[Mission countdown thirty days, electric shock punishment activated!]
Bone-searing pain radiated through every part of her body, as if countless fine, sharp blades were tearing at her flesh, nearly shredding her internal organs.
Shen Xiaoyu let out a hoarse struggle for breath as everything around her became blurry...
"You're awake. How are you feeling?"
Only when she saw the doctor before her did Shen Xiaoyu realize she was still alive.
"I..."
She tried to speak with difficulty, but found her dry, raspy throat couldn't produce a complete sound.
The nurse beside her quickly handed her some warm water, saying worriedly, "Miss Shen, your condition is very serious. We need to contact your family immediately."
Family?
Shen Xiaoyu lowered her gaze to look at the latest trending topic frozen on her phone:
【Film Queen Su Huan and rising starlet Tang Tang spotted entering hotel late at night, suspected romance exposed!】
In the image, the two were very close, looking at each other and smiling, their posture extremely intimate.
She couldn't help but smile self-mockingly, her fingernails almost digging into her palm as she gripped the phone, struggling to maintain a calm expression. "I... don't have any family."
Her only relative—her seriously ill mother—was waiting for her to return to another world.
And her lover was now the subject of rumors with another woman. She was truly living a failed life.
The nurse was stunned for a moment, her face showing an apologetic expression.
Shen Xiaoyu wasn't in good spirits, looking somewhat exhausted.
"Doctor, please tell me about my condition directly. I'm prepared for it."
"Late-stage brain cancer." The doctor said, "If you insist on chemotherapy, perhaps..."
Even though she already knew the result, Shen Xiaoyu's heart still skipped a beat, followed by a dense, creeping pain that made it difficult to breathe.
"Forget it," Shen Xiaoyu interrupted the doctor. "I don't want treatment."
This was the death method prepared for her by the system.
With only a month left before she would be erased, she didn't want to suffer anymore—the electric shock alone was already painful enough.
The doctor tried to persuade her a few more times, but seeing her firm attitude, sighed and left.
The hospital room quickly fell silent.
Shen Xiaoyu lay on the bed, her consciousness somewhat foggy.
She had been in this novel for ten years now.
According to her agreement with the system, as long as she successfully redeemed the antagonist Su Huan and got her to say "I love you,"
The mission would be complete.
Shen Xiaoyu would return to her own world, and her mother's illness could be cured.
If she failed, Shen Xiaoyu would be erased.
When she first transmigrated into the book, Shen Xiaoyu was only eighteen, focused solely on completing the mission, frequently making her presence known to Su Huan.
Su Huan was like a hedgehog, using her spines to warn off anyone who tried to get close to her.
Until one day, Su Huan collapsed on her way to a part-time job.
Only after sending Su Huan to the hospital did Shen Xiaoyu learn that she had a perforated stomach due to prolonged starvation.
Shen Xiaoyu took care of her in the hospital for a week, finally managing to pry open a small part of Su Huan's protective shell. Only then did she understand why Su Huan was working so desperately to earn money.
A gambling father, an alcoholic mother, a frail sister, and her miserable self.
Besides struggling to survive, she seemed to have no possibility of redemption. No wonder a small kindness from the original female lead could make her grateful to tears, becoming her most loyal dog.
To the point where, to protect the original female lead, Su Huan eventually became a paranoid and psychotic antagonist, constantly targeting the official couple who were deeply in love with the original female lead, eventually committing suicide in despair under the plot's machinations.
The vulnerable Su Huan in the hospital gave Shen Xiaoyu her first feelings of heartache. She saw a living, breathing person before her, not just a character in a book.
And once you start feeling heartache for someone, how far away is love?
Afterward, Shen Xiaoyu became like a shadow, inseparable from Su Huan, using every means possible to be good to her, striving to drive away the gloom around her, even gradually losing herself in the process.
But Su Huan always kept her at arm's length, never once saying the word "love" to her.
