I’m sick. You’re the only one who has the cure.
— Ye Mochen
Crossing time and space, all for the sake of loving you.
— Ran Weiyi
Late at night, the window outside was pitch-black, not a trace of starlight to be seen.
Ran Weiyi cried as she finished reading a novel titled The Mad Dog’s Cage, an infamously heart-wrenching tragedy.
She lay sprawled on her bed, the pale glow of her phone illuminating her eyes, red and swollen from crying.
On the screen, the final chapter had ended. The glaring words “The End” seemed to mock the depth of her emotions.
“Ye Mochen… how could it be this tragic…” she choked out, her voice so hoarse it hardly sounded like her own.
She bit her lip hard, broken sobs rolling out of her throat, until the screen went dark and the entire room was swallowed by darkness.
The male lead in the book was named Ye Mochen—the head of the Ye family, a century-old prestigious clan. Handsome and powerful, yet afflicted with a strange poison, he was also a madman who could relapse at any moment.
He imprisoned the original female lead—whom he had once saved by chance—in his manor, repaying her with all the wealth in the world. But by nature he was obsessive, incapable of knowing how to love.
So he could only use the clumsiest, most primitive way possible—locking that flower inside a gorgeous cage built of money.
And what was the result?
That original female lead enjoyed, without a shred of guilt, the top-tier material life he provided, yet turned around to fear his “madness” and loathe every cautious step he took toward her.
At every moment, she wanted to escape.
“You lunatic! Stay away from me!”
“I hate you! You ruined my life!”
Ruined your life?
Ran Weiyi laughed in anger, even as her tears flowed harder.
Letting you live in a manor spanning thousands of square meters—that ruined your life?
Having eight top chefs asking daily whether you wanted French or Japanese cuisine—that ruined your life?
If that’s a ruined life, please, give me a set too!
Ran Weiyi admitted it—forced love was wrong, and restricting personal freedom was illegal.
But if that woman had looked at him with even a little care, she would have seen through the unfathomable loneliness and fear deep inside him.
He was just sick.
He was just… terrified of being abandoned by the whole world again.
Unfortunately, the original female lead would never see it.
All she wanted was to run away—so much so that she even teamed up with her stepmother’s son, using a meticulously planned assassination to buy her so-called “freedom.”
Ye Mochen survived the assassination, but he couldn’t escape the poison that eroded him day by day.
His body grew weaker, his emotions increasingly unstable.
Ran Weiyi felt as if an invisible hand were crushing her heart, the pain so intense she could barely breathe.
Through those cold words, she could almost feel Ye Mochen’s despair as he teetered on the brink of collapse.
Finally, on his thirtieth birthday, everything spiraled out of control.
When she read the line—“He clutched the woman’s throat, and for the first time, a complete sense of release appeared in his blood-red eyes”—a scalding tear fell heavily onto the screen, blurring a small patch of text.
The entire world collapsed with it.
Gone.
That man who had struggled alone in the darkness for thirty years, who had finally grasped a single beam of light—was just gone.
In the end, he was pushed back into an even darker abyss by that very light.
Ran Weiyi cried until she was a mess. Her heart ached for Ye Mochen; his final 모습 lingered in her mind, impossible to erase.
All his life, he had simply been unloved.
What if, when he had an episode, someone didn’t scream and shove him away, but instead held him tightly?
What if someone had said to him, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t leave”—would he still have walked toward destruction?
“If… if that person were me…”
“If I could transmigrate into the book, I’d definitely cure him and love him to the bone!”
She muttered to herself, letting out a long sigh as a sour ache spread from her nose all the way to her heart.
She picked up her phone and opened the comment section, wanting to find some “allies” to curse the author together.
However, a blood-red, bolded, pinned comment made her entire body stiffen.
It wasn’t a comment—it was more like a question from another dimension.
【Do you want to save him?】
Below the question, there was only one faintly glowing option.
【Yes】
“…?”
Ran Weiyi froze, instinctively thinking it was some new kind of promotional ad.
Yet her fingertip seemed to be guided by an invisible force, trembling, uncontrollably tapping that option.
The moment she touched the screen—
The entire display, along with the 【Yes】 button, shattered into countless points of light and swallowed her whole.
The last sound in her mind was the system’s mechanical broadcast.
【Identity data implanted. Ran Weiyi, twenty-two years old, orphan, current residence…】
When she opened her eyes again, a strange white ceiling filled her vision.
She jolted upright. Beneath her was a cotton-textured bedsheet; around her, simple furnishings.
The room was spacious and silent, so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat.
A faint fragrance lingered in the air—cool and clean, with the barest hint of medicinal herbs.
She raised her wrist and brought it to her nose.
This peculiar scent had crossed over with her body. The name Ran Weiyi had come with it too.
There were many children in the orphanage, and most were named in sequence—Little One, Little Two—or with generic names like Chunhua and Qiuyue.
Only she had been named personally by the matron.
The matron’s surname was Ran. Back then, holding the frail little Ran Weiyi in her arms, she had said slowly, word by word, “You’ll take my surname—Ran. Your name is Weiyi. Not the du of loneliness, but the du of one and only. You are unique in this world.”
Those warm words had sustained her for many years.
Later, she was adopted by an eccentric old apprentice of traditional Chinese medicine, and from then on she buried herself in piles of herbs.
As time passed, she became infused with an inescapable herbal scent—clean and faintly bitter.
She had always thought she smelled like a walking pack of twenty-four-flavor herbal tea, and had even worried about bothering others with it.
Until one time, when she followed her master to treat an irritable, violent tycoon.
The man smashed antiques all over the room; no one could calm him. She merely handed him a cup of tea—and he inexplicably quieted down, staring straight at her as he asked, “What perfume are you wearing?”
On the way home, her master stroked his goatee and said mysteriously, “That’s not medicinal odor—it’s body fragrance.”
She had argued back then, “Master, don’t joke. I handle herbs every day—how could I have body fragrance?”
Her master flicked her forehead. “You think my nose of several decades is just for show? Your scent can calm the mind and soothe the spirit. Otherwise, why do you think I took you in? Because you looked like a prodigy for medicine? I took you because the moment you stood at my pharmacy entrance, all those impatient patients waiting for medicine suddenly became peaceful—as if they’d taken a tranquillizer in advance.”
So that was it.
She wasn’t a walking pack of herbal tea—she was a human calming incense.
Ran Weiyi lowered her gaze to her wrist, the corners of her lips lifting in the faintest smile.
【Ding! Host consciousness detected. Savior True Love System officially activated.】
【Sister! You’re finally here!】
An overly lively, childish loli voice suddenly rang out in her mind.
She instinctively looked around.
There was no one there.