Chapter 1: The Last Laugh Before the Screams
The champagne flute felt absurdly delicate in Li Wei’s hand, a prop in a play he hadn’t auditioned for. He leaned close to Zhang Hao, the pulsing electronic beat from the main hall a dull throb in the marble foyer. “Whose house is this again?”
“Does it matter?” Zhang Hao grinned, his own glass already empty. He looked effortlessly sharp in his tailored shirt, while Li Wei felt like an imposter in his. “Some friend of a friend’s dad. Finance. Mining. Something that prints money.” He waved a hand at the cavernous space. “This didn’t come from blogging.”
Li Wei had to agree. The foyer was a study in cold grandeur. Crystal chandeliers the size of small cars dripped honeyed light onto the polished floor, but the black marble was so reflective it swallowed and twisted the glow. As he shifted his weight, his own reflection warped, the handsome, lean lines of his face stretching into something gaunt and hungry. He looked away.
The air was thick. Expensive perfume, spilled liquor, the cloying sweetness of a thousand white roses massed in gilded urns. Underneath it all, just a thread, was something metallic. Like the smell of a subway tunnel in summer, or the copper tang of a bitten lip.
“You feel that?” Zhang Hao’s smile had faded. He was staring at a group of older men in pristine suits laughing by a grand staircase. Their laughter was too loud, a percussive bark that didn’t match their cold eyes.
“Feel what?”
“This isn’t a party. It’s a display.” Zhang Hao snatched another glass from a passing server’s tray. “We’re the entertainment.”
Before Li Wei could answer, their hostess appeared. Mrs. Liang was a slender woman in jade silk, her smile a precise, painted line. “Our university guests! Are you enjoying yourselves?” Her hand, when it touched Li Wei’s forearm, was shockingly cold, the bones like bird bones under the skin.
“It’s incredible,” Li Wei said, the polite script tumbling out. “Thank you for having us.”
“The night is young,” she said, her eyes lingering on Zhang Hao’s face. “The real conversation happens in the quieter rooms. You should explore.” She drifted away, a phantom in silk.
“Creepy,” Zhang Hao muttered into his fresh drink. “Let’s find the others, get a group vibe going. This place is giving me the chills.”
They moved from the foyer into a long gallery lined with abstract paintings that felt like open wounds in the muted light. The crowd was a blur of sequins and sharp haircuts, but their classmates were nowhere. The music from the main hall was muffled here, replaced by a low, murmured buzz that felt intentional.
A sharp laugh cut through the buzz. It was too high, verging on hysterical. It came from behind a heavy velvet curtain draped across a dark archway.
Then came the sound.
A wet, grinding crunch. Like someone stepping on a ripe melon, but deeper. Structural.
The laugh choked off into silence.
Li Wei froze. His eyes met Zhang Hao’s. The confident charm was gone, replaced by wide-eyed recognition. That sound didn’t belong in any world they knew.
“What the hell was that?” Zhang Hao whispered.
“Probably a…a dropped ice sculpture, or something,” Li Wei said, but the words were ash in his mouth. The metallic smell was stronger here. It was old blood. He knew it now.
Zhang Hao shook his head, already stepping toward the curtain. “No. That was…someone’s drunk. They fell. We should check.”
“Hao, wait—”
But Zhang Hao was already pulling the heavy fabric aside, peering into the darkness. His body went rigid.
“Oh, god.”
Li Wei gripped Zhang Hao’s wrist, pulling him back. “What is it? Let’s just get security.”
Zhang Hao turned. His face was a ghostly pale mask, his lips trembling. “It’s not…it’s not right.” He was babbling, in shock. “The angles are all wrong. She’s…folded.”
From beyond the curtain, a new sound emerged. A soft, rhythmic shushing, like brushstrokes on canvas. Accompanied by a low, contented hum.
Every instinct in Li Wei’s body screamed to run. To drag Zhang Hao and bolt for the giant front doors. But his feet were rooted to the slick marble. Curiosity, that fatal literary disease, hooked into his brain. He had to see. He had to know what could make his fearless friend look like that.
He leaned past the curtain.
