The song ends, like a curtain falling. Applause rises like rain on tin roofs. Ling ignores the maybe-imaginary audience, clouds drifting past her mind. She puddles onto the floor like a soft slime. Sin Ling watches, smiling like a crescent moon, mischief pricking like nettles. Ling’s mood curdles like sour milk.

"What are you looking at?" Sparks jump first. Then words land. "You think everyone dances like you? If my reflexes weren’t faster, we’d have crashed together."

She waves tiny fists twice. Anger puffs like steam from a kettle. She still looks harmless, like a kitten trying to hiss.

Sin Ling smiles as if holding a peach blossom. Her eyes narrow to slivers, hiding any weather inside.

"Ya-la-la~ How can a sister treat her dear little sister like that? The only one as cute as you is me~"

"Ew… gross." Ling’s face warps like bitten bitter melon. A thought flickers like a moth at a lamp. — So I usually look that disgustingly smug?

"Alright, sister. Joke time ends here. Let’s continue our judgment~"

She snaps her fingers. Sound cracks like dry bamboo. The world turns thin and unreal, then powders into ash and drifts away like windblown dust.

She pulls a familiar black-covered book from her bosom. It reads Sin.

"Sin Three—The Sin of Cruelty."

Ling stares, blank as a stunned deer under lantern light. — That counts as a sin? Are you just making things up?

Sin Ling ignores the ripple of her thoughts, calm as deep water. Her gaze anchors on the book, heavy as stone.

"By your many acts, I sentence you to the harshest punishment."

A bad chill crawls up Ling’s heart. Not fear. A gooseflesh warning, like cold wind under a door.

The omen lands fast. Sin Ling lets Sin flow into a silver needle, no longer than five centimeters. Under the Underworld’s dusk, it gleams like a predator’s tooth.

"Now then, sister. Please give me your foot."

Of course not.

Ling shoots back hundreds of meters, like a startled swallow. Shadows ink her face. Her legs tremble like reeds. Her eyes sharpen with wary frost.

"D-Don’t… don’t come closer…"

Sin Ling sighs, a helpless breeze. She walks toward Ling with slow, steady steps, like tide creeping over sand.

"Sister, you’re making it hard for me. It’s just a small punishment. Don’t run."

"No! Don’t— don’t come!"

Seconds flick away. Sin Ling herds Ling into a dead corner, like a fox penning a rabbit. Ling resorts to her foolproof move: crouch, cover her head, hope the storm passes.

The usual trick fails. Sin Ling cancels it with a glance, disdain flicking like a fan. She lifts the silver needle so it catches the dim light like frost.

"Oh, sister… how dense can you be? Squat-and-cover doesn’t work on an enemy as cute as you. Be good. Listen."

Ling pushes Sin Ling back an arm’s length. That thin space feels like a moat around a lonely tower.

"Don’t… please, dear little sister. That kind of thing isn’t allowed…"

Sin Ling props Ling’s chin with one hand. Her eyes toast with teasing heat, like embers under ash.

"Not allowed? My dear sister, today you belong to me. You must obey every little request~"

"But that… that… I can’t do it!"

"You won’t know till you try. It might even feel good."

"Impossible! How could that be comfortable? Don’t think I look small, so I’m a child. I won’t fall for you!"

"Ya-re-ya-re. Looks like I have to be rougher. Sister, brace yourself."

"What— No…"

Consent shatters like glass on stone. Sin Ling flicks the needle. Air tears with a sharp whoosh. She cradles Ling’s right foot in one hand, gentle as a trap. She wedges the needle under Ling’s big toenail. Then she shoves the foot forward into a wall that looms like a stone specter. A thin line of red seeps from under the nail, bright as a fresh cut.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Her scream booms like thunder in a canyon. She snaps her foot back, a whip of muscle. She yanks the needle out. A thread of blood comes with it, bright as a small river.

Pain. Pure pain. Beyond any scale or level, like wildfire eating dry grass.

It spears the soul, a physical strike turning into an inner blade. Her brain rebroadcasts it on every channel, over and over, like drums at midnight. Each cell listens and burns.

The wound seals the instant the needle leaves, like a stitch in time. Yet the pain keeps looping in her head, a cruel echo in a cave.

"Ah-la-la~ Sister, that looks painful. Your dear little sister almost feels it too. Hee-hee~"

Sin Ling’s mockery rings clear as a bell. Ling can’t spare breath to answer. She grits through the pain, clinging like a leaf in storm.

Time stretches thin, like pulled sugar. Ling finally crawls back to herself. The toe stays numb, frost clinging to bone. The shadow in her heart swells, dark as winter night.

"Alright, dear sister. We should begin the next judgment."

"Another? It won’t be the same perverted stuff, right?"

"Of course not. Your dear sister isn’t that cruel."

She draws out Sin again. The needle still lies on the ground, cold as a fallen star. So this must be a new tome.

"Sin Four—The Sin of Cowardice."

So, Ling pounds more rice cakes than she can count, arms moving like pestles in a mortar.

"Sin Five—The Sin of Destruction."

So, Ling’s body gets sliced into countless pieces, like paper whirling in a storm.

"Sin Six—The Sin of Heartlessness."

So, Ling gets tossed into a glacier for a bath, skin biting the knife-cold.

…

"Sin Four Hundred Forty-Nine—The Sin of Arrogance."

Sin Ling turns the tome into a whip. No strange games, just plain thunder. Just a snap-snap drubbing, crisp as hail on tiles.

Ling lies prone, face ruined by play, eyes glazed like fogged glass. You’d doubt she can endure another lash.

Crack.

The whip lands, a lightning stripe. Ling doesn’t flinch. No red mark blooms on skin.

Sin Ling quietly puts the whip away, silence settling like dust on shutters. She knows the past punishments barely touched Ling, like rain on stone. If Ling had no interest in this trial, she’d have blown Sin Ling apart at the start, like lightning ending a storm. It’d be messy, but quicker than this slow grind.

But you held on till now. So try the last sin.

She raises Sin again. This time the cover blushes red, like fresh lacquer.

Ling sees the red Sin. Fear, sorrow, anger surge like a flood over levees. Her body sounds an alarm, louder than drums.

Before Ling can stop her, Sin Ling opens the book. A dangerous light cuts her eyes, sharp as knives. Her red lips part like a petal.

"Sin No. 450—Wounding the heart of the one you love."