Xia Xiaoman remembers everything—the blood on the pavement, the shattered glass, the whispers of a debt too large to repay—everything except how her parents truly fell to their deaths. As an investigative journalist, she infiltrates the world of Li Moting, the ruthless heir to a financial empire, armed with nothing but a recorder and her perfect memory.  

"Three therapy sessions a week," he offers, fingers steepled, his voice colder than the rain outside the window. "In exchange for your silence."  

But what begins as a calculated game of revenge spirals into something far more dangerous. He scales a crumbling factory to save her from kidnappers, his hands bleeding, yet claims it’s merely "asset protection." She discovers ledgers in his study that implicate his family in her parents’ ruin—yet finds her childhood lullaby tucked in his desk drawer, the notes still intact after twenty years.  

On the night the truth comes crashing down, he kneels in the snow, pressing a pair of worn ballet flats into her hands. "Hate me if you must," he murmurs, "but let me remember you properly this time."  

And when she plays back the tapes—the ones she swore were evidence—all she hears is the unguarded hitch of his breath when she entered the room, the quiet, damning confession: *", Xia Xiaoman you were never part of the plan."*

Two objects lay in Lin Qiao's white coat pocket:  


- The user manual for Li Yunzheng's artificial heart (every margin crammed with her name)  


- A faded crabapple photo (new inscription on the back: *"We weren't specimens—we were survivors"*)  


When she transfused her Rh-null blood into his IV, the monitors screamed—their cells in the petri dish merging like reunited DNA strands.  


"Funny thing," Li Yunzheng caught her blood-drawn hand, "the scar behind your ear? I made that with a toy knife when we were three."  


Lin Qiao froze. This memory didn't exist in her mind.  


"Side effect of MN-07." His lips brushed the scar. *"Transplanted memories... always take root."*  


At sunset, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the rooftop ledge. Beyond them, colored lights blinked atop the new children's hospital built over the Bay Project ruins. Li Yunzheng produced a coin—the very one from their courtroom meeting.  


"Heads you kiss me, tails I kiss you."  


The coin spun midair before wedging itself upright between floor tiles.  


Lin Qiao yanked his tie with a laugh: *"Seems fate's letting us choose."*  


Chapter 48 - Epilogue: Rebirth