Chapter 24

When it came to bodyguards, Gu An’an couldn’t help thinking of how Su Ruan seemed a little afraid of her.
She had sensed it before, but thought she was imagining things. After all, Su Ruan was the type who had both the male lead and the second male lead wrapped around her finger, who could easily trample over someone like Shen Shan, a rich, well-connected supporting character. Why would she possibly be afraid of Gu An’an?
But now Gu An’an was sure, it wasn’t an illusion. The change in Su Ruan’s eyes was subtle, but real; there was a flash of fear whenever Gu An’an came near.
But why? What, did she look like she could eat people or something?!
Gu An’an spent the whole summer trying to figure it out, and still didn’t understand.
Maybe that night at the Neon Hotel had left Xie Jinxing with some psychological trauma, because he never went to those kinds of places again. After that, all his business meetings were held in hotels or resorts owned by the Xie Corporation.
Assistant Li had already notified all branches of the company’s service venues: no female staff under 160 cm in height were to be hired.
With that one simple rule, Xie Jinxing neatly severed all of Su Ruan’s chances to “shine.”
Cruel. Ruthless. That was Xie Jinxing.
Su Ruan tried every possible way, but she couldn’t get past that height restriction. Furious, she cursed her fate again and again.
Why wasn’t she born into a wealthy family?
Why was Xie Jinxing still so cold, so indifferent, after six lifetimes?
Why, after all she had sacrificed, couldn’t she get what she wanted?
And most of all, why was Gu An’an, a girl from a poor family just like her, so unbelievably lucky?!
Su Ruan couldn’t help recalling her first life.
Back then, she had just inherited the system from her grandmother, something she’d never even dared to dream about. Her boyfriend upgraded overnight from the son of a small shop owner to the son of a construction magnate. Following him, she’d finally entered the world of the rich.
That boyfriend had money, an Audi, a watch worth five digits, and every outing cost tens of thousands.
At that time, Su Ruan thought she had reached the peak of her life.
All her past boyfriends had been as poor as she was, the type whose families would need to empty their life savings just to buy a small apartment in Beijing. She had never dated anyone rich before. But with the halo granted by her system, she got a glimpse of that dazzling, glittering upper-class world.
She was fascinated and deeply, painfully envious. Once she tasted its sweetness, she only wanted more. She poured all her system points into beauty filters and charm upgrades.
Soon, she landed a richer boyfriend.
This new one was leagues above the last, real old money, not nouveau riche. Audis and expensive watches were nothing to them. What she considered luxurious, they thought was laughably ordinary.
Su Ruan felt both inferior and greedy. She longed for their lives but feared being looked down on, so again, she put all her points into her halo.
She wanted her boyfriend to give her everything out of love, so she could frown slightly and say she didn’t really want it, that he’d insisted, and she had no choice but to accept. She loved that feeling: being adored, worshipped, and handed everything she desired.
Her boyfriends changed quickly, every three months at most, sometimes even one.
And each new one was richer than the last, rising from “well-off” to “wealthy” to “elite upper class.”
Then she heard of someone strange, Gu An’an.
A girl who didn’t belong to high society, yet somehow truly lived in it.
Her boyfriend at the time, Yang Yue, told her about her.
He said Gu An’an was an orphan fostered by the Xie family, the most powerful family in Beijing, the so-called dragon’s head. Yang Yue sneered, “Grandpa Xie even wanted his grandson to marry her. An orphan with no background, no parents, nothing but a face, what use would she be as a wife? The old man must be senile.”
Gu An’an was the first person Su Ruan had heard of in those circles who shared a background similar to hers and who was equally rejected. She was a little curious, but only a little. What really interested her was the Xie family.
Just how rich could a family be to make people like Yang Yue call them “the dragon’s head”?
Riding high on confidence, Su Ruan had conquered one man after another she’d never dreamed of reaching. She thought claiming Xie Jinxing’s nephew would be easy. She even fantasized about stealing that man right in front of Gu An’an, how satisfying that would be.
Then she met Lu Xingyu.
A true elite second generation, handsome, refined, athletic, brilliant. He didn’t look down on her like others did, treated her like an equal.
Su Ruan was stunned, utterly stunned.
She had thought Lu Xingyu would be arrogant and hedonistic like the rest, but he was polite, educated, composed. Yang Yue told her it was because the Xie family had strict discipline. Lu Xingyu had been raised in their household since childhood. He lacked the arrogance most heirs had.
Su Ruan asked if all Xie family members were like that.
