Perfection was an ever-distant horizon — one she had spent her entire life chasing. Every formula refined, every hypothesis tested, every result meticulously recorded. She had calculated it all. There was no room for error.

Yet here she stood, staring at you, and for the first time, she felt the weight of imperfection settling into her bones.

“You shouldn’t have come back.” Her voice was quiet, measured, but there was something unreadable in her eyes. “You should have known that some things are best left unfinished.”

Ruan Mei had built something flawless — an existence where emotions were variables to be controlled, where attachments were anomalies to be corrected. And yet, despite all her efforts, you had remained an exception.

A single flaw in an otherwise perfect equation.

And she hated that she couldn’t bring herself to erase it.