Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Time Loop

The sky was a deep, eerie blue, the stars scattered thin as salt. The clouds had long since torn apart and drifted away.

Ye Wan Lan could not move.

Something that was not her had been sitting inside her body, wearing her skin as if it belonged there.

Voices buzzed at her ears. A hand seized her right fingers, twisted hard—

Crack.

Bone snapped, clean and cruel.

Then the world tilted. Cold water swallowed her. When she managed to open her eyes again, half an hour had already passed.

“Miss Ye, you’re awake.”

Zhou He Chen’s secretary stood by the bed, back straight, smile polished to a gentle curve. “Your hand is broken, but Mr. Zhou will not allow treatment until you admit your mistake. You should understand his good intentions.”

Ye Wan Lan stared at the ceiling. Her face was blank. Slowly, she curled her left hand into a fist.

After all this time, that thing had finally left.

Her body was hers again.

“That’s the wrong expression.” The secretary’s tone stayed mild, as if he were correcting a child’s manners. “Remember to lift the corners of your mouth. Smile.”

He went on, patient. “When you smile, you look more like Miss Yun Yi. Mr. Zhou will like you better.”

“And one more thing. You need to know your place. Mr. Zhou doesn’t like people who cling shamelessly. You—”

Crack.

Ye Wan Lan reached up and, without the slightest tremor, set the broken bones of her own finger back into alignment.

The secretary’s words died in his throat.

He stared at her, suspicion and unease flashing across his face.

Ye Wan Lan swung her legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed a coat, and draped it around her shoulders. She walked out as if nothing had happened.

He froze for a heartbeat, then hurried after her with a sigh that sounded almost weary. “Miss Ye, you may resemble Miss Yun Yi, but you’re not her. You have no privileges here. If you keep making a scene, it won’t do you any good. Haven’t you suffered enough?”

For Sheng Yun Yi, Zhou He Chen could fly across hemispheres to celebrate her birthday, abandoning an important negotiation without blinking.

Ye Wan Lan had never had that right.

Something about her felt wrong today. But the secretary did not think too hard about it.

At the villa entrance, he bowed to the man strolling in. “Mr. Qin, you’re here.”

Qin Xian was Zhou He Chen’s childhood friend. He flicked his ash away and tipped his chin toward the staircase. “What’s her problem?”

The secretary’s gaze softened with practiced pity. “Miss Ye is throwing a tantrum. She’s running away from home.”

He had seen this routine too many times.

In the two years Ye Wan Lan had stayed by Zhou He Chen’s side, she had kept her head down and swallowed every insult. Once in a while her pride flared and she would leave—but as soon as Zhou He Chen said one word, she came back willingly, dignity already scraped raw.

Qin Xian bit down on his cigarette and laughed lazily. “A tantrum?”

Everyone in River City knew it: Ye Wan Lan was nothing but Sheng Yun Yi’s stand-in.

If the real Sheng Yun Yi had not returned, Ye Wan Lan could have lingered in that borrowed place forever. But a month ago, Sheng Yun Yi came back from overseas—brilliant, untouchable, the perfect first love made flesh again.

The moment she returned, Ye Wan Lan lost her value.

And Ye Wan Lan refused to accept it. She clung on, desperate and relentless.

Worse, she had raised a hand against Sheng Yun Yi, nearly fracturing Yun Yi’s right hand.

Sheng Yun Yi was the genius of their circle: top student, painter, the one everyone looked up to. Men and women alike treated her as an ideal, an unattainable first love.

Qin Xian was no exception. Of course he would not let Ye Wan Lan—guilty and shameless—walk away.

At midnight, a few of their buddies used Zhou He Chen’s name to lure Ye Wan Lan out. They snapped her fingers, shoved her into the water, and called it revenge for Sheng Yun Yi.

Now, water still clung to her hair, dripping from the ends. Night wind rose, tangling damp strands across her face. When the mist of spray thinned, it revealed brows and eyes so striking they did not seem real.

Beautiful. And cold.

Like a thorned rose swaying in winter wind—icy scent threaded with something sharper, something bloody, something that tightened the heart.

Her gaze swept over them with calm indifference, as if a long-buried beauty had finally awakened and stepped back into the world.

Leaves fell without a sound. Silence held.

Qin Xian went still.

For a moment, he could not even find a word for that face.

How could he ever have thought a stand-in was prettier than the real one?

Ridiculous.

Irritation flared in his chest.

Then the girl stopped, turned, and walked straight toward him.

Qin Xian lifted an eyebrow, smile unreadable. “What, you finally figured it out and came to apologize? I won’t—”

Crack!

In the stillness, bone breaking was horrifyingly clear.

Ye Wan Lan’s voice was flat. “How did it break?”

Before Qin Xian could even process what was happening, she seized his right hand.

Crack.

“And this one broke too.”

Pain speared through him like fire. Every finger felt wired straight into his chest. His legs gave out. He hit his knees, whole body shaking so hard he could not even scream.

His face turned paper-white, disbelief carved into every line.

Ye Wan Lan stepped on his ankle.

Crack. Crack.

