Crimson Fetters

Yang Estate, Heart of City XX | 00:05 AM. The roar of helicopter blades tore through the silence like a blade through silk, shredding the stillness of the night into ragged pieces. The rotor wash sent the treetops surrounding the estate lurching and bowing as though in fearful submission. Yang Bei descended from the aircraft with the unhurried authority of a lion returning from a hunt. His signature snow-white hair whipped in the downdraught, framing eyes the colour of deep slate cold, cutting, colder than frozen dew at the edge of winter. He paused mid-step, then swept his gaze back toward the cabin a gaze laden with glacial menace to where his bride sat perfectly, unnervingly still. This woman was the one he had just wed in a sham ceremony, a performance staged to deceive an entire city mere hours ago... He extended one broad hand in a gesture of counterfeit courtesy, an offering to help Zheng Qingli step down into his domain a domain that might well become her gilded cage for the rest of her days. A face that could bewitch souls, and a beauty so devastating it would bring men the world over to their knees. Yet for Yang Bei, in this very moment... she was the most contemptible creature alive. Qingli returned his gesture with a faint smile exquisite as a painted portrait yet those lovely grey eyes were hollow. Deep. Utterly cold. As though whatever soul had once lived behind them had long since abandoned its post. Yang Bei stared into that gaze, a storm of contradictions raging within him. Fury. Contempt. The bitter humiliation of being played of Zheng Yuan's shameless sleight of hand, swapping out the intended bride without a shred of remorse. The woman who was meant to kneel before him tonight, meant to bear his ownership as his bound captive, was Zheng Yingying that precious, pampered half-sister he doted on like a jewel. *** *** *** Five Hours Earlier... At the Wedding Hall. Dozens of spotlights blazed down upon a red carpet that stretched endlessly into the distance, like a staircase ascending to heaven a heaven lacquered entirely in lies. Beneath the admiring gazes of high society's finest, Zheng Qingli glided forward on her father's arm toward the ceremonial dais, where a figure standing six foot four waited with the stillness of a drawn blade. She appeared in a gown of immaculate white, yet every seam had been cut to trace the dangerous curve of her, accentuating a silhouette that unravelled the composure of every person who dared look. Each unhurried step she took stole the breath clean from the room. When Zheng Yuan placed his daughter's hand into Yang Bei's, Qingli lifted her gaze to meet his her smile radiant, honeyed, as though she had spent a lifetime waiting for precisely this moment. Yet deep within those grey eyes lay only darkness. Bottomless. Devoid of even the faintest trace of joy. Yang Bei wore his own counterfeit smile with equal precision, playing the role of the besotted groom with seamless, flawless craft. But those dark grey eyes burned with glacial menace the quiet promise of a man prepared to tear the woman before him apart at the seams. With meticulous care, he slid a twenty-carat diamond ring onto her slender finger. It gleamed. It was breathtaking. And in truth, it was a shackle the instrument with which he intended to bind the wretched stand-in that Zheng Yuan had so brazenly sent in place of his beloved daughter. *** *** *** Three Days Prior... At the Registry Office. The truth was stripped bare without mercy on the morning of the marriage registration, when the figure who appeared before Yang Bei was not the gentle, compliant Zheng Yingying as agreed but Zheng Qingli. The wayward heir. The daughter Zheng Yuan had consigned to the shadows her entire life. She stepped out of the car with absolute composure, dressed in a wine-red bodycon dress that set her pale skin ablaze and drew the eye along the clean line of her legs. Every curve she possessed was made undeniably apparent by the cut of the fabric, and the men in Yang Bei's retinue forgot how to breathe each one swallowing hard, fighting to compose themselves beneath an atmosphere wound tight as a garrotte. Yang Bei exhaled, rough and ragged, fury and resentment surging through him like a tide looking for something to destroy. Zheng Yuan had sent word only hours before the registration a casual, last-minute notification that the bride had been swapped. Inside, he was an inferno. But he had no way out. The colossal business covenant. The covert support he needed from the Zheng family's resources. His father's relentless pressure. And the betrothal that chain forged over twenty years ago by his late uncle all of it bound him to a humiliation he could not refuse. He fixed his gaze on the striking face of the woman before him, contempt burning in his eyes, then drove the pen down to sign with the full weight of his fury behind it. The nib gouged the paper so hard it nearly tore as though he were carving his name not into a document, but into the flesh of an enemy.