Chapter 1

After a night of relentless rain, the sky finally cleared. The courtyard outside was strewn with fallen petals and leaves, and sunlight streamed through the window, stretching from the desk to Yun Yin’s feet.

Yun Yin stood rigidly before her desk, a deafening roar in her ears. A familiar pang of angina gripped her chest. Before her lay a stack of stark white documents, but as she tried to focus, her vision swam.

Instinctively, she closed her eyes and gripped the desk to steady herself.

Within minutes, a thin sheen of sweat glistened on Yun Yin’s pale forehead, her face drained of all color.

She felt trapped in a bizarre dream, unable to escape.

Lines of text transformed into fleeting, dreamlike scenes, flashing before her eyes like a carousel of images, until they settled on a pair of eyes as dark as ink.

How much time had passed? Yun Yin’s eyelashes fluttered. Clutching her chest, she gasped for breath. The sunlight creeping across the floor reached her body, yet she felt no warmth.

The surgery had failed. She hadn’t died—but instead, she had transmigrated into a book.

And not just any book—The Rise and Fall of the Business World, a popular male-centric business warfare novel from a web novel platform she had just finished reading.

Having just completed the novel, Yun Yin still remembered the entire plot clearly.

What struck her most wasn’t the male lead, but the story’s greatest antagonist—Pei Yu.

Though outwardly aloof and ascetic, Pei Yu was privately an unpredictable and unstable psychopath.

His twisted personality stemmed from traumatic experiences in his youth, leaving him utterly devoid of empathy. Later, he clawed his way up, earning his first fortune and building his own commercial empire.

No one knew how he had endured those years. Unlike the male lead, Pei Yu’s past was only briefly mentioned, adding to his enigmatic aura.

Even so, the author had placed an obstacle in the villain’s path to love: the Original Owner.

It was obvious that the Original Owner didn’t reciprocate Pei Yu’s feelings, instead harboring affection for the male lead.

The plot was melodramatic enough that, by the later stages, Pei Yu’s descent into darkness only intensified his twisted and obsessive nature, driving him to the brink of madness.

Just as the male lead learned that Pei Yu harbored feelings for the Original Owner, they were engaged in fierce business competition. Seizing the opportunity, the male lead persuaded the Original Owner to feign a relationship with the villain, using her as a pawn to extract crucial business secrets.

Under the male lead’s coaxing, the Original Owner surprisingly agreed. Her role as a pawn proved instrumental in dismantling the villain’s meticulously built business empire.

When Yun Yin first read the novel, she couldn’t comprehend how someone as cunning as Pei Yu could be deceived by the Original Owner. It defied all logic.

But with her omniscient perspective, she gradually understood that the “villain” and “white moonlight” characters were merely tools the author used to advance the plot.

The book focused primarily on the male lead and Pei Yu’s back-and-forth business rivalry, glossing over the Original Owner’s storyline.

At the time, she had criticized this plot hole—never imagining she would become that very inconsistency.

Now, she could only resign herself to the situation.

Yun Yin sorted through the novel’s plot and her own memories to grasp her current circumstances. Staring at the towering stack of documents on her desk, she fell into contemplative silence.

What classified documents?

How could she possibly sort through this mountain of papers?

In the novel, the Original Owner might have been frail and sickly, but she was deeply cunning. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to steal classified documents from the villain’s company so easily.

But here was the problem, she wasn’t that person!

The words “deeply cunning” simply didn’t apply to her.

The plot had already progressed to the point where she had helped the male lead steal Pei Yu’s company’s bidding documents. It was also because of this bidding document that the male protagonist successfully defeated Pei Yu and got the opportunity to bid.

But Yun Yin, having read the novel, knew perfectly well that the bidding documents on the desk weren’t the real ones. They were a test Pei Yu had set up to gauge the Original Owner’s loyalty.

The Original Owner had seen through Pei Yu’s scheme and turned the tables, leaking false information and colluding with the male lead to bribe a high-ranking executive in Pei Yu’s company. In the end, they had obtained the genuine tender documents.

Their back-and-forth maneuvers and intricate strategies had readers on the edge of their seats.

Yun Yin stared at the documents on the desk and sighed.

She had spent her entire life accumulating good deeds. Why had she transmigrated into a corporate warfare novel?!

So, here was the question.

Was she going to steal it or not?

Lost in thought about the unfolding plot, Yun Yin didn’t notice when the study door quietly swung open and a tall, imposing figure entered.

Hearing the sound, Yun Yin snapped back to reality. Her gaze immediately fixed on the man before her, her eyelashes fluttering with surprise and suspicion.

The man stood silhouetted against the light, his broad shoulders and back blocking most of the illumination. The shadow he cast effortlessly enveloped Yun Yin completely.

She couldn’t make out his features—only a pair of eyes as black as ink.

Those narrow eyes stared at her without emotion, their dark pupils seeming poised to devour everything, including her. When he lowered his gaze, a hint of cold indifference flickered across his expression.

Yun Yin felt an inexplicable surge of panic under his scrutiny.

The eyes were familiar. She was sure she had seen them somewhere before.

As she racked her brain to recall where, a cool, detached voice echoed in her ear: “What are you doing?”

