t raised, wasn’t even pointed. It was just… present. A fact of the world now, like rain or stone.
“Come, Wei,” Mr. Huang said, his tone that of a slightly disappointed tutor. “The drama of the cornered animal is compelling in its way, but it’s a base narrative. We have moved beyond that, don’t you think?”
Wei didn’t move. His body was a locked statue of pain and exhaustion.
Mr. Huang sighed, a soft, almost compassionate sound. He snapped the shears once in the air. Click-click. The sound was a needle in Wei’s brain. “You can walk in, or I can have David carry you. David is quite strong. But he’s… clumsy. He might exacerbate your existing injuries.”
A shape detached itself from the deeper shadows near the manor door. It was the silent, muscular servant from the ballroom. David. His expression was vacant, his eyes on some distant point past Wei’s shoulder.
The choice was no choice. Wei forced his trembling legs to unfold. He slid across the cold truck bed, avoiding Mr. Huang’s hand, and dropped heavily onto the gravel. His knees buckled, and he caught himself on the side of the truck, the metal icy against his torn palms.
“Lovely,” Mr. Huang said, turning and walking toward the open front door. “This way.”
The walk across the driveway was a parade of shame. Wei stumbled on the smooth stones, every nerve screaming to run again. But David loomed behind him, a silent, palpable pressure. The golden light from the doorway wasn’t warm; it was sickly, like melted butter.
They crossed the threshold. The opulent foyer was silent, empty of the party’s earlier chatter and music. Only the smell remained—perfume, sweat, and underneath it all, the sweet, coppery tang he now knew was blood. And something else. A dry, chalky dust.
Mr. Huang led him past the grand staircase, down a side corridor Wei hadn’t noticed before. The décor shifted from baroque opulence to something colder, more industrial. The carpet gave way to polished concrete. The wall sconces were replaced by utilitarian LED lights behind wire cages.
“The public spaces are for inspiration,” Mr. Huang explained, as if reading Wei’s thoughts. “The studio is for execution.”
They stopped before a set of wide, steel double doors. Mr. Huang produced a key from his pocket and turned it in a heavy lock. The mechanism clunked with a finality that made Wei’s stomach drop.
The doors swung inward silently.
The air that washed out was warm, humid, and thick with the smell of wet clay, plaster, and a harsh chemical astringent. It was a vast, high-ceilinged space, a converted ballroom or hall. But any romance was gone.
Wei’s breath hitched.
The Grand Gallery.
Rows of figures stood on plain stone plinths, lit by sharp, overhead spotlights. They were posed in casual, even jovial stances—one forever leaning in to tell a secret, another caught mid-laugh, a third with a hand outstretched as if offering a drink. Their clothes were the same expensive casual wear from the party.
Their faces were what stopped Wei’s heart.
He knew them. Leo, from his drama seminar, his mouth a perfect, smiling ‘O’ of delight, but his eyes were wide with a terror so profound the plaster seemed to strain around them. Ben, who’d bragged about his father’s yacht, now frozen pointing a finger, his brow slightly furrowed as if in minor confusion, a single, delicate crack running from his temple down his neck like a solidified tear.
They were perfect. And perfectly, horrifyingly alive in their final moments.
“Preservation is an art in itself,” Mr. Huang murmured, walking slowly down the central aisle. “Capturing the precise instant of transition. The moment the self realizes it is becoming object.” He ran a finger along Ben’s outstretched arm. “The plaster seals it in. A memory made permanent.”
Wei’s legs were liquid. He wanted to vomit, to scream, but his throat was sealed shut by a sheer wall of dread. He scanned the faces, a horrified roll call.
And then he saw him.
At the end of the central row, on a slightly larger plinth.
Jian.
Or what was left of him. The process was further along here than it had been in the garden. The stone skin had crawled upwards, past his jawline, up one cheek. It had a different texture than the smooth plaster of the others—darker, more granular, like volcanic rock. His one remaining human eye stared out from the encroaching tide, unblinking, the pupil fixed and dilated. The other eye was solid, polished basalt. His mouth was open, caught in a silent shout, his teeth just beginning to be sheathed in a glittering, black crystal.
He was becoming something else. Something older than plaster.
“He’s unique,” Mr. Huang said, following Wei’s gaze. “A happy accident. The garden’s soil, you see. It has… properties. He’s integrating with the estate itself. A true symbiosis.”
Wei made a sound then, a choked, wet gasp. He took an involuntary step towards his friend.
