Shen Fuyue didn't know how long she lay there.
Minutes? Hours?
Time had lost all meaning.
Her body didn't respond. Her limbs didn't feel like they belonged to her anymore. Every breath was a fight. Her mouth tasted of blood and bile, her throat raw from screams no one came to answer. Her vision blurred, smudged at the edges like ink soaked through water.
She couldn't speak. She couldn't even cry. There was nothing left.
But somehow—somehow—she moved.
It started with her fingers. Twitching, trembling, stiff with dried blood and rope burns. Then her arms. Her shoulders. Her back. Every muscle screamed. Her skin felt torn, swollen, not hers.
Her hands were still bound, wrists red and raw. Her dress—what little remained of it—hung from her in tatters. Dirt, blood, and shame clung to her like a second skin. Her knees buckled beneath her as she tried to stand, so she crawled. Inch by inch, dragging her ruined body across the filthy warehouse floor.
And then—she saw it.
Her phone.
The screen was cracked but still lit. Still glowing.
Still recording.
She stared at it like it was a cursed thing. It had seen everything. Captured it all. Her pain. Her screams. Her humiliation. Her destruction.
Her fingers curled toward it, trembling, slow. She dragged herself closer and, with one final stretch of her trembling arm, she shut it off.
Then silence.
A silence so thick it pressed against her skull like iron weights. She could hear her heartbeat, erratic and terrified. She could hear her breath hitch and break.
The first light of dawn slipped in through a broken window. Pale. Cold. Indifferent.
She forced herself up—one step at a time.
One foot.
Then the other.
The door was still open. They hadn't even bothered to lock it. Why would they?
She was nothing now.
Just a body to be discarded.
She stumbled through the threshold, out into the damp, trash-littered street behind the warehouse. The wind bit at her bare arms and legs, and the rising sun cast long, cruel shadows across her torn body.
And still—she walked.
Blood trickled down her thighs, dried on her cheeks, crusted beneath her fingernails. Her hair was matted. Her lips split and bruised. But she kept going.
One step.
Then another.
She passed people on the sidewalk.
A couple stared. One woman gasped and turned her child away.
"Drunk," she muttered, hurrying off.
No one came near her.
No one helped.
No one even offered a coat.
She was a ghost now. A shell. Something shameful to be looked away from.
She made it to the bus stop and collapsed onto the bench.
She didn't know how long she sat there—staring blankly at the road, the rising sun making everything look too bright, too fake.
Eventually, her body gave out.
She collapsed.
Right there, at the gates of the hospital.
The guards rushed over, confusion etched on their faces. A nurse who happened to be nearby let out a scream when she saw Shen Fuyue's condition.
Within moments, she was wheeled into emergency care. Her shredded dress was cut away. Her body was swabbed for evidence. Her wrists were swiftly bandaged. Her vitals teetered on the edge of stability.
Dr. Luo, a senior doctor, rushed in, his face tight with concern. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him.
A woman—injured, bleeding from everywhere—too silent. Far too silent. It made even the nurse tremble. Before Dr. Luo could take a step closer, it happened.
A scream.
A raw, guttural sound tore from her throat, as if it had been trapped inside her chest for hours. Her body curled into itself, arms clutching at the shredded remnants of her dress, desperately trying to shield what had already been stolen. The scream wasn't human. It was the sound of a soul being torn apart.
Dr. Luo and the nurses scrambled to her side, desperately trying to stabilize her. The receptionist had already dialed the police.
"She's been assaulted," someone whispered.
"No—tortured."
"Oh god... her wrists..."
Her limbs trembled violently as two nurses held her down, while a young intern nearly vomited at the sight of her back—blackened with welts, blood crusted and dried.
Dr. Luo barked orders, his face set in stone, his voice trembling despite his years in trauma care. "Get her to Trauma Room One! Sedate her! Prepare for a full body scan and rape kit!"
As they laid her on the stretcher, Shen Fuyue's eyes met his—empty, clouded. A void where life had once been.
Her mouth moved again.
"No... no... not again... please... not again..."
They had to sedate her.
***
Darkness.
It pulsed behind her eyelids like a living thing.
A coldness had seeped into her bones—not the chill of winter, but the echo of something torn, something lost. Shen Fuyue didn't know where she was. She didn't know what day it was. Or even if she was still alive.
Then—something stirred.
A soft beeping.
Faint whispers.
The air carried the sterile scent of antiseptic and alcohol. Her skin prickled under the hospital gown. Her throat felt like it had been scraped raw from the inside.
