Jasmine left Eden Island seven years ago, fleeing a place that had always felt like a cage. She was seventeen then, and her younger sister Rose had just disappear. She vanished

without a trace, as if she had never existed. Jasmine built a new life in the city, became a journalist, and somehow, inexplicably, forgot she ever had a sister at all.

Jasmine left Eden Island seven years ago, fleeing a place that had always felt like a cage. She was seventeen then, and her younger sister Rose had just disappear. She vanished

without a trace, as if she had never existed. Jasmine built a new life in the city, became a journalist, and somehow, inexplicably, forgot she ever had a sister at all.

Until the invitation arrived.A letter from her old high school, stamped with Rose's photograph —a girl with pitch-black eyes, smiling in a way that doesn't reach the empty space where her pupils should be. On the back, in bleeding letters that look like dried blood: "Thank you,

sister."

Jasmine returns to Eden Island, a place that has decayed into something strange and

beautiful and wrong. The streets are empty, but the air is thick with rose perfume. Children sing nursery rhymes about red flowers and white flowers and blood on the doorstep. The

townspeople dance with a kind of putrid joy, drinking and laughing through nights that feel like rituals. And no one, not her demented mother, not her old teachers, not a single soul on the island, remembers Rose. They all say Jasmine never hd a sister.

But Jasmine is starting to remember. She remembers the rainy night Rose was born. She

remembers being told to pick the reddest rose from the garden. She remembers the way the flower turned black in her hands. She remembers Rose's strange behavior, her rebellions, the shattered vase, the dead dog in the yard … …

Because Rose wasn't just her sister. Rose was a sacrifice offering. And the new sacrifice offering,  Jasmine is beginning to realize, was meant to be Jasmine herself.

On this island, every seven years, a girl must be given to the roses. She must be pure and

courageous . Her name becomes "Rose”, and life will be shaped by friends and school, then by a coven which exists only to bury her. And the ceremony is built on a single impossible

demand: the sacrifice must be willing.

Rose wasn't willing. She fought through breaking the vases and killing the messenger. She tried to run. And when they took her anyway, her resistance broke the ritual, cursed the

island, and set the stage for what comes next.

Now, seven years later, Jasmine is the one they want. And Rose—dead but not gone—is waiting for her at the bottom of the altar.

The Funeral of Roses is a folk horror novel that moves between two timelines: the present

(black chapters), where Jasmine uncovers the island's dark history, and the past (white

chapters), where her memories of Rose slowly resurface. It draws on the visual aesthetics of The Wicker Man and the surreal dread of the Rusty Lake games, weaving together a world of children's games that hide something monstrous, of decadent aristocrats feasting while the  village starves, of a cult that has made sweetness and terror into the same thing.

Excerpt:

From Chapter 1 – Black | The Crow and the Letter

Translated Version:

Chapter One: Black | Black Birds, Blacker Eyes

Jasmine was sitting in her city apartment.

It was a well-lit apartment—small, yet stylishly arranged. Two pothos plants sat on the windowsill; against the wall stood a desk holding a few journalism reference books, a silver laptop, and a stack of unfinished drafts weighed down by a coffee mug. Sunlight poured in through the window,

spreading a warm, golden rectangle across the floor.

Seven years ago, she had left Eden Island with nothing but a suitcase and an acceptance letter. At   seventeen, standing on the ferry deck, the sea breeze had made her eyes turn red. She had wanted to see the wider world. Eden Island was too small, too stifling—a place where everyone knew

everyone else. She had wanted to see the world beyond.

And she had.

The bustling metropolis gave her everything she had wanted.

Being an intern reporter was tough. Her desk was in the farthest corner of the newsroom, right next to the photocopier, where she heard the rustle of paper thousands of times a day. The editor-in-chief, a man named Chen in his fifties, always had an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and a habit of scattering his subordinates' drafts all over the floor. She had covered fire scenes and interviewed the homeless in torrential rain; she would return home soaked to the bone, only to have to turn on her   computer and transcribe her recordings word for word.

She had gritted her teeth and swallowed every grievance to earn this apartment.

This city had no patience for tears, but it respected persistence. So, she chose to persist.

