Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The moment that stroke landed, every lamp in the hall dimmed simultaneously.

The female officials sensed something was wrong and rushed forward. Liu Quan shrieked, “Mr. Shen, your painting doesn’t look like Her Highness at all!”

I didn’t stop.

The Painted Skin Art requires a complete medium; an interruption is the greatest taboo. If broken, the soul scatters, the face is ruined, and the person cannot survive. I was betting they wouldn’t dare kill me immediately.

Empress Jiang finally pulled back the curtain and stepped out.

Beneath her plain mourning clothes, a sliver of a red skirt was visible, its hem embroidered with the faceless patterns of Wuxiang Tower.

“Shen Yan.” The gentleness on her face had completely vanished. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“I do,” I said. “I am painting a dead person.”

“You are painting yourself.”

“The living are far more terrifying than the dead. I should have painted my own funerary portrait long ago.”

She sneered. “You think you can save her by drawing The Door onto yourself? You are nothing more than a key that Wuxiang Tower spent twenty-six years forging. A key opens a door; it doesn’t decide who stands behind it.”

My wrist suddenly tightened.

A female official grabbed me, while another raised a blade to slash the silk paper.

Inside the coffin, Xiao Lingyi suddenly sat up.

Her movements were stiff yet incredibly fast. She plucked a gold hairpin from her hair and drove it through the back of the official’s hand. The woman screamed, the silver tray crashed to the floor, and the skin soaking in the medicinal broth twitched like a living fish.

Outside the hall, the Imperial Guard began battering the doors.

Empress Jiang barked, “Pin her down!”

Xiao Lingyi stumbled toward me and grabbed my hand, pressing the tip of my brush toward the blank space where the lips should be on the silk.

“Shen Yan.” Her eyes were bloodshot. “Dot it.”

I looked at her.

“If I do, you’ll die.”

She smiled, looking just like the girl from ten years ago beneath the palace walls-the one who dared to ask if I had the courage to take her away.

“If you don’t, I’ll become her.”

The hall doors were smashed open.

Pei Zhaoye entered, leading the people of Wuxiang Tower. Behind him followed a group of men and women cloaked in capes. Every single one of their faces had once appeared in my paintings.

Xie Wanning was among them.

She-or rather, Liu Ah Ruan wearing Xie Wanning’s face-stood at the back of the crowd, watching me with a complex expression.

Pei Zhaoye clapped his hands. “What a touching display of lingering affection. Shen Yan, stop struggling. Painting yourself into this only makes this life-swap more perfect. You, as The Door, are far more valuable than the Grand Princess’s Phoenix Bone.”

Empress Jiang’s expression shifted drastically. “Tower Master Pei, what do you mean by this?”

Pei Zhaoye smiled but did not answer.

I suddenly understood. Wuxiang Tower was never working for the Empress.

They had used the Empress’s greed to force me before this painting.

The person who truly intended to swap lives was Pei Zhaoye.