A voice. Familiar, but distant.
"Fuyue… Fuyue, I'm here. It's Yuhuan Aunty. You're safe now. You're okay, you're safe…"
Safe?
She opened her eyes.
The lights above glared too bright. Her pupils contracted painfully. Her gaze landed on the woman hovering above her. But the face meant nothing. Just another stranger. Another shape in the chaos.
Fuyue flinched violently when the woman touched her forehead.
"No—!"
Her voice came out hoarse, like broken glass scraping against stone.
"I don't know you—don't touch me—don't touch me—"
Her hands clawed at the sheets. She tried to sit up, tried to escape, but her body wouldn't obey. She shrank into the corner of the bed, trembling.
Shen Yuhuan froze, her own heart breaking anew.
"It's okay," she whispered, voice shaking. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to protect you, sweetheart. Please—look at me—just look at me…"
But Shen Fuyue didn't see her. She didn't see anyone. Her eyes were wild, vacant—like an animal trapped in a burning cage.
The heart monitor spiked.
She began to convulse.
And then—
The scream.
It wasn't just loud. It wasn't just painful.
It was primordial—a sound so full of agony, of despair, that it made the blood of every soul within the hospital run cold.
The nurse outside the room dropped a tray.
Two interns turned pale and fled.
A patient down the hall began to cry.
People froze mid-step. Conversations stopped. A child clung to her mother's hand, asking, "Mama, what was that?"
And in the nurse's station, an elderly doctor whispered, "That… was the sound of someone whose soul was crushed."
Dr. Luo arrived not long after, summoned in haste. A senior trauma specialist, he had seen everything from suicide attempts to war refugees—but what he saw on Shen Fuyue's chart made his stomach churn.
"She was brought in at dawn," the head nurse briefed him, barely holding herself together. "Her body was… beyond battered. Torn. Bruised. Signs of prolonged physical assault. Repeated… penetration. Ligature marks. Blunt trauma. Internal bleeding. She was barely conscious. Her dress was… not even a dress anymore."
Dr. Luo nodded grimly.
And then added quietly, "And the psychological damage?"
The nurse hesitated. "She didn't recognize her own aunt. Called her a stranger. Flinched like she'd been hit when we touched her. She hasn't stopped shaking."
Dr. Luo stepped into the room with the care of someone entering sacred ground.
Shen Yuhuan sat beside the bed, tears running down her cheeks, holding Shen Fuyue's hand as if she were holding onto a lifeline.
Shen Fuyue was silent now. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
Dr. Luo's voice was low. "Has she..." he paused, "has she been told anything?"
Shen Yuhuan shook her head, her voice barely holding together. "She doesn't even recognize me." Her eyes glistened with tears. "Don't tell her. Not yet. She's barely holding on... if she hears about him now, it might break her completely."
Dr. Luo turned to the observation window, his gaze falling on the girl lying motionless under white sheets. Machines surrounded her, monitoring life that seemed almost absent. Her face was pale, empty. Haunted.
He exhaled slowly, voice flat. "Understood."
But the silence between them spoke louder than anything else. Because when "not yet" became "now," someone would still have to bear the weight of telling her.
After a moment, Dr. Luo spoke again, his tone clinical but heavy.
"Her heart rate's unstable. Her cortisol levels are spiking. I've seen soldiers with post-traumatic stress less broken than this girl. Her mind has dissociated to protect itself."
Shen Yuhuan covered her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.
There was a knock on the door.
Two officers stood outside, a female and a male detective. Both had grim expressions as they flashed their badges.
The woman stepped forward and showed her badge."Inspector Zhang. We got a call about the patient in 307—Shen Fuyue."
She hesitated, her eyes dark with what she'd heard.
"We heard the scream," she said quietly. "We know how deep the damage runs. But we also have a duty. If she can give us even a few words… it might help us catch the ones who did this."
Her voice held no pressure—only pain, and the desperate weight of justice trying to break through.
The male officer added, "Time is critical. The press already got wind of it. We need to act fast."
Dr. Luo stepped out and shut the door behind him, blocking the room like a gatekeeper.
"No," he said flatly.
The male officer stiffened. "With all due respect, doctor—"
"You. Can't." Dr. Luo's voice didn't rise, but there was steel in it now, a barely restrained storm behind his clinical calm.
He lifted the folder in his hand. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, his voice low.
Neither officer replied.
"This is her medical report," Dr. Luo said. "Eight pages long. Every line a testimony of inhumanity."
