My Sister's Demon - Chapter 2

My sister stopped breathing.

My heart ached with grief.

My body, however, wanted to bite.

A thirst for blood grew wildly inside me.

I turned those words over in my mind—live as your nature wishes.

My sister had told me to follow my nature.

In the end, I couldn’t hold back. I went to her and sank my teeth into her neck.

It was my first taste of human blood. The warm liquid poured down my throat and rushed through every part of me.

One scene after another began flashing before my eyes.

First came the mother my sister missed so much, a healer. She held my sister in her arms and told her about gathering herbs in the mountains.

“Qing’er, guess what Mother saw in the mountains today? I saw the mountain god!”

Then came her father, who loved drinking and gambling, pointing at the woman on her sickbed and cursing her.

“Your mother’s a burden! Since she fell ill, she can’t see patients, and now she’s swallowing medicine herself. She’s emptied our household!”

Next came her stepmother, already heavily pregnant before her mother’s body had even grown cold.

“You won’t be called Qing’er anymore. You’ll be Zhaodi. Once your little brother’s born, you’ll take good care of him.”

There was the stepmother’s son, too—my sister’s sickly little brother.

The only person in that house who treated her well.

“Sister, why do you always go into the mountains? There are lots of herbs, but it’s dangerous, too. Please don’t go anymore.”

Then a man in a loose, bright-yellow robe appeared in her memories. Five-clawed dragons were embroidered in roundels on his clothes. Everyone called him the Crown Prince.

Lady Pingyang nestled beside him, dressed in a gown woven with gold-thread pheasants, a jade pendant hanging from her ceremonial shoulder scarf.

As the horses’ hooves flew, the Crown Prince looked down at my sister.

“You’re new, aren’t you? Quite a beauty in the making.”

The scene shifted to the deep mountains.

My sister had been drugged unconscious.

At Pingyang’s command, the men, wearing lecherous grins, took turns violating her.

“Nice and wet. Shame she’s a pauper’s girl whose life isn’t worth a coin—and she’s offended a lady she had no business offending!”

And at the very end, as countless moments spent with me in the cave flickered past, they struck my sister’s head with a stone.

The memories before my eyes suddenly filled with blood.

Beneath the moon, my lips and teeth could taste nothing more.

All my sister’s blood had flowed into my body.

Her memories had become one with mine.

I took the only ornament from her hair—a hairpin carved with a kapok blossom—and tucked it away.

Then I buried her inside the cave and filled in the entrance.

I considered the words I’d just heard.

The Crown Prince was coming after dawn.

And Lady Pingyang, who had killed my sister over a single compliment from him, adored him so much she would surely follow him every step of the way.

These mountains were about to become lively, weren’t they?

Excitement kindled inside me.

The moon shone clear and bright. The mirror-smooth lake reflected my breathtaking beauty.

The Crown Prince had called my sister beautiful.

But I was a demon. I was a thousand, ten thousand times more beautiful than she was.

I took off my clothes and slipped underwater, returning to my snake form to savor my freedom.

I swam until dawn, when the sound of hooves reached me through the mountains, trees, and grasses.

Slowly, I rose from the water.

Facing the faint morning light, I draped my graceful body in a gauze dress and lay beneath a tree.

Last night, I’d finally tasted human blood. I’d eaten my fill.

Yet when I savored it, I was still hungry.

More precisely, it was a craving.

As the hoofbeats drew closer, a craving for slaughter began crashing through my body.

I slowly opened my eyes.

A man sat on horseback, a thick crowd following him.

When he saw me, he dismounted and strolled over.

Once he could see my face clearly, a flash of admiration crossed his eyes.

A guard shouted at me, “How dare you! Pay your respects to His Highness the Crown Prince!”

I rose and began to bow.

In my flustered haste, I lost my footing—and fell neatly into His Highness’s arms.

My skirt caught on a stone with a faint ripping sound.

A fresh, bitter scent reached my nose.

The Crown Prince caught me.

The guard who had been shouting at me fell silent at once.

Anyone with eyes could see what was about to happen.

The Crown Prince took the opportunity to gather me into his arms, holding me so very tightly.

My eyes reddened, like those of a frightened white rabbit.

“You’re the Crown Prince. A common girl like me wouldn’t dare…”

“It’s all right,” he said.

He took off his outer robe and gently draped it over me.

I looked up at him.

He was every inch a member of the imperial family: composed features, a handsome bearing, an effortless elegance.

I wondered whether someone like him would taste different.

I gripped his sleeve with one hand and quietly slid the other around his waist.

His back stiffened at my touch. A flutter of desire showed in his eyes, impossible to suppress.

An outward appearance was the most superficial thing in the world—and the most useful.

He wanted me.

Morning light sifted through the leaves. My delicate body was soft as a pool of spring water.

As we gazed at each other, I felt his breathing grow heavier.

Then a woman spoke in a deliberately lowered voice, unable to hide her stifled resentment and hurt.

I turned and saw Lady Pingyang.

…

My sister’s memories contained no clear image of either Pingyang or the Crown Prince.

She had been a servant. She had to keep her head down and her eyes lowered. How could she dare look directly at such exalted people?

I was different.

I dared touch the Crown Prince’s waist.

And I dared stare straight at Pingyang.

Her clothes were magnificent. Standing beside the Crown Prince, she lost nothing in grandeur.

But on her creamy-white face lay an ugly, hideous scar.

With my sister’s memories inside me, I knew exactly where it had come from.