It was a Thursday. The weather was fine. For once, Jasmine didn't have to work overtime and

returned to her apartment at five in the afternoon. She changed into her slippers, poured herself a glass of water, and was just about to open her laptop to organize an interview transcript regarding the redevelopment of the old district when she caught sight of two packages on the doormat out of the corner of her eye.

She walked over and bent down to pick them up.

The first package was a kraft paper envelope; there was no sender and no return address—only her name was written on it. The handwriting was unfamiliar and slightly shaky, as if written by an

elderly person. She weighed it in her hand—it was light, but she could hear the faint sound of metal clinking inside. The second package was a cardboard envelope; the printed return address read:

"Eden Island High School, Class 6."

She stared at the words, narrowing her eyes. Eden Island High School. The name swirled in her

mind—like a stone tossed into deep water, sending out a few ripples before sinking to the bottom. It took her a long time to recall that it was the high school she had attended on the island. A tiny

school—just a single three-story, grayish-white building with a row of rosebushes alongside it. She remembered that detail because, every summer, the cloyingly sweet scent of the flowers would drift in through the windows, making everyone feel drowsy.

But why? Why would a group of high school classmates—whose faces she had all but forgotten— send her an invitation seven years later? She wasn't even sure she could remember a single one of their names.

The phone rang.

She set the two packages on the table and answered. The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number; it took her a moment to recognize the area code. It was the code for Eden Island. The island’s area code was unique; in all the years since leaving, she had never seen another one like it.

"Hello?"

There was a two-second silence on the line, followed by a voice. It sounded strange—as if processed by a machine—with a static-like quality and every syllable slightly drawn out:

"Is this Ms. Jasmine?"

"Speaking."

"This is the Eden Island Rest Home. Your grandmother passed away yesterday at 3:40 a.m."

Jasmine held the phone, blinking. *Rest Home. Grandmother.* The words, strung together, failed to stir any emotional response in her. It even took her a few seconds to connect the word

"grandmother" to a specific face—a frail, tiny old woman who always sat in a rocking chair basking in the sun, her hair snow-white and the wrinkles on her face resembling a dried-up riverbed.

Yet, she couldn't remember the last time she had seen her grandmother. Perhaps the day she left Eden Island? Or maybe even earlier. By the time she was sixteen, her grandmother had already

begun to lose her grip on recognition, constantly confusing her with someone else. Sometimes she would call her "Xiao Mei," only to freeze mid-sentence and mutter, "Oh, no... you aren't her."

"She left behind some personal effects," the voice on the other end continued. "According to her will, we are to pass one of them on to you. Also... she left a message for you."

Jasmine felt a sense of unreality. Someone she had all but forgotten was suddenly reaching out to her from beyond the grave, bridging a seven-year void.

"What was the message?"

There was a moment of silence on the line. Then, that raspy voice spoke:

"Xiao Mei didn't want you to come back."

Before the final syllable could fully fade, the call was abruptly cut off, and the voice was silenced mid-word.

The room fell into profound silence. Outside the window, the city hummed with life; the distant sound of traffic drifted in like the tides from the other side of the earth. Jasmine stood there,

frowning. *What a strange person,* she thought. It was like rubbing salt into an already irritated wound.

She hung up the phone and opened the first package.

Inside lay a key. It was made of brass and rusted, with dark green verdigris spotting its edges. It was old; the teeth were worn smooth and indistinct, though it was clearly a key for an old-fashioned

door lock. A red cord was tied to it, faded to a pale pinkish-white—like an old garment washed too many times.

She twirled the key on her finger, turning it over and over to examine it. A key to an old home.

Which one? There was only one place on the island where she had lived: that white house with the small courtyard and the rose bushes. She hadn't returned once since leaving at sixteen.

Strangely, the news of her grandmother’s death didn't stir her deeply. She felt no urge to cry, nor

that sensation of her heart being squeezed tight. She even felt a twinge of guilt about it; surely, a

blood connection ought to evoke a stronger emotional response? Yet, as she searched her memories, her grandmother’s image remained as blurred as an overexposed old photograph. She placed the

key on the corner of the table and opened the second package.

