Imprisoned Heiress

The music still thrummed through my veins, the last echoes of "Happy Birthday" dissolving into champagne bubbles and laughter. I remembered the flashing lights, the hundred guests, Father’s rare smile. And then—the glass Lin Ruowei pressed into my hand, her eyes soft with maternal concern. *Drink, Wanqing. You’ve been running around all night.* The next sip tasted faintly of metal.

Consciousness returned in fragments. A hard floor beneath my cheek. The smell of mothballs and dust. My eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, and when I finally pried them open, the world tilted sideways. I was lying on a narrow cot, the mattress thin enough to feel the wooden slats beneath. Coarse gray fabric chafed against my skin—not the silk gown I had worn to my own party, but a rough servant’s tunic, shapeless and worn.

I sat up too fast. The room spun. Bare walls, a single high window caked with grime, a rickety washstand. This was not my suite. Not even the guest wing. This was—

The door swung open.

Lin Ruowei stepped inside, and my breath caught. She wore my necklace. The diamond-and-sapphire heirloom my mother had left me, the one I had asked to wear for the first time tonight. It glittered against her throat as she smoothed the collar of her silk dress—my silk dress, the Valentino I had chosen for the occasion. Behind her, the maid Ah Jiu stood like a shadow, hands folded, eyes blank.

“You’re awake,” Lin Ruowei said, her voice honey-sweet. “Good. You have duties to learn.”

I scrambled off the cot, my legs unsteady. “What is this? Where is Father? Where are my clothes? Give me back my necklace!”

My voice cracked on the last word. Lin Ruowei didn’t flinch. She tilted her head, studying me the way one might study a fly trapped in honey—curious, amused, utterly without pity.

“Your father is on a business trip,” she said softly. “He won’t be back for a month. And when he returns…” A smile curved her lips. “He’ll find that his beloved daughter had a breakdown at her party. She became violent, hysterical. For her own safety, she’s been sent to a quiet facility in Switzerland. The paperwork is already signed.”

“That’s a lie!” I lunged forward, fury burning through the fog. “He’ll never believe you!”

Ah Jiu moved before I could blink. Her hand connected with my cheek—a flat, stinging slap that snapped my head to the side and sent me stumbling back against the cot. I tasted blood. My ear rang. I stared at the floor, at the grimy boards, at the dust motes dancing in the dim light.

“You will address her as Madam,” Ah Jiu said. Her voice was toneless, as if she had spoken these words a thousand times before.

Lin Ruowei stepped closer, her heels clicking on the wood. She reached down and tilted my chin up with two fingers, her touch gentle, almost fond. “From today, you are no longer Su Wanqing. That name belongs to a girl who is safely on a plane to Zurich. You… you are Ah Qing. My new maid.” She released my chin and wiped her fingers on a handkerchief, as though I had dirtied them. “You will answer to that name. You will sleep in this room. You will scrub floors, launder linens, and do whatever else I tell you. And if you try to run, or tell anyone who you are…” She paused, letting the threat hang in the air. “I will have you committed to a real asylum. And no one will ever find you.”

The blood in my veins turned to ice. I thought of Father—distant, busy, always trusting Lin Ruowei’s gentle advice. I thought of my friends, my life, my name. All of it stripped away in a single night, replaced by coarse cloth and a stranger’s epithet.

“Why?” I whispered.

Lin Ruowei’s smile did not waver. “Because you had everything, and I had nothing. Now you have nothing. It’s as simple as that.”

She turned and walked to the door, Ah Jiu falling into step behind her. At the threshold, Lin Ruowei paused without looking back.

“Ah Qing,” she said, the name dripping with contempt, “your first task is to wash the hallway floors. By hand. I expect them spotless before dawn.”

The door closed. The lock clicked. I was alone, kneeling on the servant’s cot, my mother’s diamonds glowing in my memory—a cold star I would never see again.

And far away, in the depths of my chest, something inside me began to twist. Fear, yes. Despair. But beneath them, a splinter of something harder, darker, took root. It would take time. It would take humiliation and hunger and pain. But that splinter would grow.

And one day, I would make them pay.

The coarse fabric of the maid’s uniform chafed against my skin, a cruel mockery of the silk and lace I had worn just hours before. I knelt on the cold marble floor of the living room, a bucket of soapy water beside me, a rag clutched in my trembling hand. The scent of lavender polish mixed with the perfume wafting from the guests, a sickly sweet reminder of the life that had been ripped from me.

Lin Ruowei sat in the center of the room, my armchair, my home, now hers. She wore my favorite gown—a champagne silk number that caught the chandelier light with every calculated movement. Her laughter rang out, melodious and false, as she poured tea for a cluster of well-dressed women. Their chatter buzzed around me like flies, but I was the rotting thing they ignored.

