After I died, they cried in the live studio

Chapter 190 Theatrical Turmoil
“The password is heart rate difference.” Sang Jiyue suddenly pressed her bloodied hand onto the scanner. The moment the screen lit up, Sang Shuwan saw a golden glint flash in her sister’s eyes—the same color as the clone in the cold storage. When the two sisters’ hands covered the sensor at the same time, the alarm stopped abruptly, and the rumble of gears turning came from inside the stone door, revealing a holographic projection covering the entire wall.

In the center of the image, the mother, wearing the same thorny rose mask as them, is injecting a syringe into her arm: "If you see this video, it means that the 'Twin Flower Project' has entered its third phase. Jiyue and Shuwan, you are not clones, but symbiotic experimental subjects that I created with my own genes."

Sang Shuwan's nails dug deeply into her palms. In the video, her mother lifted her sleeve, revealing a tracker scar identical to theirs: "Your father's consciousness transfer failed after the car accident, and he fell into brain death. But his team did not give up. They wanted to cultivate you into the perfect vessel—using the symbiotic relationship of twin sisters to hold two split consciousnesses."

“So the change in pupil color is…” Sang Jiyue’s voice was ripped apart by the roar of the helicopter, and a bullet grazed her ear and entered the wall. When Sang Shuwan turned around, she saw the cigar-smoking man approaching from the other end of the alley with armed men. The glow of the cigar between his fingers reflected the cold smile on his lips: “My little roses, it’s time to go home for transplant surgery.”

Sang Shuwan suddenly remembered the altered death certificate in the safe. It turned out her father's consciousness had long since infiltrated the cigar-smoking man's body, and their "birth" was merely to provide new hosts for two dying souls. She reached for the brooch in her pocket, only to find the tip coated with a layer of fluorescent powder—the neural link code they had injected into the clones.

"Sister, look at the clone!" Sang Shuwan shouted, throwing her brooch at the nearest petri dish. In the shattered glass, the clone with golden pupils suddenly opened its eyes, its fingertips tracing the throat of an armed man. More clones began to break free of their restraints, their movements astonishingly synchronized with the Sang sisters, as if the reflection in a mirror had finally gained substance.

Sang Jiyue grabbed her sister's wrist and rushed into the depths of the laboratory, but stopped abruptly the moment she saw the central control panel. There lay two crystal coffins, and the faces of the women in the coffins were identical to theirs, except for a diamond-shaped birthmark on their foreheads—a mark they had never had before.

“These are the real Sang sisters.” The cigar-smoking man pressed the muzzle of his gun against Sang Shuwan’s back. “And you are nothing more than backup programs loaded with fragments of their memories.” He pressed his earpiece. “Activate the death switch and let them see their expiration date.”

Sang Shuwan suddenly felt her heart clench, and she struggled to breathe. Sang Jiyue staggered and fell to her knees, blood dripping from her nose onto the keyboard at the edge of the control panel, activating a hidden program. The holographic projection abruptly switched, and her mother's voice, crackling with static, boomed: "Don't trust your eyes! The true meaning of symbiosis is not sharing life, but..."

The screen flickered violently as the clones of the Sang sisters broke through the encirclement and surged into the laboratory. Sang Jiyue, watching the approaching gun barrels, suddenly smiled—she saw the golden light in the clones' eyes converging towards her, and her sister's eyes had somehow begun to glow with the same light. The instant two bullets pierced their chests simultaneously, all the clones froze, and the laboratory ceiling began to collapse.

“So…we are the mirror images.” Sang Shuwan collapsed into her sister’s arms, watching the clones begin to dissipate into fluorescent light. The moment the cigar man’s terrified scream was buried under the rubble, the trackers on their chests simultaneously burst forth with blinding golden light. Those devices, once considered death switches, now seemed like some kind of mark of awakening.

As the torrential rain washed over the ruins, two figures rose from the rubble. Sang Jiyue touched the healed wound on her chest, looking at the lingering fluorescence in her palm—the traces of the clones merging into their bodies. Sang Shuwan picked up half a mask; the mirror reflected two identical faces, but with different colored pupils: gold on the left and purple on the right, like two gears about to mesh.