He flipped it open and began to read—not with drama, but with the cold finality of truth. "Multiple fractures. Extensive bruising across torso and limbs. Ligature marks. Evidence of repeated sexual assault over prolonged hours. Internal tearing. Hemorrhaging. Dental trauma. Acute shock. Dissociation. Aphasia. Psychological detachment."
The air thickened with each word. Inspector Zhang's face lost color. The male officer looked away.
"She can't speak," Dr. Luo finished, voice taut with rage beneath its professional polish. "She couldn't speak even if she tried. She doesn't recognize her own family. She flinches at shadows. Her body's alive, but her soul—" He broke off, swallowing down the fury in his throat. "Her soul is somewhere else."
Inspector Zhang tried to steady her breath. "We understand. But even a few words—"
Dr. Luo turned and cracked the door open.
"Look for yourself."
The room inside was dim.
Shen Fuyue lay motionless in the hospital bed, her figure frail and shrouded in bandages. The fluorescent lights overhead turned her skin ghostly pale. Her face was angled toward the window, but her eyes weren't seeing anything. Not the sunlight, not the walls, not even herself.
Her lips were moving.
No sound came.
Just a silent, rhythmic whisper—over and over again. A prayer? A plea? A memory?
They couldn't tell.
Her wrists were wrapped in gauze so thick it looked like they were holding her together. The IV beeped softly in the corner. Beside her, the untouched food tray had gone cold.
Inspector Zhang didn't speak. Her fingers slowly curled into a fist, trembling at her side.
After a moment, she exhaled.
"We'll come back later."
Dr. Luo gave no response. Just shut the door quietly, sealing off the room like a sacred space too fragile for the world outside.
Zhang and the male officer turned to leave—but then she paused.
She looked over her shoulder, her face drawn, lips pale.
Dr. Luo narrowed his eyes, already preparing to reject whatever request she was about to make.
But what she said next turned the marrow in his bones cold.
"There's a video."
The hallway suddenly felt colder.
Inspector Zhang's voice was low now, heavy with dread. "It's circulating online. We don't know who recorded it. Or how many copies exist. But it's... explicit. Humiliating. Doctored clips. Looped footage. Some of it... was streamed live."
Dr. Luo's heart stopped. For a second, he couldn't breathe.
"She's being crucified on the internet," Inspector Zhang whispered. "At first, the public was outraged. But now... the tide's turning. They're calling her a seductress. A liar. That she staged it for attention. Others think she... wanted it."
The male officer flinched.
Inspector Zhang's face twisted with disgust. "Comments are pouring in. Videos are being re-uploaded faster than the takedown notices can reach them. People are laughing. Mocking. Dismissing it like she's some attention-hungry slut."
She looked away, her jaw clenched.
"We doubt that this incident was intentional, and the people behind it want to bury the matter by turning Miss Shen into a culprit. If we don't catch the bastards who did this, and fast…" Inspector Zhang trailed off. "This won't just destroy her. It'll erase her."
She didn't wait for an answer.
She walked away with the male officer in silence, their footsteps heavy on the tiled floor.
***
The city lights glittered like shattered glass beneath a velvet night sky.
Inside the penthouse suite, the only light came from the moon spilling through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It cast a long, sharp silhouette of the man standing still—tall, poised, his back to the room, his gaze fixed on the glittering skyline.
He didn't move. Not even when the phone on the marble counter vibrated, the screen lighting up with a single name.
He picked it up slowly, answering with a cold flick of his thumb.
A voice crackled through the speaker, respectful, but tinted with amusement.
"It's done, sir. Everything's been taken care of. The girl's finished. The videos spread faster than we expected. As for the warehouse... it's been cleaned. No one will ever find it. And the Shen family's already distancing themselves. Won't be long before they throw her out like trash."
The man didn't speak.
He simply walked forward, closer to the glass. His reflection stared back at him—a dark figure wrapped in stillness, a predator in a suit.
He finally said, voice smooth and lifeless:
"Good."
With one press, the call ended.
A moment of silence followed—heavy, stretched thin.
Then he turned, walked to the bar cart beside the leather couch, and poured himself a glass of deep red wine. The liquid caught the moonlight, gleaming like blood.
He brought the glass to his lips, slow and deliberate.
As he drank, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Cruel. Cold.
Calculating.
He didn't need to say it aloud.
But the unspoken message hung thick in the air, echoing across the glass walls into the night—
"She was necessary collateral."