It was an invitation to the Eden Island Middle School alumni reunion. The stiff cover was a deep crimson, bearing the words "Cordially Invited" in gold foil, alongside the outline of a rose. She opened it to find standard invitation wording: a celebration of the school’s fiftieth anniversary,   inviting alumni from all years to return for the festivities on the fifteenth of the coming month.

Her fingers turned the card over.

Affixed to the back was a small, passport-style photograph.

The photo showed a young girl. Black bangs, short black hair, black eyes. Her features bore a

resemblance to Jasmine’s own, though they were softer—the chin more pointed, the lips thinner. They looked remarkably alike, save for the hair color; while the girl had black hair, Jasmine had dyed hers brown to keep up with the trends after moving to the city. The girl was wearing a white crew-neck shirt and smiling directly at the camera. That smile made Jasmine’s breath hitch. She noticed that the girl’s eyes were pitch black—devoid of pupils, the entire eyeball a uniform, solid black, like two stones drained of all light.

Beneath the photo was a line of text. It was handwritten, the strokes shaky and childish. The final stroke of one character trailed off unusually long, as if the writer had hesitated about whether to continue.

"Big sister, thank you."

The characters for "thank you" had bled into the paper; the writer had pressed down hard, forcing the ink to seep into the fibers and creating a dark red halo around the edges—like a bloodstain.

Jasmine stared at the words, her fingers growing cold.

She recognized the handwriting. She shouldn't have—her memory told her she hadn't seen such shaky, childish script in a very long time. Yet her fingers trembled; something was slowly rising from the deep ocean of her memory—like a corpse long submerged, skin blanched and features blurred—but she knew exactly who it was.

She had a younger sister.

Rose—who had gone missing seven years ago. The realization struck her mind like a massive

boulder. She staggered, steadying herself against the edge of the table, feeling as though the entire world had shuddered and then reassembled itself in the span of a few seconds. She couldn't say  why, but over the past seven years, she had—almost—completely forgotten about it.

Forgotten Rose’s existence. Forgotten that she had a younger sister.

Did it make sense? Losing a sister at sixteen, only to bury the memory deep within her mind within a single week? She had left Eden Island for the city—studying, working, living her life—and in

those seven years, she had never once dreamed of Rose, nor had she ever suddenly recalled the sound of her voice in the dead of night.

Looking back now, she couldn't even pinpoint the last time she had thought of Rose. Perhaps the

year she first left the island? Or maybe more recently... No. She couldn't remember. That part of her memory seemed to have been partially erased, leaving behind only faint, fragmented traces.

Suddenly, a harsh, grating cry rang out from outside the window.

Jasmine looked up to see a black crow perched on the sill. It was large, with sleek, glossy feathers;  it cocked its head, fixing its round eyes on her. That gaze didn't feel like that of a chance passerby; it sent a shiver down her spine.

A thin string was tied around the crow's left ankle, securing a small object.

It was a withered rose stem.

A black, completely shriveled rose stem; the thorns remained intact, resembling a row of tiny teeth. The crow lowered its head to peck at the stem, then looked back at her. Its eyes were black—just   like the eyes of the little girl in the photograph: pitch-black, devoid of any reflection.

Jasmine stood frozen, locking eyes with the crow for a long, silent moment.

She didn't open the window. The crow didn't fly away. It simply stood there on the sill like a messenger, the withered rose stem on its leg casting a long, slender shadow in the light of the setting sun.

To Jasmine, it all felt utterly absurd. Now she sits in her apartment; outside the window, a crow with a withered rose stem tied to it is staring at her. On the table lie a rusted key from a dead person and an invitation from the dead—or rather, from someone who vanished seven years ago. Sunlight still  falls across the floor, though its hue is turning cold; the sky outside shifts from blue to orange-red. The city keeps running, the earth keeps spinning, yet on this Thursday evening, a hairline crack is   opening in her world.

She does not know whether to return to Eden Island.

But she knows one thing.

She knows she must find out the truth: how the girl named Rose—the girl who should have been her sister—suddenly disappeared.

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Link——https://changdunovel.com/t/bN_6qpdVRuU/