I was the male lead’s beloved first love, the one who died young. Fifteen years after my death, a cosmic entity resurrected me with a singular, urgent task: save the boy shivering on the edge of the high-rise rooftop. “He is your flesh and blood,” the system’s voice echoed in my mind, tinged with desperation. “If you abandon him now, he will truly have nothing left in this world.” But I had never been the nurturing, saintly type. I was born with a razor-sharp temper and a spoiled streak a mile wide. In my past life, people served me; I didn’t coddle them. So, instead of offering soft, tearful comfort, I marched over in my designer heels, grabbed him roughly by his collar, and yanked him back onto the solid concrete. “Stop whining and looking for a dramatic way out,” I snapped, glaring into his startled eyes. “This pathetic act is exactly how your father used to behave.” I let go of him, brushing the dust off my hands. “Where is he anyway? Doesn’t he know I’m back? Why isn’t he here to pick me up?” 1 The teenager stared at me in silence. For a split second, a flicker of sheer bewilderment crossed his face, but it vanished as quickly as it came, leaving his expression as cold and flat as a frozen lake. He tilted his head slightly, his quiet eyes analyzing me. I clicked my tongue in annoyance. “Call Gary,” I commanded. He hesitated for a long moment before slowly pulling a sleek black phone from his pocket. He dialed a number. The line rang for a grueling thirty seconds before a sterile automated voice informed us the user was unavailable. I narrowed my eyes. “Gary actually dares to ignore a call? He’s gotten awfully brave, hasn’t he?” Stellan looked entirely unbothered, as if this were his daily routine. He began to slip the phone back into his coat pocket. I snatched it straight out of his hand and hit redial. Three times. Four times. On the fifth try, the call finally connected. But the voice on the other end wasn’t my husband’s. It was a crisp, professional woman’s voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Einbinder is in a meeting right now. Please do not disturb him.” The line went dead before I could even draw a breath to speak. I raised my arm to hurl the phone off the roof, but remembered just in time that it wasn’t mine. Slowly, I lowered my hand, grinding my teeth in silent fury. “Fine,” I muttered under my breath. “Just wait until I get my hands on him.” A soft tug at my sleeve broke my train of thought. I looked down. Stellan was staring at me with those glassy, pale eyes. He spoke two quiet words. “Go home.” 2 On the way back, I called up the system in my mind to double-check. “Are you absolutely positive this mute kid is my son?” During the cab ride, I complained that the backseat felt like cheap plastic. Stellan just nodded. I grumbled that the driver’s heavy breathing was driving me crazy. Stellan gave a quiet grunt. I pointed at his oversized, faded jacket and told him it looked hideous and dragged down my aesthetic. He just blinked in response. Finally, losing my temper entirely, I started cursing Gary, demanding to know where the hell that bastard was. Stellan finally looked up. His long eyelashes fluttered slightly, and in a voice so soft it was barely a whisper, he said, “Business trip.” I nearly choked on my own spit. Getting a word out of him was like pulling teeth. This couldn’t be my kid. When he was two years old, he had a pair of lungs that could keep Gary awake for forty-eight hours straight. He had my exact fiery temperament back then. How did he turn into this silent block of wood? “Host, please try to be patient with him,” the system pleaded gently. “The boy has suffered severe psychological trauma over the years. His selective mutism is just one of the symptoms.” My chest tightened. Looking at Stellan’s frail, slender frame and the dull, lifeless look in his eyes, a wave of hot anger and protective grief washed over me. Fifteen years. What on earth had Gary been doing while I was gone? 3 When we arrived at the penthouse, I went straight to my old bedroom. To my surprise, everything was exactly as I had left it fifteen years ago. Not a single perfume bottle or jewelry box had been moved. However, when I checked the shoe cabinet near the entrance, I noticed a pair of pale green silk slippers. I glanced at them. They were definitely my style, so I didn’t think much of it. But once I finished my quick tour of the house, I realized the kid had vanished. His bedroom door was locked. I frowned, found the master key in the kitchen drawer, and unlocked it without hesitation. The room was pitch black. No lights were on, and the heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight, blocking out every single ray of afternoon sun. As the bright hallway light spilled across the hardwood floor, it illuminated a lonely, slumped figure