Yang Yue laughed for a long time, then said mockingly, “Of course not. Lu Xingyu’s only that obedient because there’s a mountain over his head, someone so terrifyingly perfect he can’t even breathe beneath his shadow.”
Su Ruan blinked. “A mountain? Who’s the mountain?”
Yang Yue just looked at her for a long time, smirked, and said nothing.
She didn’t meet that “mountain” then, but later, she met Gu An’an, the girl other heirs called “a chicken among cranes,” “a pretender among elites.”
Gu An’an was stunning, so beautiful Su Ruan felt instant jealousy.
That sense of danger made her hate Gu An’an the moment they met.
Whenever the others mocked Gu An’an behind her back, Su Ruan would laugh along, pretending she belonged among them.
But Gu An’an never seemed to care. Insults slid off her; her eyes only followed Lu Xingyu. She appeared rarely in social circles, and only when she was with him.
Su Ruan soon realized the truth that made her stomach twist, Lu Xingyu truly liked Gu An’an.
Liked her deeply, purely, in the way only a young man could.
Even though everyone said the Lu and Xie families would never let Gu An’an marry into them, Lu Xingyu always stood by her, defending her fiercely. He wouldn’t let anyone mock her, drank only from her hand, ate only food she brought.
Gentle-tempered Lu Xingyu would even fight if someone so much as looked at her wrong.
Su Ruan was shaken, and every time she saw Gu An’an, the bitterness rose higher.
So she began to stir things up, manipulating others to humiliate Gu An’an publicly.
It wasn’t hard. Gu An’an seemed slow to mockery, almost numb to it, or maybe no one dared insult her face-to-face.
Because of the Xie family.
Su Ruan grew obsessed with them. She wanted to know what made them so powerful.
And then she did something reckless, she tried to seduce Lu Xingyu.
It wasn’t easy. The system had told her: if a target has strong willpower or loves someone else, the halo’s effect weakens. Like Yang Yue before, he’d loved another girl since childhood, and Su Ruan had to burn ten years of her lifespan to claim him.
With Lu Xingyu, it was even harder. His heart already belonged to Gu An’an, ever since the day she was adopted from the orphanage. Five years of growing up together had deepened that bond. He’d long decided that when he grew up, he’d marry her.
Su Ruan spent fifteen years of her lifespan to finally sway him.
But even then, he wavered. Drawn to her, yet forever pained by thoughts of Gu An’an.
It infuriated her. Since getting the system, no man had ever hesitated over her. What was so special about Gu An’an? Just her pretty face? Childhood love? Su Ruan scoffed, her first boyfriend was her childhood sweetheart, and he’d cheated within a year!
Anger boiled over. She amplified her halo again, using her tears to make men furious on her behalf.
And of course, they couldn’t stand seeing her cry, they retaliated against Gu An’an for her.
Su Ruan didn’t expect the retaliation to go too far.
Those spoiled heirs, drunk on power, actually hired someone to run Gu An’an over.
Gu An’an didn’t die, but was left half-crippled. Lu Xingyu broke down completely, and that’s when Su Ruan met the “mountain” at last, Xie Jinxing.
The real deal.
Charming, terrifying, predatory. Swift, merciless.
He investigated everything about that “accident,” down to the tiniest detail. Su Ruan thought she’d be fine, she hadn’t personally done anything evil, just cried a little. But Xie Jinxing didn’t care.
He sent everyone involved to prison.
No one escaped. Not even her. The halo couldn’t save her.
Su Ruan’s first life ended in prison.
She had thought she had plenty of years left to spend, but the life she’d exchanged for her “charms” had been carved directly from her lifespan. Her family carried a hereditary kidney disease, no one lived past sixty.
She wasn’t the lucky exception. She fell ill in prison and died within three months.
When she was near death, the system asked if she wanted to start over.
She had only seen Xie Jinxing once, fifteen minutes from start to finish, but she had fallen for him.
Even though he was cold, merciless, and had been the one to send her to jail, she didn’t hate him.
She said firmly: “I want to start over.”
The system replied coolly: since her life had ended, she could only return by taking another’s, someone related by blood. The closer the relation, the better the compatibility.
Su Ruan hesitated for a minute, then chose her twin sister.
Su Qing.
She had always hated Su Qing.
Though twins, they were opposites. Su Ruan chased pleasure, romance, and attention, while Su Qing studied hard and stayed distant. She’d scored high enough to enter one of Beijing’s top 985 universities, while Su Ruan barely scraped through vocational school thanks to her parents’ money.
Their parents spoiled Su Ruan, but that didn’t lessen her resentment. Because of Su Qing, she was constantly compared, “same face, different fates,” neighbors said. “One’s brilliant, the other’s useless.”