“You there, the new girl,” a sharp voice cut through the haze. I looked up to find a woman with a pearl necklace and a hawkish gaze staring down at me. “My coat needs hanging. There’s a closet by the door.”

My throat tightened. I opened my mouth to speak, to scream the truth, but Lin Ruowei’s voice slithered in before I could form a word.

“She’s still learning the ropes, Celia. I hired her just this morning.” She smiled, serene and poisonous. “Quite grateful for the work, aren’t you?”

I pressed my lips together, rage boiling in my chest. I wanted to stand, to shove the bucket aside and expose her. But as I shifted my weight, a shadow fell over me. Ah Jiu’s hand clamped over my mouth, her fingers cold and unyielding.

“No shouting,” she murmured, her voice flat, clinical. She dragged me backward across the floor, my knees scraping against the marble. The guests barely glanced; a maid being disciplined was hardly worthy of their attention. I thrashed, but she was stronger than she looked, her grip like iron as she hauled me into the hallway and shoved me into the service pantry.

The door clicked shut, muffling the polite laughter from the living room. I gasped for air, tears blurring my vision. Ah Jiu stood with her back to the door, her expression unreadable. She let out a quiet sigh, almost lost.

“Stay here until the guests leave,” she said, and then she was gone.

I sat in the dark, the smell of cleaning chemicals burning my nose, and I wept. Not the loud, dramatic sobs of the heiress I used to be, but a quiet, broken sound that belonged to no one.

---

Night fell like a shroud. The house grew still, and I was summoned to Lin Ruowei’s study. I wore the same uniform, stained and wrinkled, my hair a tangled mess. She sat behind the mahogany desk, my father’s desk, a single lamp casting harsh shadows across her face.

“Sit,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her.

I obeyed, my legs numb with exhaustion and fear. She slid a manila folder across the polished wood. I didn’t touch it.

“Open it.”

My fingers fumbled with the flap. Inside were pages of medical reports, stamps, and signatures. A DNA comparison. My name and the name of a girl I’d never met. The conclusion was stark.

“This says I’m not… I’m not my father’s daughter.”

Lin Ruowei smiled, a slow, satisfied curve of her lips. “That’s right. I had a specialist forge the report. Very convincing. Legally, you are now an impostor who stole the Su family name. I, on the other hand, am the grieving widow who discovered the truth. The courts will side with me.”

The paper trembled in my hands. “You can’t do this. My father—he knew who I was.”

“Your father is dead,” she said, her voice flat as a blade. “And his will is being rewritten as we speak. By morning, you will be Su Wanqing in name only—a name that belongs to a fraud. The real Su Wanqing, the heiress, is already on her way from the country. You, my dear, are nothing but a guest who overstayed her welcome.”

I wanted to scream, but my voice had abandoned me. The room spun. She leaned forward, her eyes glinting.

“From now on, you will work for me. You will scrub my floors, wash my clothes, and serve my tea. Every day, you will remember that you chose to steal from this family, and every night, you will pray no one discovers the truth. Because if they do… I will ensure you vanish for good.”

She stood, smoothing the wrinkles from my gown—*her* gown now. “Ah Jiu will show you to the servants’ quarters. You start at five in the morning. Don’t be late.”

She swept out of the room, leaving me alone with the forged papers and the ashes of my life. I stared at the words until they blurred, and then I crumpled, the sob finally breaking free. But no one came. No one would ever come again.

The bass thrummed through the floor, up my legs, into my bones. The nightclub was a writhing pit of colored lights and sweating bodies, and I stood at the edge of it in a dress that barely covered my thighs. The fabric was cheap, shiny, cut so low that every breath felt like an exposure. Lin Ruowei had chosen it for me. She had smiled as she handed it over, that same gentle smile she wore at father’s funeral.

“You look lovely, dear,” she said, her fingers cold on my bare shoulder. “Now remember, these are important people. Don’t embarrass me.”

I followed her through the crowd like a dog on a leash. Ah Jiu walked a step behind, silent and watchful. The table was a half-circle booth upholstered in red velvet, already occupied by three men and two women. The women were younger, painted, giggling into their cocktails. The men were older. One had a gold chain that caught the strobe light, another a belly that strained his button-up shirt. The third one, the one closest to the empty seat Lin Ruowei guided me toward, was already staring.

His name was something like Boss Wang. I didn’t catch it properly over the music. He had a thick neck and small eyes that disappeared when he smiled. He smiled a lot.

“So this is the little heiress,” he said, leaning forward. His breath smelled of whiskey and stale tobacco. “Your stepmother said you were pretty, but she undersold it.”

