The Year You Died

Rain taps the cracked window of the room you rent under someone else's name. Three hundred yuan a month, no heat, no visitors. You are twenty-eight and you are dying, and the strange thing is how quiet it feels after so much noise — the trial, the tabloids, your own name turned into a warning other mothers give their daughters.

You think of Su Ying's face when the verdict came down. Not guilt. Relief.

You think of Lu Mingxuan's hand, warm around yours, right up until the moment it wasn't.

The last thing you feel is your own pulse slowing under your fingers, counting itself out. The last thing you think is: I would give anything for one more season before the trap closed.

Something answers.

Light floods in gold and merciless. A voice you haven't heard in what feels like a lifetime calls a name that used to be yours.

"Miss Wanyu! You'll be late for breakfast!"