Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On the day of my father’s burial, the Shen Family Embroidery Workshop was mobbed by a crowd.

They hadn’t come to pay their respects.

The premier workshop in Jiangnan was famous for its Pre-embroidery-depicting a person’s death before it happened. The price for such a service was worth its weight in gold. Those who sought it included the grand leader of the Cao Gang, wealthy salt merchants, retired eunuchs from the capital, and rich landowners so terrified of death they couldn’t sleep at night.

Now that Father was dead and Wang Yuanwai was still alive, the Shen family’s reputation was shattered.

Some were crying and demanding their money back, others were cursing the Shen family for being frauds, and still others were staring at me, asking if the family’s secret arts had been passed down to the daughter.

I stood before the mourning hall, dressed in hempen funeral robes, having not slept all night.

Du Niang handed me the ledger and whispered, “Miss, we have to stabilize them first. The Master is gone, but the Embroidery Workshop cannot fall apart.”

I flipped to the last page of the ledger.

Behind the entry for Wang Yuanwai, there was a new line of small characters.

Shen Wanying, born on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the year of Xinhai. Bone weight: three liang, six qian. A hidden crimson mark between the brows. Death by bleeding from the seven orifices.

The handwriting was Father’s.

But the signature was not.

Every time Father finished a Death Portrait, he would write the character ‘Liao’-meaning ‘settled’-on the back of the Fate Paper, signifying that this destiny was fixed. There was no ‘Liao’ on the back of that page. Instead, there was a tiny needle hole, as if someone had pierced through from the back of the paper to make the final stroke in his stead.

I tucked the Fate Paper into my sleeve.

That night, while keeping vigil, I knelt before the coffin and heard a soft ‘tap’ from upstairs.

It sounded like an embroidery needle hitting a wooden frame.

I took a lantern and went upstairs.

The seals were still intact, but the door was cracked open slightly.

Inside the embroidery room, that Death Portrait of me had been flipped over.

A line of small characters stitched in Red Thread had been added to the back.

‘Learn Pre-embroidery within three days.’

‘Otherwise, meet your death according to the portrait.’

Daughters of the Shen family do not touch Pre-embroidery.

When Mother was still alive, she often said that the embroidery needle was a woman’s means of making a living, not something to be used for killing. After she died, Father locked all the secret manuals in a hidden cabinet in the Embroidery Tower. He taught me flowers, birds, fish, and insects; he taught me cloud collars and wedding gowns; but he never taught me Pre-embroidery.

I thought he was doing it out of love.

Now I realize he was doing it out of fear.

Early the next morning, I pried open the hidden cabinet.

There were no secret manuals inside.

Only an old wooden box containing half a pair of silver shears, a roll of silk scorched by fire, and Mother’s hairpin.

The silk was half-embroidered.

In the image, a young version of my father knelt in the rain, cradling Mother in his arms. A red lotus bloomed on Mother’s chest. Behind them stood a little girl, clutching a gold-tailed embroidery needle in her hand.

The little girl’s face had been burned away.

A chill ran down my spine.

Du Niang called to me from the doorway, “Miss, Young Master Lu is here.”

Lu Wenzhou was an external disciple Father had taken in, and also my fiancé since childhood. He didn’t study Pre-embroidery, handling only the external affairs of the Embroidery Workshop. He was gentle and steady; everyone said he seemed more like the Shen family heir than I did.

When he entered, there were dark circles under his eyes. Seeing me rummaging through the hidden cabinet, his brow furrowed.

“Wanying, don’t touch those.”

“Why not?”

He remained silent for a moment.

“Your father said before he died that if anything happened to him, the Embroidery Workshop could be disbanded, but you must never touch Pre-embroidery.”

“So I should just wait to die?”

I threw the piece of silk depicting my death by bleeding from the seven orifices in front of him.

Lu Wenzhou’s expression changed.

He looked at it for a long time before saying, “This wasn’t embroidered by Master.”