The floor was a mess of debris and shattered porcelain. The deafening fire alarm was finally winding down, leaving a ringing silence that felt even louder.
The young intern, whose name was Lin Fei, was still trembling, his face ashen. He clutched the heavy maintenance tool that had nearly dragged him into the open elevator shaft moments before.
"Mrs. Mo, are you hurt?" Lin Fei stammered, pulling himself together. He looked at the gaping hole in the elevator entrance, then at the massive, twisted metal unit that had crashed near the lobby.
Qingxue, though pale, shook her head. "I'm fine. Just a little out of breath." She offered him a small, reassuring smile.
A crowd of employees gathered quickly. They weren't just curious; they were openly staring, their usual cold suspicion replaced by stunned awe.
"Did you see that? She moved so fast!" one whispered.
"She shoved Lin Fei out of the way! She saved him!" another exclaimed. The terminally ill, spoiled Mrs. Mo had risked her own life for a junior intern. It didn't make sense, yet they had all witnessed it.
The earlier whispers about her being "fake" or "seeking sympathy" were quickly drowned out by a wave of genuine, if confused, admiration. This wasn't the kind of drama Qin Rourou usually orchestrated. This was real bravery.
Mo Chen arrived instantly, his face a mask of controlled fury, but his eyes were fixed solely on Qingxue. He quickly assessed the scene: the tool on the floor, the smashed AC unit, the wide-eyed intern.
He reached Qingxue in two long strides, his hand shooting out to grasp her elbow. His touch was firm, possessive, betraying the turmoil he felt.
"Are you absolutely certain you're not hurt?" he demanded, his voice low and gravelly. He didn't wait for an answer, pulling her slightly away from the small crowd.
Qingxue leaned into his touch for a moment, a sudden dizziness hitting her. The exertion had drained her already low energy. "I'm sure, Mo Chen. Just a minor rush of adrenaline."
He didn't release her. Instead, he studied her face, his gaze searching for any sign of pain or weakness. She saw the faint lines of worry around his eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor in his hand where it gripped her arm.
They were standing in the middle of the executive floor, surrounded by onlookers, yet the moment felt intensely private.
"Why?" Mo Chen asked, his voice barely audible.
"Why what?" she countered lightly.
"Why would you do that?" he insisted, his jaw tight. "You know your condition. You barely have the strength to stand, yet you threw yourself—" He cut himself off, visibly struggling to maintain his cold, detached composure.
Qingxue laughed, a low, weak sound. "Well, I couldn't just let him fall, could I? I might hate your guts, Mo Chen, but I don't hate your employees."
A muscle twitched in his cheek. "Don't talk nonsense."
She looked up at him, her eyes bright with a playful defiance that contradicted her pallor. "Are you disappointed? Weren't you hoping I'd ruin something so you could finally kick me out?"
He looked away, his grip loosening slightly, a deep sigh escaping him. He took a moment, gathering his thoughts, before turning back.
"No," he said, his voice flat but carrying undeniable weight. "I'm not disappointed." He looked her in the eye, and this time, there was no mask. "For the first time in a long time, Qin Rourou, I am... proud of you."
The words hit Qingxue with the force of a physical blow. She blinked, her usual witty retort freezing on her tongue. Pride. That was an emotion the original host had spent years desperately seeking from him and never received.
Qingxue quickly smoothed her expression, forcing a cynical smile. "Well, that's it then. I can die peacefully now."
Mo Chen's expression darkened instantly. His eyes flashed with a sudden, raw anger. He squeezed her arm, not hurting her, but emphasizing his intent.
"Don't you dare talk like that," he snarled, the sound barely a whisper, yet utterly fierce. "You think it's that easy? You think you can just check out after finally doing something worthwhile?"
"It's not easy, Mo Chen," she murmured, gazing at him with a strange mix of pity and affection. "It's a terminal illness, remember? I'm just stating a fact."
"It's not a fact until I allow it to be," he shot back, his voice rising in volume, momentarily forgetting their audience. "You are not going to die. Not now. Not while you're still half-alive and causing trouble." He leaned closer, his expression intense. "You hear me, Qin Rourou? I won't let you die so easily."
The air around them vibrated with a tension that was undeniably magnetic. The surrounding employees, though silent, could practically feel the sudden shift in the emotional landscape between the CEO and his hated wife. Their relationship was clearly not what the gossip columns claimed.
Qingxue let her head fall back and laughed again, this time with genuine, weary humor. "My, my. That sounds like a promise, Mister husband."
