Wedding Car

Three months passed as swiftly as an elusive wind.

In the backyard of the Yin family mansion, autumn had deepened. Withered locust leaves carpeted the ground, crunching underfoot like someone chewing dry, cold bones in secret.

Early morning.

Zhao Wan sat in that windowless side room, being manipulated by two coarse maids.

They hadn't hired a professional wedding matron for her as they would for the legitimate eldest daughter. They hadn't used the five-colored threads to carefully remove the fine hairs from her face. They simply roughly wiped her face with warm water and draped over her the old red wedding gown that Yin Zhaoyue had worn and had been altered with a few stitches.

The gown didn't fit well; the shoulders were three inches too wide. The maids muttered under their breath as they rummaged through a sewing basket for a few rusty safety pins, hastily pinning the inside, causing Zhao Wan a sharp pain in her back.

"Endure it," one maid snorted coldly. "To be able to marry into the Duke's mansion with such a background is a blessing cultivated over several lifetimes. What's a little pain?"

Zhao Wan said nothing. She looked down at her toes—the embroidered shoes were also old, the soles hard, rubbing against her heels with a dull ache.

Just as she was about to stand up, Madam Liu pushed the door open and walked in.

In her hand was a steaming red porcelain bowl. The broth had a dark hue and emitted an oddly sweet fragrance, like ripe berries or aged tangerine peel.

"Zhao Wan," Madam Liu said with a hypocritically kind smile that chilled Zhao Wan's heart. "Today is freezing cold, and the mountain roads are long. Your father specially ordered this warming soup for you. Drink it, and you'll feel better on the journey."

Zhao Wan looked at the bowl. The soup reflected her face, painted stark white.

"Where is Father?" she asked.

"He's busy greeting guests in the main hall—all influential figures from Beiping," Madam Liu pushed the bowl forward, her tone carrying a hint of command. "Drink it while it's hot. Don't delay the auspicious time."

Zhao Wan knew what was in the bowl.

It wasn't warming soup. It was "Soul-Capture Potion"—a forbidden drug that the Yin family had obtained from the black market to prevent her from backing out or escaping on the road or making a mistake before entering the castle.

She took the bowl. The edge of the porcelain was chipped, scratching her fingertips slightly.

Without hesitation, she raised her head and drank it all.

The soup slid smoothly down her throat, like a cold little snake instantly burrowing into her limbs and bones.

Within ten seconds.

Zhao Wan felt the scene before her begin to sway. Madam Liu's heavily made-up face stretched and distorted in her vision, finally dissolving into a blur of colors.

"Good girl..."

Those were the last words Zhao Wan heard before losing consciousness. A tone of triumphant relief.

————

When the carriage started moving, Zhao Wan felt a strange sense of weightlessness.

She wasn't completely unconscious. That "Soul-Capture Potion" acted more like a drug that forcibly separated soul from body—her body was limp, unable to move, like a pile of mud stuffed into the seat; but her consciousness hovered like a wisp of smoke, terrifyingly clear yet unable to command any physical response.

She was half-dragged, half-shoved into a carriage by the two maids.

It wasn't a bridal sedan chair.

The Yin family had prepared no red silk ribbons for her, nor hired any musicians.

The carriage sent to escort her was entirely black. The carriage was large and heavy, made of fine sandalwood but painted with an opaque black lacquer. The wheels rolling over the stone slabs sounded heavy and oppressive, as if directly crushing people's hearts.

Zhao Wan leaned against the carriage wall.

Her head kept bumping against the wooden boards with each jolt, each impact producing a dull thud.

She struggled to open her eyes a slit and looked through the gap in the curtain.

The wind lifted the curtain.

She saw the Yin family gate receding rapidly in her view. The vermilion paint looked mottled in the autumn rain. The two stone lions grew smaller and smaller, finally turning into two blurry gray dots.

No one was crying.

From the main hall came faint noise—guests celebrating Yin Zhongxuan's "promotion."

At that moment, Zhao Wan felt a sense of utter abandonment, and with it, relief.

Yes, relief.

The Yin family, which had oppressed her for nineteen years with its prejudice, coldness, and cruelty, was finally left behind by this black carriage.

The carriage left the city.

The wild grass outside Beiping had withered yellow. The wind grew louder, howling over the roof, sounding like some ancient instrument moaning.

Zhao Wan felt the carriage climbing a slope.

The road grew rougher. The smell in the air changed subtly.

The scent of human life with dust disappeared. Instead came a cold, forest odor of pine needles and damp moss.

It was a deathly silence.