She smiled, almost gentle. “Why did everything break?”

A wave of pain crashed over Qin Xian. He could not hold on. His vision went black and he collapsed unconscious.

Ye Wan Lan strode away without looking back, her silhouette sharp as a blade.

The secretary stood rooted to the spot, stunned. It took him a long moment to find his breath. Then, fingers trembling, he called Zhou He Chen.

“Sir… something happened.”

—

Outside the villa, the faint smile at Ye Wan Lan’s lips vanished.

She had a secret.

When she was fourteen, an outsider had taken her body.

For four years, Ye Wan Lan could only watch as the Transmigrator turned her quiet life to ruin.

The Transmigrator wanted to be a model, so she quit school and entered the industry.

The Transmigrator fell for Zhou He Chen, so she signed a stand-in contract.

The Transmigrator despised Ye Wan Lan’s uncle’s family, so she severed every bond until Ye Wan Lan was cut off from her own home.

And in the end, the Transmigrator simply got bored. She left lightly, chasing a “new life.” Only then did Ye Wan Lan regain control.

But before she could clean up the mess, time trapped her.

No matter what she did, the next day was always the same.

The vase she smashed today would be whole again tomorrow.

The rice ball she ate today would be back in the refrigerator tomorrow.

She lived like that for 999 years.

She raged, then calmed, then went numb. In the end, she adapted. She stopped fighting the loop and began using it, stuffing her endless rebirths with everything she could learn.

She walked every street in River City and every corner of the surrounding cities. She memorized even the smallest events down to the exact moment they happened. She mastered countless skills, learned a hundred languages.

She studied antique restoration and Kun Qu Opera, not for pleasure, but to keep her mind steady—to keep her killing intent caged.

Still, life remained unbearably dull. There was no end.

Ye Wan Lan strapped on her helmet, swung onto her motorcycle, and vanished into the night to execute her schedule for yet another repeating day.

Calligraphy. Martial arts. Painting. Opera…

By the time her final performance ended, the sky had already sunk into darkness.

Thunder rolled. Clouds churned as if they meant to tear open the heavens. Lightning and neon braided together into a shimmering sea, and rain mist swallowed the night.

It was cold.

Ye Wan Lan pulled her coat tighter and checked into a hotel.

She swiped her keycard and pushed the door open—then stopped.

The window was wide open. Wind poured in, snapping the curtains.

And someone was already inside.

A man.

He leaned against the bed, turned slightly away. His frame was all clean lines and restrained strength; even from behind, he radiated a harsh, violent kind of beauty.

Wet strands of hair clung to his cheeks. Veins stood out along his forearms, and the tension in his posture suggested he was enduring something brutal.

Ye Wan Lan stepped back out and checked the room number. “This is my room.”

The man’s lips were pressed tight. When he spoke, his voice came out rough, scraped raw. “Get… out.”

Ye Wan Lan walked in anyway and shut the door.

A lost stranger was a rare novelty in her endless monotony. She had learned to treasure anything new.

After all, she had ruined Qin Xian more than three hundred thousand times. Every bone in his body had broken under her hands. There was no freshness left in him at all.

Unhurried, Ye Wan Lan approached the man. She bent down, caught his chin between her fingers, and tilted his face up.

The sight of him was almost unfair.

Moonlight painted his brows and eyes in silver. His brows were drawn tight, his gaze unfocused, carrying a fragile, dangerous beauty that made the heart stutter.

Ye Wan Lan’s brows rose slightly.

Over 999 years, she had met most of River City’s notable figures.

She had never seen him.

Bang!

The man moved without warning.

His eyes were still clouded, his mind clearly not present, but his attack was fast and lethal—every strike aimed to kill.

Ye Wan Lan did not even blink. She met him in the same instant, taking each move cleanly and calmly, as if violence were a language she spoke fluently.

Thud!

Ring, ring, ring—

Her phone chose the worst possible moment to ring. Ye Wan Lan freed one hand and answered without taking her eyes off the man.

Zhou He Chen’s voice cut through, cold as steel. “Ye Wan Lan, playing hard to get won’t work on me. Get to the hospital in ten minutes.”

Ye Wan Lan did not respond.

In front of her, the man seemed to burn through the last of his strength. He paused, then looked at her with wet, unfocused eyes.

His pupils were blown wide; his consciousness was slipping.

Ye Wan Lan’s hand locked around his throat, pinning him to the bed so he could not move.

His lashes trembled. His face was pale as cold porcelain. Then, in a sudden twist, he found an angle she did not anticipate.

He lifted his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

It was not a kiss.

It was a bite.

His lips were icy. Yet the moment they touched, heat surged up like wildfire, their uneven breaths turning scalding in the narrow space between them.

Pain flashed. Ye Wan Lan tasted blood.

The blood seemed to drag him back a fraction. He exhaled shakily, shut his eyes, and leaned back against the wall as if drained.

The night was quiet. His broken breathing was loud, feathering against the air and brushing something deep in her chest.

The line went silent.

Three seconds passed.

Then Zhou He Chen’s voice turned even colder. “Ye Wan Lan. What are you doing?”