The stars were still faintly visible in the early morning sky when I met Li Ziyang again—this time, at a quiet café tucked away in the older district of the capital. The place was unassuming, far from the eyes of the elite who knew my face. Here, I was just another girl nursing a cup of coffee, hiding a storm behind calm eyes.
Ziyang sat across from me, dressed casually but sharp as ever. His presence gave me a strange kind of comfort—familiar, grounding. Like even in this foreign world, there was someone who saw me.
"You're unusually quiet," he said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm thinking," I replied softly, watching the steam rise from my cup. "About how many steps ahead we need to be."
He slid the flash drive I gave him back across the table. "I've checked everything. This ledger… it's not just shady. It connects Xiao Lian to offshore accounts, shell deals, and even some political influence. He's not trying to take over your family—he's trying to erase it and rewrite it with himself at the center."
I clenched my jaw. "Then we can't just expose him. He's too connected. If we make one wrong move, the story flips—we become the villains."
Ziyang nodded, understanding immediately. "So we trap him. We feed him a lie he'll believe."
I leaned forward. "A fake inheritance transfer. Something that looks like my father finally signed over controlling shares to me—only it's part of a sting."
Ziyang smirked, a calculating look in his eyes. "I like the way you think."
That night, I went through Xiao Xinya's memories—still a haze, but some parts were clear now. Her mother's portrait. Her father's laugh. Her favorite hiding spot as a child: the east wing garden with the cherry trees.
I returned there, just to feel something familiar. As I sat beneath a cherry tree, petals drifting down in silence, a voice called out behind me.
"You're not really her, are you?"
I turned sharply.
A girl stood in the shadows, wearing a school uniform that didn't belong to any elite academy. Her hair was shoulder-length, dark, and her eyes… her eyes shimmered like silver under the moonlight.
She stepped closer.
"I've been watching you," she said. "You act like her. But you're not her."
My breath caught.
Li Suna.
The Female Lead.
She was supposed to be halfway across the city, living a hard life, working her way to glory. Not… here.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, not even pretending.
She tilted her head. "That's what I want to ask you. This isn't your story. And yet, here you are, in the body of someone who wasn't even an extra."
I stood slowly, dusting off my dress. "I didn't choose this. I just… woke up here."
She smiled faintly. "So did I."
The silence between us was electric.
"You…" I began. "You're not Li Suna either, are you?"
Her eyes flickered. She didn't deny it.
"So we both ended up in the wrong places."
"No," she said softly. "We ended up exactly where we were supposed to."
I didn't understand. Not yet. But I could feel it in my gut—this moment changed everything.
She walked past me, slowly. As she did, she whispered, "You're not just a passerby, Xiao Xinya. The world has already rewritten itself for you."
I turned around, stunned. "What do you mean?"
She looked over her shoulder with a cryptic smile. "The original plot shattered the moment you woke up. Now… we're writing a new one."
And then she was gone, fading into the dark garden like a ghost of fate.
As I returned to the mansion, heart pounding, one truth became clear.
This wasn't Li Suna's world anymore.
This was our world.
And the story? It had only just begun.