The iron gates of the Shanghai Mental Health Center glimmered a cold bluish-gray under the night sky. Liu Ming trailed behind Chen Zhi, clutching the bronze mirror so tightly his knuckles cracked. The night wind rustled the plane trees inside the courtyard, their leaves scraping like countless tiny teeth gnawing at something unseen.
The light in the security office was still on, but the room was empty. A half-filled cup of tea sat steaming on the desk, and from the old radio came a distorted opera melody, warped and twisted like a chorus of wails.
"Something's not right," Chen Zhi murmured, pulling out a string of copper bells from inside his coat. The bells were etched with dense talismans, yet they didn't jingle—they hung eerily still in the air, as if frozen in time.
Chen Meng suddenly gripped Liu Ming's arm, her nails digging into his flesh. "Look at the floor."
A trail of damp, child-sized footprints stretched from the back door of the security room toward the stairwell. Each footprint was no bigger than a child's palm, and at the center of each one was a smear of dark red, as if dipped in diluted blood.
The copper bells began to shake violently in Chen Zhi's hand—but made no sound at all.
"She knows we're here," Chen Zhi said, face paling. "Hongyu knows."
The three of them followed the footprints to the seventh floor. The B Ward hallway was even darker than the floors below. Half the fluorescent lights on the ceiling had burnt out; the rest flickered intermittently, casting twisted shadows that danced along the walls. Room 12's door stood ajar, and an eerie blue glow leaked through the crack.
A sickly sweet stench hung in the air—like candy left to rot, laced with the putrid odor of decaying flesh. Liu Ming's stomach clenched. Bile rose in his throat.
Chen Zhi motioned for silence and slowly pushed open the door.
Inside, a young girl in pink pajamas sat on the bed, her back to the door, combing her long hair in front of a cracked mirror. Her movements were slow and deliberate. With each stroke of the comb, a few strands fell to the floor—writhing as if alive, hissing softly as they landed.
"Hongyu?" Chen Meng called softly.
The combing stopped.
The girl slowly turned around, revealing a pale, ordinary-looking face—a round-cheeked ten-year-old with eyes like black grapes and a slight upturned nose. At first glance, she looked like any normal child.
But Liu Ming felt a chill crawl up his spine.
It was her expression. Her eyes held no innocence, only a hollow calmness—like she had already seen through the world. Her lips curled upward, not in a smile, but in a mechanical arc, as though pulled by invisible strings.
"Did you bring the mirror?" Hongyu's voice was crisp, but with an unnatural composure not belonging to a child.
Chen Zhi raised the coin sword across his chest. "Who told you we'd bring a mirror?"
Hongyu tilted her head. The gesture should have seemed innocent, but instead sent a shiver down their spines. "Big Sister Bai told me," she said sweetly, swinging the comb slightly. "She said someone would bring a mirror, but not today."
Liu Ming's hands trembled. The bronze mirror in his grip suddenly grew scorching hot, the surface misting over with fog.
"Where is Bai Ye?" Chen Meng stepped forward, voice rising with urgency.
Hongyu didn't answer. Instead, she pointed her tiny hand toward the cracked wall mirror. What should have reflected the room now showed a long, dark corridor—and at the end stood a pale, distorted figure: Bai Ye. Her decay had worsened; the right side of her face was nearly gone, exposing twitching muscle underneath.
"Big Sister Bai can't come on her own," Hongyu said, hopping down from the bed. Her bare feet touched the floor, and the fallen strands of hair coiled instantly around her ankles, like living tendrils. "The mirror traps her."
Chen Zhi's expression grew more serious. "What do you mean?"
Hongyu stepped closer to Liu Ming and looked up. Her eyes were too black, bottomless pools with no end in sight.
"Big brother," she said softly, "do you know why Bai Jie doesn't go near mirrors?"
Liu Ming shook his head. His throat was too dry to speak.
"Because she already saw herself," Hongyu whispered. Her words sliced through the air like a knife peeling open a hidden truth. "She knows what she is now... and that's why mirrors trap her."