Chapter 5: Skin Deep

The VHS tape unraveled in Jiang Se's hands, magnetic ribbon coiling like a gutted serpent. On the static-filled screen, her younger self laughed with frosting-smeared cheeks while Mingyu hid under the table—a shadow version in pink overalls.

"Twins." Lu Chen ejected the tape. "Explains the cloning comments."

Jiang Se pressed icy fingers to her burgundy eye. "I would remember a sister."

"Would you?" He held up the empty prescription bottle. "These could erase elephants."

The bus terminal's fluorescent lights buzzed like angry wasps. Jiang Se's reflection in the TV screen wavered—sometimes single, sometimes with Mingyu's braids peeking over her shoulder.

"We need DNA proof." She crushed the tape casing. "Hospital records. Birth certificates."

Lu Chen smiled without humor. "Checked while you were napping. Li Mingyu's records were purged in 2012."

"By who?"

"Someone who really didn't want you remembering." He nodded at her eye. "Speaking of—your souvenir's glowing."

Bathroom mirrors confirmed it. Her left pupil pulsed like a dying star, casting faint burgundy light on the cracked sinks.

Mingyu's giggle echoed from a stall. "JieJie's becoming pretty!"

Lu Chen kicked doors open one by one. Empty.

The last stall walls dripped with sweat.

Interlude: Age Eight

"They're taking Mingyu away."

Jiang Se pressed against the clinic's frosted glass, breath fogging the words Genetic Anomalies Research. Inside, her twin thrashed in restraints as men in moon suits drew vial after vial of dark liquid.

"Hush." Mother pulled her from the window. "This is for Mingyu's own good."

"But she's scared!"

"So are we." Mother's Chanel No. 5 soured with lies. "The doctors say she's special."

A van pulled up. Qin Shu climbed out, twelve years old and already wearing a lab coat.

Present

Jiang Se vomited in the terminal parking lot. Lu Chen watched impassively.

"Epiphany or food poisoning?"

"Both." She spat bile. "There was a clinic. White vans."

He scrolled through his phone. "Qin Shu's father ran an unlicensed gene therapy center. Shut down in 2010 after multiple disappearances."

"Including Mingyu's."

"Including yours." He showed a news clipping—Local Girl Vanishes During Sibling's Treatment.

The photo showed eight-year-old Jiang Se, not Mingyu.

Silk Gardens Massage Parlor, 8:17 PM

The receptionist's throat had been stuffed with scented candles. Jiang Se recognized the brand—Tranquility, her short-lived line of aromatherapy products.

"Fifth sense." Lu Chen adjusted his gloves. "Touch."

The victim lay face-down on a massage table, arms outstretched in mock crucifixion. His skin had been removed with surgical precision, muscles coated in glittering oil.

Jiang Se's burgundy eye throbbed. "He's... smiling."

"Adrian Kwok." Lu Chen checked his notes. "Celebrity masseur. Specialized in tantric therapy."

She circled the table. The man's fingertips were raw hamburger. "Someone made him feel too much."

Lu Chen lifted the victim's right hand. A butterfly clip pierced the palm. "Yours?"

"2016 collection." She swallowed bile. "Retired after... after..."

Memories surged—Mingyu sobbing as Qin Shu clamped the butterfly clips to her scalp. Hold still. Big girls don't cry.

"After what?" Lu Chen pressed.

The lights died.

Interlude: Age Fourteen

Jiang Se found the secret lab under the greenhouse.

Mingyu floated in a glass tube, hair shaved, skin mottled with bruises. Wires fed into her spine like metallic parasites.

Qin Shu caught her spying. "She's purer than you. No memories to interfere."

"Let her go!"

He stroked the tube. "But we're having so much fun."

Present

Emergency lights bathed the parlor in bloody hues. Mingyu perched on the massage table, swinging legs that phased through Adrian's corpse.

"JieJie's late again."

Lu Chen fired. The bullet passed through her to shatter a jade statue.

"Rude!" Mingyu pouted. "I made this special for you."

She snapped her fingers. The corpse's oiled muscles rippled, forming ridges and valleys that Jiang Se recognized—a topographic map of the mountain where Qin Shu's clinic once stood.

"Follow the butterflies!" Mingyu blew them a kiss and dissolved.

Adrian's skinless arm rose, pointing northwest.

Mountain Road, 10:33 PM

Jiang Se clutched the stolen police radio. "This is insane."

Lu Chen navigated hairpin turns. "Says the woman with a DIY cyborg eye."

The burgundy glow intensified as they climbed. By the time they reached the abandoned clinic, her vision bifurcated—normal sight in the right eye, thermal imaging in the left.

The ruins pulsed with residual heat.

"Underground generator." She kicked aside asbestos warnings. "Still active."

Lu Chen pried open a service hatch. "After you, Princess."

The ladder descended into perfect blackness. Jiang Se's mutated eye adjusted, revealing faded murals of double-helix structures. At the bottom, a steel door bore Qin Shu's childhood doodle—a butterfly eating its own wings.

The keypad required a six-digit code.

"Try Mingyu's birthday," Lu Chen suggested.

"I don't—"

Her fingers moved autonomously: 040209.

The door hissed open.

Qin Shu's Lair

Neon tubes buzzed to life, illuminating a museum of horrors. Glass jars lined the walls—specimens of hair, teeth, and tissue labeled with dates spanning fifteen years.

Jiang Se stumbled past a workstation crusted with dried blood. Lu Chen examined a microscope slide.

"Skin cells. Yours, if the heart-shaped birthmark's any indication."

She focused on the center exhibit—a life-sized clone pod filled with amber fluid. Floating inside, perfectly preserved, was Mingyu at age twelve.

Wires protruded from her shaved skull. Butterfly clips secured electrodes to her temples.

"Backup body." Lu Chen tapped the pod. "In case the original..."

Jiang Se's reflection rippled across the glass. For one vertiginous moment, she floated inside with Mingyu.

A monitor flickered. Security footage from the greenhouse played—Jiang Se at sixteen, discovering Mingyu's torture.

"You knew." Lu Chen's voice hardened. "You wanted to forget."

The screen changed to show current footage—their arrival at the clinic. A red laser dot danced over Jiang Se's chest.

"Down!" Lu Chen tackled her as the shot rang out.

The clone pod shattered. Mingyu's body crumpled, aging rapidly to dust.

Jiang Se's left eye exploded in agony. When she opened them, Lu Chen was gone.

The shooter's voice echoed through smoke: "Hello, JieJie."