Volume One, Chapter One: Playing the Victim
"Your heart is shifted half a centimeter further to the left than most people’s, and it’s precisely this half-centimeter difference that saved your life. You’re a lucky girl!"
When Lin Zhiyu awoke in her hospital bed, the doctors around her were cheering, claiming her survival was nothing short of a medical miracle.
Lying there, she felt as though she’d returned from another world, tears streaming down her face, for after three long years, she was finally free.
Before she turned eighteen, she was the treasured daughter of the Lin Corporation; after her eighteenth birthday, she discovered she was nothing but an imposter.
The real heiress, Lin Yihuan, sobbed in the arms of her parents. Lin Zhiyu wanted to leave, but couldn’t. After Lin Yihuan pushed the heiress of the Shen Pharmaceutical Group down the stairs and left her in a vegetative state, Lin Zhiyu’s beloved family personally handed her over to the Shen family’s infamous laboratory—a living hell.
When the Shen family found her no longer useful, they brutalized her and abandoned her deep in the mountains.
But she didn’t die.
On the verge of death, she was discovered by hikers exploring the remote forest. The sight of her, covered in blood, terrified them. Their hands shaking, they called the police and rushed her to the hospital.
The police tried to contact her family, but their calls went unanswered, so the doctors had no choice but to operate on her.
Her abdomen, thigh, and heart had all been viciously stabbed multiple times. She had lost a great deal of blood. Years of being used as a test subject—enduring countless drugs and injections—had thrown her hormones into utter chaos, leaving her body completely unlike that of a normal person, the imbalances tormenting her nerves.
Every doctor believed she was beyond saving.
Yet, against all odds, Lin Zhiyu survived the surgery!
The doctors thought she was overwhelmed by emotion and hurried to comfort her, and soon she managed to stop crying.
Perhaps this was a miracle, but more than that, it was a battle between her will to live and fate itself. She refused to die, so she clung to life with everything she had.
Breathing in the sharp scent of disinfectant in the hospital room, she realized she had never found pain so exquisite.
Even though she couldn’t move her limbs, even as the medications warred inside her veins and every infusion required her to muster every ounce of will to withstand the pain, she found it all beautiful.
Three years—three whole years—and at last, she could taste freedom.
But just as the fifth IV bottle finished and she drifted into sleep, the hospital room’s door was suddenly flung open.
She met the furious gaze of Lu Zhaochuan.
Lin Zhiyu immediately opened her eyes, instinctively trembling.
"Lin Zhiyu, how did you escape from the Shen Group’s laboratory? How long have you been out? Does anyone in the lab know?"
"I’m warning you, go back now! If the Shen family gets angry and Hua Hua gets dragged into this, you’ll never have peace for the rest of your life!"
The barrage of accusations left Lin Zhiyu stunned, her blood running cold, her fingertips icy.
Lu Zhaochuan was once her beloved fiancé. He had once risked his life to save her during an earthquake, but on a rain-soaked night, he’d looked at her with icy eyes and accused her of pushing the Shen heiress down the stairs.
Now, even seeing her covered in wounds, he showed no concern.
She moved her lips, her voice as calm as a placid sea: "Does it really matter whether they know or not?"
Lu Zhaochuan’s anger only intensified. He strode forward and grabbed her hospital gown.
"I knew it. You snuck out, didn’t you? Go back now—right this instant!"
His merciless words hit her with a fresh wave of pain, her breathing ragged, every inhale stabbing with agony.
Once, a scraped knee would have made Lu Zhaochuan ache for days. Now, even with her hand still pierced by an IV and her chest wrapped in bloodstained bandages, he saw none of her suffering.
She frowned, unable to hold back. "Let go of me. Can’t you see I’m hurt?"
Lu Zhaochuan sneered.
"Keep pretending. You’re getting good at it, aren’t you? Those bandages look professional—still bleeding, too. Is it chicken blood or duck blood? Or did you pay for real human blood?"
Pretending?
The pain washed over her, and Lin Zhiyu couldn’t help but laugh.
How absurd—how ironic!
They’d grown up together, childhood sweethearts. Now, he looked at her battered body and said she was faking.
Whatever feelings she had for him had already crumbled when he joined her family in slandering her. Now, at last, they vanished completely.
When Lu Zhaochuan saw her mocking smile, his heart gave a strange jolt, but he quickly frowned, narrowing his eyes and gritting his teeth. "Lin Zhiyu, don’t think I’ll believe you just because of this."
Her hand, still pierced by the needle, throbbed with pain, but Lin Zhiyu forced herself to raise it, trembling, and tried to push his hand away.
"Lu Zhaochuan, let’s break off the engagement."
Her voice was so calm that Lu Zhaochuan couldn’t help but look at her in surprise, a strange anxiety rising in his chest.
They had been betrothed since childhood. Even though she wasn’t the real heiress, he’d never considered breaking it off. As for the Shen family, once their vengeance was sated, they’d let her go. They could still marry and have children.
"What nonsense is this?" Lu Zhaochuan’s expression turned cold.
Lin Zhiyu, gasping for breath, her fingertips ghostly white, pressed harder to push his hand away.
"Exactly what I said."
"Your engagement—let Lin Yihuan fulfill it with you."
Lu Zhaochuan stared at her, noticing her pallor, her weakness, and her almost translucent, sickly complexion. At last, he sensed something was wrong.
"Lin Zhiyu, you—"
But before he could finish, the phone rang sharply.
He answered, his expression shifting, and immediately let her go, casting one last icy glance at her before leaving.
"Don’t waste your time thinking about the engagement. I’ll say it one more time—go back to the Shen Pharmaceutical Group before they get angry."
With that, he hurried out.