Chapter 9: When the Mask Cracks

                          

Never in her life had Nie Jiuluo experienced panic this raw, this bone deep.

Everyone had a fatal weakness; hers was water. The moment it swallowed her, darkness closed in—thick, airless, suffocating. Anxiety clawed at her chest. From the void came a single shard of pale light, and through it stepped Yan Tuo, holding a bone-carving knife that gleamed with cold intent.

Her voice trembled uncontrollably. “What are you doing?”

Yan Tuo knelt, his silhouette towering and merciless.
“Miss Nie,” he said, voice low and deliberate, “you’ve made a fool of me. I’ll peel your flesh strip by strip, so you understand what retribution feels like.”

The blade descended toward her face.

Nie Jiuluo’s scalp prickled; terror shot through her spine. “No—don’t!”

For someone who lived for beauty, who sculpted perfection with her own hands, the thought of her face carved into ruins was worse than death. Desperate, she reached out and steadied herself against Yan Tuo’s waist.

“Let’s… talk about this.”

Yan Tuo’s gaze sharpened. “Talk about what?”

“Anything,” she whispered, inching closer, fingertips tracing the hard lines of his lower back through thin fabric. “Just talk. Slowly.”

Her breath brushed his lips. Beauty could be blade or shield—she knew exactly how to wield it.

He finally lowered his head and kissed her.

Inside, she exhaled in relief and kissed him back, thinking: Just endure it. Let him lose himself. Then kill him.

…

Nie Jiuluo’s eyes flew open.

Night.
City lights glowing through the curtains.
Soft mattress beneath her.

She bolted upright—her bedroom. Her home.

Had everything… been a dream?

One touch to her hair told her otherwise—half-dried, coarse, still smelling faintly of cold water. She had fallen in. But how had she returned?

A chill crept up her spine. She checked her body—no pain, no unfamiliar sensation of harm. Only afterward did she rush out to question Sister Lu.

The woman explained she’d simply found Nie Jiuluo asleep upstairs, assuming she’d come home unnoticed.

Nie Jiuluo retreated, unsettled. Sitting before her mirror in the dark, she barely recognized the reflection staring back. She had never confronted fear this absolute. In dreams, stripped of morality and logic, one’s instincts ruled. Hers had been ugly—cowardly, even.

The realization scraped at her pride like a dull knife.

She tore open a drawer, retrieved an old phone, connected to WiFi, and immediately called Old Cai.

A breathless rush: “I need a full medical exam. The most thorough. Tonight.”

Something might have been injected into her. Implanted. She wasn’t naive enough to trust survival as coincidence.

Ten minutes later, she flew out the door like a storm.

Hours later, she returned drained, answering Sister Lu’s concern with a hollow: “It’s fine.”

But her trembling fingers betrayed her.

That night, Nie Jiuluo sat in the middle of a ring of sculptures on the second floor, touching each one as if confirming their existence. Sister Lu found her lying among them, murmuring, “I almost lost the chance to touch them again.”

Sister Lu thought it was youthful overthinking—an emotional rebound from fearing illness.

But Nie Jiuluo knew better.

It wasn’t heaven blessing her.

It was Yan Tuo.

…

Three days passed. Life resumed its rhythm. She sculpted Tang Dynasty beauties, letting the clay calm her trembling nerves. Afternoon sun warmed her shoulders as she shaped thick “moth eyebrows” onto the sixth figurine.

Her phone rang.

A stranger’s number.

She answered with her chin.
Yan Tuo’s voice slid through the speaker: “Miss Nie?”

Her heart tightened, then steadied.

“Say what you need to say,” she replied flatly.

“Are you free tonight? Dinner.”

She agreed.

After hanging up, she shaped a small clay figure of him, flicked it hard, watched it flatten on the floor.

You win this round.

…

At six, dressed in crimson with a rising slit, she stepped out. A young waiter led her down twisting alleys to a humble braised-meat shop. Yan Tuo waited in a private room behind a curtain.

She sat across from him without meeting his eyes.

He apologized for the simplicity of the place; she replied:
“What I wear is for myself. Not for who I’m with or where I eat.”

Then after a beat—
“You’re insane.”

He didn’t deny it.

He served braised dishes and beer. Then, wordlessly, lifted his shirt. Scars covered his back—raw, scabbed, mercilessly carved by someone else’s hands.

“I was only responsible for the handover,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t control what others did.”

“But without you,” Yan Tuo replied, “I wouldn’t have suffered these torments.”

He lowered his shirt.

“I could have done the same to you when I had the chance. Just a few lines on your face.”

Silence stretched.

Then he looked at her, steady, unblinking.

“But I didn’t. I took you home. Miss Nie… I’ve given you a great gift. I want something in return.”

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