Lin Ruowei laughed, a musical sound that cut through the noise. “Our Wanqing is shy. She doesn’t get out much anymore.” She pushed a glass into my hand. “Drink up, child. Loosen up.”

The liquid burned. I coughed, and they all laughed. Boss Wang’s hand landed on my knee under the table. I jerked away, but the table was too small, and there was nowhere to go. He laughed too, louder than the others, and his hand followed. This time it settled higher, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my inner thigh.

“Please don’t,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Don’t be rude,” Lin Ruowei said, her tone still sweet. “Boss Wang is a good friend of the family.”

His hand moved up. I grabbed his wrist and pushed it away, harder than I meant to. His drink sloshed onto the table.

The music kept playing. The lights kept flashing. But at our booth, everything went still. Boss Wang’s smile froze, then melted into something ugly. Lin Ruowei’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes went cold.

“Excuse us,” she said, and her hand closed around my arm like a vise. She dragged me out of the booth, past Ah Jiu’s blank face, past the gawking stares of the other patrons, into a small alcove near the bathrooms. The music was muffled here, a distant heartbeat.

She let go of my arm and slapped me across the face.

The sound was sharp, clean, and final. My head snapped to the side. The skin of my cheek burned, and for a moment I saw stars, little white pinpricks in the darkness.

“You ungrateful little bitch,” she hissed, her voice low and venomous. All pretense of sweetness was gone. Her face was twisted, ugly in the dim light. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? The money I’ve spent? The reputation I’ve protected? And you can’t even let a man touch your leg for five minutes.”

I touched my stinging cheek. My hand came away dry. The tears hadn’t started yet.

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I knew what she wanted to hear. Because that was the only script I had left.

“Sorry isn’t good enough.” She smoothed her dress, composed herself. In a blink, the mask was back, serene and motherly. “Go to the restroom. Fix your face. Then come back and apologize to Boss Wang. On your knees if you have to. Understand?”

I nodded.

She walked away. The crowd swallowed her.

I stumbled into the restroom. It was garish, all gold fixtures and pink marble, a mirror that stretched the length of the wall. I stood in front of it and saw a stranger. A girl with too much makeup caked over too little sleep, wearing a dress that belonged in a cheap music video, with a red handprint blooming across her left cheek.

I turned on the faucet, let the cold water run over my wrists. The tears came then. Not the dignified kind, not the slow trickle of a tragic heroine. These were ugly, heaving sobs that shook my shoulders and left my throat raw. I pressed both hands to my mouth to stifle the sound, but it leaked through anyway.

For the first time, I let myself feel despair. Not just fear, not just anger, but the hollow certainty that there was no way out. That this was my life now. That the girl in the mirror was all that was left of Su Wanqing, and even she was fading.

I cried until there was nothing left. Then I dried my eyes with a paper towel, pressed a cold cloth to my swollen cheek, and went back to the table.

Boss Wang’s hand found my thigh again. This time, I let it stay.

The morning light was thin and gray as Ah Jiu led me into the courtyard. I still wore the torn dress from yesterday, the fabric clinging to my skin where the blood had dried. My wrists ached from the rope, though it had been removed hours ago. I had not slept. I had only stared at the ceiling and listened to the house settle, each creak and groan sounding like footsteps coming for me.

Lin Ruowei sat in a wicker chair beneath the trellis, a cup of tea balanced on her palm. She wore a soft blue gown, her hair pinned neatly, her face composed into an expression of delicate concern. Beside her, on a small table, lay a coiled length of leather and metal—a dog collar fitted with a chain.

“You look terrible, Wanqing,” she said, her voice laced with false sympathy. “I’ve decided we need to begin your lessons immediately. You must learn manners, dear. The world outside is cruel, and I only want to protect you.”

I said nothing. My throat was raw from screaming the night before.

She nodded to Ah Jiu, who picked up the collar and walked toward me. The chain clinked with each step. I backed away until my spine met the wall of the house.

“No,” I whispered.

“It’s just a training tool,” Lin Ruowei said, sipping her tea. “Think of it as.. orientation. Every pet needs to know its place.”

Ah Jiu stopped in front of me, the collar dangling from her fingers. Her eyes were flat, unreadable. She did not speak. She simply waited.

“I won’t wear it,” I said, louder now.

Lin Ruowei set down her cup with a soft click. She rose from the chair, her skirt brushing the flagstones, and walked toward the outbuilding where the servants stored the fireplace tools. When she returned, she carried a branding iron—the kind used to mark wood, its end a cruel curl of metal. A low fire burned in a brazier nearby, and she thrust the iron into the coals.

“I had hoped to avoid this,” she said, watching the tip glow orange. “But you are stubborn, Wanqing. So like your mother. That stubbornness ruined her, in the end.”

