If Li Ruoshui could go back in time, she absolutely, definitely wouldn’t have clicked on that novel.

She wouldn’t have been picked by the system. And she certainly wouldn’t be stuck in this ridiculous, life-threatening mess.

No—actually, if she had known she was going to be thrown into the book, she would’ve at least made proper reading notes. A thorough character breakdown, plot analysis, timeline charts—the whole deal.

The heroine of the story, Lu Feiyue, was a female constable with the Patrol Division. The male lead, Jiang Nian, was the top fugitive she’d been chasing for years. After working together to solve countless cases, their bond deepened into love—but neither had ever confessed.

So, the author created a male supporting character to move the romance along: enter Lu Zhiyao.

To emphasize that the hero and heroine were a perfect match, the author made the male lead and supporting lead polar opposites.

Jiang Nian had excellent qinggong; Lu Zhiyao was a martial arts powerhouse.
Jiang Nian was unruly and carefree; Lu Zhiyao was gentle and self-disciplined.
Jiang Nian hesitated to express his feelings; Lu Zhiyao spoke his mind without reservation.

Following that logic, if Jiang Nian had a warm and loving family, Lu Zhiyao’s would be tragic and broken. If Jiang Nian was cold on the outside but warm within, showing concern for others—then Lu Zhiyao might be cold at heart, indifferent to life and death.

Li Ruoshui glanced at the tip of his sword, still glinting coldly in the dim light, then back at his warm, springlike smile. A bead of cold sweat slid down her spine.

“Have you thought of it yet?” he asked, crouching down again. The trail of blood on the floor slowly crept up the hem of his white robe, blooming into soft red stains.

Li Ruoshui hesitated, watching his face carefully, then finally opened her mouth.

“It’s all… because of a dream I had.”

Lu Zhiyao nodded, resting his chin in his hands. He didn’t look particularly surprised.
“Go on.”

“In the dream, I was captured… but somehow, you saved me…”

“This is supposed to be strange?”

He sighed and stood up, his smile exasperated. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a fine arc of blood splattering from his sword.

“And after you saved me,” she hurried on, “I didn’t know your name at first. But over time, we… we fell in love. And eventually, you told me you were called Lu Zhiyao—that your master gave you that name.”

She rushed through the last part and let out a shaky breath, patting her chest to calm herself.

Then she saw it.

Lu Zhiyao’s smile shifted. Slowly. Subtly. It was hard to describe—part incredulous, part disgusted.

His face was still beautiful. But that smile?

That smile was deeply, deeply unsettling.

Li Ruoshui didn’t have time to dwell on it. The moment she saw him raise his sword, she blurted out—

“We ended up solving the case together—with two other people. I even know their names. One is Lu Feiyue, a female constable with the Patrol Division. The other is Jiang Nian, the number one wanted criminal.”

“If you don’t believe me, we can bet on it!”

Lu Zhiyao slowly lowered his sword and crouched down again.

“A bet? On your dream?”

Li Ruoshui let out a quiet breath of relief. Her ruqun was damp with cold sweat, clinging to her skin. The draft seeping through the cracks in the wall made her shiver.

“Yes. I bet everything I dreamed will eventually come true.”

Lu Zhiyao smiled, eyes narrowing. “You want to play a game with me?”

“I do,” she said firmly, watching his face like a hawk, not daring to miss a single shift in his expression.

The start of any meaningful bond, she thought, always begins with curiosity.

No matter whether Lu Zhiyao was truly gentle or secretly twisted, this was the right angle to take.

A lie, after all, was most convincing when it’s half-true.

As long as she could establish that the dream was real, then even the lies she wove within it would begin to seem plausible.

For example, her claim that she and Lu Zhiyao eventually fell in love—he might not believe it now, but if the dream proved true, that one line would take root in his mind, a seed waiting to grow.

Lu Zhiyao seemed amused. He gently rolled the jade prayer beads on his wrist between his fingers and asked, “Then what’s your wager?”

“If I lose,” Li Ruoshui said without hesitation, “you won’t need to lift a finger. I’ll swallow your sword whole.”

After setting such a dramatic flag, she stood and quickly stepped to the side—two paces away from him, just to be safe.

Lu Zhiyao chuckled softly and stood up as well. “If I lose…”

“No need.” Li Ruoshui confidently cut him off.

“You’re definitely going to lose, so let’s just put it on hold for now. We’ll settle it later.”

After all, building rapport wasn’t something the system could brute-force.
It had to be organic—debts traded back and forth, until things got so tangled even they couldn’t tell where it all began.

She mentally gave herself a thumbs-up for her brilliance… and casually took one more step back.

In the original story, it was Lu Feiyue and Jiang Nian who solved the case—she was just an added variable. And if this version of events fell apart, she still had one part of the bet working in her favor: the “eventual romance” clause.

Whether love bloomed or not didn’t matter. What mattered was time.

“Then let’s hope you really do meet those two,” Lu Zhiyao said lightly. “As for ‘falling in love over time,’ let’s leave that out of the wager.”

He sheathed his sword with a soft sound, his smile as effortless as ever.

“After all, I don’t know the first thing about love.”

Li Ruoshui: …

According to the time-honored “famous last words” rule, saying something like that practically guaranteed he’d fall head over heels later.

The torches in the dungeon had all gone out, but faint light still spilled in from the entrance.

Li Ruoshui shivered, then glanced at the weakened girls slumped nearby. She searched the bodies of the fallen black-clad men, found the antidote, and helped the others take it. Slowly, they all began making their way out of the dungeon.

