⚠️ Content Warning / Reader Discretion Advised
This chapter contains intense themes of sexual violence, psychological trauma, and emotional distress. While the portrayal avoids graphic or explicit descriptions, it vividly depicts the aftermath and psychological impact of a brutal assault to highlight the cruelty victims endure and society's neglect toward them.
This scene may be emotionally disturbing or triggering to survivors or sensitive readers. Please prioritize your mental and emotional well-being. If you are not in a space to engage with such content, it is completely okay to skip this chapter.
***
The warehouse smelled of rust and oil—stale, metallic, and suffocating. A place long forgotten by time. The rain had followed her here, pounding mercilessly against the broken tin roof, as if trying to drown out the scream that hadn't yet left her throat.
She hesitated at the threshold. The single location pin still glowed on her phone screen. It had come from Mo Ziqian's number.
Her hand trembled as she slipped the phone into her coat pocket.
She had told no one.
She didn't dare.
If it really was him… if he was finally reaching out after everything, after all the silence, then she had to go. What if this was his way of helping her? What if this was the only chance left before everything collapsed?
So she stepped inside.
Her shoes splashed in the puddles as she walk forward.
"Hello?" Her voice barely carried.
No answer.
"President Mo?" she called, her voice echoing, the name she had practised numerous times, while on the way. Because he wasn't her fiancé anymore. He wasn't her Mo Ziqian.
Yet no one answered.
Did she arrive earlier? Or was this not where he had called for?
The pin on her phone confirmed it—this was the place. Her heart pounded louder with every step.
Was he hiding? Waiting?
She took another step.
"Mo Ziqian."
Her voice barely carried.
There was no answer. Just the distant clatter of metal, like chains dragging against cement.
A chill crawled up her spine.
Maybe she should leave.
Maybe this was a mistake.
She turned to go—and the door slammed shut behind her.
Her scream caught in her throat. The echo thundered through the emptiness, mocking her.
Footsteps.
Too many.
Voices—laughing. Low and cruel.
She backed away, panic blooming in her chest like fire. "Who's there?"
And then she saw them.
Figures stepping out of the shadows. Men. At least twenty. Faces obscured by caps, masks, and the kind of anonymity only monsters wore. One of them held up a phone. Her photo was on it.
"She's the one."
Her heart clenched as she suddenly realised something. Her eyes filled with fear.
Her eyes darted to the door, her mind racing. Could she run? But the men were already too close. They were too fast. She could feel their presence, heavy and suffocating, as though the walls themselves were closing in on her.
She bolted. But before she could take a few steps, an arm wrapped around her waist.
She kicked him with her heels on his knees.
"F*ck," the man swore, as he let her go due to pain. But before she could run she was completely surrounded by them.
She panicked. Her hand trembled. "Please! Please let me go!" she begged.
"And why should we?" one sneered. His voice was thick, dripping with malice. His words made her skin crawl. "After getting paid to enjoy such a beauty."
"No, please," she whispered, the words barely escaping her throat. "I just want to go home."
Another man grabbed her arm, his grip like iron, and yanked her forward. "Home?" he chuckled darkly. "This is where you're gonna stay now, girl."
She tried to pull away, but it was useless. His hand tightened around her wrist, and before she could even make a sound, he dragged her into the center of the warehouse. Her legs struggled to keep up with the force of his pull, and with each step, her fear deepened.
A sharp pain blossomed in her chest, not from the physical force, but from the complete absence of humanity in their eyes. They weren't interested in her as a person. She wasn't even a woman to them. She was something to be broken. Trashed. Used.
"Let me go!" Her voice cracked as she tried to shout, but the second man quickly slapped his hand over her mouth, muffling the scream that had risen within her.
She struggled, her body trembling as she fought for air. She scratched hard on his hand, but it did nothing. He laughed, low and guttural, and pressed harder, making her gasp for breath.
"Stop struggling," he spat. "It's only gonna make it worse—"
She bit his hand. Kicked. Struggled like a wild animal.
"This B*tch!" he slapped her, making her fall on the concrete floor.
Her phone fell before her. Shen Fuyue crawled to grab her phone, when a hand grabbed her from behind, yanking her by the hair.
Pain exploded in her scalp as she was dragged backward into the dark, heels scraping, knees slamming against the floor.
She thrashed and screamed. Her voice cracked.
"Help! Help me! Someone—!"
An arm wrapped around her throat. A hand clamped over her mouth.
She tried to scream, but it came out as a muffled sob.
