The hospital corridor was quiet. Too quiet. The sterile white walls, once familiar from her years as a medical intern, now felt cold… final.
Xia Luo lay on the operating table, chest rising weakly, pain spreading like fire through her lungs. The betrayal still echoed in her ears.
She had worked tirelessly — top of her class, praised by professors, admired by patients. But none of that mattered when her fiancé and best friend conspired to push her out of the hospital's elite research project. When she found out, she didn't even get the chance to confront them.
The car crash wasn't an accident.
Her vision blurred. Blood filled her throat, warm and metallic. Her body felt heavier by the second. She couldn't even cry.
*So this is how it ends? Forgotten, used, discarded?*
Darkness crept in… but just before her consciousness slipped away, something stirred.
A voice.
Clear. Cold. Genderless.
*"Would you like a second chance?"*
Xia Luo's thoughts paused, suspended in a strange, painless void.
"Who... are you?" she whispered mentally.
*"I am System 713. Program: *To Capture the Male God*. You have been selected for binding."*
"What?"
*"You are already dead."* The voice was calm, emotionless. *"But if you bind to me, I will grant you resurrection. In exchange, you will hop between worlds to capture the favor of the designated Male Lead — codename: Male God."*
Xia Luo didn't answer right away. Her mind flickered back to the betrayal, to the cold eyes of the man she once loved.
*"Will I be able to take revenge?"*
*"Eventually. If you complete all missions and earn enough affection points, you can return to your world… with power and memory intact."*
A beat of silence.
Then her lips curled into a mental smirk.
*"Fine. Bind me."*
Everything exploded into light.
---
When she opened her eyes again, she wasn't in a hospital.
She was wearing layers of silk, lying on an ornate bed beneath gauzy drapes. Her limbs felt foreign. Her reflection, glimpsed in a polished bronze mirror, was someone else's face.
Pain shot through her skull.
Memories — not hers — flooded in like a wave. The identity of the original host. Her status as a noble lady. Her unjust humiliation. Her planned marriage to a cold and distant prince.
Her system's voice returned, clear and formal.