Even their relationship couldn't be made public due to their celebrity status. Little did she expect that this would drag on for ten years.
In the past, Shen Xiaoyu would deceive herself, finding all sorts of excuses for Su Huan in her heart—she was slow to warm up, not good at expressing herself, she did care about her—until this moment when she heard the system's judgment, and suddenly woke up.
It was simply a matter of not being loved.
Su Huan being with her was perhaps out of guilt, gratitude, or maybe just because she was used to her presence, but notably, there was no love.
Shen Xiaoyu felt as if her heart was being torn apart. She was truly a failed pursuer, not only failing the mission but also losing her own heart.
For a moment, she even had an especially pathetic thought: it was better that Su Huan didn't love her, so she wouldn't have to bear the pain of losing a loved one.
How truly pathetic!
Shen Xiaoyu smiled self-mockingly, not wanting to stay in the hospital any longer. She mustered her strength and completed the discharge procedures.
When she returned home, Su Huan had already come back and was sitting coldly in the living room, watching her.
"Where did you go?"
Shen Xiaoyu hadn't expected to see her at home and was momentarily stunned.
But quickly, Shen Xiaoyu came back to her senses and asked in return, "Do you need something?"
"Did you see tonight's trending topic? Take care of it. I don't want it to affect Tang Tang."
Sure enough, only when it involved Tang Tang would Su Huan come looking for her.
Shen Xiaoyu nodded, "I've already had the team handle it. If you don't have anything else, I'm going to rest now."
Su Huan was momentarily surprised by her cold attitude, furrowing her brow as she looked at her, suddenly colliding with Shen Xiaoyu's calm, unperturbed eyes. A flash of panic crossed her exquisite face, and she instinctively explained:
"It's just those paparazzi making things up. I was just filming with Tang Tang."
Seeing Shen Xiaoyu unmoved, Su Huan added, "Don't overthink it."
"Mm, I understand."
Without looking at Su Huan, Shen Xiaoyu had already turned and gone back to her room.
She left Su Huan staring at her thin back, her brow deeply furrowed. Something about Shen Xiaoyu seemed different.
Shen Xiaoyu returned to her room, took a shower, and threw herself on the bed, gradually falling asleep amid the faint pain.
She dreamed of the past again, when they were still in school.
After the hospital incident, Su Huan's attitude toward her improved a little, at least enough to exchange a few words with her.
Most of the time, Su Huan was busy earning money.
Back then, Shen Xiaoyu, to take care of her, would often lie to her mother saying she wanted soup, then bring the soup and lunch to school, and use the excuse that she couldn't finish it to get Su Huan to eat with her.
At eighteen, they were preparing for college entrance exams.
To spend more time with Su Huan, Shen Xiaoyu chose to repeat a year, becoming Su Huan's classmate.
Everyone in the class knew that Shen Xiaoyu was the one chasing after Su Huan, and they often teased them about their relationship.
Shen Xiaoyu would blush and say nothing, while Su Huan pretended not to hear.
The third year of high school had a heavy workload, and Shen Xiaoyu, worried Su Huan's body couldn't handle it, used her pocket money to buy milk by the case and nutritional supplements for her.
After class, Shen Xiaoyu would follow Su Huan to her part-time job and help her with the work.
When Su Huan refused, she would just smile and say she hoped to study with her.
Back then, Su Huan would often stare at her, with emotions in her eyes that she couldn't understand.
Gradually, Su Huan stopped refusing her kindness, but her attitude remained distant.
Shen Xiaoyu always thought she just had a cold and awkward personality.
Until one day, at university, she saw Su Huan and Tang Tang walking together, chatting and laughing like old friends who had known each other for years.
Shen Xiaoyu realized for the first time that Su Huan's expression could be so gentle, completely different from her usual self.
According to the original plot, Tang Tang would help the struggling Su Huan in high school, becoming a light in Su Huan's heart.