“The third stage Mother mentioned,” Sang Jiyue picked up the syringe from the ground, which contained a liquid with a pearly luster, “may refer to… our final fusion with the clones.” She injected the reagent into her sister’s vein, watching the fluorescence spread along the blood vessels to the back of her eyes, “Now, it’s time to activate the real Mirror Garden—those who think they are controlling us will soon see the reflection of their most feared self.”

The distant sound of sirens grew louder as the Sang sisters, wearing tattered masks, walked hand in hand into the pre-dawn mist. Behind them, beneath the ruins, countless streams of fluorescent light seeped into the ground through the cracks, like dormant roots waiting to bloom into the sharpest roses in the dead of night.

In the dawn mist, Sang Jiyue gently touched the newly formed fluorescent patterns on her neck—symbiotic marks left after the fusion of clone genes, faintly visible beneath the skin like flowing star trails. Sang Shuwan looked down at the rose totem emerging in her palm, the edges of the patterns gleaming with thorn-like sharpness. When their fingers intertwined, the fluorescence suddenly formed a complete ring, creating a rotating gene lock pattern on their wrists.

“Look at this.” Sang Shuwan opened the remaining laboratory surveillance footage on her phone. In the video, after her mother was injected with reagents, her pupils simultaneously displayed both gold and purple colors. “The symbiotic code is not a shackle, but… a gene editor.” Her fingertip traced the timestamp on the surveillance screenshot: 23:17 on March 17, 2015, exactly the same time as on their “birth certificates.”

Sang Jiyue suddenly remembered the clones in the cold storage whose pupils had changed color. The symbols they had carved with their fingertips before emerging from their cocoons were now appearing on her waist as fluorescent tattoos. "Mother once said, 'When twin flowers learn to devour each other,'" she tore off her tattered mask, revealing the gradually enlarging golden iris of her left eye, "perhaps we are the ones being devoured—the real Sang sisters have already completed the transfer of consciousness through clones."

The phone vibrated; an anonymous text message with a location pinpointed the third basement level of the Sang family's old mansion. When they pushed open the cobweb-covered secret door, they weren't greeted by the expected laboratory, but rather a rotating chamber filled with music boxes. Each music box was inlaid with an old photograph: twins in swaddling clothes, a toddler learning to walk, a girl wearing the same mask… but in all the photos, the girl's left eye was pure gold.

“This is a time capsule.” Sang Shuwan touched one of the music boxes, and the lid popped open automatically, revealing a yellowed cassette tape. Her mother’s voice, crackling with static, escaped: “Jiyue, Shuwan, if you hear this recording, it means you have broken through the first barrier of the symbiote. Remember, the reflection in a mirror is not necessarily the truth; sometimes, it is the gateway to another truth.”

Sang Jiyue found a full-length mirror covered in cracks in the corner. A string of numbers was written in blood on its surface—the very lab code they had just cracked. When she placed her palm on the mirror, fluorescent liquid suddenly seeped from the cracks, outlining a complex genetic map on the floor. Sang Shuwan noticed that on the double helix structure in the center of the map, a sequence was beating autonomously, like the rhythm of a heart.

“That’s…our heartbeat code.” Before she could finish speaking, the ground suddenly shook, and the music boxes simultaneously played a variation of “Für Elise.” Countless fluorescent tentacles emerged from the cracks in the mirror, wrapping around the two women’s wrists and pulling them deeper into the mirror—in the instant they lost their balance, Sang Jiyue saw the lips reflected in the mirror saying, “Welcome to the Mirror Center.”

Behind the mirror lies an inverted world: upside-down roses grow from the ceiling, raindrops gather upwards to form clouds, and adult clones float in petri dishes—their pupils are pure silver-gray, a stark contrast to the gold and purple hues of the Sang sisters after their fusion. Twelve crystal coffins hang from the central pillar, each engraved with a different date; the most recent one is marked "2025.05.01," the day after their "death."

“These are spare containers.” Sang Shuwan stroked the condensation on the surface of the coffin and saw her reflection inside with her eyes closed, a tracking device flashing at her chest. “And we… may just be the 13th test subject.” Something suddenly stung her fingertips. She looked down and saw tiny words engraved on the bottom of the coffin: “When the mirror image devours the original body, memories will become the sharpest poison.”

