001 Time Loop
The heavens and earth were a mysterious azure, the stars sparse, and the clouds dispersed.
Ye Wanlan couldn't control her own body because it had been taken over by a foreign soul!
Beside her ear were countless noisy voices; she had had her right hand's finger bones broken and had been thrown into the lake, waking up half an hour later.
"Miss Ye, you're awake," said Zhou Hechen's secretary, standing by the bedside, smiling formally, "Your hand is broken, but the master won't allow you to be treated before you admit your wrong, you need to understand his good intentions."
Ye Wanlan's expression was indifferent as she slowly clenched her left hand.
After so long, the foreign soul had finally left, and she was back in control of her own body!
"Your expression is wrong again; please remember to smile by lifting the corners of your mouth at all times," the secretary added, "When you smile, you look more like Miss Yunyi and will gain more of the master's favor."
"There's one more thing, you need to understand your place. The master doesn't like people who cling on shamelessly and without dignity, you—"
"Crack!"
Ye Wanlan had reset her own finger bones.
The secretary stopped talking abruptly.
He looked at the girl with unsettled astonishment as she grabbed a coat, draped it over her shoulders, and got up to go downstairs.
After being stunned for a second, the secretary quickly followed. He sighed, "Miss Ye, although you resemble Miss Yunyi, you are not her. You have no special privileges with the master; making more trouble will do you no good. Haven't you suffered enough?"
Zhou Hechen would travel from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere just to celebrate Sheng Yunyi's birthday, giving up business meetings in the process, but Ye Wanlan lacked such stature.
Ye Wanlan was behaving abnormally today, but the secretary didn't think much of it. He greeted someone entering the villa with utmost respect: "Mr. Qin, you've arrived."
Qin Xian was Zhou Hechen's childhood friend.
He lifted his chin slightly: "What's up with her?"
The secretary looked on sympathetically: "Miss Ye is throwing a tantrum and running away from home."
He had grown accustomed to such tactics.
Since Ye Wanlan started following Zhou Hechen two years ago, she had always kept a low profile, sometimes leaving on her own when her pride got the better of her. But as soon as Zhou Hechen said a word, she would willingly return without any dignity.
Qin Xian, smoking a cigarette, smiled carelessly: "Throwing a tantrum?"
All of Jiangcheng knew that Ye Wanlan was just Sheng Yunyi's stand-in.
She could've continued staying by Zhou Hechen's side as a substitute, but a month ago, the real deal, Sheng Yunyi, returned from studying abroad, and Ye Wanlan's value as a stand-in was instantly nullified. Yet, she was still relentless.
But Ye Wanlan should never have laid hands on Sheng Yunyi, causing her hand to nearly fracture.
Sheng Yunyi was the academic and artistic paragon of their social circle, a role model for both men and women, the eternal unattainable dream.
Qin Xian was no exception, and naturally, he wouldn't let Ye Wanlan, the main culprit, get away with it.
At midnight today, a few of their brothers and sisters convened under Zhou Hechen's name, called Ye Wanlan out, broke her fingers, and pushed her into the water to avenge Sheng Yunyi.
Droplets of water were still trailing down the girl's hair ends; the evening breeze suddenly picked up, tangling her hair and dispersing the hazy mist, revealing stunning brows and marvelous eyes—a beauty brilliant and garish.
The beauty in her eyes held a chilling sharpness, like thorny roses swaying in the cold wind, their scent mixed with a murderous air, giving a tremor to the heart.
Her gaze swept over indifferently, as though the long-sealed beauty had woken up, shaking the mortal world.
Leaves fell silently, and for a moment, all was still.
Qin Xian paused, temporarily at a loss for words to describe such a face.
How could he think a stand-in was more beautiful than the real person?
Ridiculous.
Qin Xian felt irritable seeing the girl stop and turn to walk towards him.
He raised an eyebrow, his smile ambiguous, "What, had a change of heart and came to apologize? I certainly won't—"
"Crack!"
The sound of bones breaking was incredibly distinct in the silent night.
Ye Wanlan spoke evenly, "How did it break?"
Before Qin Xian could react, his right hand was seized, followed by another snapping sound.
"This one's broken too."
The excruciating pain of ten broken fingers made Qin Xian's knees give way; he knelt on the ground, trembling uncontrollably, the pain so severe he couldn't even scream.
His face turned deathly pale, disbelieving.
Ye Wanlan stepped on his ankle, and after two crisp sounds, she smiled, "How did they all break?"
Greater agony surged like a stormy wave, overwhelming Qin Xian to the point where he blacked out and fainted.
The girl strode away, her silhouette sharp as a blade.
The secretary stood there dumbfounded before tremblingly contacting Zhou Hechen: "Master, something's happened..."