He glared at her, then abruptly pulled her toward the elevator, the functioning one. "Zhang will handle the mess. You need to rest." He didn't wait for her consent, guiding her forcefully into his private office.
As the door closed, Qingxue's smile vanished. Affection +5% flashed in her mind.
Her chest felt heavy, partly from the fatigue and partly from the unfamiliar feeling of Mo Chen's raw, unguarded concern.
This was working, but at what cost to his established feelings?
***
On the floor below, hidden in a utility closet, Ye Wan was shaking, her elegant body wracked by uncontrolled rage. She had witnessed the whole scene on the security monitor she controlled.
"Error! Error! The script is failing!" The corrupted system screamed inside her head, the voice frantic and high-pitched. It was no longer calculating; it was terrified. "His Affection value has increased! The sympathy points were not ruined! They were multiplied!"
Ye Wan ripped the headset off her perfectly styled hair and smashed it against the concrete wall. "How?!"
she shrieked, the sound muffled by the thick walls of the closet. Her face, usually so sweet and innocent, was warped by pure malice.
She had done everything right. She had used a level-three sabotage tool to create the perfect illusion of corporate negligence, designed to frame the 'villainess' as a distraction. It was supposed to show Mo Chen that Qin Rourou only brought chaos and death. Instead, it showed him her courage.
"That woman... that bloody glitch!" Ye Wan hissed, kicking a discarded bucket. "She is tearing down my world!"
The original narrative demanded that Mo Chen fall in love with the pure, kind, gentle Ye Wan, the heroine who saved him from his miserable marriage. But he was falling for the wrong woman—the woman he was supposed to resent. Every one of Ye Wan's attempts to follow the script was only pushing Mo Chen closer to Shen Qingxue.
Ye Wan straightened, forcing the system's fury to align with her own. If minor sabotage wouldn't work, she needed a nuclear option. She had been too focused on ruining Qin Rourou's reputation. That was small thinking. She had to attack the foundation of the world: Mo Chen's power.
The mission must be completed. If the male lead is too corrupted, the world arc collapses, and Qin Rourou's mission fails anyway.
The system's cold logic was twisted by her vindictiveness. It wasn't enough to make him hate Qin Rourou; she needed to make him hate himself for ever showing her kindness. She would strip him bare.
"If the hero won't stay the course, then there will be no course," Ye Wan whispered, her voice dangerously calm. "I won't just ruin his wife; I'll ruin his company. I'll take his money, his power, his entire empire. If the male lead dies or is utterly ruined, the whole arc will collapse, and Shen Qingxue's mission will stay incomplete."
She smiled—a chilling, triumphant expression. She knew the Mo Corporation's core vulnerabilities.
She had access to the financial and technical information she needed. A total, catastrophic system failure was her next move.
A failure that would be untraceable, a blow so devastating that Mo Chen would be too busy fighting for his life to care about a dying wife.
***
Back in his office, Mo Chen was pacing while Qingxue sat on his leather sofa, sipping the surprisingly gentle herbal tea his assistant had brought.
"The intern is fine," Mo Chen stated, running a hand over his tired face. "I sent him home for the day with a large bonus. But the tool... and the AC unit falling..."
He walked over to his large glass desk and pressed a button. Mr. Zhang entered quickly, carrying a small, sealed plastic bag containing the heavy tool and a file on the AC unit's maintenance history.
"I had the maintenance team check the equipment immediately," Mr. Zhang reported, his voice low and serious. "The AC unit's mounting bolts weren't rusted or old; they were deliberately acid-etched. It was a controlled release. The moment the internal temperature shifted, the weakened metal gave way."
Mo Chen's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Sabotage. And the tool?"
Mr. Zhang opened the bag and pointed to the handle of the tool Lin Fei had dropped. "The intern claims he picked it up just before coming to the elevator. But look here." He flipped through the maintenance report. "The gravity clamp used to secure tools in the elevator shaft access box was professionally tampered with. Not broken, just loosened enough so that a slight bump, or a tremor, would dislodge it."
Mo Chen clenched his fists, the blood draining from his face. This wasn't a random accident. It was a calculated attack.
"The proximity," Mo Chen muttered, his mind working quickly, "was designed to hit the elevator entrance, maybe even strike someone emerging from it. Who was targeted?"
Mr. Zhang consulted his tablet. "Based on the internal scheduling, the window for that specific maintenance check was small. It appears the attack was timed for when either you or Mrs. Mo would be in that high-traffic area. The falling tool was the first layer of the trap, designed to injure or distract the person at the threshold. The falling AC unit was the second layer—designed to cause maximum panic and blame."
