A voice demanding my doom dragged me awake.
“Miss Su. Mr. Fu says you must sign this agreement today.”
The words poured down from above, ice-cold and professionally patient.
I forced open my heavy eyelids. A long reddish-brown table filled my vision. A thick document lay spread across it, its first page printed with a large heading:
Agreement to Relinquish Custody and Divide Marital Assets.
A fountain pen had been pushed between my fingers. My fingertips trembled.
This wasn't my hand.
More precisely, I was holding the pen for someone else, and that someone was cowering in the deepest part of my mind.
Instinctively, I felt inside my pocket. My fingertips met two cold, broken ends: the necklace that had been with me for seven years.
Somehow, it had followed me here. It lay snugly in an unfamiliar pocket, the only piece of luggage I'd brought from my old world.
I pushed it deeper inside.
Su Nian's memories flooded my head like a pot of porridge boiling over:
Her grandfather had started with a small flower shop and spent most of his life building a company. The Fu family had swallowed it piece by piece under the guise of being family.
Her mother lay in a hospital bed, tubes running into her body.
Medical records were being withheld over “incomplete transfer paperwork.”
And three nights earlier, in the rain, she'd fled the Fu house under cover of darkness, almost six months pregnant. Bodyguards had cornered her in the station waiting room and dragged her back that same night.
It wasn't that she hadn't tried to escape. She truly couldn't get away.
This body was tired and hungry. A weight dragged at my lower abdomen, as though I carried a lump of lead that didn't belong to me.
I glanced down at my wrist. Two old restraint marks overlapped on the thin skin, their color not yet faded.
I'd been confined in this house for two days. Apart from the woman who brought my meals, no one dared say more than a few words to me.
Each time she set down the tray, she looked as though she wanted to say something. In the end, her eyes always reddened, and she couldn't help murmuring, “Ma'am, you've lost more weight.”
It was the only concern this body had received lately with no calculation behind it.
I closed my eyes for a moment, willing that boiling pot to stop spilling over.
A voice trembled deep inside. Su Nian. Like a startled sparrow, she huddled in the darkest corner of this body, too afraid even to cry aloud.
Silently, I told her:
“Don't be afraid. Hold the pen steady for now. I'm here. The sky isn't going to fall.”
She trembled harder, but at least the fear seeping outward began to recede.
Then Script View activated on its own, projecting a future before my eyes like an old reel of film—a future that should never happen.
If Su Nian signed, she'd leave the marriage with nothing. The Fu family would get the child. The money to save her mother would never come.
She would die alone in an empty room, and the internet would still condemn her for “abandoning her husband and child.”
A scarlet line appeared at the top right of the panel:
[Jinx Harm Rating: 87%.]
When the film ended, I felt strangely dazed.
Su Nian's fate was so much like my own. Trust one person, hand over everything, and nearly lose your life as well.
The only difference was that she wasn't dead yet. There was still time for someone to reach out.
Staring at that number, I suddenly felt steadier.
Well, then. In my last life, someone forced a share-transfer agreement into my hands. In this one, it was a contract of bondage. Apparently, both lives were teaching me the same lesson: some people's devotion had to be paid for with your life.
At the other end of the long table, a man sat on a sofa by the window.
Fu Jingchen. CEO of the Fu Group. This body's husband in name.
He slowly turned a lighter in his hand and raised his eyes to inspect me, as though taking inventory of goods awaiting a buyer.
I gave him a private nickname: CEO Pixiu.
All intake, no outflow. The kind of beast that swallowed people without spitting out a bone.
“Sign.” His single word landed like a block of ice dropped on the floor.
I didn't hurry to look at him. First, I read the agreement from beginning to end.
One clause relinquished custody. Another declared that I voluntarily left with nothing. Another severed all ties with the Fu Group. Black ink on white paper, every provision ensuring that he walked away spotless.
I could practically guess who'd drafted it. The language was watertight, designed to prevent me from recovering my senses one day and coming back to bite him.
“Go on, sign.” Lawyer Chen, standing behind and to one side of me, nudged the pen forward again. His voice was as gentle as though he were coaxing a child.
