The car was silent, a moving tomb upholstered in butter-soft leather and polished burl wood. It smelled of money—real money, the kind that was old and quiet, not the loud, desperate scent of the cash the buyer had waved in her face. Lin Xiaowei sat as far from the cheerful assistant, Zhang Wei, as the spacious back seat would allow, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She felt like a stray cat that had been scooped off the street, all ruffled fur and defensive hisses.
"Would you like some water, Miss Lin?" Zhang Wei offered, his smile unwavering. He produced a bottle of water from a discreet compartment, the label in a language she didn't recognize.
"No," she said, her voice rough. Then, remembering the basic manners her past-life mother had drilled into her, she added a stiff, "Thank you."
She stared out the tinted window at the dizzying blur of the city's skyline. Glass and steel towers pierced the smoggy sky, a far cry from the lush, mist-shrouded mountains of the original Xiaowei's memories. This is my life now, she thought, the absurdity of it all threatening to bubble over into hysterical laughter. I died, got moved into a debt-slave Cinderella, and was just rescued by a man who looks like he was carved from an iceberg by a team of obsessive Swiss artisans. My next step is probably a pumpkin carriage.
The car glided to a smooth halt beneath a towering, impossibly sleek skyscraper adorned with a single, stark logo: Aethel Technologies. The building didn't just suggest power; it screamed it from the rooftops.
"Right this way, Miss Lin," Zhang Wei said, leading her through a private elevator that opened directly into a penthouse office. The room was vast, with a floor-to-ceiling window that offered a panoramic, god-like view of the city. It was as cold and minimalist as the man himself. A single, monolithic desk stood in the center, devoid of any personal items. There were no photos, no knick-knacks, not even a stray pen. It was the office of someone who had purged their life of all unnecessary humanity.
And there he was, as introduced by his assistant along with the business card details, Gu Yichen, standing by the window with his back to them. He had changed his jacket. The one with the greasy stain was gone, replaced by another that was just as impeccably tailored and probably just as astronomically expensive.
"Sir, Miss Lin is here," Zhang Wei announced before discreetly placing a folder on the desk and vanishing, the elevator doors sighing shut behind him.
Silence descended, thick and heavy. Gu Yichen turned slowly. Those winter-gray eyes swept over her, from her tangled hair to her cheap, dusty sandals. It wasn't a leering look; it was an assessment. He was calculating her net worth, her threat level, and her use-case all in one glance.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to a stark, chrome-and-leather chair facing the desk.
Xiaowei remained standing. "I think I'll stand. This feels less like a conversation and more like an interrogation."
A flicker of something—annoyance? amusement?—crossed his features so quickly she might have imagined it. "Suit yourself." He moved to his desk and sat, steepling his fingers. "Your name is Lin Xiaowei. You are from a village in Guangxi. Your uncle, Lin Deguo, sold you to a man named Zhu for 50,000 RMB to cover his gambling debts. You have no money, no identification, and no viable prospects in this city."
The clinical recitation of her pathetic circumstances made her cheeks burn. "You've been busy. Did you get all that from a private eye in the last twenty minutes, or are you just a really good guesser?"
"I pay people to be efficient," he replied, utterly deadpan. "The question is, what do you plan to do now?"
"That's none of your business."
"It became my business the moment you defaced my Tom Ford jacket and involved me in your… squid little drama." He picked up the folder Zhang Wei had left. "I have a proposition for you."
Xiaowei barked a short, humorless laugh. "Yeah, I've had enough 'propositions' for one day, thanks."
"This one is legal, and you will be compensated handsomely." He opened the folder. "I require a wife. A temporary one."
She stared at him, sure she had misheard. "You… what?"
"A contractual wife," he clarified, as if he were explaining a simple mathematical equation. "A one-year agreement. You will act as my spouse in public and in front of my family. You will live in my residence, attend functions with me, and present a united front against external pressures. In return, you will receive a monthly stipend, room and board, and at the successful conclusion of the contract, a severance package of five million RMB."
The numbers hung in the air, surreal and dizzying. Five million. In her past life, that would have taken her decades to earn. In this life, it was an unimaginable fortune. It was freedom. A one-way ticket out of this nightmare and into a life of her own choosing.
This is a scam. It has to be. Nobody offers this kind of money to a random village girl they found on the street.
"What's the catch?" she asked, her voice wary. "What 'external pressures' require a fake wife?"
He leaned back in his chair, the leather sighing beneath him. "My grandfather's will. To secure my full inheritance and fend off my… ambitious uncle, I must be married. My grandmother's incessant matchmaking, particularly her favored candidate, Bai Xue, is a persistent annoyance. A wife, even a temporary one, solves both problems neatly."