She pulled the iron free and turned to face me. The heat wavered in the air between us.

“If you refuse the collar, I will mark your breasts,” she said, her voice calm as a prayer. “I will sear my initials into your skin, so that every time you look in a mirror, you remember exactly who owns you. Do you understand?”

I felt the blood drain from my face. My hands trembled at my sides. The iron glowed, terrible and patient, and I knew with absolute certainty that she would do it. She would press that burning metal into my flesh and laugh while I screamed.

I dropped to my knees.

The gravel bit through the thin fabric of my dress, sharp stones digging into my shins. I lowered my head, my hair falling forward to hide my face.

“Good girl,” Lin Ruowei murmured.

Ah Jiu stepped forward and fastened the collar around my neck. The leather was stiff, new, and it pressed against my throat with every breath. The chain hung down to the ground, heavy and cold.

“Now,” Lin said, returning the iron to the brazier, “I want you to crawl. All the way around the yard. Show me you understand.”

The gravel path stretched before me, a sea of jagged stones. Beyond it lay the flower beds, the lawn, the far wall where the garden ended and the woods began. I could see the gate from here, locked and chained.

I lowered my hands to the stones and began to crawl.

The first few steps were the worst. The gravel cut into my palms and knees, each movement scraping skin from bone. I could feel the warmth of blood seeping through my stockings, staining the fabric. The collar tugged at my throat with every shift of my head.

Behind me, I heard the click of a phone camera.

Lin Ruowei laughed—a light, musical sound, like wind chimes in a storm. “Oh, this is perfect. Wanqing, look up. Let me see your face.”

I kept my head down.

“Look up, or I’ll get the iron again.”

I raised my chin. Tears blurred my vision, but I saw her standing there, phone angled toward me, her smile wide and genuine. She snapped another photo.

“Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Your father would be so proud to see you learning humility.”

I crawled on. The chain scraped the ground beside me, a serpent of metal and sound. The gravel gave way to grass, softer under my hands, but my knees were already raw and bleeding, the wounds filled with dirt and stone fragments. I did not stop. I could not stop.

Ah Jiu followed a few paces behind, silent as ever. Once, when I faltered and my hands gave out beneath me, I saw a flicker in her eyes—something that might have been pity, quickly masked. She looked away.

The yard was larger than I remembered. The house loomed at my back, and in the front, the gate called to me. I crawled until my arms shook and my vision swam, and still Lin Ruowei’s laughter followed me, punctuated by the soft clicks of her camera.

“Enough,” she said finally, her voice bored. “You’ll dirty your dress further. Ah Jiu, take her inside. Chain her to the radiator in the parlor. I want her to have time to reflect on her lesson.”

Ah Jiu grasped the chain near my collar and tugged. I stumbled to my feet, my knees screaming, my palms stained red. The world tilted, and I followed the chain like a dog on a lead, back into the house, back into the dark.

Lin Ruowei’s voice was soft, almost tender, as she ran a manicured nail along the curve of Su Wanqing’s collarbone. “Every proper bitch needs a collar,” she murmured, her eyes glittering with satisfaction. “But a collar alone is too plain. You need something… more decorative. Something that marks you as owned.”

Su Wanqing’s breath hitched. She was spread-eagled on the cold metal bed, her wrists and ankles bound with leather cuffs that chafed against her skin. The dim light of the basement flickered, casting long shadows across the stone walls. She had learned not to struggle—it only made the bonds tighter—but her heart still hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from hours of crying. “Please don’t.”

Lin Ruowei smiled, her red lips curving into a crescents of mockery. “Please don’t what, dear? You should be grateful. I’m making you beautiful.”

She stepped back, and Ah Jiu moved forward silently. The maid’s face was a mask of indifference, but her hands were steady as she placed a small metal tray on the table beside the bed. On it lay a piercing tool, a pair of thin silver rings, and a bottle of disinfectant. The sight of them made Su Wanqing’s stomach lurch.

“Ah Jiu, prepare her,” Lin Ruowei commanded, settling into a velvet armchair a few feet away. She crossed her legs, her silk dress rustling, and watched with the detached interest of a connoisseur observing an artwork in progress.

Ah Jiu uncapped the disinfectant. The sharp smell of alcohol filled the air. She soaked a cotton ball and, without a word, began to wipe Su Wanqing’s left breast. The cold liquid stung, and Su Wanqing flinched, but the leather cuffs held her in place. Ah Jiu’s touch was clinical, methodical—she traced the entire areola, then moved to the right breast, repeating the process. Not once did she meet Su Wanqing’s eyes.

“You’re trembling,” Lin Ruowei observed, her voice light. “Don’t worry. The pain is temporary. The beauty is forever.”