“Mrs. Fu, Mr. Fu has made his position clear. Sign this agreement, and the Fu Group will cover your mother's hospital expenses to the end. If you refuse...”
He left the threat unfinished and smiled instead, utterly certain of himself.
Two rows of bodyguards at the door stood like high walls. Beyond the window, rain blurred the glass.
I looked down at the pen pressed into my hand, then up at that expression of assured victory. Suddenly, I very much wanted to laugh.
Yu Shen had done exactly this in my last life. First, offer a “benefit” I couldn't refuse. Then push me into a pit I couldn't climb out of.
A different name now, but he hadn't even bothered changing the trick. Did they really think every foolish girl in the world ought to line up and jump into the same hole?
Fu Jingchen probably expected me to cry.
He set the lighter on the coffee table. A trace of pity entered his voice, as though he were offering charity.
“Su Nian, you're a pregnant woman. What exactly do you have to bargain with? Your grandfather's company is gone. One word from me, and your mother's medical payments stop. Be sensible and sign, and for the sake of our two years together, I might let you leave with some dignity.”
I nearly wanted to jump up and applaud.
I'd heard an upgraded version of that speech before. Even the hidden “it's for your own good” had come from the same mold.
I glanced at the camera in the corner, its red light glowing, and suddenly felt calm.
Mr. Fu liked keeping evidence. What a coincidence. So did I.
His touching little speech about letting me keep my dignity would make a lovely souvenir.
I gently set the pen on the table, its nib pointing toward me. My voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the room could hear it clearly.
“Mr. Fu, I've read your agreement. Nicely written. Just one omission: you haven't explained why I should sign it.”
The hand turning Fu Jingchen's lighter went still.
Lawyer Chen's smile froze. He reminded me quietly:
“Mrs. Fu, your mother's medical bills...”
“The medical bills.”
I picked up his words and slowly rose.
The weight of my belly made my lower back ache, but I straightened my spine, inch by inch.
“You're using my mother's life to force my signature. Once I sign and leave with nothing, whether the money arrives depends entirely on Mr. Fu's mood. I don't make losing deals.”
I smiled at Fu Jingchen.
I'd learned that smile in my last life. Seven years of practice. At least it was proving useful here.
“Everything you swallowed from my grandfather's company, you can spit back out exactly as it was. My mother's medical expenses paid in full, in one settlement, and written into the agreement. As for the child I'm carrying, I can concede custody, but not a penny of the money. If Mr. Fu really wants to perform this grand romance, let's agree on the price first.”
Deep inside the body, Su Nian's timid voice stirred, as though afraid someone might overhear. “Can I really refuse to sign?”
I answered her silently. “You can. But you need to think about what comes afterward. Will you beg him, hide from him, or make him kneel and beg you? You have to walk that road yourself. I'll walk beside you.”
A small line appeared at the bottom right of the panel. A note from Zhao.
[Host emotionally stable. Recommend pursuing legal action and public opinion in parallel. Avoid a direct confrontation.]
[Reminder of this assignment's rule: You can offer her a ladder. You can't climb it for her.]
I pursed my lips and dismissed the text with a flick of my hand.
Lawyer Chen was the first to lose his composure. Lowering his voice, he warned me:
“Mrs. Fu, the Fu Group's legal team isn't to be trifled with. Make outrageous demands, and you may end up with nothing at all.”
I ignored him and looked only at Fu Jingchen, delivering my final words slowly and distinctly.
“Mr. Fu should also understand that this child is my only bargaining chip—and the last shred of respectability left in your family's ‘marriage of devotion.’ If anything unfortunate happens to me here, I've already written tomorrow morning's headline for you.”
At last, Fu Jingchen straightened on the sofa and walked toward me, step by step.
He stood a head taller, looking down at me. I didn't retreat an inch.
He stared for so long that even the bodyguards at the door held their breath. Finally, a cold sentence emerged through his teeth.
“Fine. Let's see just how much you think you can swallow.”
Lightning split the sky outside, briefly lighting his habitually unreadable face like a specter's.
He had probably never imagined that Su Nian—the woman who could only weep and beg him not to throw her out—would one day sit here and calmly negotiate her price.