Apart from the clop of horse hooves on gravel, she heard no insects or birds.

Zhao Wan's fingers twitched slightly.

She touched something in her sleeve.

A cold, hard object. A safety pin.

Earlier, when the maids altered her clothes, they had intentionally left a safety pin in the sleeve. It was meant to mock her background.

But now, Zhao Wan used all her remaining strength to press that pin into the nail bed of her finger.

The sharp pain of the needle piercing flesh shot through her like lightning, breaking through the haze of the Soul-Capture Potion.

She needed to stay awake.

She couldn't be sent into that castle as a "sacrifice."

Even if she died, she wanted to die with her eyes open.

————

The carriage stopped.

The halt wasn't gradual. The horses seemed to be strangled by some force, letting out a sharp, short neigh, then fell into utter silence.

Zhao Wan felt the temperature drop sharply.

The cold wasn't winter's chill. It was a bone-piercing, marrow-freezing cold.

"Creak—"

The sound of heavy, rusty friction.

Zhao Wan struggled to turn her neck and looked out the window.

Though her vision was still blurry, she saw it.

A huge iron gate, almost merging with the night. It was covered with ferocious barbs, like a sleeping monster opening its fanged mouth.

The gate slid open silently to both sides.

Guards stood on either side, wearing faded black robes of Qing dynasty style, their faces hidden under large hoods. They weren't breathing.

Yes, Zhao Wan heard no breathing.

The carriage slowly entered.

The crunch of wheels over gravel echoed long in the empty castle courtyard.

Zhao Wan looked up.

Through the gap in the carriage roof, she saw the castle.

It was a shadow more massive than any building in Beiping. Dark towers seemed to pierce the sky. The windows were long and narrow, showing no light, like peering black pupils.

The carriage stopped at the foot of a huge stone staircase.

"Click."

The carriage door opened from outside.

A hand reached in.

It was the most perfect and most terrifying hand Zhao Wan had ever seen.

Five long fingers with well-defined knuckles. The skin was so pale it was almost translucent; under the dim moonlight, faint bluish-purple veins could be seen flowing beneath.

On the ring finger of the left hand was a very thin black gold ring.

That hand didn't help Zhao Wan.

It stopped midair. The fingertips lightly curled, and Zhao Wan's limp body involuntarily leaned forward.

She tumbled out of the carriage.

The expected pain didn't come.

She crashed into an icy chest.

The cold was like hitting a millennium-old block of ice.

"Soul-Capture Potion," a deep voice sounded in her ear.

The voice was magnetic, like the deepest note of a cello. It carried years of loneliness and a trace of razor-sharp sarcasm.

"The Yin family. They don't even dare to let the bride arrive conscious."

Zhao Wan struggled to lift her eyelids.

She only saw a pair of eyes.

Gray-white.

No warmth. Bottomless.

Those were the eyes she had seen at Minister Gu's party.

But different.

Up close, deep within the gray-white pupils seemed to burn an ancient, crazy flame.

"You..." Zhao Wan tried to speak.

But her throat burned like it was on fire.

She could only stretch out her hand—calloused, with a safety pin still hidden between her fingers—and desperately grab the man's collar.

The tip of the pin scratched his skin.

A drop of dark red liquid slid down his collarbone.

That drop of blood fell on Zhao Wan's hand.

Burning hot.

Completely opposite to his body temperature.

At that moment, Zhao Wan felt the cinnabar mark on the back of her hand ignite.

An intense burning sensation made her let out a low moan.

The man looked down at the frail girl in his arms, still trying to resist on the verge of unconsciousness.

When his gaze passed over the mark on her hand, his pupils contracted sharply.

"Yin, Zhao, Wan."

He spoke her name.

Not as a question. But with a hatred that felt like a reunion after long separation, yet restrained.

"You've finally returned."

————

Zhao Wan sank into complete darkness.

In the second before losing consciousness, she heard the door closing behind her.

"Bang—"

The sound was as heavy as a coffin lid being nailed shut.

She felt the man pick her up.

His movements were not gentle. Even somewhat stiff.

But he walked steadily.

He carried her through a long corridor flickering with candlelight.

On the walls on both sides hung huge oil paintings.

In her last glance, Zhao Wan saw that the people in those paintings... all seemed to turn their eyes at the same moment, greedily staring at her.

And at the originally dull cinnabar mark on the back of her hand.

Now, in absolute darkness, it flickered on and off, like a blood-red pupil opening in the night. It was smiling, silently announcing the awakening of the contract in that cold, sandalwood-scented embrace.