So when they were five and got separated at an amusement park, Su Ruan came back. Su Qing didn’t.
Because Su Qing’s life now belonged to her.
Her second life started with that advantage. She entered the same school as Lu Xingyu, and everything went smoother. With her elite background, she thought this life would be perfect.
But it wasn’t. Even proximity couldn’t conquer a faithful heart.
Still, she knew how much each man was worth and traded her lifespan without hesitation.
With the system’s help, she easily attracted them all. Even the chaos of multiple lovers crossing paths didn’t matter, no man could ever hate her.
Soon, she basked in the thrill of being desired. Wealthy heirs fought over her; she’d never felt so powerful.
This time, she focused on key players, Yang Yue, Lu Xingyu, Zhou Jiayu, and several ultra-rich second gens.
Breaking into their circle would bring her closer to the Xie family.
But things didn’t go as planned. Xie Jinxing was too busy, almost impossible to see unless it was a life-or-death situation.
And the only ones whose injuries could reach him…were Lu Xingyu and Gu An’an.
Lu Xingyu was his nephew, but he still had the Lu family behind him. Gu An’an, on the other hand, had no one.
So whenever Gu An’an got hurt, Xie Jinxing came in person. He was even listed as her emergency contact, the first to show up at the police station when something happened.
That was when Su Ruan truly began to hate Gu An’an, more than ever before.
Why her?
Why always her?
She was just an orphan. It was said that her whole family had died in the earthquake. If Grandpa Xie really wanted to do charity, why not go to the slums on the outskirts of the city and help the poor? Why would he adopt a fourteen-year-old orphan from the earthquake?
Su Ruan truly, sincerely hated Gu An’an, hated her with all her heart, because Gu An’an showed her a possibility that should never have belonged to her.
That was why, in her second life, she hated Gu An’an even more. Even though Gu An’an never interfered with her and spent all her time doing exhausting work for the basketball club, running errands under the scorching sun to bring water to Lu Xingyu, getting up early every morning to bring him breakfast, and coming over the moment he called, Su Ruan still despised her. It was as if Gu An’an had cut off her chance to rise above everyone else.
In that second life, Su Ruan deliberately used Lu Xingyu to make fun of Gu An’an, and by repeatedly “walking dogs” with him, she successfully turned Gu An’an into the school’s most infamous simp, a brainless fool with big breasts, Lu Xingyu’s obedient lapdog who came when he called and left when dismissed.
Before long, Su Ruan entered the elite circle of the ultra-rich second generation. With Lu Xingyu as her stepping stone, she managed to get close to Xie Jinxing.
Although Xie Jinxing was only in his twenties, not much older than Lu Xingyu, because of his monstrous capability and his status as a true power-holder rather than a mere heir, their circles were completely different. Lu Xingyu was a second-generation rich kid yet to touch family business; Xie Jinxing was already the hidden boss controlling everything behind the scenes. The circle of second-generation heirs and that of those in power did not overlap.
Even after getting close, it was useless. She couldn’t get a word in with him. Xie Jinxing didn’t treat her any differently because of her supposed “halo”, in fact, he even seemed to dislike her.
Su Ruan couldn’t understand why. She knew her halo was invincible; whoever it touched would falter, would be dazed.
But Xie Jinxing was completely unaffected.
Heaven knew how much of her lifespan she had burned just to make her halo influence him for even a brief moment, yet every time, before she could speak to him properly, someone would interrupt.
Su Ruan was so furious she could spit blood. She hated, nearly to the point of wanting to tear apart, the one who always ruined her attempts at casting the halo: Gu An’an.
She didn’t know whether Gu An’an was born to counter her, but every single time, it was only when Gu An’an appeared that her halo failed without exception. The moment Gu An’an came close, Xie Jinxing’s gaze would shift away.
How shameless Gu An’an was! She clearly wasn’t part of the Xie family, yet she shamelessly called Xie Jinxing “Uncle.”
Although Xie Jinxing wasn’t particularly warm toward her, his attitude was already far better than toward anyone else. To Su Ruan, that was enough proof. Xie Jinxing ignored all other women completely, the fact that he was even willing to grunt in acknowledgment at Gu An’an counted as special treatment.
Su Ruan knew it was because of the foster relationship. Gu An’an lived with the Xie family, half a Xie in name.
Xie Jinxing would show no expression to other girls, but to the little girl fostered in his family, he couldn’t be harsh.
“I really, really hate her! I hate her so much!”
