"I'm not dead yet!" I pounded the lid until my palms burned.
"Quiet!" a voice from outside hissed, muffled by earth and lacquer. "Let the rites finish."
I laughed, a sound that scraped against wood. "Rites my ass. Open this!"
Fingers hit empty air. I slammed the lid again. The lacquer shivered, then held.
"Song Yuqing," another voice said, softer, like someone tracing names off a list. "The family has wept for days. Stop this."
I shoved my shoulder against the lid. It didn't budge. Panic came quick and sharp. I had been buried in a coffin under my own name and a silk shroud stitched with the Song crest. I did not plan to be a ghost.
"Change your tone," I snapped aloud. "I'm breathing. You hear that? I'm not—"
A small sound answered me from inside my skull, like a metal hinge waking.
"Inventory unlocked," the voice said. No echo, no softness. It was not outside. It was calm, mechanical, and it belonged in my head.
I froze with my shoulder pressed to lacquer. "What the—"
"Scalpel. One." The voice was precise. "Available."
"That's not possible," I told it.
A thin blade slid into my palm. Cold metal, perfectly balanced between fingers. The smell of disinfectant hit me for a second, like a flashback to a hospital operating room I couldn't belong to anymore. The scalpel hummed against my glove—this wasn't the world I'd been born into, but the
