The system beeped so loudly in Jiang Yue's head she almost dropped the stack of documents she was carrying.
[Warning. Original Plotline Resurfacing.]
[Event Trigger: Zhou Meili's Return.]
Her footsteps froze mid-hallway.
Zhou Meili.
The original heroine of this twisted webnovel.
The golden child of fate.
The woman the entire plot revolved around… the one Li Zhenkai was supposed to fall in love with.
And she was back.
"Yue!" a familiar voice called. Tessa jogged up beside her, tablet in hand, wearing the Zhenkai Group's sleek black PR department badge. "You look like you've just seen the ghost of your GPA."
"Tessa…" Jiang Yue blinked, still trying to digest the system's alert. "Since when do you—"
"Work here? Since your CEO decided to poach me from my old firm," Tessa said with a proud smirk. "PR department. Now I get to make sure your face doesn't end up on the cover of some gossip rag every time your bad luck acts up."
Jiang Yue groaned. "That's going to be a full-time job."
"Oh, honey, it's overtime," Tessa quipped, then lowered her voice. "Speaking of which, have you seen the news?"
"What news?" Jiang Yue asked warily.
Tessa's eyes sparkled like a cat about to drop a dead mouse at your feet. "Zhou. Meili. Just landed at the airport this morning. In a red designer dress. With the press eating out of her perfectly manicured hand."
Jiang Yue's stomach sank. "...Crap."
---
By noon, the company was buzzing.
"Isn't she the youngest daughter of the Zhou conglomerate?"
"They say she's gorgeous, like movie-star gorgeous."
"I heard she and the CEO used to—"
Jiang Yue stopped listening. She didn't need the rest of that sentence to know it would involve her being replaced in every way that mattered.
She was still lost in thought when Tessa nudged her hard. "Hey. Don't do that face."
"What face?"
"The one where you look like you're about to be dramatically written out of your own story," Tessa said, walking backward in front of her. "We're going to handle this. PR queen here, remember?"
Jiang Yue managed a smile. But deep down, the unease gnawed at her.
---
The unease became a real danger that afternoon.
She was walking through the outdoor construction site behind the corporate plaza with Tessa, headed to check some stage preparations for an upcoming Lin Group charity gala, when she heard it.
A faint metallic creak.
The kind that makes your instincts scream.
Tessa froze mid-step, eyes darting upward. "YUE MOVE!"
Jiang Yue didn't even have time to look up before a massive steel scaffolding above them groaned, wobbled, and tipped forward.
She heard people shouting. Workers swore and scrambled. Her own heart pounded in her ears.
She stumbled backward and collided with something solid, warm, and immovable.
A strong arm wrapped around her waist, yanking her sharply to the side just as the scaffolding crashed down where she'd been standing a second ago.
Dust and metal clanged around them.
When she finally looked up, her face was inches from Li Zhenkai's chest. His grip was firm, his breathing calm despite the chaos.
"Watch where you stand," he said flatly, but his hand lingered at her waist for a fraction longer than necessary.
Her system pinged in her head.
[Luck Bar: +12%]
[Current Luck: 72% → 84%]
Tessa came running, tablet clutched to her chest, hair frazzled from the near miss. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you almost get flattened by stage equipment! Do you have a death wish?!"
Jiang Yue tried to answer, but Li Zhenkai's gaze pinned her in place. "Why were you here?" he asked, his tone carrying that CEO weight that made even board members sweat.
"Stage check," she mumbled.
His jaw tightened. "From now on, you don't go near construction sites."
She bristled. "You can't just—"
"Yes," he cut in, his voice leaving no room for argument. "I can."
Tessa stepped in, unbothered by the CEO glare. "For the record, I saw that thing falling before it happened. I yelled. She didn't move. You did. So thanks for playing knight in shining armor."
His gaze flickered briefly toward Tessa, then back to Jiang Yue. "Go inside. Both of you."
---
Back in the safety of the main building, the gossip was instant.
"They said the CEO grabbed her like—"
"Are they… together?"
"Did you see how he looked at her?"
Jiang Yue ignored them, but her heart was still hammering from the near accident. The worst part? She didn't know whether it was fear, adrenaline… or something else entirely.
Tessa leaned over her desk later and whispered, "You realize he didn't just pull you out of the way. He shielded you with his whole body."
Jiang Yue rolled her eyes. "Don't start."
"Oh, I'm starting," Tessa said with a grin. "Because this is exactly how romantic dramas start before the love triangle enters stage left."
Jiang Yue's stomach dropped. Right. Zhou Meili.
---
The next morning, the splash hit.
Every business and entertainment news outlet ran the same headline:
Zhou Meili Returns to China: "I'm Home for Good."
Glossy photos of her arrival flooded social media her long legs, flawless makeup, smile that could topple empires. She was perfection. And she was holding a bouquet of lilies.
Jiang Yue's system chimed again.
[Warning. Protagonist Halo Detected.]
[Risk Level: High.]
She knew exactly what it meant: trouble was officially here.
And if the scaffolding incident proved anything… her bad luck wasn't going to give her a break just because the plotline had started to shift.