[ Twenty-nine, by the end of it. Some stillborn. Abortive. Half-clenched slabs of bent claw, breaking. Brittle, wet sheen like moonlight licking the stilling ripples of a lake. The last piece he catches, its pearlescence has thinned and bloodied under the white heat of her body until it has gained a masticated fluidity. Bodies frail and fend themselves. Digest danger.

He discards it, from tip of blade to growth of splintered wood on the dust-ravished floor. There is a weight to it, a distant, shrill quality to the fall of each scale, like beads collapsing to gravity. Solid. Brokering no deception that the monstrosity of Wen Qing's curse lived, gasped long on her back. He takes even the last of them, the bone glimpses that want deep surgical carving, attention to the glistened jut of their edges turned wild, forensic.

After, he looks on his work like a master on his art, when the gleam of his paint stayed wet long on the brush and the pigments have comingled to the same filth of colour. Reds, rust, coppers spatters of white like spume. He shivers, long before she makes sound. Later, he will remember this.

His hand leaves her with a final yoke of her nape, clasping. Here. Pressure. Pay attention. Wake. ]

Breathe. Breathe. Nothing will hurt like this again. Pain, and you are past it. Distant. It sits. the other edge of the blade. It is done.

[ A fever of words, blinding. Three years of resonance on his back. Nothing will hurt like this again.

They slaughter her in Jinlintai. ]

Where are your salves? Your linens. [ He rises already for bowls of water, knife left a pale heartbreak on the ground. ]