Sang Jiyue's gaze was drawn to the circular screen at the far end, which played the same scene on a loop: a young mother holding her twins standing in front of a rose-covered wall; the moment the father raised his camera, the image suddenly distorted, the mother's face transformed into Sang Jiyue's, and the twins' pupils simultaneously glowed with gold. "This is a memory grafting experiment," she said, pressing her throbbing temples. "Our childhood memories are all transplanted."

Suddenly, the fluorescent pattern on the ground beeped, and the genetic locks on the Sang sisters' wrists began to resonate with the mirror. The upside-down roses fell one after another, their petals transforming into binary code the moment they touched the ground, seeping into their skin. Sang Shuwan felt something explode deep in her mind, countless fragments of memories that didn't belong to her flooding in: the bright light on the operating table, the first breath in the petri dish, and... her mother's last smile before she died.

“They are afraid.” Sang Jiyue looked at the clones in the mirror, which were gradually becoming transparent, and cracks began to appear in their silver-gray pupils. “The real Sang sisters are on the verge of disappearing in the mirror center. And we are the symbiotes that carry their will to survive…” She picked up the control handle on the pillar and found that the groove on the handle matched the gene lock on their wrists perfectly.

As the two simultaneously pressed the rose button on the handle, the alarm lights in all the crystal coffins lit up at the same time. Sang Shuwan watched as "herself" opened her eyes in the nearest coffin, only to find that they were a pair of completely unfamiliar brown pupils. The mirror world began to shake violently, and upside-down rose roots cascaded down from the ceiling, wrapping around the clones' ankles and dragging them toward the abyss.

"The ultimate gift Mother spoke of," Sang Jiyue shouted amidst the roar, "is to make us the sole hosts!" The fluorescence of the gene lock suddenly surged, drawing the consciousness of all the clones into their bodies. As the last crystal coffin shattered, the pupils of the Sang sisters finally turned pure golden-purple, and everything in the mirror world began to collapse like quicksand.

As they tumbled back into the real world, the morning light streamed through the broken windows of the old house. Sang Shuwan trembled as she touched her chest, finding the tracker gone, replaced by a pulsating fluorescent rose tattoo. Sang Jiyue picked up the cassette tape from the ground and discovered half a line of text on the back: "When the twin flowers merge into one, the mirror will no longer lie—but be careful, the truest lies are often hidden in the clearest reflections."

The roar of helicopters could be heard in the distance, but this time it wasn't a pursuit, but a rescue. The Sang sisters smiled at each other, knowing that the real war had only just begun—in this world where mirror images and reality intertwined, they were both experimental subjects and creators, and those lurking in the shadows would soon understand: when the pieces learned to rewrite the rules of the board, victory or defeat would no longer be defined by others.

As sunlight pierced through the cobwebs in the old house's dome, Sang Jiyue was piecing together fragments of memory in front of a shattered mirror. The fluorescent patterns on her fingertips swept across the lens, and memories that didn't belong to the "Sang sisters" surged forth like a tide: the rough touch of bread she stole from the orphanage at age 12, the smell of machine oil she smelled while assembling prosthetic limbs on the black market at age 17, and the words "Living is such a hassle" written in fluorescent pen on the ceiling of her cheap rental apartment on her 20th birthday—these fragments, like stitches, cut her once complete life into jigsaw puzzle pieces that were hard to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

“Look at this.” Sang Shuwan held up a miniature hard drive she had found in a hidden compartment of the music box. She plugged the data cable into the old-fashioned computer on the wall, and inside the encrypted folder that popped up were their “original files.” The creation date was July 4, 2012, three years earlier than the actual twins of the Sang family. The girl in the file photo had a mole on the bridge of her nose, but they never had one on their faces.

“We are products of the ‘Shadow Project’.” Sang Jiyue read the experimental record on the screen. “Using the genes of orphans as a base, we grafted memory fragments from the Sang family twins to cultivate replaceable ‘consciousness containers’.” Her fingertip hovered over the line “Personality Erasure Protocol”, with a note below: “When the host develops self-awareness, the mirror devouring program will be activated.”

