The Red Veil and White Bones

It began with rain.

Not a downpour—no, something worse.A thin, needling drizzle that began at dusk and never stopped. It crept through the roof tiles, dripped through the cracks in the window lattice, soaked the paper lanterns until their red dyes bled down the strings.

The Lin Mansion sighed like an old beast in its final breath.

Wind moved where there was no wind. The plum trees in the outer courtyard shook as though struck. In the corridors, servants walked quickly with eyes averted, clutching talismans between their fingers. The older ones muttered: "The house is turning inside out."

At the center of it all stood the west wing—Ruyan's chamber—sealed shut since the night of blood and silence.

On this night, however, the door stood open.

A single red candle burned within. Its flame did not flicker. It stood tall, unmoving, as if it too dared not breathe.

Ruyan sat before her bronze mirror, her bridal veil drawn once more over her head. The comb in her hand—no longer wood, but something bone-pale—ran through her hair in long, deliberate strokes.

Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.

The mirror pulsed with each movement. Within it, not one reflection, but two.

One was her—face obscured.The other, behind her, was clearer with each stroke: a woman in white, eyes hollow, smile serene, skin the color of old ivory.

"Tonight," said the voice from the mirror, "the red debt becomes white bone."

Elsewhere in the mansion, Lin Shirong stumbled out of sleep, heart pounding. Again the dream—again the woman at his bedside. Her hair now reached his chest. Her veil lifted, just enough to show a mouth torn from ear to ear, whispering his name.

He bolted from bed, breathless, and found the hallway already wet with footprints—small, bare, leading toward the ancestral shrine.

In the main hall, the Lin patriarch paced.

"We should have burned the mirror," he muttered. "We should have ended this."

His wife, clutching a jade rosary, said nothing.

Then the lights flickered.

And from the west wing came a sound: the clash of glass breaking, the low groan of wood bending, and a woman's voice—soft, high, but echoing with an unnatural resonance.

"Blood answers blood."

The hall doors flew open on their own.

She entered.

Ruyan—or the thing that wore her face—stepped over the threshold, red veil hiding her expression, the bronze mirror held in both hands. Her gown left a trail of water and blood in its wake, and the wind followed her, swirling dust and petals through the chamber like a shroud.

Lin Shirong ran toward her with a scream, blade drawn, his eyes wide and red.

"You witch! What have you brought upon my house?!"

She raised her head.

And beneath the veil—not a face, but a shifting blur. Dozens of eyes. Dozens of mouths. All open in silence. All filled with want.

The mirror flared.

Lin Shirong froze mid-step. His sword clattered to the floor. From the shadows behind Ruyan, pale limbs extended—arms and fingers, skeletal and long, wrapping around his ankles, wrists, throat.

He screamed.

"No! No! I am my father's son—his sins are not mine!"

But the voice answered, echoing from mirror, bride, and wall alike:

"Bloodlines do not forget."

The hands dragged him to the ground. Slowly. With care. With love.

Like laying a child in its grave.

The Lin patriarch backed away.

"It was not me who threw her in! It was my father—your quarrel is with the dead!"

The mirror turned in Ruyan's hands. It faced him now.

He saw within not his own reflection, but the image of a younger man—his father—holding down a crying servant girl beside the well. Behind him stood the old patriarch… laughing.

The mirror cracked—once, twice—then spiderwebbed outward.

From it came a sigh. Soft. Sorrowful. Centuries old.

Then—flames.

They did not burn red, but white. Cold as winter water. They bloomed from the floor beneath the old man's feet and coiled up his limbs like vines. He screamed, but no sound left his mouth. His body collapsed inward, skin shriveling, bones whitening.

The matriarch followed a moment later, her final cry trapped in her throat, hands still wrapped around her useless rosary.

By dawn, the Lin Mansion was silent.

Rain still fell. But the west wing was quiet.

In the courtyard, servants found Ruyan sitting by the well, her red veil now soaked and pale, like faded blood. Her hands rested on her lap. The mirror—silent once more—was dark.

She did not move. She did not speak.

Some say she was dead.

Others swore they saw her eyes move behind the veil.

The mirror was buried beneath the plum tree in the east garden.

But sometimes—especially on nights when the air smells like rust and rain—those who pass by the old tree swear they hear it:

Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.A comb, dragging slowly through hair that never ends.