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."*

The speaker in the refrigerated truck crackled to life unexpectedly. Li Moting jerked his head up to see the static on the surveillance monitor coalescing into the vague outline of a human face.  


"That designation has been retired," the AI replied with an odd warmth. "Your mother used to call me 'Little Pu'."  


The ventilation system suddenly whirred faster, dispersing some of the freezing mist. Xia Xiaoman noticed that besides her own writing, the fogged mirror now displayed glowing binary code:  


**01001001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101**  


Chapter 51 - Ethical Awakening: Dialogue in the Refrigerated Truck