Chapter 43: Thirteen Needles of the Ghost Gate

The air in the bunker had shifted.

Sienna could feel it—the same way animals sensed a coming quake. Not a sound, not a tremor. But pressure. Static. Something building beneath the surface of silence.

Silas hadn't spoken since the recording ended.

He sat hunched forward on the edge of the bunk, elbows on knees, fingers laced and white-knuckled. His body tense like a bowstring pulled taut. The blue glow of the screen flickered across his face, casting long shadows over sharp cheekbones.

Sienna stood behind him, hands trembling ever so slightly as she closed the final video window.

She hadn't looked away from the recording once. Even when her own child-voice—high, sweet, and laughing—echoed faintly over the final seconds of footage. Even when K had spoken those final words: "I was the one holding the camera."

Her past had never belonged to her.

Neither had Silas's.

Their lives had been directed like a script—cast into roles written long before they were born. Test subject. Prototype. Inheritor. Weapon.

He lifted his head slightly.

And then his eyes rolled back.

"Silas—!"

His body convulsed once—twice—before he collapsed off the cot, hitting the cold metal floor with a sound that cut through her like a scream.

She dropped beside him, instantly checking for a pulse.

Faint. Erratic.

Then came the coughing.

Not the dry rasp of overexertion. But something deeper. Rattling.

And then—blood.

Bright red at first, then streaked with black. His lips parted in a gasp, and thick strands of tainted mucus spilled down his chin.

"No no no—no, not like this."

She tore open the collar of his shirt. His veins were bulging beneath the skin, blackened in jagged streaks that pulsed with each heartbeat. His breathing was shallow. His pupils were dilated.

The poison had reached his brain.

And it wasn't just any neurotoxin—it was the same one she'd analyzed in the underground lab beneath Sterling HQ. The one engineered from radioactive derivatives. The one her master had once called "the irreversible lock."

Unless…

She scrambled to the drawer behind her.

Ripped it open.

Pulled out the narrow velvet case tucked beneath gauze and iodine bottles.

Twelve long silver needles lay inside.

Ghost Gate acupuncture.

A forbidden technique. One that bypassed the body's surface meridians and pierced straight through to the nerve plexuses beneath. The thirteenth needle—never spoken of in formal texts—was designed to cross the boundary between consciousness and death.

The heart.

The soul.

And memory.

Sienna had never used it.

Until now.

She took a breath. Unsnapped her bracelet. Pulled out the thirteenth needle—shorter, curved like a scorpion's sting, barbed on one side.

She whispered into Silas's ear. "You're not allowed to die before I get my answers. Or my revenge."

Then—without hesitation—she drove the first needle into the side of his neck, targeting the Anmian point near the brainstem. His body jolted.

Then the second—at Shenmen, along the heart meridian.

Then the third.

Fourth.

Fifth.

Her fingers worked like clockwork, each needle sliding in with the precision of a surgeon and the fury of a woman who had run out of time.

And finally—the thirteenth.

She hovered it over his chest, directly above his Tanzhong point. Beneath the skin: the left ventricle of the heart. She had exactly three seconds between contractions to strike.

She counted.

One. Two—stab.

The needle sank in.

Silas's body arched.

He screamed—not in pain, but as if something ancient and buried had been ripped loose from his spine.

And then—

He spoke.

But not as himself.

"Dr. Chen… don't… don't go in… the light there… it's not… not a human light…"

Sienna froze.

Her hand still hovered above the thirteenth needle, not daring to withdraw it.

"Silas?" she whispered.

He didn't respond.

But his lips moved again, slowly this time, as if reciting something long forgotten. His voice dropped a register—rougher, but eerily familiar.

"Sienna… don't run… you're the last blood… of Yao Wang Valley…"

Then his eyes opened.

And stared directly into hers.

But the voice that came from his lips wasn't his.

It was her master's.

"…Her pulse pattern is wrong. Not the veins—but the memory. Who is inside? You… you switched her."

Sienna's breath caught.

Silas blinked.

And then, just like that—

He gasped violently and coughed up blood. His body seized once more before slumping to the floor.

But this time—it was just him.

His own pulse. His own breath. Rapid, but stabilizing.

She slowly removed each needle. One by one. Gentle. Precise.

He stirred faintly, eyelids fluttering open.

"Sienna…?"

She sat back, her chest heaving. "You're okay."

He groaned. "Feels like I was hit by a train."

"You almost died."

"Did I say anything stupid?"

She paused.

Then whispered, "No."

Because she wasn't ready to say it yet.

Not that he'd spoken in her master's voice.

Not that he'd repeated the exact phrase Dr. Chen had muttered in his final hours—the phrase the autopsy claimed he never lived long enough to speak.

You switched her.

What did that mean?

Who was "you"?

Who was "her"?

And what memory had been altered—hers, or someone else's?

Outside, the storm had finally broken.

But inside Sienna's mind, the lightning had just begun.