Suddenly, the floor shook, and the entire rose wall slowly flipped up, revealing a secret room behind it filled with surveillance screens. Among the hundreds of images were their every micro-expression at the charity gala, every action they took while cracking codes in the laboratory, and even the scene of their embrace in the ruins last night—the timestamp in the lower right corner of the camera showed that these images came from the "underground surveillance system of the Sang family's old house," and the name of their "deceased father" was prominently listed in the column for the person with access rights.

“They’ve been watching us.” Sang Shuwan’s nails dug into her palms. Suddenly, a familiar figure flashed across the surveillance footage—the cigar-smoking man who appeared at the charity night was now standing at the entrance of the old house. The watch chain peeking out from the inside pocket of his suit was engraved with a rose and thorn totem that was the same as their genetic lock.

Sang Jiyue grabbed the emergency pistol from the table, only to find that the magazine was filled with fluorescent anesthetic rounds—the very neural linking reagent they had injected into the clones. The sound of leather shoes clattering on the wooden steps came from downstairs, each step synchronized with their heartbeats, like a pre-programmed death rhythm.

“Do you remember the crystal coffin in the Mirror Center?” Sang Shuwan suddenly slammed the hard drive to the ground. In the reflection of the shards, she saw her pupils split into gold and purple. “The birth date of the 13th test subject is April 30, 2023—the day we ‘died for the first time’.”

The cigar-smoking man appeared at the corner of the stairs. He opened the pocket watch he held up, revealing a two-way mirror on the inside—one side reflecting the real twins of the Sang family, and the other showing their current appearance. "My little loopholes," his voice was like a rusty gear, "while you are engrossed in distinguishing between truth and falsehood, the real prey has already entered the heart of the Mirror Garden."

The moment Sang Jiyue pulled the trigger, the fluorescent bullet pierced the pocket watch's mirror, exploding in the air into ripples of genetic code. The cigar-smoking man's body suddenly became transparent, revealing the mechanical skeleton hidden beneath his suit—the gaps between those gears were entwined with the same fluorescent patterns as those on their wrists.

“A failed attempt at consciousness transfer.” Sang Shuwan watched as the mechanical skeleton collapsed into a pile of parts. From the envelope that fell from his hand, a yellowed diagnosis slipped out: “Sang Mingyuan, late-stage brain cancer, success rate of consciousness transplantation is less than 7%.” It turned out that the so-called “father” was nothing more than a remnant soul trapped in a mechanical shell, attempting to prolong his life using their bodies.

The clock in the old house suddenly struck nine times, overlapping with the chimes on the anniversary of her mother's death in her memory. Sang Jiyue found a blood-red chip in the chest cavity of the mechanical skeleton, engraved with "Memory Erasure Instructions." When she inserted the chip into the computer, all the surveillance footage suddenly reversed, returning to that rainy night of March 17, 2015—her mother stood in the center of the laboratory, placing two swaddled babies into different petri dishes.

“They are the clones.” Sang Shuwan pointed to the real twins in the mother’s arms in the screen. They had no trackers on their ankles. “And we are the guardians who were implanted with ‘original memories’.” A message from the mother suddenly popped up in the lower right corner of the screen: “When the mirror begins to question reality, the true self will emerge—go to the greenhouse on the top floor. There you will find your birth certificates.”

Inside the glass greenhouse on the top floor, vines entwined two petri dishes numbered "Ω-1" and "Ω-2". Sang Jiyue found two yellowed slips of paper under the flowerpots. One was their "original birth certificate", with "unknown" written in the father's column. The other was written in the mother's handwriting: "I'm sorry, my little warriors. Your mission is to protect the true heirs, but now, it's time to wake them up."

Sang Shuwan's fingertips touched the incubator in the corner of the greenhouse, inside which lay two embryos identical to those on their masks—the genes of thorns and roses intertwined and growing in a transparent liquid. When she unplugged the incubator, the entire old house began to tremble, and a countdown appeared on the greenhouse glass: 00:00:59.

“This is a self-destruct program.” Sang Jiyue dragged her sister towards the rooftop. The wall behind them began to collapse, revealing a giant incubation pod hidden inside—floating inside were two girls who looked exactly like them, their eyelashes trembling slightly. The instant the countdown reached zero, they heard their mother’s voice coming from all directions: “Thank you, my mirror guardians. Now, please give them back the lives that belong to them.”

