Red.Not the festive red. It was the red of blood blooming on paper, the color of Liu Ruyan's neck that night three years ago in Apricot Blossom Village.
Liu Rushuang clenched her sleeve—inside hid a pair of scissors. Not given by her sister, but snatched from her sister's corpse. Brass handle, silver blade, a nick on the edge where it shattered while severing her sister's throat bone.
"Bride, kick the sedan door!" The matchmaker's voice sounded like sandpaper, roughness hiding... the wet sound of chewing?
Liu Rushuang didn't look down. She stared through the gap in the curtain, seeing the matchmaker's mouth moving—not smiling, but eating red paper, eating fragments of her veil, eating the leftovers of that wedding three years ago.
She reached for her waist. The scissors were still there. But the weight was wrong.Too light.
She looked down and saw the mandarin ducks embroidered on her sleeve moving—not embroidery, but living things. Tiny paper worms were gnawing at the silk threads, eating "Hundred Years of Harmony" into "Hundred Years of a Lonely Soul."
In the corner of the sedan chair, a bronze mirror leaned against the wall. Its surface was covered in green rust, yet a clean arc was wiped across it, as if done intentionally.
Liu Rushuang didn't remember a mirror in the sedan. She only remembered before boarding, her mother—if the woman who pasted a paper face with glutinous rice paste counted as a mother—whispered in her ear: "Look at the mirror, don't look at him."
"Young Master Lu, please—"The sedan door was kicked open.
Liu Rushuang lifted the veil herself.
Lu Ziming's face was exposed under the candlelight.Pale, handsome, real skin, but his eyes were hollow—not a paper doll, but a living man being controlled.
"Wife," he spoke, his voice like reciting lines, "you have mistaken me."
"I recognize you very clearly," Liu Rushuang said, the scissors aimed at his throat. "Lu Ziming, courtesy name Qingyuan, the scholar of Apricot Blossom Village. Three years ago, you secretly pledged yourself to my sister, Liu Ruyan. After passing the imperial exams, you married the daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites, changed your name, and let my sister wait for you under the apricot tree until she died."
Lu Ziming's expression didn't change. It wasn't calmness; he truly didn't know her.
"Liu Ruyan?" he repeated the name as if reading unfamiliar characters. "I don't know her. My wife is the daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites, née Zhou."
He raised his hand, his sleeve slipping down—a red string was wrapped around his wrist, like the joints of a marionette.
Liu Rushuang understood.He wasn't a heartless man; he was another victim. Someone had erased his memory and turned him into a prop for a paper doll wedding.
"Who sent you?" she lowered her voice. "Who told you to marry 'Liu Ruyan'?"
"I don't know... I don't remember... I only know I must complete the wedding, otherwise..."He stopped, as if choked by some force.
Otherwise, he would turn into a real paper doll.
Liu Rushuang stepped back and bumped into the bronze mirror.The surface was ice-cold. Under the green rust, fine text was engraved—not patterns, but articles of the Netherworld Law, Article 3, Article 44, Article 56, like a template for some contract.
Reflected in the mirror was not the sedan chair.It was another wedding hall, another bride, another... self.
That Liu Rushuang wore a real wedding dress, her skin had texture, her hands were trembling, and her eyes held fear, but also anger. She was frantically pounding the mirror, her mouth shaping the words—"Don't believe him! He's not Qingyuan! Qingyuan is already dead!"
Outside the mirror, Liu Rushuang looked down and saw her own hand.Pale, smooth, no palm lines.Like paper pulp.Like a vessel she had pieced together after her sister shattered.
"Three years ago you pushed me down the apricot tree," the Liu Ruyan in the mirror spoke, her voice penetrating the glass, "It wasn't to steal my engagement. It was to let me die as a paper doll so you could live as me."
"But you're wrong," the sister in the mirror revealed a pitying smile. "I didn't beg you. You begged me—you said, 'Sister, let me live for you, let me hate for you, let me... love the one who will never return.'"
Liu Rushuang remembered.She remembered it all.She didn't kill her sister. Her sister voluntarily gave her face to her, on the condition—that three years later, she must return the face, so "Liu Ruyan" could complete this wedding.
And today was the day of the return.
"I regret it," she fell in the mirror, shouting at the "sister" walking out of the glass. "I don't want to live for you! I want to die as Liu Rushuang!"