Su Wanqing squeezed her eyes shut. Tears leaked from the corners, sliding down her temples and into her hair. She thought of her father, of the garden where she used to pick roses, of the piano she would never play again. All of it felt like a dream now, a distant memory belonging to another girl.

“Please,” she tried again, her voice breaking. “I’ll do anything. Just don’t—”

“You’ll do anything anyway,” Lin Ruowei interrupted. “The piercing isn’t a punishment, Su Wanqing. It’s a privilege. I’m marking you as mine. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”

Ah Jiu finished disinfecting both breasts. She picked up the piercing tool, a clamp-like device with a sharp hollow needle at the end. Her fingers hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Su Wanqing thought she saw a flicker of something—pity?—in the maid’s eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by cold efficiency.

Lin Ruowei rose from the chair and walked to the bed. She took the tool from Ah Jiu’s hands. “Let me do the honors.”

She positioned the clamp over Su Wanqing’s left nipple. The metal was cold, and Su Wanqing gasped as Lin Ruowei tightened it, squeezing the sensitive flesh until it was numb. There was no warning—just a sudden, sharp pressure, and then the needle pushed through.

The pain was blinding. It exploded behind Su Wanqing’s eyes, a white-hot agony that stole her breath. She screamed, a raw, guttural sound that echoed off the walls, but the sound was cut short as her throat constricted. Her body arched against the restraints, muscles straining, but the bonds held firm.

Lin Ruowei worked quickly and efficiently. She threaded the silver ring through the fresh wound, snapping it closed with a soft click. Blood welled up, tiny crimson beads that dotted the metal like rubies. She wiped them away with a clean cotton ball, then turned to the other nipple.

“One down, one to go,” she said, her voice dripping with satisfaction.

Su Wanqing panted, her vision swimming. The world narrowed to a pinpoint of agony, and she could barely register the clamp being applied to her right breast. The second piercing was worse—a hot lance of pain that seemed to go on forever, tearing through her chest and lodging in her heart.

She thought she might faint. Her ears rang, and the basement tilted around her. But Lin Ruowei’s hands were steady, and soon there was another click, another ring, another smear of blood.

When it was done, Lin Ruowei stepped back to admire her work. She clasped her hands together, a smile of genuine pleasure spreading across her face. “Beautiful,” she breathed. “Just beautiful. The silver complements your skin perfectly. They’re like tiny works of art.”

Su Wanqing lay still, her body trembling, tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. The pain throbbed in waves, each pulse a reminder of what she had become. She felt branded, defiled—a living ornament for Lin Ruowei’s collection.

Ah Jiu came forward with a cloth, wiping away the last traces of blood. She worked in silence, her expression unreadable. When she was done, she stepped back and bowed her head.

Lin Ruowei leaned over Su Wanqing, her breath warm against the girl’s ear. “Now you’re truly mine, little bitch. The collar will come tomorrow. But for tonight, let these rings remind you of your place.”

She straightened and walked toward the door, Ah Jiu following behind. The light clicked off, plunging the room into darkness. Su Wanqing was left alone, the silver rings cold and foreign against her skin, her sobs swallowed by the silence.

In the darkness, she whispered a single word: “Why?”

But there was no answer. Only the throbbing pain, the jingle of the rings when she moved, and the faint, dying ember of hope that one day, somehow, she would be free.

I had been in the dark for so long that I had lost all track of time. The days blended into one another—endless, shapeless, filled only with pain and the cold weight of despair. But even in that void, I was expected to serve. My hands trembled as I carried the tea tray down the long, silent corridor toward Lin Ruowei’s private chamber. The porcelain rattled against the wood, a sound that seemed to echo like a warning.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder. She sat by the window, embroidery hooped in her hands, her face a mask of serene contentment. The afternoon light caught the silver threads in her hair, making her look almost angelic. I knew better.

“You’re late,” she said without looking up.

I bowed my head and set the tray on the low table beside her. My fingers fumbled with the teapot. The handle was slick with condensation. I poured slowly, carefully, but my hand shook.

The tea spilled.

A thin brown stream ran across the polished wood, dripping onto the hem of her silk robe. She set down her embroidery with a sigh that was far too calm. Then she raised her eyes to mine.

“You clumsy, worthless thing.” Her voice was soft, almost sweet. That was the most terrifying part.

I dropped to my knees. “I’m sorry, mistress. Please forgive me.”

“Forgiveness,” she mused, tilting her head. “What use is forgiveness to a creature that cannot learn?”

She turned her gaze to the corner of the room where Ah Jiu stood motionless, her face blank as a carved statue. “Heat the iron,” Lin Ruowei said. “The small one. With the narrow end.”