**
Outside the villa, Ye Wanlan's smile vanished from her lips.
She had a secret: her body had been transcended when she was fourteen.
In these four years, Ye Wanlan watched as the Transcendent Woman turned her peaceful life into utter chaos.
The Transcendent Woman wanted to be a model, so she gave up her studies to enter the fashion industry.
The Transcendent Woman fancied Zhou Hechen and signed the stand-in agreement.
The Transcendent Woman looked down upon her uncle's family, which led her to be isolated and unable to return home.
In the end, when the Transcendent Woman no longer wanted to play and left lightly to search for a new life, she finally regained control of her body.
But before she could deal with the aftermath, she was trapped in the same day, endlessly looping countless times.
No matter what she did, she couldn't reach the next day.
She didn't have to consider any consequences for her actions, but she also couldn't build connections with other people.
Because when midnight came, everything except her memories would reset, and she would find herself back at the beginning of May 18th, repeating the same start over and over again.
She had already repeated this day for a full nine hundred and ninety-nine years.
From initial frustration to calmness then to indifference, Ye Wanlan finally got used to it and began utilizing her infinite rebirths to enrich herself.
She had traversed every corner of Jiangcheng and the surrounding cities, remembering every detail of events at every moment, and became proficient in countless skills and a hundred languages.
Ninety years ago, she began studying cultural relic restoration and cultivating her sentimentality through Kunqu opera to suppress her killer instinct, but life was still dull and without an end.
Ye Wanlan put on her helmet, mounted her motorcycle, and sped away to carry out the day's plan.
Practicing calligraphy, martial arts, painting, performing opera...
By the time the last performance ended, the sky had darkened.
"Boom!"
Gathering dark clouds, thunder as if it wanted to slice the heavens, the interwoven lights of lightning and neon signs created an ocean, and the rain fog engulfed the night.
It was somewhat cold.
Ye Wanlan drew her coat around her and booked a hotel to stay overnight.
After swiping the key card to open the door, she paused in her steps.
The window was wide open, the raging wind poured in, and there was already an uninvited guest in the room.
It was a man.
He leaned against the bed, side facing her, with a perfect physique, his lines strong and smooth, his silhouette exuding power and beauty even from the back.
Several wisps of wet hair clung to his cheeks, and the blue veins on his strong and slender forearms were popping, clearly enduring tremendous torment.
Ye Wanlan stepped out and checked the room number again: "This seems to be my room."
The man's lips were tightly pursed, his voice hoarsely spat out the words, "Get, out!"
Ye Wanlan walked in and closed the door.
A lost stranger was very interesting to her monotonous life, and she cherished such moments.
After all, she had already destroyed Mr. Qin more than thirty thousand times, having broken every bone of his, leaving no sense of novelty.
Ye Wanlan approached leisurely, bent over, and pinched the man's chin, lifting his head.
It was an astonishingly beautiful face that could be said to captivate all living beings without exaggeration.
The moonlight painted his brows and eyes silver, his brows tightly knit, his gaze hazy with a broken look and a dangerous allure.
Ye Wanlan's eyebrows lifted slightly.
She had seen many people in Jiangcheng, but she had never seen this man before.
"Bang!"
Suddenly, the man moved.
His eyes were still cloudy, but his attack was swift and deadly.
Ye Wanlan's expression remained unchanged, and she countered at the same moment, effortlessly parrying each strike.
"Bang!"
"Ring, ring—"
The abrupt ring of her phone, Ye Wanlan freed a hand to press the answer key.
The call opened, and Zhou Hechen's chilly voice came through, "Ye Wanlan, playing hard to get won't work on me. Get yourself to the hospital in ten minutes."
Ye Wanlan didn't respond; her focus stayed on the man who had intruded into her room.
It was as if he had used up all his strength; he stopped and looked at her with wet eyes.
The pupils of the man were dilated, his mind unclear.
Ye Wanlan's hand was already on his throat, pinning him on the bed, rendering him immobile.
The man's eyelashes fluttered slightly, his complexion pale as cold porcelain, then he suddenly found an angle of attack she had not anticipated.
He tilted his head up slightly and kissed her lips.
More precisely, he bit her.
Their lips were cold to the touch, yet it seemed as if a wildfire had sprung forth at the contact, their breaths scorching hot and chaotic.
Ye Wanlan's lower lip had been bitten until it bled.
His bite seemed to calm him down somewhat; he breathed out and closed his eyes, leaning against the wall.
The night was quiet, and the broken breath of the man was very clear, like feathers drilling into the very bottom of her heart, bouncing back and forth.
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
After three seconds, Zhou Hechen coldly asked, "Ye Wanlan, what are you doing?"