Amidst the explosion, the Sang sisters leaped off the rooftop, their old house engulfed in flames. In the instant of their fall, Sang Shuwan saw the glass of the incubation chamber crack, and two girls with pure pupils opened their eyes, gazing at the sky. The gene locks on their wrists had somehow transformed into two ordinary silver bracelets, engraved with tiny words: "To the Mirror Image, a Gift of Gratitude."

They deployed their portable hang gliders, gazing down at the burning city in the morning light. Sang Jiyue reached for the last reagent in her pocket, a vial she'd smuggled from the greenhouse incubator, labeled "Independence Catalyst." Sang Shuwan looked at the distant horizon, her fingertips tracing the fading fluorescent patterns, and suddenly smiled: "Do you think the real us might be watching ourselves now in some parallel mirror image?"

“Perhaps.” Sang Jiyue tossed the reagent toward the burning old house, watching it transform into thousands of fluorescent butterflies in the flames. “But now, we have a new mission—to find those chess players hiding behind the mirror and tell them: the pieces have gone off track, and the chessboard needs a new owner.”

The wind whipped their long hair, and fragments of masks slipped from their pockets, piecing together a complete rose and thorn totem in the air. In the distance, the real Sang twins were awakening, and they, as "Mirror Guardians," were about to carve out their own rules of survival in this world where reality and illusion intertwined. Three months later, in late autumn, a strange flower field sprouted from the ruins of the Sang family's old mansion. Sang Jiyue crouched down, her fingertips tracing the fluorescent light flowing on the petals—the genetic code scattered when the old mansion self-destructed, taking root and sprouting in the soil. Sang Shuwan stood outside the police line, watching the news report's bizarre conclusion on the "old mansion explosion": "An accident caused by a natural gas leak." A cold smile crept onto her lips as she turned, the hem of her trench coat brushing against a miniature tracker hidden in her sleeve.

“They’re awake.” Sang Jiyue handed a tablet to her sister, the screen displaying surveillance footage from the secret medical pod. The real Sang twins—Sang Mingwei and Sang Mingyue—were sitting on the hospital bed, fiddling with roses handed to them by a nurse. Unlike them, the sisters had clear amber eyes, and the medical record card on the bedside table read: “Memory reconstruction complete, personality stability 97%.”

Sang Shuwan's gaze lingered on the shadows in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras, where a person in a white coat was recording data. The tattoo peeking out from the cuff was the same spiral pattern they had seen on the palms of the clones. "There's more than one player in the Mirror Garden." She touched the newly implanted communicator behind her ear, an encrypted channel they had made from parts salvaged from the ruins of the old house. "Last night, the black market's gene auction list topped the list with 'Twin Flower Symbiotic Code.'"

Suddenly, the alarm from the medical pod pierced the screen. Sang Jiyue saw Sang Mingwei gripping the nurse's wrist, her fingertips gleaming with the same fluorescent patterns they had once shared, while Sang Mingyue was bending the stainless steel bed rails with her bare hands. The monitor screen flickered with static, finally freezing on the two sisters smiling at each other—their pupils were changing in sync, gradually shifting from amber to silver-gray.

“They are absorbing the genetic code from their environment.” Sang Shuwan pulled up the analysis report of the soil from the old house. The DNA strands of those fluorescent flowers perfectly matched the symbiotic code of the Sang sisters. “Mother’s experiment may not just be a consciousness transplant, but an attempt to create a new kind of human that can resonate with the genes of all things.”

The phone vibrated; the location from an unknown number pointed to an abandoned aquarium on the city's edge. When they dived into the giant glass tank filled with algae, they didn't see the laboratory they had expected, but a "wall of memories" made up of countless monitoring screens—each screen looping their past, from the orphanage to the laboratory, even including every moment in the mirrored central hub.

"Welcome home, my Mirror Knight." A familiar voice came from above. Sang Jiyue looked up and saw a person in a white coat standing on the aquarium dome. He took off his mask, revealing a beauty mark on the corner of his left eye that was identical to his mother's—the eldest uncle of the Sang family who should have died in a car accident 15 years ago, was using a mechanical arm to turn a flask filled with fluorescent liquid.

