It was loud enough to be heard clearly in the quiet room, steady and powerful compared to the weak pulse she had possessed earlier.
The man remained silent as he studied her for several seconds, his expression becoming increasingly serious.
There was only one strange thing that remained.
Across the woman’s once-flawless skin, small raised bumps had appeared along her cheeks and neck, marring her otherwise smooth complexion.
They looked almost like pimples or an unusual rash, but no one in the room seemed to know where they had come from.
The man stared at her in silence, his attention fixed on the unexpected change.
“You’d better search every corner and check the CCTV footage until you find her.
Damn it!
You have to find her.” His voice was devoid of warmth as he issued the order, his expression hardening with every word.
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked out of the bedroom, his footsteps carrying him into the corridors as the guards immediately scattered to begin the search.
Within moments, the entire estate had descended into chaos.
Security personnel hurried through the corridors, checking rooms and passageways while others moved toward the different sections of the vast property.
Doors were opened and searched, guards questioned servants, and the security team monitored the surveillance feeds in an attempt to determine exactly where the missing bride had gone.
Then, after several tense minutes, one of the guards hurried toward the powerful man with an urgent expression on his face.
“Master… we found her,” he reported breathlessly.
“She ran toward the South Wing… the Dark Night Wing.” The man stopped in his tracks.
For a moment, the chaos around him seemed to fade into silence as the meaning of those words settled in.
The Dark Night Wing was different from the rest of the estate.
It was a restricted section that the guards were not permitted to enter without authorization, and unlike the other parts of the property, there were no security cameras covering that area.
The man’s expression darkened.
“The Dark Wing?” he repeated, his voice low.
The guard nodded nervously.
“Yes, Master.
That’s where the footage ends.
There are no cameras beyond that point.” The surrounding guards exchanged uneasy glances.
They all knew what that meant.
Once she had entered the Dark Night Wing, the estate’s surveillance system could no longer tell them where she had gone.
The man tightened his grip on the servant and dragged her along the corridor toward the restricted section, ignoring every desperate attempt she made to slow him down.
The servant stumbled several times as she struggled to keep up, her face pale with fear as she realized exactly where he was taking her.
“Master…
please forgive me,” she begged, her voice trembling as she was pulled farther down the corridor.
He didn’t respond or even spare her a glance.
His expression remained cold and completely indifferent to her pleas, as though her fear meant nothing to him.
“Please…
I promise I’ll work better next time,” she continued desperately.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” But the man continued dragging her toward the Dark Night Wing, the most feared and restricted section of the entire estate.
The atmosphere itself seemed to change as they approached, and the servant’s pleading grew more frantic the closer they came to the entrance.
She knew what lay beyond those doors, and whatever hope she had of escaping punishment disappeared the moment they stepped into the forbidden section.
Eventually, the door opened, and the sound immediately woke me from the exhausted sleep I had fallen into on the floor.
I slowly opened my eyes and stared toward the entrance, but the moment I saw the two figures standing there, the little color remaining in my face disappeared.
It was him—the man who had dragged me into this terrifying place—and the servant I had knocked unconscious earlier.
Before I could even sit up properly, he shoved the servant onto the floor and crossed the room toward my cage.
My body instinctively recoiled as he reached through the bars and wrapped his hand tightly around my neck, lifting me just enough to make breathing difficult.
I struggled against his grip, but trapped inside the cage, there was very little I could do.
My fingers clawed helplessly at his hand as I fought for air, already regretting every moment of my attempt to escape.
At that moment, I would have given anything to return to the other bedroom, because whatever waited for me there seemed far less terrifying than remaining inside this cage.
“Please…
help me…” I managed to whisper, my voice barely audible beneath the pressure around my throat.
Before I could lose the last of my breath, however, something struck him with tremendous force.
His grip disappeared from my neck as his entire body was thrown backward, sending him crashing against the wall without even the slightest opportunity to defend himself.
I immediately collapsed against the bars, gasping desperately as I struggled to fill my lungs again, while the man groaned on the floor and tried to recover from the unexpected attack.
“Uncle…
what’s the meaning of this?” he demanded hoarsely, forcing himself upright as he searched the room.
I stared between him and the darkness surrounding us, completely confused.
He had called someone Uncle, but I couldn’t see anyone.
There was only the faint light, the shadows stretching across the room, and an unseen presence that seemed to occupy every corner.
“Who told you that you could mess around with my pet?” the mysterious voice echoed through the room.
“And did you ask for permission before coming into this room?” The voice was calm, but there was something threatening beneath it that made the atmosphere feel even heavier.
The man on the floor struggled to his feet, his eyes moving from one shadow to another as he tried to locate the person who had attacked him.
If he was calling this person Uncle, did that mean they were family?
I couldn’t understand it.
What kind of family members treated each other with such hostility?
“Uncle…
what’s the meaning of this?” he asked again, frustration creeping into his voice as he moved toward the cage.
“You know she’s the one who caused Ann’s accident, and I have to avenge Ann.” He reached toward the cage, extending his hand between the bars as though he intended to grab me again, but the moment his fingers touched the metal, he recoiled sharply.
The bars seemed to burn his skin, and he immediately pulled his hand back, staring at it in disbelief.
“That’s my expensive pet you’re reaching for,” the unseen man said, his voice echoing through the room.
“You don’t want to mess with me, do you?
Now get moving and get lost.
And I don’t want to see that servant either.” The coldness in his voice left no room for argument.
The man who had brought me here stood silently for a moment, clearly furious but unwilling to challenge whoever was hiding within the darkness.
“Please, Master…” The servant immediately began kowtowing on the floor, her voice breaking as she desperately pleaded for mercy.
“It’s not my fault.
She’s the one who knocked me out.
I didn’t do anything wrong.” I remained pressed against the bars, still struggling to catch my breath, while the two men and the terrified servant occupied the room around me.
I didn’t understand who either of them truly was, but one thing had become painfully clear: the man who had brought me here was afraid of the person hiding in the darkness.
“My dear Paw Paw… Don’t tell me you want to go with him, right?” The voice echoed through the room once again, and as I took in the situation before me, I realized that there was no path that seemed any safer than the other.
The man standing outside my cage could have taken me whenever he wanted, but if his own uncle could deal with him so effortlessly, without even showing himself, then I didn’t want to imagine what he was capable of doing to me.
“Masters… I can replace her.
I don’t mind.
Please, don’t punish me…” The servant staggered to her feet and hurried toward the cage, desperation written all over her face.
She barely made it a few steps before she suddenly grabbed at her,…..