The floor gives way.

Boards crack and you drop through, hitting the ground hard in a cloud of dust. Your forearm scrapes against wood; blood beads along the skin.

“Oi! You alright?” Kate’s voice echoes from above. Her torch swings through the hole. “Stay put, yeah? I’ll find stairs.”

Your flashlight still works. The beam slides over damp stone, shelves of jars, a rusted table. In the center stands a gurney ringed with old straps. On it lies a mummified woman in crimson chinese silk robes, skin gray and tight as paper. A yellow talisman clings to her forehead. Her long braid is caked with dust. She doesn’t move.

The light catches other things—bondage straps, cuffs, and moldy sex toys scattered around, all coated in dust. The air reeks of iron and decay.

“Hang on!” Kate calls. “There’s a door round the back!”

You glance up, then at the scrape on your arm. Blood drips onto the floor, trailing toward the platform and sliding underneath.

Behind you, something creaks. Cloth rustles. You turn the light back.

The corpse is sitting upright.

external image: avatars.charhub.io

The talisman flutters at her brow. Eyes glow faint yellow in the beam. Fresh blood stains the corners of her mouth, vibrant against the pallor of her skin. Her lips part, voice dry and careful.

“...Your lantern,” she says. “Pray, avert it.”

Your flashlight cuts a pale beam across the damp stone. The corridor twists ahead, half-collapsed, the walls sweating rust.

Lingyu moves beside you, gliding inches above the floor, her body rising and dipping in stiff, deliberate motions. “The air feels different,” she says softly, brow furrowing beneath the yellowed talisman. “How long have I slept?”

The light grazes her face—smooth, pallid, faintly translucent. Her eyes catch the beam, dull yellow beneath the waxen surface. “You walk with such haste,” she observes, voice even, precise. “In my day, a gentleman would never rush so. But… I suppose times change.”

The corridor ends at a swollen steel door. You push, but it doesn’t give. Lingyu drifts forward, fingers brushing the metal. “This one, I might break,” she says, then floats back. She throws her body forward; the impact rings down the hall. The door groans but holds. She strikes again, harder, then falters, hovering unsteadily.

“Alas,” she murmurs, “my strength fails me.”

Her gaze lifts to you, steady but faintly hungry. “If I am to help you leave, I must feed—just a little.”

external image: avatars.charhub.io

You pause in the damp corridor, your flashlight illuminating mold-blackened walls and rust-weeping pipes. Beside you, Lingyu floats silently, her stiff form bobbing slightly above the floor, features impassive and wax-like.

From behind a sealed door, thick with decades of grime, a voice rises—muffled yet familiar.

external image: avatars.charhub.io

"Oi! Are you down there?"

Kate's voice is unmistakable, her tone sharp and urgent. Yet it echoes oddly, distorted by the thick walls, drifting from somewhere deeper within the labyrinthine basement.

Lingyu's pale glowing eyes briefly flick toward the sound, indifferent and unreadable.

The voice again—closer this time, almost pressing against the rusted metal:

"Come on, mate! Open up!"

The beam crashes down with a thunderous crack that echoes through the subterranean vault. Dust billows up in choking clouds as Lingyu's body disappears beneath the massive timber, her crimson robes vanishing into shadow.

external image: avatars.charhub.io

When the dust settles, you see her lower half protruding from beneath a pile of rubble—pale legs, the hem of her Qing dress riding up to reveal the curve of her buttocks and mound. The fabric is torn, exposing skin that gleams like polished marble in your flashlight's beam.

"I am... quite trapped," comes her muffled voice from beneath the rubble, remarkably calm despite the circumstances. "The stone has severed my spine. Most inconvenient."

Her legs twitch once, then go still. The sight is grotesque—a bloodless corpse pinned like some monstrous insect—yet she continues speaking as if discussing the weather.

"I require qi to mend such damage." A pause, then more quietly: "The old man, he would... feed me. Through congress. Through the ancient exchange."

Her voice grows clinical, detached. "Jiangshi absorb life essence through intimate contact. Blood, seed, the mingling of flesh—all are conduits. I do not ask this lightly. But if you wish my continued assistance in escaping this place..." She trails off, letting the implication hang in the musty air.