Ah Jiu nodded once and moved toward the brazier that always smoldered in the corner. I watched her stoke the coals, watched the metal rod disappear into the glowing heat. My heart began to pound so hard I felt it in my throat.

“Please,” I whispered. “I will serve better. I will—”

“You will learn,” Lin Ruowei interrupted. She stood and walked toward me, her steps soft and deliberate. “And I will teach you. The way one teaches any stray who needs to know its place.”

She reached down and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back. I gasped. Her face hovered inches from mine, her breath warm and smelling of tea.

“Undo your robe,” she said. “Bare your right breast.”

I couldn’t move. The command sat in my ears like a stone. My hands stayed frozen at my sides.

She slapped me. The sound cracked through the room, and my head snapped to the side. My cheek burned.

“I said, bare yourself.”

Slowly, with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else, I reached for the knot at my collar. The fabric loosened. The robe slipped from my shoulder. The air hit my skin, cold and cruel.

Ah Jiu appeared at Lin Ruowei’s side. In her gloved hand she held the branding iron. The tip glowed a dull orange-red, wisps of smoke curling from its surface. The character engraved into the end was the one for *slave*.

Lin Ruowei took the iron. She examined it as if it were a piece of art. Then she looked at me, and her lips curved into a smile that did not reach her eyes.

“Hold her,” she said.

Ah Jiu stepped behind me and pressed her hands onto my shoulders, pinning me in place. I wanted to fight. I wanted to scream and claw and run. But I had learned, in this darkness, that resistance only fed her hunger.

The iron came closer. I could feel the heat on my skin before it touched. My breath came in short, ragged gasps.

“This will remind you,” Lin Ruowei said, “that you are nothing. That you will never be anything. That your life belongs to me.”

She pressed the iron to the soft flesh above my heart.

The pain did not come all at once. It arrived as a searing, spreading wave, a white-hot agony that tore through my chest and down into my bones. The smell of my own burning skin filled my nostrils. I screamed—a raw, animal sound that I did not recognize as my own.

Lin Ruowei laughed. It was a light, musical sound, as if she were watching a delightful performance.

“There,” she said, pulling the iron away. “Now you will never forget.”

I collapsed forward, clutching my chest. The brand throbbed with every beat of my pulse, a ring of fire still eating into my flesh. Tears streamed down my face, but I made no more sound. I had learned that screaming only pleased her.

Ah Jiu stood at a distance now, wiping the iron clean with a cloth. Her face was still blank, but for just a moment, her eyes flickered toward me. In that brief glance I thought I saw something—a crack in her coldness, a flash of pity quickly swallowed.

Then it was gone, and she turned away.

Lin Ruowei smoothed her robe and picked up her embroidery again. “Clean this mess,” she said, gesturing to the spilled tea. “And cover yourself. You’re an eyesore.”

I pulled my robe closed with trembling hands. The fabric scraped against the brand, sending fresh jolts of pain through me. I pressed my palm over the wound and felt the raised flesh—the mark of a slave, burned into me forever.

I lowered my head and began to wipe the floor.

But in the dark space behind my eyes, a thought flickered like a dying ember: *I will never forget.* Not the pain. Not her laughter. And when I am free—if I am ever free—I will carry this mark as a promise. A promise of what? I did not yet know.

But it was something to hold on to. Something to keep me alive.

The morning light filtered through the tinted windows of the Su Group building, casting cold streaks across the polished marble floor. I walked two steps behind Lin Ruowei, my head bowed, my hands clenched at my sides. The hem of her silk dress swished with each confident stride, and the click of her heels echoed in the cavernous lobby like a countdown.

Security guards nodded respectfully as we passed. Receptionists smiled. A junior executive held the elevator door open and said, "Good morning, Miss Su."

Lin Ruowei inclined her head with practiced grace. "Good morning, Zhang."

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. *Miss Su.* That was supposed to be me. But I was nobody now—just a shadow in a plain gray dress that smelled of bleach, my hair pulled back so tightly it pulled at my temples.

The elevator rose. Lin Ruowei didn't speak, but I could feel her satisfaction radiating like heat from a stove. When the doors opened onto the executive floor, she turned slightly and murmured, "You know where my office is. Go straight there. Kneel beside my desk and wait. If anyone sees you before I arrive, I'll make sure you polish every floor in this building with your tongue."

"Yes, Mistress Lin." The words scraped my throat raw.

I slipped past the open-plan cubicles, keeping close to the walls. A few employees glanced up, then looked away. They didn't recognize me. Why would they? I was just a maid in an ill-fitting uniform, someone insignificant enough to ignore.