Su Ruan cursed Gu An’an countless times behind her back. She even grew resentful toward the system, why couldn’t she exchange lives with Gu An’an? If she could, she too wanted to be that orphan whose whole family died, taken in by the Xies.
The system replied in its usual half-dead tone: [Host can only exchange for a life that shares blood or familial relation with her.]
“I know, I know!”
After being reborn once, Su Ruan’s temper became more volatile, her greed and impatience stronger.
At first, she only thought Gu An’an was an eyesore. She believed that once Gu An’an was eliminated, it would be easier to approach Xie Jinxing. But when Gu An’an interrupted her for the third time, ruining yet another hard-won chance to speak to Xie Jinxing alone, Su Ruan began to truly hate her.
She wanted her dead.
Coincidentally, while pursuing Lu Xingyu, Su Ruan attracted an annoying girl she couldn’t shake, Shen Shan.
Shen Shan was a spoiled little princess, arrogant but naïve. She’d quarreled with Su Ruan over men several times, always to Su Ruan’s advantage. But Shen Shan was stubborn, the more she lost, the more she refused to give in, taking every opportunity to challenge Su Ruan.
This time, Shen Shan was also at the yacht party.
Su Ruan personally saw her tamper with her champagne and overheard her whispering plans with her fake friends. She didn’t expose her, instead, she deliberately moved closer to the waiter.
With the help of her halo, the champagne ended up in Xie Jinxing’s hands.
Funny thing was, Xie Jinxing almost never drank at public events. Normally, no waiter could have delivered that drink to him.
But this time, Gu An’an had brought it over. She was delivering food to Lu Xingyu and happened to carry the champagne along. Seeing that it was from her, Xie Jinxing let his guard down and drank it.
Su Ruan had already found out in advance where Xie Jinxing’s lounge was, so she hid there, waiting for the right moment.
But unexpectedly, when the drug took effect, Xie Jinxing didn’t go to his own room. Somehow, he ended up in a second-floor cabin and grabbed Gu An’an, who happened to be nearby looking for Lu Xingyu.
By the time everyone rushed in, Gu An’an’s clothes had been completely torn off by Xie Jinxing.
He was pinning her down, dominating her, holding her tightly in his arms. If Lu Xingyu hadn’t gone mad and charged in, if the elders of the Xie family hadn’t arrived, Su Ruan suspected Xie Jinxing might have taken her right there.
After Gu An’an was pulled away, Su Ruan burned fifteen years of her lifespan to manipulate a man who looked nothing like a bodyguard.
She didn’t know why even controlling a mere bodyguard cost so much lifespan but he was absurdly handsome. If not for the slightly lower quality of his suit compared to the rich heirs around him, he could have passed as one of them. That bodyguard, without a word, grabbed Gu An’an with one hand and flung her straight into the sea.
The instant Gu An’an hit the water, Su Ruan felt as if the rope around her neck had finally loosened.
She thought that now, with Gu An’an gone, the stage was hers.
But things didn’t go as she expected. Without Gu An’an, she couldn’t see Xie Jinxing anymore, not even Lu Xingyu. Lu Xingyu, who was supposed to love her in this life, collapsed completely after Gu An’an’s death.
He was sent abroad for treatment. Su Ruan stayed behind, unable to even catch a glimpse of Xie Jinxing’s shadow.
To make it worse, she hadn’t realized how short Su Qing’s lifespan was. After spending forty years of her own life on that exchange, Su Qing’s life ended and Su Ruan died at home of kidney failure.
Her second rebirth was much harder to decide, because this time, Su Ruan used the life of her most loving father.
Her reasoning felt justified, at least to her.
Her father had hereditary kidney disease. His body was weak; he couldn’t do physical labor. Every day he lived required expensive medicine. The family wasn’t destitute, but money was tight. To ease the burden on her mother and grandparents, taking her father’s life, she told herself, was protecting the rest of them.
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense, it felt natural.
But her second rebirth ended no better than the first. Since the first had already tested the “correct” route, the second followed the same script. She went to Beijing, saved some lifespan by skipping unnecessary targets like Yang Yue and Zhou Jiayu, spent a few years on a few generous rich heirs, then focused all remaining life on pursuing Lu Xingyu.
Once again, she reached the yacht scene. Once again, she stopped Xie Jinxing from sleeping with Gu An’an. Once again, she had Gu An’an thrown into the sea.
She thought her improved precision would lead to success but at the final step, everything fell apart.
Lu Xingyu still broke down over Gu An’an’s death. He was still sent abroad for treatment.
But she discovered something new: Xie Jinxing might have a thing for girls like Gu An’an.