“Could you help me find my cane?”

Lu Zhiyao’s gentle voice called out behind her—calm, composed, without a trace of guilt for nearly skewering her earlier.

Li Ruoshui spotted his cane in a corner and picked it up. It was made of polished redwood, not too heavy, and the top was engraved with three precise wave-like lines.

She brought it closer for a better look. The design seemed casually etched, but the spacing between the lines was perfectly uniform, almost unnervingly precise.

Lu Zhiyao took the cane from her with a soft smile, warm as spring. “Thank you.”

Li Ruoshui replied with a dry, “Don’t mention it,” while screaming on the inside:
If you’re really thankful, let’s just get along—no more mutual murder attempts, please.

The novel didn’t offer much detail about Lu Zhiyao’s background. Just one vague line—“Abandoned by his mother in childhood, watched his master die tragically as a teen.”

That was it. The rest was all about his role as the supporting male lead.

Seriously? How was she supposed to work with that? Plot knowledge was useless when all her understanding of him came filtered through the heroine’s perspective.

People had layers. Who knew how he treated those not named in the title? Sure, maybe he really was gentle and affectionate—but clearly, not toward her.

Li Ruoshui followed behind him with a quiet sigh.

This road… is going to be a long one.

Suddenly, a sharp scream rang out from up ahead.

Li Ruoshui stepped around Lu Zhiyao and hurried out of the dungeon. The moment she saw the scene before her, even she couldn’t help but pause in shock.

Dozens of black-clad men lay sprawled across the courtyard.

No blood.

But every single one of their necks was grotesquely twisted, their deaths so unnerving that even a few of the girls behind her let out choked sobs.

Lu Zhiyao stepped out leisurely after her, seemingly unbothered by the horror surrounding them. Without a second glance, he shrugged off his bloodstained outer robe and tossed it aside.

“Let’s go,” he said with a smile, tapping his cane as he walked casually toward the courtyard gate.

If not for the sea of corpses behind him, Li Ruoshui might’ve still believed he was someone soft and pure, like snow under spring sunshine.

Carefully stepping over the twisted bodies, she caught up with him.

“Your method of killing people is… pretty unique.”

Lu Zhiyao chuckled under his breath, as if they were discussing breakfast.

“I was in a hurry to see you. Might’ve gone a bit fast.”

If she hadn’t nearly been on the receiving end of his sword earlier, she might’ve misread that line as something flirtatious.

In the novel, Lu Zhiyao was described as the most powerful character in terms of martial skill. One strike, one kill—and sometimes, he’d get… excited.

She’d always assumed that “excitement” meant a righteous fury, the kind that came from a strong sense of justice.

But now, she realized… maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was just pure excitement—no reason, no anger, no morality.

Like someone drunk doing reckless things—not out of hatred, but simply because they were intoxicated.

Except for Lu Zhiyao, it wasn’t alcohol.

It was killing.

—

Most of the other captives were locals from Yun City. Once they returned to the city, they quickly scattered, weeping as they made their way home.

Li Ruoshui, on the other hand, had made a bet with Lu Zhiyao—and that meant sticking by his side.

So the two of them checked into an inn, waiting for the arrival of the female constable and the top-ranked thief, both expected within two days.

As for the other girls, they had no money on them. Their only option was to report the case to the local authorities and take the official roads home.

When Li Ruoshui heard they were heading to the magistrate’s office, she quickly pulled them aside and whispered: “I found a hidden tunnel in the dungeon earlier. If the officials ever want to investigate it, tell them to come find me.”

Better safe than sorry. What if her presence here had caused a butterfly effect, and the original plot—where the male and female leads met Lu Zhiyao because of this case—never happened?

If that was the case, she’d lose the bet, be forced to swallow a sword on the spot, fail the mission, and never return home.

Right now, the original heroine, Lu Feiyue, was likely already at the magistrate’s office discussing the case. Once she appeared, that would be solid proof the dream had some truth to it.

By then, the groundwork would be laid.

The sky had turned completely dark by the time Li Ruoshui returned to the inn, arms full of warm clothes she’d bought. As she passed by Lu Zhiyao’s door, she came to a halt.

The door wasn’t closed.

From the hallway, she could see his figure sitting by the window, facing away. His frame was slim, posture straight, and his long black hair stirred lightly in the breeze—like shadows ready to swallow him whole.

“Something wrong?”

He turned his head slightly. Moonlight streamed through the window and fell gently across his closed eyes, casting soft highlights on his sharp profile. In that moment, he looked like a celestial being—refined, serene, and untouchably elegant.

But Li Ruoshui didn’t feel calm at all.

Beneath that tranquil appearance, she sensed a storm barely held back. His emotions weren’t calm—they were unstable. Wild. Unpredictable.

She had the strange feeling that if she took one more step into that room…
her head might no longer stay attached to her body.

…

Wait—don’t tell me this is one of those nights men have once a month?

After a single second of internal debate, Li Ruoshui took a full step back. Her voice rang out in the quiet corridor, light and crisp like the chime of a bell.

“I remembered you tossed your robe earlier, so I asked the innkeeper to bring you a new one. It’ll be delivered in the morning… March nights are chilly. Try not to catch a cold. Sleep well!”

She turned and dashed away before he could say another word, her footsteps quick and retreating.

Inside the room, Lu Zhiyao let out a low chuckle. He laughed quietly, as though something had tickled him deeply, and couldn’t stop for a while.

At last, a soft, amused sigh drifted through the night air, lingering with laughter in its tail.

“So perceptive.”

=^_^=