Lina kept her head low for the rest of breakfast, poking at her food with unnecessary gentleness. Her lashes fluttered just enough to seem like she was blinking away tears, and every now and then, she let out a tiny sigh—careful, calculated.
To the untrained eye, she looked heartbroken.
To her parents, it was unbearable.
"Child, do you want to go shopping?" Mother Tang offered suddenly, pulling out her card with the solemnity of someone offering a treaty.
Lina looked up with wide eyes, blinking as if surprised by the kindness. Then she nodded—vigorously. Like the idea alone was enough to lift her from despair. She took the card with both hands and gave a dramatic little bow.
"Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad."
Father Tang smiled, relieved. Mother Tang patted her hand, completely missing the glint of mischief that passed briefly through Lina's eyes.
Moments later, she was already halfway to her room, pulling on a hoodie and boots with practiced speed.
Because if she wanted to understand the truth—If she wanted to know why things felt out of place, why her memories didn't match the world around her—Then she needed to explore it. She could not trust anyone lightly. Not even Ashton.
And play the role they expected of her, until the time came to stop pretending.
The Tang family chauffeur opened the car door for her without question, used to Lina's spontaneous outings—usually involving minor chaos, a lost wallet, or a dramatic return with mismatched shopping bags and a random stray cat. Today, however, Lina was focused.
She adjusted her oversized hoodie, slipped on her sunglasses, and sank into the backseat of the sleek black car like a bored heiress with nothing better to do.
"Where to, Miss Tang?"
"The central shopping district," she said with a calm that didn't quite fit her usual image.
As the car rolled through the city's heart, Lina leaned her head against the tinted window, taking everything in—not just the storefronts and cafes, but the signs, the surveillance cameras, the way certain people moved like they were trained not to be noticed.
There were cracks in this world. Glitches. The kind you could only see if you knew what shouldn't be here.
She was here to dig.
Lina twirled the sleek platinum card between her fingers, its shine catching the sunlight in glinting, mocking flashes. It was heavy for its size. Heavy with access. Heavy with power.
By now, she had come to an unshakable conclusion: in this ridiculous, soap-opera-like world, only one thing reigned supreme.
Money.
Not strength.Not talent.Not even bloodlines.
Just money.
She scoffed inwardly as she glanced at the passersby. People here worshipped currency like it was some divine force. Colorful slips of painted paper and numbers on a screen dictated their choices, their futures, their loyalties. In her original world, things had been... different. Blood was currency. Power was taken, not bought.
But here?
You could buy power. Influence. Even people.
It was absurd—and yet, it was the rule.
And if Lina was going to survive in this world… no, not just survive—control it—then she needed more of that paper than anyone else. She needed to gather wealth that couldn't be traced back to the Tangs, wealth she controlled alone. Because no matter how indulgent her parents were now, she knew better than to rely on a leash, no matter how golden.
She wasn't naive enough to believe the Tang family's money was limitless either. And even if it was, it would never be enough for her kind of plan.
Her eyes drifted upward to the hazy skyline in the distance. The Capital.
The core of this world's economy. The beating heart of all real power.
That's where she had to go.
And she had to do it without alerting them—the ones from her old world. The ones who had crossed over first. Those who still operated in the shadows, manipulating this world's structure while pretending to belong.
She had sensed them. Not faces, not names, but presence. Watching. Waiting. Like sharks circling still waters.
Her fingers stilled on the card.
They couldn't know she was here. Not yet. Not until she had her footing. Not until she had her weapons—money, information, influence—all sharp and ready.
"If they find me before I find them, it's over."
The thought wasn't fearful. It was a statement of fact. Her instincts were never wrong.
But she had trust on Ashton to a certain point. Although she was not sure if he had changed after coming here but one thing she believed that Ashton would never play dirty.
Lina slipped the card back into her pocket and turned, heading down the marble-paved sidewalk, her boots clicking smartly with each step.
She had a new goal now. The boutiques and shopping bags were just a cover. What she needed to buy was access—into the circles of the powerful, the rich, the untouchable.
She needed to plant herself in the Capital.
And to do that, she'd need a new identity, new allies, and a hell of a lot more money than what came on her mother's credit line.
Fortunately, she did not lack any skill. She had been trained, trained since birth and there was literally nothing she could not do.
She asked the Driver Tang to drop her in the Central Mall and ordered him not to follow her. The driver understood the task. He was not interested anyway. He assured her that he would wait in the parking lot.
Lina entered the Mall, went around three times and left through the back exit.
She entered an internet cafe forty steps away from the mall. She paid for an hour, bought some snacks and chose an inconspicuous corner to sit.
She changed the VPN of the turned on computer, entered the Dark web.
For now, she would just use her master skill.
'Assassination'.
She had heard that people offered money there to kill someone. That would be the easiest and most doable thing for her. Easy money.
She scrolled through all the bounty posts until stopping at one which had the highest offer and the location was also Wuying city. Quite convenient.
She clicked on it, accepted the offer and asked to be paid on cash.
She would collect it from the location where work would be done.
The other party agreed.
She logged out. Changed back the VPN. Removed all the traces and started to play a game as if nothing happened.