Author's POV:
The shack's air was thick with tension, the faint creak of its wooden walls drowned by the pounding pulses of the family huddled within. Huang Yanyan stood frozen, her knife raised, the star-etched dagger trembling in her other hand as she faced the hooded figure in the doorway. Its twin dagger gleamed in his grip, its identical scratch a mirror to hers—a silent scream from her past, from Yue's absence, from the Huangs' fall. Wu Haoyu flanked her, his pipe slick with blood, his wounded arm trembling but steady, eyes blazing with protective fury.
