MysteryAime2023
The Cheng estate stood like a monument to order.
Legitimacy first. Status second. Humanity somewhere far below.
In the main hall hung a massive framed photograph: the Cheng family beneath crystal chandeliers - father, mother, heir, and golden daughter. Their smiles were polished, rehearsed, powerful.
One child was missing from the frame.
No one ever asked why.
Cheng Yiyai learned early that silence was safer than breath.
Cheng Yihan, the heir, liked control. Even as a boy, he enjoyed watching fear bloom in others. He would trap insects in glass jars and shake them just to watch them panic. When he grew older, the insects changed - but the jars did not.
Cheng Yirai, the middle daughter, was elegance wrapped around cruelty. She never struck Yiyai herself. She only smiled while others did.
The night she ran, was in the midst of a thunderstorm.
She did not look back.
"I will return," she whispered to the storm.
"Not as your shame - but as your end."