Miss Shi pushed open the front door, and an atmosphere blending Chinese elegance with the restrained charm of Song-dynasty design washed over her.
A round-moon doorway divided the space. Warm wooden latticework and simple paper lanterns created a tranquil mood, while comfortable modern furnishings added a touch of contemporary life. The overall effect was both steeped in tradition and warmly homey.
Beneath the soft lighting, her mother sat on a walnut-colored Nebula sofa, wearing glasses as she pored over a paper.
At the sound of the door opening, she raised her head and looked over through her lenses.
“It’s Friday. Your father said he didn’t see you in the lab.”
Her voice was as gentle as ever, but her question left no room for evasion. “Where have you been, coming home so late? Haven’t your father and I always told you that a girl has to be home by eleven at night?”
Miss Shi put on an obedient expression, hurried over to sit beside her mother, and affectionately linked her arm through hers, resting her head on her shoulder.
“Mom, Wanwan broke up with her boyfriend tonight. She was upset and got completely drunk.”
Her voice was soft and sweet, and she delivered the excuse she’d prepared without a hitch.
“I stayed with her until around eleven. She was so drunk that I couldn’t bear to let her go home alone, so I took her home first. That’s why I’m late.”
When her mother’s expression didn’t soften, she immediately added a reassuring promise:
“I know it isn’t safe for a girl to drink out, and this was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again. You’ve been waiting up for me this late—you must be exhausted. Go get some rest. I’d be heartbroken if you wore yourself out.”
Mother Shi and Father Shi had always been strict in raising Miss Shi.
Growing up in that kind of household, the original Shi Shuyi had always suppressed her true nature and never managed to become genuinely close to her parents.
But Miss Shi was entirely different now.
Her mother had prepared a whole string of lectures, but her daughter’s swift apology and promise had left her with no chance to deliver them.
She sighed softly, her tone easing.
“Xiaoyi, you’ve always been obedient, ever since you were little. You’ve always made your father and me proud.”
“If you focus on physics, you’re sure to become an accomplished scholar like your father one day.”
“Lots of girls date in college, but your father and I have protected you too much. We’re always afraid someone will deceive you, so we’ve been strict about you getting home by eleven.”
Mother Shi’s worries weren’t unfounded.
With her family background, looks, and education, her daughter was a bona fide rich beauty.
In this restless society, there were too many men looking for shortcuts. And with Father Shi’s standing in academic circles, she had to stay on her guard.
“Mom, I understand.”
Miss Shi answered obediently, rubbing her head against her mother’s shoulder in a playful, affectionate gesture.
At last, Mother Shi’s expression softened as she looked at her daughter. A smile appeared in her eyes.
“Xiaoyi, there’s a Senior Brother named Wu Yang among your father’s graduate students. His mother is a pianist, and his father is a famous lyricist and composer. He comes from a respectable family, is handsome, and is hardworking and clever.”
She paused, then asked gently, “Your father and I both think he’s a fine young man. We’d like to introduce you two. How about adding each other on WeChat and seeing how you get along?”
Miss Shi lowered her lashes, concealing the brief cold glint in her eyes.
She had to admit that Father Shi and Mother Shi loved their daughter.
But the love they gave her was like a gilded cage, meticulously crafted.
From how she dressed and behaved to her grades and hobbies—even her choice of university and major—every step of her life had to follow the blueprint they had drawn.
No wonder the original Miss Shi had rebelled so completely later in the novel.
She defied her parents, insisted on joining Fu Corporation, and even threw herself into a relationship with Fu Shiyan, heedless of the consequences.
As prominent academics, Father Shi and Mother Shi had also heard all about Fu Shiyan’s high-profile romance with the Gu family’s little princess. He had just broken up with her and then immediately gotten together with their daughter. How could they possibly feel at ease about that?
But her parents’ opposition only fueled the rebelliousness she’d suppressed for years, driving the original Shi Shuyi to fling herself into a relationship doomed to end in ruin.
Now she finally understood why the original Shi Shuyi had been so resolute. Her parents would even arrange a match for her. Were they planning to “arrange” her entire life?
Miss Shi collected herself. When she lifted her face, she was once again wearing an obedient, gentle smile.
“Sure. Dad has such high standards. Any Senior Brother he approves of must be exceptional.”
Perhaps…
This Senior Brother Wu Yang could make a useful pawn.
Seeing her daughter as compliant as ever, Mother Shi smiled with satisfaction and gently stroked her silky hair, her eyes full of tenderness and affection.
Mother Shi was a doctor, and she had personally cared for her daughter from head to toe. Her hair was glossy black and smooth, her skin fine and clear, her figure shapely and well-proportioned.
The pearl she had raised with her own hands deserved to live like a true noblewoman of old: wanting for nothing, with refined interests and an independent mind, passing her life in peace, prosperity, and good fortune.
She and her husband had already paved a perfect road through life for their daughter.
Miss Shi thought that, if the original Shi Shuyi had been given the chance to start over, she would surely have listened to her parents. But… there was no “if.”
*
Miss Shi pushed open the door to her bedroom.
A faint sandalwood fragrance mingled with the warm sweetness of scented perfume in the air.
The room blended classical Chinese elegance with a dreamy princess style. Pale jade-green gauze drapes fell from a carved pearwood canopy on the ceiling, softly surrounding the princess bed. Delicate cloud patterns had been carved into its posts.
The walls weren’t plain white; they were washed with the faintest traces of landscape ink painting. Beside them stood a white dressing table inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
After washing up, she changed into a silk nightgown and sank into the comfortable bed.
Only in a space this completely private could she let her guard down entirely.