The room was a small, windowless antechamber, lit by a single spotlight. The light fell on a figure in the center of the room.
It had been a woman in a silver dress. He could still see the sequins glittering. But now she was arranged, her limbs bent and twisted into impossible, elegant angles, like a mannequin posed by a deranged artist. Her neck was craned back, her mouth open in a silent, final gasp. The wet crunch. Her spine.
Kneeling beside her was a man in a servant’s black waistcoat. He was meticulously painting her skin, his brush leaving thick, glossy strokes of crimson that trailed from the corners of her eyes down her temples. He hummed as he worked, perfecting the grotesque makeup. The shushing of the brush.
Li Wei’s stomach vaulted into his throat. He staggered back, the velvet curtain falling shut, but the image was burned onto the back of his eyelids—the serene hum, the artistic concentration, the terrible, broken geometry of the body.
“We’re leaving. Now.” His voice was a harsh grit in his throat. He pulled at Zhang Hao, who was trembling, his breathing coming in short gasps.
They turned, and Mrs. Liang was there. She stood between them and the glowing foyer, her painted smile unchanged. Two large men in dark suits flanked her, their faces blank.
“Leaving so soon?” Mrs. Liang asked, her head tilting. “But the night is just becoming interesting.”
“Our friend is sick,” Li Wei blurted, the lie automatic. He tried to step around her, tightening his grip on Zhang Hao’s arm. “We need some air.”
One of the suits shifted, blocking the path.
“I insist you stay,” Mrs. Liang said, her cold eyes on Zhang Hao. “You have such a vibrant presence. Such…perfect lines. We have a use for that.”
Zhang Hao made a small, pathetic sound. He tried to pull free, to run, but the second suit was on him in a blur of motion. A hand, grotesquely large, clamped over Zhang Hao’s mouth, muffling his shout. Li Wei lunged, his athletic frame coiled, but a fist like a bag of stones caught him in the solar plexus. All the air left his world in a silent rush. He crumpled to the cold marble, gasping, watching through a haze of pain.
He saw Zhang Hao’s terrified eyes, wide and pleading, over the brute’s shoulder.
He saw Mrs. Liang nod with approval.
He saw them drag his struggling, kicking friend back through the velvet curtain, into that dark room with the humming artist.
The curtain fell shut.
Li Wei scrambled to his hands and knees, vomiting a thin stream of champagne onto the polished stone. His own distorted reflection stared back at him from the floor—a terrified boy, alone. The pulsing music from the main party swelled, a mocking, rhythmic beat. No one was coming. The scream had been absorbed, the anomaly corrected.
He had to get out. He had to find help.
Stumbling to his feet, he fled down a different corridor, away from the foyer, deeper into the manor’s heart. The opulent halls became a labyrinth, each room more unsettling than the last. He passed a library where a man sat perfectly still, reading a book with empty eye sockets. He passed a salon where guests sipped drinks, their conversation ceasing in unison as he ran by, their heads turning to track him with flat, empty eyes.
He was panting, lost, when he burst into a vast, sterile white room that looked like a cross between an art studio and a surgical theater. The metallic smell was overwhelming here, clean and sharp like a hospital.
And in the center, under blazing halogens, was Zhang Hao.
He was naked, suspended by nearly invisible wires from a high frame. His body had been…adjusted. His limbs were elongated, arranged in a graceful, swooping arc that defied anatomy. His handsome face was frozen in a look of transcendent peace, a lie in plaster-smooth flesh. Every muscle, every tendon, had been polished and sealed under a clear, gleaming resin. He was a sculpture. A beautiful, monstrous thing.
An art object.
Standing before him, a small tool in hand, was the man in the waistcoat. He was adding a final touch, a tiny vein of gold leaf in the corner of Zhang Hao’s petrified eye.
He noticed Li Wei in the doorway. He didn’t startle. He simply smiled, a warm, professional smile.
“Ah,” the artist said, his voice soft. “You’re just in time. I was hoping for a witness. The gaze of the observer is what completes the piece, you see.”
He gestured with his tool toward Li Wei.
“Now, hold very still. This next part requires a living model.”