“Ah, ah,” Mr. Huang said softly. He didn’t move to block him. He simply raised a hand toward a figure leaning against the wall near a large, industrial mixing vat. It was another servant, face bland, holding a long wooden paddle. The vat was full of a creamy, pale grey substance. Plaster.
The servant stirred it slowly. The sound was thick, gloopy.
“Your plinth is this way,” Mr. Huang said, gesturing towards an empty space beside Jian. A fresh, clean stone base waited, stained dark in the center from previous pours.
Wei’s wits, starved and shocked, sparked once. He wasn’t stronger than David. He couldn’t outrun the shears. But the shears were the key. They were the tool. The only weapon in the room.
He let his body sag, his head dropping as if in ultimate defeat. He took a shuffling, defeated step towards the empty plinth, putting himself closer to Mr. Huang. Close enough to smell the lavender.
“It… it won’t hurt?” Wei whispered, making his voice small, broken.
Mr. Huang’s expression softened with paternal pity. “The transition is surprisingly painless. A warmth. A gentle pressure. Then… release.”
Wei nodded slowly, as if accepting this. He let his shoulders shake with a silent sob, bringing his hands up to his face.
Then he moved.
He pivoted on his good leg, his hand shooting out not for Mr. Huang, but for the shears dangling casually from his fingers. His bloody fingers closed around the cool metal handles. He yanked.
Mr. Huang’s grip was like iron. He didn’t fight for the shears; he simply held them, his calm eyes meeting Wei’s wild ones. He seemed almost amused.
“Oh, Wei,” he sighed. “That’s the oldest ending of all.”
With his other hand, Mr. Huang tapped Wei’s wrist, a precise, sharp strike on a nerve. Wei’s hand flared white-hot and went numb. The shears clattered to the concrete floor.
David was there in an instant. His arms wrapped around Wei from behind, pinning Wei’s own arms to his sides. He lifted him effortlessly, like a child.
“The pose,” Mr. Huang instructed, bending to retrieve the shears. “I was thinking something dynamic. A final, futile reach. Like Sisyphus straining for the top of the hill, knowing the rock will roll back down.” He gestured with the shears toward the plinth. “Place him. On his knees, one arm forward.”
David carried Wei to the stone base and set him down as directed. Wei fought, kicking, thrashing, but the man’s strength was inhuman. One knee was forced onto the cold stone, then the other. David wrenched one of Wei’s arms forward, stretching it out towards nothing, holding the wrist flat against the plinth.
Mr. Huang approached the mixing vat. He took the paddle from the silent servant and gave the plaster a few final, thoughtful stirs. “The consistency is perfect. Not too thick, not too runny. It must embrace every detail.”
He dipped a small metal ladle into the vat and walked calmly over to Wei.
Wei was sobbing now, raw, helpless sounds. He pulled against David’s grip with every atom of his strength. It was like pulling against a mountain.
“The fear is good,” Mr. Huang said approvingly, standing over him. “It clarifies the expression. Removes all artifice.”
He tilted the ladle.
A stream of warm, wet plaster, the color of a dove’s underbelly, poured over Wei’s outstretched hand. It was shockingly warm, almost body temperature. It enveloped his fingers, flowing into the cuts and crevices, sealing his skin in a creeping, moist shell. The weight of it was immediate, pressing his hand down.
“Let’s see what masterpiece your fear will make,” Mr. Huang whispered, almost lovingly.
He emptied the ladle. The plaster covered Wei’s hand, his wrist, and began a slow, deliberate crawl up his forearm. The warmth was a liar; it felt alive, predatory. Wei watched, hysterical, as his own limb was consumed, transformed into a dead, grey thing.
Mr. Huang returned to the vat. This time, he took a larger bucket, filling it to the brim.
Wei’s mind fractured. He was going to become a statue. A permanent exhibit in this gallery of nightmares. He would be here, next to Jian, for as long as the walls stood. The plaster would fill his mouth, his nose, his eyes—
His gaze, blurry with tears, snapped to the figure of Jian. To that one remaining, human eye.
It moved.
Just a flicker. A minute, desperate contraction of the pupil.
Jian was still in there. Still fighting.
The bucket came up, tilted.
A cascade of plaster poured over Wei’s head and shoulders. It was in his hair, his ears, blinding him. It sealed his screams into a muffled, internal echo. The world became warm, wet, grey, and silent.
But in that final second before his eyes were covered, he saw Jian’s stone hand, the one closest to him, twitch. A tiny piece of the black, crystalline crust at the fingertip cracked and fell away.
And then everything was warmth, and weight, and the slow, certain silence of the grave.