The crumpled car door was yanked open, and Mia Grant was lifted out.
He carried her several meters away from the scene to a safer spot.
Mia Grant took a moment to recover, then coughed violently a few times.
The immense impact still left her dizzy and disoriented.
But she forced her eyes open to look at the person in front of her.
Yates Donovan watched her with concern. He looked battered himself, but his attention was entirely focused on her.
"Are you okay? Hang in there. Don’t fall asleep. My assistant is nearby; we’ll get you to a hospital right away."
"I’m fine." Mia Grant smiled and raised her hand. "We did it."
Just those three words, and Yates Donovan’s eyes suddenly reddened.
He gave her a high-five, then seized her hand.
His grip was so strong it hurt a little, but Mia didn’t say anything, letting him hold on.
As she started to speak, she couldn’t help but cough a few more times. "Are you hurt?"
Yates shook his head.
Mia Grant let out a relieved breath and finally succumbed to the strain, passing out.
When she woke again, dusk had fallen outside the window.
Mia Grant stared at the familiar headboard and the familiar vase, sighing silently.
’I’ve been hospitalized more and more often lately.’
’I really have to be more careful from now on.’
’I hope this is the last time.’
There was no one in the hospital room. She glanced over and saw several figures clustered by the door in the hallway, seemingly wanting to talk but not daring to move too far away.
Other than a lingering dizziness, she didn’t feel any discomfort.
The car had only hit the guardrail.
Luckily, they were at an intersection, so the car wasn’t going too fast.
Yates had also turned the steering wheel in time, so the damage wasn’t severe.
"System."
’Now is a good time for a reckoning.’
The system responded immediately.
Mia Grant smiled. "What was that you said before I passed out? I didn’t quite catch it. Would you mind repeating it?"
"If it’s not convenient, that’s fine too. This is the fourth floor. Jumping from here might not kill me, but it would definitely leave me crippled. Would you like to see that?"
[...]
A naked threat.
After a long moment, the system spoke: [So, your previous plan to fake your death... was that to deceive me?]
"More or less." Mia Grant thought for a moment before saying, "Before you came back, that was my plan."
"After you returned, I felt things hadn’t reached that point yet. I knew you could spy on my thoughts, so I worked hard to deceive myself, deceive Simon Adler, and even briefly deceive Yates Donovan."
[Briefly?]
"I wasn’t planning on doing anything today. It was Yates who reminded me."
"You must have heard what he said in the car."
"Only you can solve the problems that have been plaguing me this whole time. So, he reminded me that you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, and that you were certain my plan to fake my death wouldn’t actually harm me."
"What happened today was a spur-of-the-moment decision between the two of us. There was no plan. Our eyes just met, and we did it."
"Which is why you had no chance to prepare."
[You’re telling me all this... aren’t you worried I’ll continue to hide things from you? Because you still don’t seem to want to die.]
"That’s why I said, jumping from the fourth floor won’t kill me. But it will definitely leave me crippled."
"I don’t have the courage to end my own life. Before, I never even understood why Kian Keller was so despondent."
"Now I get it. If I were in his shoes, I would definitely have the courage to see myself off."
"I have plenty of chips to play this game with you. But what about you? Do you dare to gamble?"
[...]
After a brief silence, the system’s cold, monotone voice sounded once more—
[It’s been a long time, Host 021.]
"Is that my designation number?"
[Yes. You were not actually the first person we selected, but you are indeed the last.]
Mia Grant listened quietly as the system explained what had happened before.
It was like listening to a very long bedtime story.
The gist of it was that the novel’s ending had caused a lot of dissatisfaction among readers. Everyone felt that the heroine, who had endured so much hardship, had just found her happiness and shouldn’t have her story conclude with such a hasty and wretched end.
Therefore, the system’s mission was to change the heroine’s ending.
The system summarized that it believed the problem lay entirely with the villainess, the fake heiress.
There were two main reasons.
The malicious villainess was taken out of the story too early and failed to successfully advance the relationship between the male and female leads.
And later, when the villainess’s brother, Julian Vaughn, was preparing to reunite with her, he unexpectedly learned of her tragic death.
Seeing the villainess in the photo, who had a face identical to his mother’s when she was young, Julian Vaughn, already unable to withstand the blow, immediately went dark on the spot.
He began to plot, getting close to the heroine to take his revenge on her.
It was precisely because of him that the heroine met such a tragic end.
In short, a large part of the reason the heroine was killed by one of the male leads was because Julian Vaughn was pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
So, the system decided to start with the villainess to change the heroine’s ending.
But after twenty attempts, the result was always the same.
The villainess’s role didn’t seem to have any key effect.
And Mia Grant was the 21st, and also the last.
The system didn’t have much hope at first, but unexpectedly, Mia Grant performed brilliantly.
Later, everything was under the system’s control. Just when the system thought the ending would be successfully changed this time...
...the heroine, Serena Grant, died once again at her twentieth birthday party.
The mission ultimately ended in failure.
"So this is the twenty-second time? Why is it still me?" ’Logically speaking, since I already failed, shouldn’t you have found someone else?’
At this, the system hesitated, then finally said haltingly after a long pause:
[Because... the male leads discovered me.]
"You were discovered?" Mia was surprised. She had been about to doze off listening, but now she was suddenly intrigued, even feeling like she could grab a handful of melon seeds.
[They have me under their control.]
"What do they want? To resurrect the heroine?"
[...They want to resurrect you.]
"..." Mia Grant blinked. "So... back in the last world, was I leading them on?"
[No, you weren’t.] Speaking of which, the system found it strange too. [You barely interacted with them. Most of the time you appeared before them, it was to help the heroine raise her favorability rating. So I don’t understand why they would fall for a malicious villainess like you.]
"Maybe they’re just perverts." Mia Grant clicked her tongue. "They all seem pretty sick in the head."
The system agreed.
"So you were controlled by them, and instead of sending me back to my original world, you brought me back here?"
[That was actually an accident.]
[According to our agreement, if you died in the heroine’s place at the end, I would send you back to your original world. That was the normal procedure, yes...]
[But unexpectedly, the heroine still died, and through a bizarre twist of fate, you were accidentally reborn here.]
[You should remember, I only found you this time after you jumped into the sea. The reason I couldn’t find you right away was because they had me under their control.]
"Then why were there scenes in my dreams of them appearing in my original world?"