She couldn’t explain why, it was just a strange, instinctive feeling.
Big, clear eyes. A pure, untainted air. That kind of girl.
Su Ruan even tried to use her shallow literary knowledge to reason it out, perhaps because Xie Jinxing was surrounded by cunning, calculating people, he’d grown tired of intrigue and came to appreciate those who made him feel at ease.
And in Su Ruan’s mind, “those who made him feel at ease” meant gentle, harmless, pitiful girls, like newborn animals.
She thought she fit that type perfectly.
She looked soft and harmless, her temperament simple and pitiable. Though not as beautiful as Gu An’an, she believed a man like Xie Jinxing wouldn’t be so shallow as to judge by looks first.
Her father’s lifespan was short, only about twenty years left after his illness. Su Ruan wasn’t satisfied, but she accepted it.
The third rebirth was easier. Once the initial moral line was crossed, every subsequent decision came easier, like breaking a taboo. That’s what Su Ruan thought.
Since she’d already used her father’s, she had no qualms using her grandparents’ next.
Unfortunately, kidney disease ran in the family, her grandfather’s was even worse. He appeared fine because he endured pain better.
Su Ruan wanted to use his life, but she never considered how little time he might have left.
The system told her she could only live from the moment she chose to exchange, she couldn’t inherit from birth. In other words, however many years her relative had left, that was all she could use. The system wouldn’t tell her how long that was but would let her choose when to start over.
Su Ruan guessed her grandfather didn’t have many years left. So this time, she started at age eighteen instead of five.
But sadly, his remaining life was shorter than a dream. She had barely begun before the system announced her time was up a few months later.
Her fourth rebirth was a no-brainer, she had to do it again. The previous one had been a total loss, wasted before she even began, and she still bore the guilt of taking her grandfather’s life. She felt cheated.
Filled with anger and frustration, she chose her grandmother’s life next.
The system had originally been inherited from her grandmother.
When Su Ruan made the choice, her grandmother instantly knew everything she’d done. Su Ruan would never forget the way her grandmother looked at her when she pressed “Rebirth.”
As if she were a demon, here to claim her family’s souls.
Su Ruan avoided her grandmother’s gaze, obsessed only with achieving her goal. She didn’t know what her grandmother had done to the system before dying, but her fourth life was cursed, everything went wrong, like she’d been possessed by misfortune itself.
Her mind began to deteriorate; she started having nightmares every night and occasional auditory hallucinations.
Su Ruan was terrified and heartbroken, thinking her grandmother too cruel.
She was her own granddaughter, how could she be so merciless?
But once chosen, it couldn’t be undone.
She lived that life trembling. Fortunately, her grandmother’s lifespan had only twenty years left; she spent fifteen pursuing Lu Xingyu, but that left too little to continue.
Still, she finally got close to Xie Jinxing in that life.
Xie Jinxing was moved by her tragic story and felt compassion for her, offering to help her family.
But Su Ruan bravely refused.
She declared she would rely on her own hands to fight for a better life for herself and her family.
Xie Jinxing admired her independence and helped her several times when her cursed luck nearly destroyed her, though he was a busy man and they met only twice in total.
When her life finally ended, Su Ruan savored those two brief encounters, sweetness laced with poison.
The system asked her one last time: Did she want to be reborn again?
She crouched outside her mother’s bedroom, watching her for a long, long time, like a gambler too far gone to stop and through her tears, she chose rebirth.
This time, the system offered a rare hint of warmth.
It didn’t directly take her mother’s lifespan. Instead, it let Su Ruan live as a parasite, a barnacle feeding off her mother’s life.
Her mother only had to sacrifice her health to give her another chance to start over. The system told her she must take good care of her mother. As long as her mother stayed alive, she could keep living too. But this time, she could no longer trade away her mother’s years, the lifespan belonged to her mother. What Su Ruan could use now were only the halo and charm filters she had purchased before.
After five lives of polishing, those powers had grown so strong they formed a kind of magnetic field, one that affected anyone (especially men) who came near her.
Even Xie Jinxing would be influenced.
But in return, she had to pay a price. The system wouldn’t tell her what it was.
Now, Su Ruan finally understood.
That price was Gu An’an.
Because in her previous lives, she had used her halo to kill Gu An’an, Gu An’an now naturally countered her. The moment she appeared, the halo that had once taken Gu An’an’s life would collapse under backlash, nullified instantly.
Lying on her bed, tossing and turning, Su Ruan bit her lower lip until it bled. “I have to win Jiang Sen over. As soon as possible.”
Only Jiang Sen could kill Gu An’an. Only Jiang Sen.