By then, Yun Yin had regained her composure and finally recognized the man standing before her.

The book’s main antagonist—

Pei Yu.

Yun Yin glanced at Pei Yu, then at the documents on the desk. Her spine straightened involuntarily, a strange sense of guilt creeping in even though she hadn’t done anything wrong.

Faced with the situation, Yun Yin tried to come up with a plausible explanation for her presence here, but her mind went completely blank.

After a moment, she forced a stiff laugh. “Just taking a stroll.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, a flicker of annoyance crossed Yun Yin’s brow.

A stroll led her to the study?

She didn’t believe it herself, but since the words were already out, she clamped her mouth shut.

Pei Yu didn’t respond. He simply stared at her, his gaze deepening into an unfathomable abyss. Suddenly, he let out a soft, enigmatic chuckle.

Yun Yin tilted her head, puzzled.

Only then did he truly look at the woman standing before his desk. She wore a simple white dress that revealed a slender, pale neck—so fragile it seemed he could snap it with a single touch.

Above that was a pale, delicate face, her lips a faint pink, almost bloodless, like fragile glass. Yet her luminous black eyes, shifting with subtle currents, inadvertently breathed new life into her frail, pallid form.

Pei Yu stared at her, his eyes filled with an unfathomable depth.

In the end, he said nothing.

The study fell into a deathly silence.

Yun Yin’s delicate eyebrows furrowed in pain. This cursedly familiar sensation had returned, refusing to release her even after she had taken on a new body.

Time stretched like an eternity. Yun Yin gazed at the silent man before her, her expression listless, and finally broke the silence. “My head hurts. Carry me back.”

When Pei Yu still didn’t move, after nearly a minute of tense stillness, Yun Yin couldn’t help but whisper, “Pei Yu, my head hurts.”

She didn’t care what psychological impact her words might have on him. All she knew was that her heart felt like it was about to burst, and her head threatened to explode.

She clearly realized she was having a heart attack.

Before she could think further, darkness engulfed her vision, her body went limp, and she collapsed onto the cold marble floor.

Yun Yin’s last memory before losing consciousness was Pei Yu’s calm, unwavering gaze.

“How is she?”

“There’s a problem with her heart. We’ll need to run more detailed tests at the hospital to determine the specifics.”

“When will she wake up?”

“We can’t say for sure. I recommend taking her to the hospital as soon as possible…”

The faint murmur of conversation drifted from nearby. Unnoticed, the fingers of the person lying in bed twitched slightly.

As the voices continued, Yun Yin’s eyelashes fluttered. Suddenly, as if jolted awake from a nightmare, she opened her eyes and sat up abruptly.

The sudden movement startled the two figures nearby. They fell silent, turning to stare at her in surprise.

The middle-aged woman spoke first, her voice urgent. “Miss Yun, you’re awake! Do you feel any discomfort?”

Beside her stood a doctor in a white coat, his expression equally concerned.

Yun Yin stared blankly at them, unable to speak for a long moment.

For a moment, she couldn’t distinguish between reality and a dream.

“Aunt Lin?” she finally ventured tentatively.

“Yes?” Aunt Lin responded, her expression concerned. “Miss Yun, is there anything else that’s bothering you? Let the doctor take a look.”

Yun Yin shook her head, her hand at her side loosening as she lowered her lashes and whispered, “It’s nothing. I just need to rest for a while.”

Aunt Lin sensed Yun Yin’s desire for privacy and said, “Then you should rest well, Miss Yun. Call me if you need anything. The doctor and I won’t disturb you.”

Yun Yin gave a slight nod. “Thank you, Aunt Lin.”

Aunt Lin’s expression momentarily froze at the unexpected gratitude, but she quickly recovered and left the bedroom with the doctor, closing the door behind them.

Once they were gone, Yun Yin’s stiff posture finally relaxed slightly. She gazed at the utterly unfamiliar surroundings, a flicker of confusion crossing her eyes before vanishing.

So, it hadn’t been a dream after all. It had really happened.

Yun Yin finally accepted the reality of her transmigration into the novel.

It was fortunate she had fainted; otherwise, she wouldn’t have known how to face Pei Yu, especially since she had arrived right in the middle of a chaotic love triangle.

In the novel, to emphasize Pei Yu’s ruthlessness, anyone who deceived or betrayed him met a terrible end.

The Original Owner was no exception.

Yun Yin couldn’t help but shiver when she recalled the Original Owner’s fate and the man’s pitch-black eyes, devoid of all emotion.

In the story, the Original Owner had gone to extreme lengths to help the male lead obtain business secrets. But after being used and discarded by him, she was sent to a mental asylum by Pei Yu, where she endured years of torture. Even after finally escaping, she was killed and her body dumped into the sea by some unknown enemy from her past.

But then Yun Yin thought, I won’t betray the villain by spying for the male lead like the Original Owner did. So the villain’s later actions against her shouldn’t apply to me. I’ll probably be able to live a decent life.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her chest.

Yun Yin instinctively clutched her chest, her eyes drooping slightly as the light in them slowly faded.

Even without the villain, she realized, I might not live long.

This body was no better than the one she had before transmigrating into the book.

Just as fragile and vulnerable.