The day Song Miao fell into the river, she thought the last thing she would hear was water. It filled her ears, cold and dirty, carrying the smell of mud, reeds, and panic.
Then the fish began to talk beneath her. They were not noble. They were not mystical. They were irritated. One complained that death in the river was bad luck. Another worried she would pollute the water. Still, they gathered below her.
Their slick bodies pushed upward, forming a living platform beneath her back and legs. Bubbles rose around her face. The effort was ridiculous and desperate because fish had no hands and Song Miao was 1.75 meters tall.
In the end, Shen Zhou jumped in and saved her. He dragged her from the river soaked and breathless, and everyone praised him for being brave. Song Miao remembered his arms first.
After that day, she could understand animals.
At first, she thought she had gone mad. Then a sparrow complained about crumbs in a windowsill. A cat cursed a servant for stepping on its tail. A dog discussed family shame with another dog under a table.
The ability should have frightened her. Instead, she turned it into devotion.
For two years, she helped Shen Zhou. She heard the rumors that animals carried through mansions, offices, gardens, and balconies. She helped him find his father’s illegitimate child. She warned him about scandals before they reached boardrooms.
Shen Group moved through business as if it had divine protection. It did not. It had Song Miao listening to creatures nobody else bothered to respect.
That was the trust signal. She gave him the secret that made her different.
On the morning of the engagement banquet, the Shen estate looked perfect. Flowers stood in white and gold arrangements. Champagne chilled in silver buckets. The cream schedule card printed her name beside his.
Song Miao and Shen Zhou. The words looked clean enough to hide anything.
Her phone already carried small records of the day: arrival times, family messages, the engagement program, and later, a voice memo stamped 10:26 a.m. She had no idea that file would become the first real piece of evidence.
The hall smelled of lilies, polished wood, steamed seafood, and money. Guests moved carefully through the space, congratulating her as if happiness were a dress she had put on for them.
Song Miao smiled until her cheeks hurt.
Outside the door, she saw Da Huang, the large yellow dog of the Shen family, strolling across the courtyard. He looked too calm for a banquet day, so she crouched and rubbed his head.
His warning was almost insulting in its bluntness. He told her Shen Zhou was sleeping with another woman.
Song Miao asked for proof because betrayal without proof is just pain. Da Huang took offense, then ordered her to follow him through the hidden paths of the Shen estate.
Only then did she learn that the Shen family home had more narrow corridors than honest conversations.
Da Huang led her to a small building in the rear courtyard and slipped through a dog hole. Song Miao stood there, speechless, wondering whether her only witness had forgotten she was human.
Then the back door clicked open.
Inside, Shen Zhou’s voice drifted from above. It was intimate, lazy, and cruel in the way men sound when they believe the wrong woman is listening.
He called Liu Tang Tang a little vixen. He laughed when she asked if sneaking into his engagement banquet excited him. Then he told her to behave and not make trouble.
Even marriage to Song Miao, he said, would not affect their relationship.
The most terrible words came after that. Shen Zhou said Song Miao was useful. He described the day she fell into the river, the fish lifting her body, and her value as a daughter of the Song family.
He promised Liu Tang Tang that once he squeezed Song Miao and the Song family dry, he would kick her away.
Some men do not love women. They inventory them. Family, money, secrets, usefulness.
Song Miao’s rage almost moved faster than thought. She wanted to slam open the door and tear the mask from his face in front of his lover. Her hand was already tightening.
Da Huang pressed one paw on her foot and looked at her phone.
Only then did she remember the recording was still running.
The dog told her not to alert the snake. Exposing them too early would only produce denial. Waiting would make the blow land where it mattered.
Then he gave his own reason for helping. Shen Zhou had made him unable to be a male dog anymore, and Da Huang despised disloyalty more than anything.
It would have been funny if Song Miao’s life had not been burning down.
ACT 4 — THE WARNING ABOUT SONG RUI
On the way back, Da Ju, a huge orange cat, came waddling toward her with urgent meows. His body shook with each step, but his voice was sharp with panic.
He had seen a man drug her sister’s wine glass.
Song Miao ran back to the banquet hall. By then, nearly every guest had arrived. Silk sleeves brushed past her. Perfume and champagne made the air heavy. She could not see Song Rui anywhere.
Panic can make a room enormous. Every face looked like the wrong face.
On the second floor, she found Yu Yu, the parrot, trapped in a beautiful cage. He had perfect food, a pure gold water bowl, and no freedom at all.
She asked if he had seen her sister. He mocked the description. There were many beautiful women, he said. How was he supposed to remember?
Then he asked what benefit she would give him.
Song Miao almost offered food. Instead, she saw the way he looked beyond her shoulder toward open space. So she opened the cage.
Yu Yu flew out and told her the answer as payment: third floor, second room. If she went now, there was still time.
She shouted that he could come to the Song family if he failed outside. He screamed back that he would never have that day.
It was the last absurd breath before the third floor.
ACT 5 — THE SECOND ROOM
The third floor was too quiet. There were no servants, no guests, no accidental footsteps. The second room was not even locked. That detail told Song Miao the scene had been prepared.
Her sister, Song Rui, lay unconscious on the bed.
Liu Dong was over her, one hand pulling at her jacket.
Song Miao did not scream. She picked up a vase and struck the back of his head. When he turned, she punched him in the face before he could finish asking who was there.
He collapsed onto the carpet.
Then she recognized him. Liu Dong, the younger brother of Liu Tang Tang. One sibling was in the back building with her fiancé. The other was upstairs trying to destroy her sister.
This was no coincidence. It was a family operation.
Song Miao wanted to keep hitting him. Instead, she checked Song Rui’s breathing and called her cousin. Quietly, she told him to come upstairs, take Song Rui back to the Song family, and have her parents leave under the excuse of illness.
That was restraint. Not weakness. Restraint is what remains when anger becomes strategy.
Before leaving, Song Miao removed the bracelet from her wrist and slipped it into Liu Dong’s pocket. It was not revenge yet. It was placement. Evidence had to be where the trap expected to find her.
Da Ju arrived panting and warned her that Shen Zhou’s mother was looking everywhere.
Song Miao returned to the banquet hall.
Madam Shen hurried toward her, anxious and smiling too tightly. She asked where Song Miao had gone because the engagement ceremony was about to begin.
Song Miao answered casually. She had gone upstairs for a bit.
That was when Madam Shen’s face changed.
It was small, almost invisible. But Song Miao had spent two years reading creatures that communicated through tails, ears, feathers, and silence. A human face was not harder.
Madam Shen grabbed her wrist and asked which floor.
Around them, the banquet froze. A waiter stopped with a champagne tray tilted in his hand. A guest held a glass halfway to her mouth. Shen Zhou’s father looked away toward a flower arrangement as if orchids could protect him.
Nobody moved.
Near the end, Song Miao understood the same truth the river had tried to teach her. The creatures nobody respected had saved her twice. First with fish beneath her body. Then with a dog, a cat, and a parrot guiding her through a house built on lies.
The day I fell into the water, I heard the fish under the river talking.
That strange gift had made her useful to Shen Zhou. But usefulness is not love, and evidence is not emotion. Evidence survives the smile, the banquet, the family name, and the performance.
When Madam Shen asked which floor she had visited, Song Miao no longer heard concern.
She heard fear.
