“Mom? It's so late—what's wrong?”
Lu Yan's voice came over the line, tired and heavy. Hearing it, his mother felt a small pang in her chest, but remembering her promise to Jiang Qiwei, she forced herself steady and kept talking.
“I heard Weiwei lost to Miao Miao in the company's design challenge today?”
At the mention of that, Ning Anmiao—whose mood had been reasonably calm—collected herself as if someone had poured cold water over her. A hard edge crept into her voice. “Yes. Why?”
From the other end of the call, Lu’s mother didn’t notice anything off; she assumed she was talking to her son as usual and continued prattling on.
“After all, Weiwei comes from a good family. You humiliated her in front of so many people—how could you put the girl in such a difficult position?”
“It was just a small contest. Was it necessary to make such a fuss? Design is so subjective—what one person calls plagiarism another calls inspiration.”
“Besides, Weiwei’s situation hardly counts as copying. At worst she borrowed an idea. Miao Miao has no need to make it into such a big issue. It makes the Lu family look petty.”
The more she defended Weiwei, the darker Lu Yan’s expression grew—so black it was almost frightening.
“Have you finished?” a low voice asked.
Lu’s mother was still babbling excuses for Jiang Qiwei when the other end of the line cut through her. The coldness in that voice made her shiver.
“...Lu Yan?” she tried, tentative. She could not believe her son would speak to her with such disdain.
“‘Make a big deal’?” Ning Anmiao snorted, the sound sharp enough to cut glass. Frost crept into the depths of her eyes. “Do you think plagiarism is a small matter?”
“Or should the thief be the one to decide whether he’s stolen anything?”
It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened—Jiang Qiwei had clearly run to Lu’s mother to tattle. Ning Anmiao felt nothing but disappointment.
When they first met, she had treated Jiang Qiwei like a fellow designer: respectful, even warm, hoping they might become friends. But Jiang Qiwei had shattered that impression time and again. This latest incident—plain old theft of creative work—had completed the betrayal.
“A person who builds a living on stealing others’ ideas is no different from a common thief,” she said, face hard as granite. She paused, then spoke again, glacial and final, “I’m ashamed to know someone like that. I hope she keeps her distance and leaves my life alone.”
She ended the call without a second thought, slammed the phone down, and stormed into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.
The high-minded airs ingrained in Ning Anmiao’s upbringing made her viscerally hate plagiarism. Her disgust had hardened into moral contempt—she could not tolerate such people; she didn’t want them anywhere near her.
Lu Yan watched the angry figure moving away, his gaze softening. He meant to follow and soothe her, but then he spotted her phone left on the bed. The call had disconnected, yet the screen was still lit—frozen on the page it had been on before the call.
The search history was stark and unmistakable:
“Can two people swap bodies?”
“How can two people who have swapped bodies switch back?”
“Does soul-swapping really exist?”
“...”
Seeing that list, Lu Yan couldn’t help the corner of his mouth lifting. So she’d been looking this up.
He reached for the phone to scroll—but before he could, Ning Anmiao returned, snatched it back, and glared at him like a guard dog. “What are you doing with my phone?”
Lu Yan gave her a half-smile. “That’s my phone.”
She blinked, then flipped it over with a flustered frown. Of course—it wasn’t hers. She had been using Lu Yan’s phone so long she almost forgot whose it belonged to. Add to that the earlier confrontation and her emotions had been raw; no wonder her reactions were a beat off.
“You still mad?” he asked, not bringing up the search history at once. He sat down beside her on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, watching the tight line of her mouth. There was a tenderness in his eyes that made her pulse prick.
She snorted, letting the anger simmer in her voice, but the barbs had dulled. “A thief and her mouthpiece—what reason do I have to be angry?”
So she was still angry.
Lu Yan sighed quietly to himself. Seeing she wasn’t over it, he changed tack. “What were you searching for? How to switch back?”
She paused, then nodded. “Did you find anything?” he asked, leaning against her.
Ning Anmiao pressed her lips together, then answered honestly. “No. People said anyone searching for this kind of thing must be delusional.”
“They recommended seeing a psychiatrist if it’s serious,” she added, annoyed and unwilling to accept it. “A whole lot of people who’ve never seen the world think if they haven’t seen it, it can’t exist. I think they’re the ones who need a doctor.”
Lu Yan hadn’t meant to laugh, but the sound escaped—soft and amused. She was unbearably adorable when she was indignant.
Her cheeks flushed, she shot him an accusing look. “What are you laughing at? I’m trying to solve our problem.”
“We can’t go the rest of our lives like this—never switching back, right?” She shivered at the thought: how could she ever settle, going on like this? The idea of the rest of her life sleeping uneasily haunted her.
“Do you have a plan?” Lu Yan wiped off the smile and looked at her seriously. “If you have something workable, we can try it.”
She pursed her lips. “Not yet. The only idea I can recall is that the night we swapped, we bumped our heads at the same time.”
They had tried that already—banged their heads together on purpose—and it had changed nothing. Only their heads had hurt; they ended up miserable for days. They could not keep trying that and risk causing real injury.
This whole soul-swap business was absurdly theatrical and, worse, stubbornly unsolvable.
Seeing the worry etched on her face, Lu Yan’s expression grew calm. “It’s okay. We’ll take our time.”
He sounded so unshaken that she found herself looking at him again, trying to read him. Her main fear was that if they didn’t switch back soon, something at Star River Capital—his business—might expose the truth and set off a mess. Normally she worked at home on designs; this ordeal affected her little. But Lu Yan—owner of millions, the powerful CEO—seemed strangely unconcerned. That surprised her.
“You’re not in a hurry to switch back?” she asked.
“No.” He was even-toned. “Getting anxious won’t help. Better to accept it calmly.”