The car had been parked in front of the restaurant for almost three minutes.
The driver, trained not to show impatience, kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel and his gaze fixed ahead. Outside, the building stood discreet and elegant—dark glass facade, soft lighting, a place chosen not to impress, but to avoid embarrassment. A neutral space, suitable for meetings that were, above all, negotiations.
Lin Yue had not yet come down.
Sitting in the back seat, she watched the reflection of her own face in the slightly mirrored window while processing the final stream of information released by the system.
These were not technical details.
They were memories.
The life of the repentant soul unfolded before her like an old file, worn out from being accessed so often by remorse.
A childhood surrounded by material comfort.
An adolescence marked by invisibility.
Her soul grew up alongside him—literally. Same elite school, same wide hallways, same social events. From a young age, she observed Shen Yichen from a distance. He was handsome, confident, naturally standing out among the children of the upper class. She, on the other hand, would always feel too ordinary. An "ugly duckling," as she had learned to define herself far too early.
Still, he fell in love.
Not in a noisy or overt way.
He fell in love in silence.
She was content to see him laugh with friends, to hear his name being called by others. When adolescence arrived, his ex-girlfriend appeared—beautiful, confident, independent. The opposite of what his soul believed him to be.
Even so, he didn't give up.
She studied obsessively to get into the same university. She watched from afar as a love blossomed that didn't include her. She tried to change her own appearance. She tried to imitate her. She tried to become worthy, at least in her own eyes, of a single glance.
It never came.
When his ex-girlfriend left, abandoning Shen Yichen without explanation, her soul was there. Watching his pain. Suffering to see him suffer. But she didn't have the courage to approach him. To console him meant occupying a space she believed she didn't deserve.
After college, only occasional appearances remained: formal dinners, covers of financial magazines, interviews in which he talked about growth, responsibility, and the future.
Her soul had already given up on any fantasy when the arranged marriage proposal was announced.
With her, the dreams returned.
They got married.
Her soul believed she needed to be perfect. Dedicated. Submissive. An exemplary wife according to everything she had learned about the role of a woman beside a powerful man. Every gesture, every act of care, every attempt to please only made the atmosphere heavier. More distant.
Shen Yichen didn't need to.
And I didn't want to.
Three years later, the ex-girlfriend returned.
Confident. Rebuilt. Surrounded by rumors and curious glances.
The soul began to dissolve.
Jealousy. Anxiety. Constant irritation. The feeling that everything would be stolen from him again.
She tried desperately to hold onto the marriage—and the more she tried, the further she pushed him away.
The divorce came as an inevitable sentence.
After that, all that remained was the obsession.
The belief that everything had been destroyed by the ex.
Paranoia is fueled by unfounded rumors.
The gradual loss of sanity.
To the point of no return.
Murder.
Perpetual confinement.
And the regret that now held her captive in limbo.
Lin Yue closed her eyes for a moment.
I felt no pity.
I felt clarity.
"So that's what you did wrong," she thought, without emotion. "You tried to be too perfect. You tried to occupy a place he never offered."
The system remained silent, recording.
Lin Yue straightened his posture. The plan was already in place.
She would not be like the repentant soul.
It wouldn't be like his ex-girlfriend.
And above all, I wouldn't ask for love.
He opened the car door with a calm movement.
"You can wait," he told the driver before getting out.
The night air was crisp. The restaurant awaited her—as did Shen Yichen, the man who would become the center of the mission.
A blind date, planned by families, shrouded in silent expectations.
Lin Yue walked confidently toward the entrance.
On the other side of that door stood a man who had never known what it meant to be loved—and who had no idea that, that night, someone would enter his life not to beg for space, but to occupy it with precision.
The game had begun.
—