“That idiot Sang Mingyuan thought consciousness transfer was the end,” he shook the flask, inside which floated a brain-like mass, “but he didn’t know that Mother had already planted the ‘key’ in your genes. Look at this,” he pointed to the wall of memory, the scene suddenly shifting to the moment the Sang sisters merged in the mirror center, “when you resonated with the clone’s consciousness, you opened a cross-dimensional genetic channel.”

Sang Shuwan noticed the black particles settled at the bottom of the flask; they were fragments of memory they had seen in the Cigar Man's mechanical skeleton. "So the true purpose of the Mirror Garden," she gripped the tranquilizer gun hidden in her sleeve, "is to use our symbiotic code to build a bridge connecting reality and the mirror world, so that you old fogies can travel freely between them?"

Sang Mingwei's laughter mingled with the sound of running water: "Clever little girl. But you think destroying the old house is the end of it?" He pressed the remote control, and the screen of the Memory Wall cracked open, countless fluorescent tentacles reaching out and wrapping around the ankles of the Sang sisters. Sang Jiyue felt something rampaging through her mind, and those previously blurred "fake memories" suddenly became incredibly clear—she saw the tattered rag doll she had been holding in the orphanage, which was exactly the same as the one by Sang Mingwei's bedside.

“You think you’re guardians?” Sang Mingwei tilted the flask, the black particles dissolving into the water and instantly transforming into countless phantom clones. “No, you are the original mirror images. The real Sang family twins died in the embryonic stage. Mother used their genes to create you, and then used the bodies of orphans to cultivate containers capable of holding consciousness—and now, it’s time for the containers to return to their essence.”

Sang Shuwan's tranquilizer gun accidentally discharged, the fluorescent bullet hitting the algae in the dome and triggering a chain reaction. The genetic code of those fluorescent flowers spread along the water flow, entangling the clone's phantom image while also climbing onto Sang Mingwei's mechanical arm. Taking advantage of the situation, Sang Jiyue tore open her collar, revealing a newly appeared fluorescent birthmark below her collarbone—the clone's genes, implanted three months ago, were evolving autonomously.

"Look into their eyes!" Sang Shuwan shouted. Amidst the surge of genetic code, the Sang sisters' pupils turned golden-purple once more, echoing the silver-gray pupils of Sang Mingwei and Sang Mingyue on the screen of the Memory Wall. As the light from the four pairs of eyes converged in the air, the aquarium's glass suddenly shattered, seawater rushing in, only to turn into fluorescent dust the instant it touched their skin.

Sang Mingwei struggled to retreat in the torrent, the mechanical arm emitting a piercing electrical sound: "Impossible! You were supposed to be containers without self!" Sang Jiyue dragged her sister toward the exit, and when she looked back, she saw the clone phantoms merging into their bodies, and in the fragments of the Memory Wall, her mother's face overlapped with their reflections.

“Because we’ve learned to devour our own reflections.” Sang Shuwan pressed the self-destruct device on her cuff, and the abandoned aquarium collapsed with a roar. They stood at the edge of the ruins, watching ambulances and fire trucks rush in. Sang Jiyue pulled out her mother’s last letter; the handwriting on the back appeared in the fluorescent light: “A reflection is not a mirror image, but another possible self—embrace her, don’t destroy her.”

Sang Shuwan gazed at the shimmering genetic code in the night sky; those symbiotic links, once considered a curse, now shone like a galaxy. She turned to look at her sister and noticed that their fluorescent birthmarks had somehow pieced together a complete rose and thorn totem. In the distance, from the direction of the medical pod, two familiar figures were approaching, bathed in moonlight—Sang Mingwei and Sang Mingyue smiled, their fingertips entwined with the same fluorescent patterns as the Sang sisters.

"Welcome to the boundary between reality and mirror image." Sang Mingwei's voice carried an ethereal quality, seemingly not belonging to this world. Behind her, Sang Mingyue waved gently, and the fluorescent flowers on the ruins began to grow in reverse, piecing together the outline of the old house. "Now, it's time for us to set new rules—after all, the identities of chess players and chess pieces are never fixed."