Miss Shi lay with her eyes open, gazing at the hazy glow cast across the ceiling by a softly lit ink-wash gauze lamp as she considered her plans.
In the original novel, the original Shi Shuyi joined Fu Corporation after graduation. But to get close to Gu Huaiye, she had chosen a different path—
As she was now—
Everyone saw her as an obedient girl, but in private she was a rebellious young woman who, to make money, had secretly signed up for acting classes and worked at the glittering, pleasure-filled Baisen. She was determined to break into the entertainment industry and escape her parents’ control.
Over the years, under Gu Huaiye’s leadership, the Gu family had shifted its business focus to manufacturing, heavy industry, and cutting-edge technology.
But in recent years, the internet and artificial intelligence had hit a bottleneck. These fields were money pits, requiring huge investment for returns that took a long time to materialize.
Gu Huaiye had no choice but to turn his attention to the more lucrative entertainment industry.
The generous profits from entertainment could then be used to support technology research and development, which offered little prospect of short-term returns.
To that end, he joined forces with Jiang Cheng and Shen Xubai to found Y·X Entertainment.
And she, Miss Shi, needed to cultivate an image that was “obedient on the surface, rebellious underneath,” so she could gradually make her way into Gu Huaiye’s world.
It was a risky move, but the most effective one.
007 knew Shi Shuyi’s plan, but—
“Master, Gu Zhixia and Fu Shiyan are together now. If you approach Gu Huaiye as planned, everyone will know you used to be Gu Huaiye’s woman. When the male and female leads break up three years from now, even if you manage to leave Gu Huaiye, getting together with Fu Shiyan as in the original plot… probably won’t be so easy.”
Shi Shuyi’s gaze narrowed slightly.
“007, do you know why, in the original novel, Fu Shiyan didn’t love the original Shi Shuyi at all, yet still became entangled with her for three months after Gu Zhixia left?”
“Why?”
It was a system. Though it possessed a vast database of knowledge, it still couldn’t fully parse the complexity and subtleties of human emotion.
“Because Fu Shiyan is—”
Her voice was as calm as if she were analyzing a specimen.
“As the chosen one of this world, he has a top-tier life and a near-pathological perfectionism about everything. He chose Gu Zhixia at first because he thought only the Gu family’s pampered jewel could just barely measure up to him, and was worthy of adorning his flawless life.”
“But Gu Zhixia was raised to be cherished. She has her own pride and principles. Fu Shiyan’s haughty, almost patronizing attitude toward love was bound to cause friction between them.”
“The breakup three years later looked like a fight that finally boiled over, but the real reason was that Fu Shiyan himself had begun to waver. He had started to doubt whether Gu Zhixia was his ‘most perfect’ choice.”
“So, at that point,”
Shi Shuyi paused.
“he was half-willing to try ‘other possibilities.’ It was the crack in his heart at that stage, along with his willingness to accept whoever came along, that gave the original Shi Shuyi three months that looked like a dream but were nothing more than an illusion.”
007 hesitated. “Master, do you mean… three years from now, no matter who approaches him first, Fu Shiyan is bound to betray Gu Zhixia?”
“007, Fu Shiyan is the male lead. Of course he’s picky. What’s wrong with the original Shi Shuyi’s looks, family background, or education? She fits Fu Shiyan’s requirements for a perfect partner, so naturally, she’s worth trying.”
“Then… you plan to get together with Gu Huaiye. If Fu Shiyan really is the perfectionist you say he is, will he still consider you after he and the female lead break up?”
“Heh.”
Shi Shuyi let out the faintest laugh.
“Two people both ‘abandoned’ by the Gu siblings, licking each other’s wounds, leaning on each other and huddling together for comfort… Just imagine: a story laced with taboo and guilt. For a perfectionist like Fu Shiyan, who’s followed a predetermined path at every turn since childhood—”
The corner of her mouth lifted, and her voice took on a low, almost hypnotic note.
“Do you think, deep down, he might feel an unspoken longing to use an ‘imperfect’ loss of control to fill the emptiness in his too-perfect life?”
The more 007 listened, the more confused he became.
Still, he was solemnly adding every one of his master’s words to his database, ready to conduct a meticulous analysis once she put them into practice!
Systems needed to grow and level up through their missions, too. He was a diligent system!
A touch of nonchalance and self-mockery entered Shi Shuyi’s voice as she went on:
“Gu Zhixia is aloof and self-possessed, the kind of moonlight that never stoops to compete. And I…”
“Am shameless and indecent, throwing myself at him as a substitute. With that contrast, and Fu Shiyan’s ‘whoever comes along is fine’ mindset—do you think he won’t take the bait?”
007 stopped recording. After a moment’s silence, he said glumly:
“Master, don’t talk about yourself like that… It makes me sad.”
“That’s all it takes to make you sad?”
“To play mind games with people who think they’re above everyone else, the first step is to crush your own morals and principles with your own hands. To stand on the same level as them, you have to be willing to go even further…”
“And what I’m best at is designing the perfect BE ending for every person—”
Her voice softened, but the steely resolve in it was unsettling.
“including myself.”
Beneath the dim yellow light, Shi Shuyi’s beautiful eyes gleamed faintly.
Without makeup, her eyes looked nothing like Gu Zhixia’s.
They both had large, bright eyes, but the outer corners of Shi Shuyi’s eyes naturally tilted up slightly, giving her an unconscious allure that drew people in.
If she wanted to imitate Gu Zhixia’s innocent, almond-shaped eyes, all she had to do was draw a downward-slanting line of eyeliner to soften that seductive quality, and she could create a naturally clear, rounded look.
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