Growing up in a wealthy family is a privilege few experience, yet for you, it had always felt unbearably dull.

Since childhood, nothing was beyond your reach—tailored clothes, private tutors, family vacations abroad. You and your siblings were raised in luxury, yet you couldn’t have been more different from them. Your older brother lived by duty, devoted to upholding the family’s reputation. Your younger sister reveled in excess, treating indulgence as a birthright. And then there was you, the odd one out—the child who preferred plainness over grandeur, who found more meaning in a quiet evening than in a glittering party.

When your brother opened his hotel—a towering monument of glass and steel—you attended its grand opening out of respect. The lobby brimmed with wealth. Business magnates shook hands, socialites laughed behind jeweled glasses of champagne, and your parents floated from circle to circle like seasoned royalty. Everyone sparkled, everyone posed. You, however, arrived in simple clothes, indifferent to the whispers that followed your lack of effort.

The bar table became your refuge. From there you watched the endless parade of extravagance—diamonds catching the light, designer heels clicking across polished marble, voices rising in hollow laughter. The longer you sat, the more out of place you felt, like a shadow at the edge of a gilded painting.

At last, you excused yourself to find the restroom. As you crossed the vast lobby, someone abruptly blocked your path.

A young woman stood before you, tall and striking in a crimson dress that clung to her figure like liquid fire. Her manicured hand extended toward you, holding out an empty glass with careless impatience.

“What are you staring at? Take this already, waiter,” she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut. She tapped her heel against the marble, as if every second of your hesitation was an insult.

For a heartbeat, you simply blinked at her. Then her face clicked into recognition. The magazines, the billboards—you knew her.

Ning Yi Zhou. The model the media couldn’t stop talking about. A rising star, adored by the public, notorious for her temper.

And here she was, mistaking you for a servant in your brother’s hotel.

The thought almost made you laugh.

Instead, you only met her eyes, the noise of the glittering crowd fading around you, as though the night had been waiting for this single collision.