POV: Wáng Shuǒrán
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Blood smells different in the rain.
Not sharp like iron. Softer. Diluted. Like memory left too long in the back of the mind — sweet and wrong.
Wáng Shuǒrán blinked against the downpour as it blurred the skyline of Jiucheng. Neon lights flickered against wet glass towers, glowing red and blue like emergency signals no one cared about.
Her red dress clung to her body — satin soaked through, ripped at the hem. She'd chosen it deliberately.
Not for him.
For the version of herself she wanted to bury.
The rooftop door slammed shut behind her. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoed across the concrete.
She didn't turn. She already knew who it was.
"You're late," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried. Wind tugged strands of her wet hair across her lips.
Jian Zhìhéng didn't answer immediately. The rain fell between them like a veil.
"You shouldn't have come alone."
His tone was calm. Cold. Clinical. The voice of a man used to handling problems with expensive gloves and men who didn't ask questions.
"But you told me to," she replied, finally facing him.
His silhouette was sharp under the umbrella. The tailored suit. The polished shoes. The gun.
"You left me no choice," he said.
"And you think this is one?"
She took a step forward. The wind nearly toppled her, but she held. Chin up. Chest out. Defiant, even as water streaked her cheeks like tears she refused to shed.
"I read the files," she said. "I know what you did to my father. The trials. The falsified data. The bodies."
Jian didn't move. "I didn't want to kill him."
"You wanted silence. You always did."
"He was going to expose years of work. Do you think any of this is simple, Shuǒrán?"
He said her name like it still belonged to him.
"You should have stayed pretty. Stupid. Safe."
"You should have stayed human."
He sighed — like she'd disappointed him.
Like she was the one being unreasonable.
"You know how this ends," he said. And raised the gun.
She didn't run.
"Was I just another loose end?" she asked softly. "Was that all I ever was to you?"
Jian's jaw clenched. A flicker. Regret? Rage? Obsession?
"No," he said. "You were the only thing I didn't want to lose."
He pulled the trigger.
****************
She spun from the force — not a clean kill. He never was.
The bullet tore through her side. Pain bloomed hot and screaming. Her knees buckled.
The world tilted. Sky above, water below.
She crawled to the edge of the rooftop. Fingers blood-slicked. The wind howled in her ears.
Behind her, his footsteps came closer.
"You should've left well enough alone," Jian murmured. "You were supposed to die with your family. Peacefully."
That word again. Die.
"Why?" she rasped. "Why my father?"
"Because he wouldn't shut up."
And with that—he knelt beside her. Whispered something against her ear.
"Goodbye, Shuǒrán."
Then he pushed.
****************
She didn't scream. Not for him.
The wind tore past her like a scream of its own. Her red dress flared around her like a final warning.
Then the river took her — cold, fast, merciless.
Pain vanished. Thought vanished. There was only water and silence and the beat of her heart… fading.
She sank.
Eyes open.
Mouth shut.
No air left to scream with anyway.
****************
Something reached for her in the dark.
Not a dream. Not a ghost.
A hand — real, human, and strong — yanked her up through current and memory.
She coughed up the river. Gasped. Collapsed.
Voices. Female. Sharp. Steady.
"Still breathing."
"Lucky bitch."
"No. Not luck. Vengeance."
A pair of eyes, dark as ink, looked down at her.
"You want to make them pay?"
Wáng Shuǒrán couldn't speak. But she didn't need to.
The look in her eyes said everything.
****************
Wáng Shuǒrán died that night in the river.
Two years later, someone else would rise from her grave — wearing lipstick like a knife, and a smile they'd never see coming.