The Dumpling Trap

On New Year's Eve, Lin Hongyue endured a miscarriage alone under hospital lights, her calls to husband Jiang Mo ringing endlessly unanswered. He was in his mistress Gu Jiaojiao's arms, ignoring his buzzing phone. Overcome by guilt, Jiang Mo vowed to reform. Yet Gu's coquettish glances shattered his resolve. He continued balancing both women like a circus act—until his home turned eerie. Hongyue fixated on making dumplings nightly, her hollow eyes insisting: ""Reunion means eating dumplings."" Neighbors whispered, Gu Jiaojiao trembled: ""Those aren't normal dumplings... they're made with the placenta! She's cursing you!"" Jiang Mo dismissed them—until the hauntings began. A phantom ball bounced in empty rooms. Fetal shadows curled in his periphery. Nightly wails strangled his dreams. When he discovered a preserved placenta jar and his own funeral portrait, a ""master's"" warning screamed in his mind: ""Eliminate the source of this evil!"" In a hallucinatory frenzy, he ""stabbed"" the smiling Hongyue and charged at Gu—only for the real Hongyue to enter with doctors. ""I'm not crazy!"" he howled at the silent crowd. Then he understood: His paradise was a prison. Each dumpling swallowed had been a judgment. The women he trusted most had colluded to build this asylum just for him.