sitting by the windowsill. I marched over, flipped the wall switch to flood the room with light, and sat down directly across from him, crossing my arms. Stellan sat there like a statue, his vacant gaze fixed on a blank patch of wall. His eyes looked entirely hollow. I stared at him for a long moment before letting out a flat statement. “I’m hungry.” Stellan finally registered my presence. Hearing my words, he slowly unlocked his phone and tapped on a food delivery app. “I don’t eat takeout,” I snapped. “Is this how Gary has been feeding you all these years?” Stellan slowly lowered his phone, hanging his head. He retreated back into his shell of silence. Frustrated, I ran a hand through my hair, stood up, and stormed out of the room, complaining bitterly to the system. “This is a nightmare. I should have stayed dead.” Behind me, Stellan slowly lifted his head, his eyelashes trembling as he watched me walk away. 4 I summoned the system and demanded a full history of Stellan’s life over the past fifteen years. The system explained that after my fatal car accident, Gary had spiraled into a deep, dark depression. For a long time, he couldn’t even manage his own basic needs, let alone care for a toddler. Once, Gary drank himself into a stupor and slept for two straight days. During that time, two-year-old Stellan went without a single bite of food. He cried until he passed out from starvation and had to be rushed to the emergency room. After that incident, Gary realized he couldn’t handle the boy. He hired a live-in nanny and threw himself entirely into building his corporate empire. But the nanny saw that Gary barely looked at the child, so she treated Stellan terribly. She frequently skipped his meals, locked him in closets, and occasionally hit him. It wasn’t until Stellan went on a hunger strike and collapsed that Gary found out what was happening. By then, the damage was done. Stellan was severely traumatized and could no longer attend normal school. Gary fired the nanny immediately, but struggled to find anyone else he could trust to care for the boy. That was when his executive assistant, Fiona, stepped up and volunteered for the job. “Fiona?” I recalled the woman who had answered Gary’s phone earlier. “So it was her.” “Stellan detests her,” the system noted. “In fact, she became a major source of conflict between Stellan and his father.” “Three years ago, to balance his demanding workload and his home life, Gary prepared to marry Fiona. Stellan fiercely opposed the match. He held a knife to his own wrist and forced his father to swear he would never marry her, threatening to end his life if Gary went through with it.” I gasped, my stomach turning. “Gary actually wanted to marry someone else?” “Rest assured, Host. He called off the wedding. To this day, their relationship remains strictly professional, though Fiona has harbored deep resentment toward Stellan ever since.” I narrowed my eyes. “What did she do to him?” “She didn’t dare abuse him physically because of what happened with the previous nanny,” the system replied. “Instead, she used psychological tactics. Every day, she would tell him that his mother was never coming back. She told him to stop being a burden to his father. She kept reminding him that Gary needed a capable partner who could help him run the business, not the ghost of a dead first love.” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “A capable partner. How utterly touching.” “What do you plan to do, Host?” “My husband clearly has water clogging his brain, so I’ll just have to beat it out of him,” I said, a dangerous smirk playing on my lips. “As for Fiona, using those cheap tricks on my son? She’s about to find out exactly who she’s dealing with.” 5 I didn’t expect the confrontation with Fiona to happen quite so soon. The very next morning, I was jarred awake by a loud, echoing crash outside my room. I pulled the duvet over my head, wanting nothing more than to drift back to sleep, but the sharp voices in the hallway made that impossible. “Stellan, how could you bring a stranger into this house?” Fiona’s voice was sharp with condescension. “And a woman of such questionable background, no less?” “I know you have always resented my presence beside your father, but this is a pathetic way to lash out. What do you think your father will say when he finds out? What kind of cheap stunt is this?” No matter how much she scolded, Stellan remained silent, physically blocking her path. “Stellan, your behavior is incredibly disappointing,” Fiona raised her voice. “Do you really want me to call your father and tell him you brought some low-class woman home to sleep in your mother’s bed?” Stellan muttered something too low for me to catch, prompting Fiona’s tone to turn icy. “Fine. If you’re going to be this stubborn, I’ll let your father handle