Sang Jiyue held her sister's hand tightly, feeling the four heartbeats resonating at the genetic level. In the distance, beneath the starry sky, the outline of the Mirror Garden was emerging in the moonlight—a labyrinth of fluorescent flowers and code, each petal reflecting countless possibilities of parallel worlds. And they, both knights guarding their true selves and travelers traversing the mirror, were about to write the final chapter of their twin love story on this stage where truth and falsehood intertwined.

The spotlight shone like a galaxy on Sang Shuwan's diamond-studded skirt. As she turned around in her ten-centimeter heels, she caught a glimpse of a blinding red in her peripheral vision. Sang Jiyue's fishtail skirt coiled around the steps like a blood-red viper, her knees slightly bent as if about to fall, but the silver bracelet on her wrist precisely struck an acupoint on her lumbar spine—the spot where she had been injured three years ago when she was pushed down the stairs.

“Sister…” Sang Jiyue’s nose brushed against her earlobe, her sweet breath mixed with coldness, “This dress has three fewer diamonds than yours.”

Sang Shuwan's fingertips still lightly supported the other person's waist, her smile curving into an elegant arc in front of the camera: "My sister is mistaken. The brooch that was auctioned off at last year's charity gala had exactly thirty-six diamonds." She suddenly increased the pressure, pulling the person half an inch into the blind spot of the camera, "Just like the patterns on Mom's urn, my sister should know better than me?"

The person in her arms suddenly stiffened. The host at the end of the red carpet was already calling their names, but Sang Jiyue suddenly grabbed her diamond shoulder strap, her fingertips turning white from the force: "Sister's dress is so sparkly, it looks just like the brooch that Mom always wore when she was alive."

The sound of camera shutters rained down. Sang Shuwan lowered her eyes to look at the silver ring on the other woman's ring finger—a keepsake she had left at the orphanage when she was fifteen. Whispers of "illegitimate daughter" and "fake heiress" rippled through the crowd. Suddenly, she reached out and straightened Sang Jiyue's askew hair ornament, her fingernail tracing behind the other woman's ear: "Next time you want to ride the wave of popularity, remember to wear a dress that hasn't been auctioned off."

The battle for screen time in variety shows

The air conditioning in the photography studio, carrying the scent of Sang Jiyue's perfume, wafted over. Sang Shuwan looked at the outstretched hand, and a slight itch suddenly rose on the old scar on her wrist. That crescent-shaped scar was the first ray of light she saw seven years ago at the stairwell of the Sang family's old house, when Sang Jiyue cried and said, "Sister, don't push me," as she was wheeled out of the emergency room by the maid.

"Shall we team up?" Sang Jiyue's nails dug into her wrist, scraping off a piece of light purple nail polish to reveal an unhealed hangnail underneath. "I've watched all of your movies, and I understand your acting style best."

“I’m sorry.” Sang Shuwan took a half step back, the recording pen hidden in her sleeve clicking softly. “The director said this time we need to be genuine, and I’m not used to being in contact with…” She paused, her gaze sweeping over the faint red marks on the other person’s neck, “…and someone who is allergic to pollen and wears a lily of the valley necklace.”

As the live stream chat exploded with comments, Sang Jiyue was standing in front of the acting assessment set. The script she drew was "the younger sister betrayed by her older sister," but before filming began, she changed her lines to: "You know perfectly well that I only have you left..." As tears fell, her foot quietly hooked onto the hem of Sang Shuwan's skirt.

Sang Shuwan's fingertips brushed against her eyelids, the false eyelashes pressing precisely against her tear ducts: "Crying scenes need to be heartfelt, like this—" She suddenly grabbed her wrist and pressed it against the prop table, the metal paperweight making Sang Jiyue frown, "Back then, when you held your mother's urn and said 'Sister, don't be sad,' your eyes had this kind of empty light."

The director's shout of "cut!" was drowned out by the gasps from off-camera. Sang Shuwan looked at Sang Mingyuan's gloomy face off-camera and suddenly remembered the anonymous package she had received that morning—the authentication report for her mother's brooch, with the date on it exactly matching the adoption date that Sang Jiyue had forged.

