Xia Xiaoman remembers everything—the blood on the pavement, the shattered glass, the whispers of a debt too large to repay—everything except how her parents truly fell to their deaths. As an investigative journalist, she infiltrates the world of Li Moting, the ruthless heir to a financial empire, armed with nothing but a recorder and her perfect memory.  

"Three therapy sessions a week," he offers, fingers steepled, his voice colder than the rain outside the window. "In exchange for your silence."  

But what begins as a calculated game of revenge spirals into something far more dangerous. He scales a crumbling factory to save her from kidnappers, his hands bleeding, yet claims it’s merely "asset protection." She discovers ledgers in his study that implicate his family in her parents’ ruin—yet finds her childhood lullaby tucked in his desk drawer, the notes still intact after twenty years.  

On the night the truth comes crashing down, he kneels in the snow, pressing a pair of worn ballet flats into her hands. "Hate me if you must," he murmurs, "but let me remember you properly this time."  

And when she plays back the tapes—the ones she swore were evidence—all she hears is the unguarded hitch of his breath when she entered the room, the quiet, damning confession: *", Xia Xiaoman you were never part of the plan."*

On the terrace outside the banquet hall, Li Moting handed the necklace to Xia Xiaoman. The night wind lifted her hair as the meteorite fragment swayed between them, casting strange flecks of light.  


"Wear it," he said in a low voice. "Inside is—"  


"—your father's transaction records with the Minister of Land? Or the list of MN-07 experiment victims?" Xia Xiaoman cut him off, stepping back. "I found out, Li Moting. What's buried under the Bay Project's foundation isn't construction materials—it's the bodies of children who failed the experiment."  


"You think I didn't know?" He seized her wrist. "When I was seven, I watched them pour 'Subject No. 6' into the concrete." His thumb pressed against her pulse. "That girl cried out my name, and I—"  


Xia Xiaoman suddenly realized he was trembling.  


"And you were forced to play the role of Li Chenzhou's obedient son," she said softly. "Just like I had to forget how my parents died."  


The meteorite necklace swayed between them, a flicker of red light flashing deep within its dark blue core—the signal from a micro-storage device. In that moment, Xia Xiaoman understood: this necklace was a trap Li Moting had meticulously designed to lure out Li Chenzhou's allies.  


Chapter 32 - The Secret in the Necklace