The smell hit first—acrid and sharp, the unmistakable sting of a fuse beginning to burn. Bai Xueyi turned, scanning the floor. Smoke coiled like gray ribbons from the broken duffel near her feet.
Mo Liuxian moved instantly, yanking the wire free and stamping the ember out. Sparks spat against his shoe; silence crashed in afterward, thick as thunder.
"Who sent you here?" he demanded.
She looked up, face composed. "A woman who died once already."
He stared at her as if trying to strip the riddle of its meaning. "You're not making sense."
"Maybe," she said, stepping past him, "but the fire outside makes perfect sense. Check the ballroom in three minutes."
He caught her wrist again. His grip wasn't cruel—just unyielding. "You will tell me your name."
"Names burn easily," she murmured, freeing herself with a twist. "The smart ones learn to live without them."
Downstairs, applause turned to screams. Xueyi heard the chaos before the elevator doors even opened: smoke alarm blaring, guests coughing, staff yelling to clear the exits. Someone had triggered a small detonation in a decorative panel—smoke, not fire—but the panic spread like gasoline anyway.
She slipped into the swirl of running bodies, calm amid hysteria. Every eye chased the smoke; no one saw her move toward the stage's back entrance.
Behind the curtain, Wen Qingmei stood with two assistants, mask of panic perfectly rehearsed. "Get the cameras back up! Find President Mo—"
Her voice cut off when she saw Xueyi step from the shadows.
"You—who let you in here?"
"Funny," Xueyi said softly. "You did. A year ago."
Qingmei's painted lips faltered. "Do I know you?"
"Not yet."
She brushed past, letting her shoulder graze Qingmei's. The faint whiff of gasoline still clung to the rival's gown. Enough to seed doubt. Enough to remember.
Outside, emergency sprinklers finally triggered, turning the ballroom into a glittering rainstorm. Mo Liuxian strode through it, jaw locked, phone pressed to his ear. "Seal the upper floors. Find the maintenance staff on call tonight."
He spotted her again at the far end of the hall—standing in the doorway, drenched, eyes unreadable. The crowd flowed between them like a current. For one fractured instant, he thought he recognized the shape of something impossible—memory, maybe, or guilt.
Then she turned and vanished into the smoke.
Later, alone in his car, Mo Liuxian replayed the night in silence. The fire, the fuse, the woman who spoke like she knew his sins. Her voice echoed under his ribs.
You'll set another room on fire?
He exhaled once, slow and dangerous. "Find out who she is," he ordered his driver. "Every guest. Every staff member. I want her name before dawn."
At the same time, in a cheap apartment across the city, Bai Xueyi peeled off her soaked gloves and opened her laptop. The blue glow lit the burn scar along her wrist—a memory the world didn't know existed.
On the screen, a secure message flickered open.
Sender: Anonymous
Subject: You weren't supposed to survive the first fire.
Her hand stilled. Beneath the text was a timestamp. The message had been sent one minute before the explosion tonight.
She closed the laptop, heartbeat calm and cold.
"So this isn't just about revenge," she whispered. "It's a hunt."
Lightning flared through the window, slicing her reflection into halves—the woman she had been, and the one she had become.