The five heiresses gathered in the sprawling penthouse suite, their heels clicking sharply on the marble floor. The city lights glittered beneath them, but their eyes were colder than the night outside.
Lian Mei, poised and icy, sipped her jasmine tea with deliberate elegance. "So Zhang Min's finally desperate enough to beg us for help? Pathetic."
Wen Yuyan, known for her cutting sarcasm, rolled her eyes. "As if she ever belonged. She's a sinking ship we left behind ages ago."
Xu Qian, quiet but razor-sharp, smiled thinly. "Watching her stumble is more entertaining than any show. I'm genuinely impressed by her ability to self-destruct."
Han Zhi, always the perfect social butterfly, twirled a strand of her sleek hair and smirked. "Less competition for all of us. I can already see the headlines: 'Five Heiresses Take Over, Zhang Min Falls Apart.'"
Yue Qing, the cold strategist, tapped her manicured nails on the table. "We must enjoy this moment, but stay vigilant. Alliances shift like sand in this game."
Lian Mei's smile curved dangerously. "Exactly. We may appear united, but remember, trust is the first thing to go in our world."
Wen Yuyan laughed softly, "Fake friends and real enemies—that's the only way to survive."
Xu Qian lifted her glass, "Here's to Zhang Min's spectacular fall. May her ruin remind everyone what happens when you lose your place."
Han Zhi raised her drink with a playful wink. "To less rivals and more power for us."
Yue Qing's voice was low and steady. "Let's keep our eyes open. The game is far from over."
They clinked glasses, the sound sharp and full of unspoken promises. Beneath the surface, each plotted her own path, ready to stab the others if it meant climbing higher.
Meanwhile, Zhang Min's desperate calls were already forgotten—just a distant echo of a fallen star.
–––
The hotel suite looked like a war zone—if the war had been fought with tossed laundry, open laptops, half-eaten bao, and one very sleep-deprived boyfriend.
Shen Rui stood by the minibar, half-dressed, fully defeated.
"We should book plane ticket," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Before this place consumes my soul."
Across the room, Lin Xie sat on the bed, legs crossed, fiddling with his smartwatch. Her face was perfectly blank—her version of casual domestic bliss.
"I have not yet studied the population patterns of the weekend market," she said, not looking up. "And you promised to let me pick one civilian café."
He squinted. "I said we'd grab coffee. That's different."
"I found six potential sites. Two serve frog-shaped desserts."
"We're not eating frogs, Lin Xie."
"They are merely aesthetic."
"We're not eating aesthetic frogs either."
She tilted her head. "Your stress levels are elevated. You should meditate."
"I would," he muttered, "but I've been in a constant state of psychological crisis since we started dating."
She finally looked up, eyebrows faintly furrowed. "Is it unpleasant?"
He sighed, walked over, and kissed her on the forehead. "It's also the best thing that's ever happened to me. But you scare me."
She nodded thoughtfully. "Acceptable risk."
"Not the reassurance I needed."
Lin Xie stood, handed him a black shirt—his, freshly ironed, somehow—from who-knows-where.
"Wear this. You look like you were dragged by an emotional support train."
"That's because I was emotionally hit by one," he grumbled, slipping it on.
"You're welcome."
He glanced at the mirror. "Okay. Triangle building. Frog café. No blowing anything up. Then we book the ticket."
"Agreed. But not yet."
"Why not yet?"
She blinked. "I want to observe local couples in natural environments."
His brain short-circuited. "We are a couple!"
"Exactly. Comparative research."
He threw his hands in the air. "Can't we just cuddle like normal people?!"
"We can cuddle after the triangle building."
He groaned, grabbed his keys, and opened the door. "This is not how normal people date."
She walked past him. "We are not normal."
"Yeah," he said, smiling despite himself. "That's what terrifies me."
---
Shen Rui barely survived the frog café.
The desserts had eyeballs. Decorative, yes, but they jiggled. And Lin Xie had stared at hers like it was a hostile alien life form before calmly slicing it in half with surgical precision.
"That was a war crime," he muttered as they exited onto the street.
Lin Xie licked her spoon. "Frogs are amusing."
"They're disturbing."
"They match your energy."
He paused. "Okay, first of all, rude. Second of all, accurate."
They walked side by side through the narrow alleyways of the city's old district, cobblestone paths winding between antique bookstores, herbal medicine shops, and old men playing xiangqi with the intensity of a nuclear summit. Lin Xie paused once to peer at a street magician doing a coin trick, then handed him a folded napkin with a correction for his sleight of hand.
"You just gave him a physics equation."
"He thanked me."
"No, he blinked four times and dropped the coin."
They turned a corner and found a quiet, elevated garden plaza that overlooked the river. Lin Xie took out her phone—not for photos, but to scan for unfamiliar bird calls in the area.