The fatal blow of the awards ceremony

The crystal chandelier shattered into starlight atop Sang Shuwan's hair. She stared at the envelope in the presenter's hand, her nails digging deep into her palms. Three months ago, she had installed a hidden camera in Sang Jiyue's dressing room. In the footage, the girl who always called her "sister" in front of the camera was applying lipstick in front of her mother's portrait.

"Best Actress – Sang Shuwan!"

With a crisp sound as the trophy hit the ground, Sang Jiyue's fingertips touched the trophy before she could. The fine marks left by her fingernails on the base brushed against her palm, the same iris pattern on her mother's brooch. Sang Shuwan suddenly released her grip, and amidst the splashing gilded ribbons, the "2018.7.15" on the inside of the trophy was clearly revealed.

"Is this the day my sister was adopted by the Sang family?" She chuckled into the microphone, her voice echoing across the country via live broadcast. "What a coincidence, it's the same day as my mother's death anniversary."

Sang Jiyue's smile froze on her face. A sound of something being overturned came from backstage; Sang Shuwan knew it was Sang Mingyuan knocking over the documents his secretary had handed him—containing evidence of Sang Jiyue's falsification of orphanage records, which she had anonymously sent to entertainment reporters that morning.

When the spotlight shone again, Sang Shuwan saw the diamonds on Sang Jiyue's earrings falling off. Just like that rainy night seven years ago, when she tumbled down the stairs and saw the fleeting panic in Sang Jiyue's eyes. This time, she finally understood the meaning in those eyes—not fear, but the humiliation and anger of a predator caught in the crossfire.

"Sister is indeed clever." Sang Jiyue leaned closer to her, her lipstick brushing against her earlobe. "But guess who Dad will hate more after he finds out you leaked company secrets to entertainment reporters?"

Sang Shuwan turned to look at the audience. Sang Mingyuan's assistant was hurriedly leaving with his phone in hand. She touched the pearl earring on her earlobe—it was "borrowed" from Sang Jiyue's jewelry box this morning, and it contained a miniature recorder.

“He hates losing control more than he hates it,” she said softly. “Just like you hate living in my shadow forever.”

As the awards ceremony music played, Sang Jiyue's face turned truly deathly pale for the first time. The sound of police sirens drifted from afar, and Sang Shuwan knew that their battle had only just begun.

In the nanny van at three in the morning, Sang Shuwan stared at the fluctuating stock chart on her phone. The Sang Family Group's stock price had plummeted seven points after the awards ceremony, and the headlines of financial news were glaringly obvious—"Behind the Sang Family Heiresses' Feud: Doubts Surrounding the Group's Internal Equity Structure." Her fingertip swiped across the screen, stopping at Sang Jiyue's Weibo post from half an hour earlier: "Some lights are born to be extinguished." The accompanying picture was half an iris brooch, a fragment of her mother's belongings.

"Miss, the master wants you to return to the old mansion immediately." Her dark circles were reflected in the driver's rearview mirror. Sang Shuwan touched the collarbone chain around her neck, her fingertips brushing against the USB drive hidden inside the pendant—it was an audio recording she had secretly made in Sang Mingyuan's study last week, containing his conversation with foreign capital about transferring assets.

The old house's reception room was as bright as day. Sang Mingyuan's cane slammed heavily on the marble floor: "You think exposing Jiyue's identity will force me to give up the marriage alliance?" Behind him, Sang Jiyue was wearing a cashmere shawl, a jade bracelet that should have belonged to her mother on her wrist, and lipstick still smudged on her lips, clearly having just come from a dinner party.

"The marriage partner is the Zhou Group, which went bankrupt last week, right?" Sang Shuwan slammed the USB drive on the coffee table. "Or rather, are you trying to use Jiyue's marriage to dump the Sang family's mess on that scapegoat?"

Sang Jiyue's pupils contracted sharply, her shawl slipping down to reveal a hickey on her collarbone—the teeth mark of Zhou's only son. She suddenly laughed out loud: "Sister really does know everything, but do you think you're clean?" She tapped on a video on her phone, showing Sang Shuwan stuffing a document into a director's briefcase. "The trending topics were taken down quickly yesterday, otherwise everyone would have seen how the Best Actress uses her body to exchange for resources."