Chapter 1

Screams rose all around me.

Standing on the roof, I leaned over to look down.

Wen Yan lay on the concrete at ground level, a broad pool of thick, crimson blood spreading beneath him.

His eyes were wide open, fixed on the sky.

Utter terror still lingered on his face.

As though even as he fell, he hadn’t believed I would push him off the roof.

The system shrieked, coming apart.

“How could you kill the male lead without my permission?”

My face remained calm.

“You didn’t ask for mine before you brought me to this world.”

I’d been perfectly fine in the real world.

Then I woke up one morning inside this book.

The system had practically danced with excitement as it told me how lucky I was.

Being bound to it meant a chance to travel to another world and experience a different life.

It said,

“Look at that girl over there. She went into a period novel, married a rugged man, became stepmother to seven children, and now she’s thriving!”

I said, “A trafficker abducted a girl, took her deep into the mountains, and made her marry an old widower and raise his brats?”

It shouted,

“Then look at this one! She went back to ancient times, reclaimed farmland on an exile route, and supported a disgraced official until she helped the male lead fight his way back to the capital!”

I said, “A trafficker dumped a girl in the wilderness and squeezed her dry as an unpaid servant for a man with a criminal record?”

It started swearing.

“How can you call transmigration human trafficking?”

The system forced me to pursue the male lead, to be his devoted little lapdog.

If I didn’t grovel, I was punished.

I spent five diligent years groveling, all for a chance to go home.

But his affection score stayed stuck at fifty.

Home was as far away as ever.

I was tired.

If Wen Yan wouldn’t love me, I would kill him until he did.

His friends had all come running up to the roof.

Their terror was mixed with rage.

“You killed Wen!”

“I’ll make you pay for his life with yours!”

That probably wasn’t going to happen.

As they ran toward me,

the little world began to collapse.

Everything before my eyes shattered into countless sharp-edged shards of mirror.

The pieces reassembled.

Loop two began.

A shrill female voice complained in my ear.

“Wen told you to drink, so drink. Why are you making such a fuss?”

I jerked my head up.

The shattered world pieced itself back together.

Before me was an extravagantly decorated private room in a bar.

A group of men and women sat in a circle.

They were playing truth or dare.

The second loop had begun.

But the system was clearly short on energy, so time had only rewound three months.

Wen Yan and his friends were drinking and playing games at the bar.

Outside, rain poured down.

Wen Yan had made a bet with his dream girl over whether I would come whenever he called.

I hadn’t wanted to come.

But the system had said, How can you win the male lead over if you don’t go?

It electrocuted me until every hair on my body stood on end.

I arrived at the bar soaked through from the downpour.

The lapdog everyone in the room could laugh at.

His dream girl had pouted, unwilling to drink three glasses of hard liquor.

Wen Yan told me to drink them for her.

Perhaps I’d been silent too long.

Leaning against Wen Yan, Yang Zhen gave a coquettish laugh.

“Wen, it looks like your little lapdog doesn’t want to drink this for me.”

Wen Yan should have coldly ordered me to swallow it.

What awaited me was stomach pain so severe that I’d need an IV at the hospital.

Instead, Wen Yan suddenly screamed and leaped to his feet.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

Terror lingered in his eyes, as though he’d remembered something horrifying.

Yang Zhen had no idea what was going on.

Her voice stayed sweet and soft.

“Wen, what’s wrong?”

Wen Yan gulped down lungfuls of fresh air.

He still remembered the pain of being pushed from a roof more than twenty stories up and falling to his death.

The sound of his skull striking the ground still rang in his ears.

He abruptly raised his head to look at me.

Beneath the fear in his eyes was absolute fury.

I understood at once.

The system was low on energy.

If I could retain my memories of the last loop, then naturally Wen Yan, the male lead, could too.

I gave him a vicious smile.

And asked him, as plainly and directly as I could,

“Wen Yan, can I be your girlfriend?”