Nuo Bone Knife

On my eighteenth birthday, Grandpa gave me an ancestral bone knife.

A strange Nuo mask was carved into its handle. He said it could ward off evil and protect me.

But the moment I gripped the knife, a searing pain branded my palm, and a chilling whisper rang in my ear.

That night, I dreamed I was standing in the center of a bone altar, dressed in a blood-red ritual robe.

Grandpa sighed and murmured outside the door, “The knife has chosen its master. The Chen family’s fate… can’t be escaped after all.”

Only later did I learn that this knife was the key to opening a sinister tomb.

And I was the final drop of blood on the altar.