Chapter 56: PAST-FOURTEEN.
⚠️ Content Warning: The following scene contains depictions of violence, threatening behavior, and disturbing language. Reader discretion is advised.
Outside the cafeteria, dusk draped the alleyways in quiet shadow, broken only by the occasional hiss of traffic in the distance. Hua Rong stood beneath the flickering signboard, a white cake box resting gently in her arms—inside, a soft pink-frosted cake and a single candle nestled beside a sharp, real kitchen knife her mother had handed her earlier.
They told her to wait. The workers were still cleaning, and her mother had promised: Once we're done, we'll all celebrate your birthday together.
She'd been waiting. But her grip on the box had shifted—now the knife was in her hand, not out of threat but fidgeting restlessness. She twirled it absently, letting it glint in the dim light.
Then—voices.
Low, male murmurs drifting from the alley to her left.
"...Yeah, her shift ends at eleven."
"Let's wait till then. You know how it is..."
A third voice snickered. "Seriously, those bitches drive some men wild."
The words didn't fully register at first. They hit her brain like static. But then—something cracked. Her mind... blanked. Not with confusion, but with a frightening, complete silence. A silence she'd only felt once before, a long time ago.
Her knuckles whitened around the knife handle. Every breath felt thin. She stepped forward, one quiet, slow footstep at a time.