Her wrists screamed in pain as she was bound with something coarse. Rope? Wire? She couldn't tell. She couldn't see.
Then darkness.
Then voices.
Low, cruel, faceless voices that didn't belong to Mo Ziqian.
"Quite fiesty," one of them laughed.
"She really came, just like he said."
"Such a beauty. I would have taken the job even if they hadn't paid."
They laughed harder.
Fuyue's eyes widened, burning with the sting of sweat and dust and disbelief. She shook her head violently, her breath breaking into pieces against the palm that muffled her cries.
This couldn't be happening.
This wasn't real.
The first thing they did was break her voice.
Something sharp was shoved into her mouth. It scraped her tongue, cracked a tooth. She choked on blood. Her screams turned into gargled, useless gasps.
Her wrists were being tied—zip ties, tight. She twisted her hands, but the more she moved, the deeper they dug into her skin. Blood trickled down her fingers.
"Let's get her on camera. Bet that bastard'll enjoy this."
"Which one of us goes first?"
The shame hit first.
She struggled, choked out a sob. "Don't do this… please… I didn't do anything to you…"
But they didn't listen.
They never listened.
Her legs kicked wildly—until someone grabbed them and forced them still.
Then the nightmare began.
One man.
Then another.
And another.
There was no mercy. No hesitation. No faces she could recognize, just shadows that came and went, like a nightmare with no waking point.
It felt like time stopped.
Each moment blurred into the next.
Sometimes, she was screaming.
Sometimes, she was unconscious.
Sometimes, she thought she was dead.
But she wasn't. Death would've been kinder.
The cold floor became her only anchor. Her cheek was stuck to it, her own blood and spit keeping her from lifting her head. Her knees were raw. Her body was numb. Her soul, gone.
She heard everything.
The laughter. The slurs. The jeering.
They spoke around her. Never to her.
"She's prettier in person."
"She was Mo Ziqian's fiancée? Damn. He really had good taste."
"She still breathing?"
"Barely. She's tougher than she looks."
More laughter.
More pain.
They passed her around like she was an object. A discarded toy. Less than human.
Shen Fuyue stopped counting somewhere between the seventh and the tenth. She stopped resisting. Her body had gone cold, detached, unrecognizable. This wasn't her anymore. This was a shell. A thing.
She floated—above herself, outside herself—watching in horror and disbelief as her body was treated like a playground for monsters.
At some point, even pain left her.
What remained was hollow.
A vast, black nothingness.
She drifted. Detached.
Somewhere in her shattered mind, she thought of her father.
Of his smile.
Of the way he used to braid her hair when she was little, clumsily, hands too big and awkward but always gentle.
She thought of his eyes the last time they met—proud, even through exhaustion.
Would he still look at her that way now?
Then she remembered his body in that hospital bed. The stroke. The machines.
He didn't even know.
He couldn't protect her.
No one could.
She remembered her aunt's voice on the phone, panicked and desperate as one of the men accidentally received the call: "Fuyue, where are you? Call me back! Please! We're all so worried—"
She remembered a time when people cared. When her name meant something. When she was someone.
Now she was just a thing, discarded on a cold warehouse floor, covered in blood, spit, and cruelty.
Night turned to dawn. Her surroundings blurred.
At one point, she heard the clicking of phones. The glow of red recording lights.
Her own phone.
One of them was using her phone.
They filmed everything. Every second. Every cry. Every breath.
They made jokes. Took selfies. Called her names she couldn't even process.
One of them leaned down beside her limp, broken body and whispered, "Smile for your fiancé."
And another voice replied, "Already sent him the clip."
Her mind went still.
Mo Ziqian.
No.
No, he couldn't have… He wouldn't.
But the message…
The message had come from his number.
She clung to that last thread of disbelief like it was a lifeline. Maybe someone else sent it. Maybe his phone had been stolen. Maybe—
But no one had come.
No one had stopped it.
No one had even known she was here.
Her world went silent.
Her senses dulled.
She didn't remember when it ended.
She just remembered the silence afterward. Deafening. Unnatural.
Someone threw a rag over her. Not out of pity. Just to hide the mess.
She lay there unmoving, eyes open, fixed on the ceiling—gray and rusted, with flaking paint that reminded her of blood and dust.
Then someone kicked her lightly.
"She dead?"
A pause. A laugh.
"Nah. Just broken."
They left her there.
Just like that.
Doors creaked open.
Boots shuffled away.
Then nothing.
The storm outside died. The rain stopped. The world went silent. But a small petal moved.
Faintly.
Before falling to the ground.