Qingxue listened quietly from the sofa. She knew this was Ye Wan. The sophistication, the precision, the sheer malice of the multi-layered attack—it was the mark of a corrupted System.
"They failed to account for a variable," Mo Chen said, his voice flat. "They failed to account for the intern's clumsiness, and more importantly, they failed to account for Mrs. Mo's reaction." He turned to Qingxue, a flicker of that guarded warmth returning to his eyes.
"This is not a random rival," Mo Chen concluded, his voice heavy with revelation. "This is personal. Whoever attacked you yesterday is now attacking us here. They wanted to hurt you, Mrs. Mo, or ruin the company."
He looked at Mr. Zhang. "I want full, round-the-clock security on Mrs. Mo. I don't care how you do it. Double her bodyguard detail, and make sure they're competent. No one touches her."
Mr. Zhang gave a curt nod and left, the silence in the office deepening.
Mo Chen walked to the window, staring out at the expansive city skyline, his shoulders tense. Qingxue rose slowly and walked up behind him, her gaze resting on his rigid back.
"Mo Chen," she said softly.
He didn't turn. "I don't know who this is. A competitor? An old enemy of your family? No one is this vindictive."
"You'll figure it out," she said.
"And what if they try to attack the company directly next?" he murmured, a shadow of genuine fear crossing his face. "This company is my life. It's my legacy."
"Then we'll fight them," Qingxue stated, her voice sharp with sudden resolve. "You handle the business end. I'll handle the personal one."
Mo Chen finally turned, his eyes searching hers, recognizing the sharp, strategic mind beneath the fragile exterior.
"We?" he echoed, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
"Yes. We," Qingxue confirmed, her voice ringing with defiance. "I may be dying, President Mo, but I'm taking my enemies with me. You can worry about your stock prices. I'll worry about the assassins."
Mo Chen stared at her, the woman he had resented for years, now standing beside him, offering to fight a shadowy, calculated enemy. For the first time, he didn't feel alone in his battle for the Mo Corporation. He felt a deep, powerful current of relief and something else, something he couldn't name, but which felt like belonging.
He reached out slowly, tentatively, and cupped her pale cheek.
"Just... be careful," he whispered, his eyes dark with unspoken emotion. "I meant what I said. I won't let you die."
The gesture was raw, unguarded, a profound admission of his changing feelings. Qingxue felt her breath catch. She leaned into his touch, her mission—and her life—more complicated than ever.
Far away, tucked into a sterile computer server room, Ye Wan was busy. Her fingers flew over a keyboard, the interface a riot of glowing red code. She was bypassing all external security, hacking the Mo Corporation's financial servers from the inside out, using her System-given digital access.
The screen displayed a massive database, an archive of financial transactions and proprietary blueprints.
"The collapse begins now," she sneered, her eyes glittering with mad victory. "I'll bury you both under the rubble of your own empire."
She found the core financial module. She opened a transfer command, setting up a massive, untraceable wire transfer designed to bankrupt a key subsidiary and send the main stock plummeting into chaos.
Just as her finger hovered over the final key, a warning flashed on the screen, blindingly bright.
WARNING: SECURITY INTERCEPT DETECTED. ACTIVATING COUNTERMEASURES.
The corporate logo—a stylized 'M'—flashed once, then dissolved, replaced by a single, mocking image: a pink, dumpling-shaped ball.
Ye Wan gasped. "No! That's the Bureau's signature! How did she get access to their countermeasures?"
The screen went black, then rebooted, displaying only a single line of text in cold, crisp font:
ACCESS DENIED.
NARRATIVE REPAIR PROTOCOL INITIATED.
In the CEO's office, the lights flickered momentarily. Mo Chen pulled back from Qingxue, alerted by the subtle change in the ambiance.
"What was that?" he asked, glancing toward the window.
Qingxue's heart was pounding. She knew what that was. Baozi had intervened. The corrupted System had just been beaten in its first corporate sabotage attempt.
"Just a little technical difficulty, I think," Qingxue said, her voice smooth. She tried to step away, but Mo Chen's hand caught her wrist.
He was looking down at his phone, his expression turning to shock.
"No," he breathed. "It can't be."
Qingxue leaned closer, trying to see the screen.
"What is it, Mo Chen?"
He looked up at her, his eyes wide with a mix of awe and dread. "The latest product prototype," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "The one they were supposed to test in R&D tomorrow... a rival company just released a near-identical model. And they're claiming we stole their design."
"They want to start a corporate war," Mo Chen muttered, his grip tightening painfully around her wrist.
"And this time, they're aiming for the kill."