The Ghost Wedding Dress: A Death Curse Stitched into a Bridal Gown
A week before her wedding, Su Wan receives an ancestral bridal gown from her grandmother. The golden eyes of the phoenix on its dark red satin shine with an eerie light. Sewn into the lining are the birth details of Shen Xiuhe, a woman from the Republican era, and every gold thread carries an inescapable smell of rust.
The night she tries it on, a faceless bride appears in the mirror, the marks around her neck aligning perfectly with the gown’s collar. When she combs her hair at midnight, the reflection is always half a beat behind her. The bridal gown in the closet mends itself, its stitches mixed with tiny white bones.
Her grandmother calls it “a blessing,” but when Su Wan presses her for answers, she gives her osmanthus cakes mixed with bone fragments. Only when Shen Xiuhe’s vengeful spirit speaks through the mirror and says, “It’s your turn now,” does Su Wan realize that the blood-and-hair-embroidered gown conceals a life-swapping curse nearly a century old.
Her fiancé is bewitched by the curse. Her grandmother’s confession is steeped in blood, and the faint red marks around Su Wan’s neck grow darker by the day.
“On the seventh day of the seventh month, marry in my place, ”
The gown’s gold threads suddenly come alive, crawling up her ankles like countless icy hands.