The "Liu Ruyan" outside the mirror turned.That face—Liu Rushuang's own face—showed a complex expression.
"I know," she said. "So today, I will marry for you, and hate for you."
She turned to Lu Ziming and raised the scissors Liu Rushuang had dropped: "But first, I must cut the strings."
The scissors didn't cut the red string.Because another hand held it.
Pale, slender, wearing a sandalwood mask—covering the upper face, revealing only the jaw and thin lips. A fine crack at the corner of the lip, like a dried tear track.
"According to Article 12 of the Netherworld Law," the newcomer spoke, his voice like a yamen clerk stating a complaint, "Soul transactions require a third-party Nuo Mask Master as a witness. This contract lacks a witness. Applying for revocation."
He turned to Liu Rushuang—the real Liu Rushuang, currently falling in the mirror—not looking at her face, but at her hand.
"Miss Liu," he said, "When you signed the paper doll contract, was there a Nuo Mask Master present?"
"...No."
"Then," he smiled, the crack at his lip like a genuine smile, "I, Shen Yue, the forty-eighth Nuo Mask Master, hereby apply to become the retrospective witness for this contract and rule that there exists a major misunderstanding in said contract—"
He paused, pulling another mask from his sleeve—paper-made, identical to Liu Ruyan's face.
"—The parties mistakenly believed 'yielding one soul' was permanent, when in fact, it is returnable within three days."
Liu Rushuang in the mirror felt the falling stop.The paperization process reversed, but the cost was... someone entering the mirror in her place.
Not her sister.It was Shen Yue's shadow—separating from his feet, it leaped into the mirror on its own, swapping places with the "Liu Ruyan" inside.
"You... why?" Liu Rushuang gasped in the mirror.
Shen Yue removed his mask, revealing a complete face—young, weary, bearing no resemblance to Liu Rushuang. The crack of a tear track under his eye was bleeding.
"Because this is my job," he said. "Soul litigation agency, paid by the case. Your sister paid a triple deposit to ensure you walk out of this wedding alive."
He turned to the "Liu Ruyan" walking out of the mirror—or rather, the entity occupying Liu Rushuang's face—and raised a third mask.
"As for you," he said, "Impersonating another's face violates Article 203 of the Netherworld Law. Applying for temporary detention."
"Liu Ruyan"—or rather, the paper doll wearing Liu Rushuang's face—did not resist.She looked at Shen Yue, revealing surprise for the first time.
"The forty-eighth?" she repeated. "I thought... this one had already died."
Shen Yue's expression changed for the first time. Not fear, but professional vigilance."You know me?"
"I don't know you," the paper doll smiled, Liu Rushuang's face shifting on hers like a misaligned mask. "But I know your master. Shen Wugou, the seventieth Guide. She asked me to pass a message—"
She leaned in, using Liu Rushuang's voice to say words that did not belong to Liu Rushuang:"The eighth crack is not a question mark, it is a mirror. Let her see herself, and let her see you."
Shen Yue stepped back.His shadow was still in the mirror, falling with the Liu Rushuang inside, transmitting a sensation—cold, damp, and... the touch of paper.
Someone was touching his hand.Not Liu Rushuang.It was another paper doll, wearing the Nuo Mask Master's burial robes, faceless, bearing only seven cracks, like Shen Yue's future face.
"Mr. Shen," the paper doll in the mirror spoke, its voice like Shen Yue's thirty years in the future, "Your KPI is due for settlement."
She killed her sister, stole her face, thinking she was avenging.He is a Nuo Mask Master, taking money to do a job, thinking he was just working.Between them, there was no relation.
But someone stitched their stories together.
The scene cuts to Shen Yue picking up a shard of the bronze mirror. Reflected in the shard are two faces—Liu Rushuang's and his own. Utterly dissimilar, yet connected by the same crack.Like two independent cases commissioned by the same plaintiff.
Preview for Next Episode:
"Who is your master?""Shen Wugou, the Guide, seventy cracks.""Why did she help me?""She didn't help you," Shen Yue said. "She hired me to discover you. To discover the... eighth nascent crack on your face."
Next Episode: The Paper Doll's Whisper — The employment relationship you thought it was, was a carefully designed interview. The interview you thought it was, was a foreshadowing from thirty years ago.