Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I stared at that image, my blood slowly turning cold.

In the embroidery, I was dressed in hempen mourning clothes, my eyes hollow. One hand was pressed against my father’s shoulder, while the other drove the Golden-tailed Needle into his heart.

Father hadn’t struggled.

He had even looked as if he were waiting for that single stitch.

Shen Zhaoyue smiled. “You thought I was the one who killed your father? No, it was you.”

“Nonsense.”

“Pre-embroidery only writes fate; it does not write lies.” She raised her hand, a Red Thread dangling from between her fingers. “Every time you pick up a needle, you can only embroider his death because your hands remember doing it.”

Lu Wenzhou said in a low voice, “Wanying, don’t listen to her.”

Shen Zhaoyue looked at him. “Young Master Lu, are you also afraid she’ll remember? You saw it with your own eyes back then when Master locked her in the embroidery room, yet you said nothing.”

Lu Wenzhou’s face went deathly pale.

I took a step back.

Memories were like corpses floating up from underwater, slowly breaking through the calm surface.

Three days ago, Father had called me into the embroidery room.

He said he had found a way to break the Death Contract for me and told me to close my eyes and hold the needle. That Golden-tailed Needle was freezing cold. His hand wrapped around mine, guiding me as I pushed forward.

I heard him say, “Wanying, live on.”

Then came the sound of flesh being pierced.

I suddenly clutched my head.

Shen Zhaoyue approached me.

“He used your hand to kill himself so that you could inherit the Shen Family Blood Needle. Unfortunately, I was one step faster than him. I embroidered your death first.”

A fire suddenly broke out outside the Fate Shrine.

The Wang family had arrived with thugs in tow, intending to burn all the remnants of the Shen Family to death.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Shen Zhaoyue snatched up the embroidery frame.

By the time I chased after her, she had already vanished into the flames.

Lu Wenzhou pulled at me. “We have to go!”

I shook him off.

“How much do you know?”

He lowered his eyes.

“Master did indeed ask me to watch over you. Three days ago, he said someone had stolen the secrets of Pre-embroidery, and a Fate Thread was already entwined around you. He had to use his own life to open the needle for you, otherwise, you would never be able to engage in a Duel Embroidery against that person.”

“So he made me kill him?”

“He had you hold the needle, then he threw himself onto it.”

I let out a short laugh, but my throat felt as if it were choked with ash.

So, I wasn’t innocent after all.

My father’s blood was on my hands.

No wonder every time I picked up a needle, I returned to that exact moment.

Returned to the moment he handed his life over to me.

The fire reached the rafters, and the divine statue in the Fate Shrine cracked open, revealing a roll of black silk hidden in its belly.

I lunged forward and tore the black silk out.

On it were the true ancestral teachings of the Shen Family.

Pre-embroidery was not precognition, nor was it a killing technique.

It was originally the Art of Judging Fate.

Start Needle to Inquire Guilt, Execute Needle to Gather Evidence, Finish Needle to Determine Punishment. If one embroidered a person without guilt, the Fate Threads of the embroiderer and the subject would be swapped.

All these years, Father had embroidered the deaths of the wealthy and powerful, yet he never let those deaths manifest immediately.

He left a loophole in every image.

He wasn’t killing people.

He was delaying their deaths, waiting for the person who could end Pre-embroidery to grow up.