Shen Rui flopped onto a bench with the exhaustion of a man who'd been emotionally outpaced all morning.
"you've really embraced domestic chaos."
She sat beside him, folding her hands neatly on her lap. "You tolerate it."
"I endure it because I love you," he said, voice flat. "There's a difference."
Her head tilted. "Clarify."
He turned to face her fully, one arm draped across the back of the bench. "I love you. That means I'll willingly suffer through gelatinous frog desserts, crowded plazas, your attempts to catalog human affection like it's a lab experiment, and you hacking the café's Wi-Fi just because their password security offended you."
"They used 'password1234.'"
"I'm not saying you were wrong, I'm just saying that's not normal behavior during a date."
She blinked at him. "Do you want a normal girlfriend?"
"No. God no." He reached over and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "I want you. Just… maybe with a pause button sometimes."
She seemed to consider this seriously. "I can simulate one. Temporarily."
He laughed, leaned in, and kissed her. She responded like she always did—curious at first, then confident, matching his rhythm with practiced, quiet intent.
When they broke apart, he whispered, "Can we go back to the hotel now?"
She shook her head. "Not yet."
He groaned. "Why?"
"I saw a bookstore with forbidden alchemy texts."
"You saw a manga shop."
"They had a poster labeled 'cursed.'"
"That's not—never mind. Lead the way."
She stood, satisfied.
He followed.
Of course he did.
The bookstore in question had a cracked window, flickering lights, and a bell over the door that screamed instead of jingled. Literally. It screeched like a haunted banshee when Lin Xie pushed the door open.
Shen Rui stopped dead in the doorway. "Nope. That's a warning from God."
Lin Xie ignored him and stepped inside, her eyes scanning shelves that were both alphabetized and ominously unlabeled.
A pale, hunched old man behind the counter looked up, adjusted his monocle (which wasn't attached to anything), and croaked, "You seek knowledge... or power?"
Lin Xie tilted her head. "Do you sell manga?"
The man blinked. Twice. Then he gestured vaguely to a dusty shelf labeled "Forbidden Scrolls."
Shen Rui leaned in. "That's a bootleg Naruto volume with coffee stains."
"Sealed with ancient ink," the man said gravely.
"It's Sharpie," Shen Rui muttered. "I can smell it."
Lin Xie, meanwhile, was holding up a tattered comic with a catgirl in a lab coat and the title 'My Girlfriend Dissected My Soul'.
"This seems accurate," she murmured.
Shen Rui groaned. "Why are all of your hobbies a threat to me personally?"
The bookstore floor creaked ominously as Lin Xie wandered deeper into the shop. She passed a cursed Ouija board repurposed as a chessboard, a collection of "love potions" suspiciously made of energy drinks and glitter, and a glowing rubber duck on a pedestal labeled "do not touch."
She touched it.
It quacked in Latin.
The lights flickered. Shen Rui screamed.
"Stop doing things!"
Lin Xie stared at the duck. "It initiated conversation."
"It initiated my heart attack!"
Eventually, they escaped the bookstore (after she bought three cursed mangas, one fake amulet, and a broken calculator labeled "ancient artifact"), and stumbled into a nearby night market, where Shen Rui immediately got distracted by food.
He bought grilled squid, tofu on a stick, and a drink in a light-up unicorn bottle that he refused to put down.
"I like it," he said, sipping dramatically. "It's like a rave in a cup."
Lin Xie didn't respond. She was busy trying to win a knife set at a ring toss booth. Her rings were laser-accurate. The vendor was sweating.
"You sure you're not an assassin?" Shen Rui whispered.
She didn't answer. She just hit five targets in a row.
"Ma'am," the vendor begged, "please take the knives and go."
Shen Rui ended up carrying the box of knives and the unicorn drink, looking like a man slowly losing control of his life.
"I'm dating a human glitch," he muttered.
Lin Xie looked back at him. "I have not glitched once today."
"You hacked a street karaoke machine to change someone's pitch live."
"They were off-key."
"That's not—ugh. Never mind."
By the time they made it back to the hotel, it was past midnight. Shen Rui dropped everything on the floor the moment the door closed and flopped onto the bed.
"I need a nap, a therapist, and holy water."
Lin Xie placed the knife set gently on the nightstand and climbed into bed beside him.
"You enjoyed today," she said flatly.
He opened one eye. "I did."
"You're welcome."
He laughed tiredly, pulling her close. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm yours."
He froze. Then smiled against her hair. "Yeah. You are."
A pause.
"Do not activate the duck again."
She said nothing.
He bolted upright. "Lin Xie—!"
From the suitcase, a distant Latin quack echoed.
Chaos would resume tomorrow.