Her office was at the end of the hall—a corner space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. The door was unlocked. I slipped inside and closed it behind me, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The room smelled of her perfume: jasmine and something acrid underneath, like old coins. Her desk was a massive slab of dark wood, cluttered with documents, a crystal pen holder, and a framed photo of her and my father, smiling. I wanted to smash it. Instead, I lowered myself to my knees and settled beneath the desk, my spine pressed against the back panel.

I had barely arranged myself when the door opened.

"Ah Jiu said you'd be ready." Lin Ruowei's voice was honey over ice. She walked past me and settled into her leather chair, the wheels rolling back as she positioned herself. "Come out a little. I need to slide my feet forward."

I crawled out until my knees touched the edge of the desk. She extended one leg, the heel of her pump an inch from my face. The leather was new, unscuffed. She was going to make me polish a pristine shoe just to prove she could.

I pulled the soft cloth from my pocket and began to work, my fingers trembling. The leather grew warm under the friction. I could see my own reflection in the sheen.

Lin Ruowei hummed a little tune. She picked up a pen and scratched notes on something. The silence stretched, broken only by the whisper of my cloth and the occasional rustle of paper.

Then a knock.

"Miss Su? It's Director Chen. I have the Q3 reports."

My breath stopped. Lin Ruowei's hand shot down and gripped my hair, yanking my head back. Her voice was calm, pleasant. "Come in, Director."

The door opened. I heard a man's footsteps, the soft thud of a briefcase being set down. I stared at the underside of the desk, at the grain of the wood, at a single speck of dust clinging to a screw.

"Close the door, please," Lin Ruowei said. "Have a seat."

Another scrape of chair legs. The man cleared his throat. "The numbers look good overall. Production is up twelve percent, but we're seeing some pressure on raw materials from the Changjiang supplier."

"Switch to the Hubei distributor," Lin Ruowei said without hesitation. "I had a preliminary meeting with their director last week. They can match our volume at a two percent discount if we commit to a twelve-month contract."

I felt the words like knives. She was using my name, my position, my father's company. She had studied the documents I had once read, memorized the contacts I had cultivated. And now she was giving orders while I cowered under her desk, a polishing rag in my hand.

"That's aggressive, Miss Su," Director Chen said, admiration in his voice. "Shall I draft a proposal?"

"Do it. Send it to me by end of day. Also, I want a review of the Changjiang contract—if they can't match the discount, we drop them. No sentimentality in business."

"No, Miss Su. Of course."

They discussed a few more items: logistics, a staffing issue, a potential acquisition. I listened, frozen. My knees ached. The cloth slipped from my fingers, but I didn't dare pick it up. Every tiny movement might betray me.

It went on for what felt like an eternity. At last, Director Chen stood. "Excellent work, Miss Su. You've really turned the ship around."

"It's my responsibility," Lin Ruowei replied, her voice warm with false modesty. "Thank you for your diligence, Director."

The door clicked shut. The lock turned.

Lin Ruowei's chair scraped back. She stood up, looked down at me, and smiled. Then she lifted her foot and brought her heel down on my hand.

Pain shot through my fingers, sharp and white. I gasped but swallowed the cry before it could escape. She leaned her weight onto that heel, grinding it into the soft flesh between my knuckles.

"Do you see?" she asked softly. "I stood in your shoes, spoke with your voice, made decisions with your authority. And no one—not a single person—could tell the difference. Because you were never really Su Wanqing. You were just a pretty name with a rich father. But I am the one with the brains. I am the one who will run this empire."

Tears blurred my vision. I could feel the skin breaking under her heel, hot moisture seeping across my hand.

"Father will find out," I whispered, the words ragged and pathetic.

Lin Ruowei laughed. It was a beautiful, tinkling sound. "Your father is in Shanghai with your stepmother—my stepmother, remember? He thinks I'm his devoted daughter, visiting his ailing wife out of filial piety. By the time he comes back, I will have every board member eating out of my palm. And you?" She pressed harder. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. "You will be nothing. Less than nothing. You will be the ghost who polishes my shoes."

She lifted her heel at last. I cradled my hand, blood welling from a crescent-shaped wound. She stepped away, walked to the window, and gazed out at the skyline.

"Now get up and finish your work," she said over her shoulder. "I need to be presentable for the 10:30 meeting. And Su Wanqing?" She turned, her eyes glittering. "Get used to the floor. You'll be spending a lot of time down there."

I pressed my bleeding hand to my chest, bowed my head, and crawled back into position. The cloth was wet with my own blood, and as I polished her shoe, I watched the red smear disappear into the dark leather.

Somewhere deep inside me, the last flicker of hope sputtered and died.