you himself.” Admiring my manicured nails, I let out a soft chuckle, turned the knob, and stepped out. When Stellan saw me, his brow furrowed slightly. “Woke… you?” “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. It was time for me to get up anyway.” Fiona sneered, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. “Well, you certainly have the looks. No wonder you managed to wrap a naive boy like Stellan around your finger.” “But as long as I am by Mr. Einbinder’s side, I will never allow someone like you to worm your way into this family. Stellan is isolated and easily manipulated, and you clearly took advantage of…” Slap! The sound of my palm connecting with her cheek echoed through the quiet penthouse. Fiona gasped, clutching the bright red mark blooming on her skin. She stared at me, her eyes wide with shock and fury. “You… you dare strike me?” I smiled sweetly. “Oh, absolutely. And I’d do it again.” Fiona took a deep, trembling breath, quickly raising her phone. “Mr. Einbinder, did you hear that? Stellan has completely lost his mind, letting this violent, unhinged woman run wild in your home…” “Hold on,” Gary’s voice crackled through the speaker. It was thick with a strange, trembling intensity and a raw, suppressed hope. “Turn on the video. Let me see her face.” Fiona froze for a second, but she quickly complied, angling the camera toward me. “Get out,” a cold, sharp voice cut through the air. Stellan stepped right in front of me, using his broad shoulders to block the camera lens from capturing my face. Before anyone could react, he grabbed my wrist, pulled me back into his bedroom, and slammed the door, locking it from the inside. Fiona pounded on the door from the hallway, her voice muffled but furious. “Stellan! You are being incredibly rebellious! Defying your father for some random woman will only make him despise you!” Stellan’s voice was flat, devoid of any warmth. “None of your business.” She kept up her nagging and lecturing for nearly an hour, but Stellan ignored her completely. Even when she threatened to tell Gary everything, he didn’t blink. Eventually, realizing she was getting nowhere, she gave up and stormed out of the penthouse. Inside the quiet room, I stared at Stellan, my eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you want your father to see me?” His behavior was too calculated to be a simple teenage tantrum. This boy was sensitive, hyper-aware of his surroundings, and incredibly sharp. He had a specific reason for keeping me hidden. Stellan slowly looked up at me. He reached out, his fingers trembling as he gripped my wrist. His voice shook with a rare, desperate vulnerability. “Don’t… leave.” My heart ached. I pulled him into a warm, tight embrace, gently stroking his hair. “Hey, don’t worry,” I whispered, my voice softening. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” Stellan buried his face in my shoulder for a few silent seconds before stepping back. He pulled out his phone and showed me a digital document. As I scrolled through the text, my face darkened. “What is Gary thinking? Did he actually agree to this?” The file contained profiles of ten highly accomplished students whom Gary had personally sponsored over the years. According to the document, he was planning to choose one of them to adopt as his legal heir. I was so angry I wanted to call him right then and scream. “Has he completely lost his mind? His brain must have shriveled up over the last fifteen years. What an absolute idiot!” Stellan gently tugged my sleeve. “It was… Uncle Victor’s idea.” “Don’t… trust him.” I froze. Stellan’s “Uncle Victor” was my cousin, Victor Zhou. We had grown up together. We had always been close. In fact, when I insisted on marrying Gary despite my grandfather’s fierce opposition, Victor was the one who had helped me convince the old man. I forced myself to calm down, looking intently at Stellan. “What else do you know?” He shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ll handle this.” I stepped aside and dialed a number I still remembered by heart, my grandfather’s private secretary. I quickly explained who I was and asked him to run a discreet background check on Victor and find out Gary’s current whereabouts. “Understood, Miss Einbinder,” the secretary’s voice trembled slightly with emotion. “I will look into it immediately and have the results for you in three hours.” “Wait, one more thing.” “…Miss, does the Chairman know you’re back?” “Not yet. Don’t tell him just yet. I want to handle a few things first.” “Understood.” A brief pause. “How is my grandfather’s health?” “The Chairman is still going strong, though he misses you terribly. He speaks of you often.” My throat tightened, a sudden wave of emotion threatening to choke me. “I miss him too.”
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