"So, I'd be a human shield," Xiaowei summarized. "A buffer between you and your nagging family and a gold-digging socialite."
"Aptly put."
"And what are my duties, exactly? Beyond the public appearances."
"The contract outlines everything. No physical intimacy is required or expected. You will have your own suite in my home. Your primary duty is to be convincing."
Xiaowei's mind raced. It was insane. It was also the only lifeline she'd been thrown. She walked forward and finally sank into the chair, her legs suddenly weak. "Let me see this contract."
He slid the folder across the desk. The document was thick, the language dense and legalistic. Her past-life self, who had navigated countless tedious employment contracts, felt a familiar sense of dread. But she began to read, her eyes scanning the clauses.
"Section 4, Subsection B," she said, tapping the page. "'The Party of the Second Part shall comport herself with dignity and decorum befitting the spouse of the Party of the First Part.' That's awfully vague. Who defines 'dignity and decorum'? You? What if I want to eat spicy noodles on the street at 2 AM? Is that undignified?"
Gu Yichen blinked. He had clearly expected a simple yes or no. Not a line-item negotiation. "There would be a… media component to consider."
"Right. Well, we'll need to clarify that." She kept reading. "The monthly stipend. It's… fine. But it should be doubled."
"That is non-negotiable."
"Everything is negotiable," she countered, meeting his gaze squarely. "You're not just hiring an actress. You're hiring a human shield, as we established. Hazard pay should be included. Also, the severance. Five million is a good start, but I want a clause for early termination by you. If you fire me before the year is up for any reason other than my material breach of contract, I get the full five million, plus a penalty of another two million."
His eyebrows lifted a millimeter. It was the equivalent of a normal man's jaw dropping to the floor. "You are in no position to make demands."
"Aren't I?" She leaned forward, a spark of her old self igniting within her. "You need someone nobody knows. Someone whose background can be controlled. Someone who has no prior attachments to this world and will walk away clean. You ran a background check in twenty minutes and found nothing, because there is nothing. I'm a ghost. That's what you need. And you just watched me negotiate with you instead of weeping with gratitude. That means I can probably hold my own against your grandmother. So, I'd say I'm in a perfectly good position to make demands."
A long, heavy silence filled the room. Gu Yichen studied her, his gaze more analytical than ever. He was, she realized, seeing her for the first time. Not as a problem, but as a person. An unpredictable, and potentially useful, variable.
"The stipend remains," he said finally. "But I will add the early termination clause you requested. The penalty will be one million."
Xiaowei considered it. It was a win. A huge one. "Deal. But I have one more condition."
"You try my patience."
"It's a small one. I want a library card."
He stared at her. "…A what?"
"A library card. And access to the public library. And maybe an allowance for books." She needed knowledge. She needed to understand this world, to educate this new self, to build a real future when this was over. A library was her first, crucial step.
Gu Yichen looked utterly bewildered, as if she had just asked for a personal rocket ship to the moon. It was the first truly human expression she had seen on his face. "That… can be arranged."
"Good." She picked up the pen lying on his desk. It was heavy, solid cold metal. "Where do I sign?"
He pointed to a line at the bottom of the last page. Her hand hovered for a moment. This was it. Signing her life away to a stranger for a year. But it was a life that had already been taken from her once. This was a chance to steal it back.
She signed her name "Lin Xiaowei" with a flourish that felt more confident than she was.
Gu Yichen took the contract, scanned her signature, and signed his own name with a swift, sharp stroke. He took one copy and handed the other to her.
"Zhang Wei will take you to the penthouse. You will meet my grandmother for dinner tonight at seven. Be ready." He stood, the meeting clearly concluded.
Xiaowei stood as well, clutching her copy of the contract like a shield. She was no longer a runaway. She was now, for all intents and purposes, Mrs. Gu.
As she walked toward the elevator where Zhang Wei was waiting, the reality of the situation crashed down on her. She had a powerful, ridiculously handsome, emotionally unavailable husband, a dinner with a dragon-like matriarch in a few hours, and a five-million-RMB prize waiting at the end of it all.
The elevator doors closed, leaving Gu Yichen alone in his silent, sterile office. He walked back to the window, looking down at the ant-like traffic below. A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. Lin Xiaowei was not what he had expected. She was trouble. Unpredictable. And for the first time in a long, long time, something about his perfectly planned future felt… interesting.
Down in the car, Xiaowei leaned her head against the cool glass. A dinner with the family? She could handle that. How bad could it possibly be?