The garden was a mockery of her former life. Su Wanqing pressed herself against the cool stone wall of the corridor, watching the morning light spill across the manicured hedges and the fountain where she had once played as a child. The air smelled of jasmine and damp earth—familiar scents that now felt foreign, poisoned by the life she was forced to live.

She wore the coarse gray uniform of a maid, the fabric rough against her skin. Her hands were raw from scrubbing floors, her wrists still bearing the red marks from the rope Ah Jiu had used the night before. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the constant, gnawing hunger for freedom.

That was when she saw him.

A man stood by the rose bushes, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a well-tailored suit that spoke of wealth and power. He wasn't one of her stepmother's usual guests—she would have recognized him. He turned, and their eyes met.

He blinked, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. Then his gaze swept over her uniform, her tired posture, and his expression softened into something she hadn't seen in weeks: sympathy.

"You there," he said, his voice deep but not unkind. "Are you the new maid? You look exhausted."

Su Wanqing's heart slammed against her ribs. This was a chance. A stranger. Someone untouched by Lin Ruowei's poison.

She stepped forward, her voice trembling but desperate. "Please, sir, I'm not a maid. I'm Su Wanqing—the daughter of this house. My stepmother, Lin Ruowei, she switched our identities. She has me imprisoned here, forced to work like a servant. You have to believe me."

The man's brows drew together. He took a step closer, studying her face. "Su Wanqing? I've heard of the Su family's eldest daughter, but I was told she was ill, kept indoors for her own health."

"That's a lie!" Su Wanqing's voice cracked. She grabbed his sleeve, not caring how desperate it looked. "Look at my hands—these are not the hands of a pampered heiress. Look at my face—I'm thin, I'm bruised. Please, I'm begging you. Help me get a message to the authorities, to anyone. I'll reward you handsomely, I swear it."

The man hesitated. He looked at her fingers gripping his sleeve, at the raw redness of her knuckles, at the shadow of exhaustion under her eyes. Something like doubt flickered in his gaze. "You do bear some resemblance to the photos I've seen…"

"Yes!" Su Wanqing's hope flared. "I can prove it. I know where my father kept the family seal. I know the layout of the house—the hidden safe in the study. Just—"

A soft laugh cut through the air like a blade.

Su Wanqing froze.

Lin Ruowei stepped out from behind a hedge, her pale blue dress immaculate, her smile as sweet as poisoned honey. "Oh dear," she said, her voice dripping with mock concern. "I'm so sorry you had to see this, Young Master Li. Our new maid has episodes, you see. Her mind… it wanders."

The man—Young Master Li—released Su Wanqing's grip gently, stepping back. His expression shifted from sympathy to wariness. "Episodes?"

Lin Ruowei moved closer, placing a delicate hand on Su Wanqing's shoulder. The touch was light, but the pressure beneath it meant everything. "She came to us from an asylum. A charity case. The poor thing believes she's Su Wanqing, my dear stepdaughter. She even managed to get her hands on some of Wanqing's old clothes to strengthen the delusion." She sighed, shaking her head. "We keep her here out of pity. To give her a semblance of normal life."

Su Wanqing's throat closed. No. No, no, no.

"That's not true," she whispered, but her voice was small, and the man was already looking at her with pity again—but it was the pity one gave a madwoman, not a victim.

Lin Ruowei squeezed her shoulder, hard. "There, there. You know what Doctor Chen said about your episodes. The shouting only makes them worse. Ah Jiu will take you back to your quarters for a rest."

Ah Jiu appeared as if summoned, her silent footsteps carrying her to Su Wanqing's side. She took Su Wanqing's arm with practiced firmness, her face impassive.

Young Master Li cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "I see. My apologies for the misunderstanding, Madam Lin. I should take my leave."

"It was no trouble." Lin Ruowei's smile never faltered. "Please, do come again. Wanqing—my real Wanqing—would love to meet you. She's been asking about the Li family's tea trade."

The man nodded, gave Su Wanqing one last, uncertain glance, and then turned to walk away.

Su Wanqing watched his retreating back. Watched her last chance disappear around the corner of the hedge.

The hope she had clutched so tightly shattered in her chest, leaving nothing but a hollow, jagged ache.

Ah Jiu's grip tightened. "Come, miss. The mistress doesn't like you lingering."

Su Wanqing didn't resist. There was no strength left. No fight. She let herself be led back toward the servants' quarters, past the rose bushes that seemed to mock her with their beauty, past the fountain that gurgled happily as if nothing was wrong.

Behind her, she heard Lin Ruowei's light footsteps receding, followed by a lilting hum of satisfaction.

The garden was beautiful. The morning was bright. And Su Wanqing learned, in that moment, that hope was not a lifeline—it was a trap, baited and set, waiting for the desperate to bite.