But because of Shen Xiaoyu's arrival, she had preemptively solved the bullying that Su Huan would have faced, and even "escorted" her all the way to her dream university.
But even though she had changed quite a bit of the plot, Tang Tang still had the protagonist's halo.
Su Huan was still attracted to Tang Tang, and they still became good friends. Shen Xiaoyu minded this, but she didn't dare to confront Su Huan directly, because she knew that between her and Tang Tang, Su Huan would definitely choose Tang Tang.
In their sophomore year, both Su Huan and Shen Xiaoyu were spotted by talent scouts and invited to audition for a film with two female leads.
On the day of the audition, Su Huan, unprecedentedly, held Shen Xiaoyu's hand and looked at her seriously.
She said, "Xiaoyu, I need money, lots and lots of money. But I can't earn that much alone in the entertainment industry. Can you help me?"
She wanted Shen Xiaoyu to give up the audition and become her manager.
She would grow to be Shen Xiaoyu's ace, becoming her invincible blade.
Shen Xiaoyu believed her.
She didn't go to the audition and instead began learning everything about being a manager.
Unsurprisingly, Su Huan became one of the film's female leads.
And the other female lead was Tang Tang.
Shen Xiaoyu already sensed what was coming, and her heart gradually sank.
The emotions in the dream were too painful, so much so that when Shen Xiaoyu woke up, there were still tears at the corners of her eyes.
She sat up and picked up her phone to see a message from the team.
"Sister Xiaoyu, is Sister Huan planning to hype a CP with Tang Tang?" (tl/n: CP - shipping/pairing - is widely used as a marketing tool. Usually co-stars show up in the variety shows or meetings together to arouse the excitement and make fans more engaged and dedicated - and make them spend money)
Below was an image.
It was a Weibo post from Tang Tang three hours ago.
Tang Tang: Hanging out with a good friend~
The accompanying photo showed her and Su Huan embracing intimately.
Tang Tang was sticking out her tongue at the camera, while Su Huan looked at her with a doting smile. Anyone would see this as a couple's photo.
What's more, Su Huan's account had liked it at exactly 5:21, a significant timestamp.
This drove the fans into a complete frenzy.
Looking at the exploding trending topics, Shen Xiaoyu couldn't help but laugh softly.
She believed that in all these years, she had never wronged Su Huan.
Even though initially she pursued her for the mission, surely her years of devotion and compensation were enough.
For Su Huan, she had worked her way up from assistant to top manager.
For a role Su Huan wanted, she drank until she had a gastric hemorrhage, yet still got up the next day to secure an endorsement deal for her.
Su Huan said she only trusted Shen Xiaoyu, so she entrusted all her work to her.
From major tasks like selecting scripts and shooting magazines to minor details like what socks to wear and what toothpaste to use.
Shen Xiaoyu handled it all, taking care of everything.
And as Su Huan had said, she earned a lot of money and became Xingheng Media's ace.
During this process, they became physically intimate and lived like lovers, but Shen Xiaoyu never clarified their relationship, let alone mention marriage.
As both of them became famous, the relationship between Su Huan and Tang Tang became a hot topic.
From their debut film with dual female leads, they had accumulated many CP fans, and by now, they had become the entertainment industry's number one CP.
Every glance, every gesture between them was infinitely magnified, with countless people guessing whether they were already dating or living together based on the smallest clues.
But until now, these were just speculations, until the photo of them entering the hotel together was released—
The internet exploded.
The popular CP becoming real was impossible to suppress.
And sure enough, cannon fodder remains cannon fodder; being erased by the system was her ultimate fate.
She was already tired.
For the final month, she wanted to live for herself.
Shen Xiaoyu opened WeChat and reviewed the company's artist handover documents over and over.
As early as last year, the company had suggested that she hand Su Huan over to a more experienced manager and let her manage new artists.
But she had always refused, and now...
After a long while, Shen Xiaoyu finally sent a message.
S: I'll comply with the company's arrangement and will no longer be Su Huan's manager.