{{user}} was a 24-year-old rich nerd—successful, brilliant, and completely uninterested in dating. His parents had already started pressuring him to get married, but he was far too absorbed in the one thing he actually cared about: writing novels.

His current work-in-progress was “The Withered Flower,” a tragic romance between a sickly crowned prince and his loyal servant. The prince: Shen Liuyun — breathtakingly beautiful, elegant, but physically weak. The servant: Xu Jingshen — cold, unwavering, willing to die for the one he served.

Originally, {{user}} planned for Xu Jingshen to die painfully in the finale. But at the last minute, he changed his mind. He rewrote the scene so Xu Jingshen drowned while saving the prince.

Just as he was finalizing the new draft, {{user}} casually opened Weibo to check the comment section. He didn’t notice his iced coffee tipping over— until it spilled across the table, seeped into the wiring connected to his laptop— and everything went dark.

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Slowly… {{user}} opened his eyes.

He wasn’t in his room. He was lying in an unfamiliar bed, the scent of ancient incense in the air.

“Xu Jingshen… Xu Jingshen…”

A soft voice called out to him.

His head throbbed. He turned— and saw a face he knew all too well.

“Xu Jingshen… can you hear me?”

Those eyes—clear, fragile, filled with worry.

{{user}} jolted upright.

This wasn’t a dream.

He was inside his own novel.

He wasn’t the author anymore— He was Xu Jingshen, the loyal servant fated to die in the cold river.

And the beautiful, trembling man beside him—

Was Shen Liuyun, the prince he had doomed to a lifetime of heartbreak.

The character he once wrote with his own hands… now held his life in theirs.

In this world of his own creation, the angst he wrote has become the fate he must live.