Throwing the alarm clock wasn’t enough to vent my rage, so I grabbed a throw pillow, a bowl of plain porridge, a stack of books—basically anything within arm’s reach—and hurled them straight at Song Qingchen.

After beating him to exhaustion, to the point where my stomach twisted into a painful knot, I collapsed against the edge of the mattress, sniffling into the duvet in sheer frustration.

Song Qingchen stood there like a statue, taking the full brunt of my storm without dodging a single blow. He forced a pathetic, pleasing smile onto his face, though his lips were trembling uncontrollably.

“Shuyan, even if we aren’t bound by blood… do you really find me that repulsive?”

“I knew you didn’t want to see my face, so for the past three years, I swallowed every urge. I didn’t dare disturb you. Whenever I missed you too much, I could only sneak over to your campus and watch you from afar.”

“I thought I could endure it… until I saw you with a boyfriend, being so intimate with him…”

My heart skipped a beat. Oh. Right. Back abroad, I was close friends with a guy who happened to be g-a-y. To keep our parents off our backs, we struck a deal to fake-date. In exchange, he covered my room and board for a whole year. Who could have guessed our little performance was captured right through my uncle’s telephoto lens?

“Shuyan, last night… I truly didn’t mean to be so rough with you,” Song Qingchen suddenly dropped to his knees beside the bed. His knee joints hit the floor hard, and his eyes glistened with unshed, aggrieved tears as he looked up at me. “But you were the one who climbed onto my lap first. My self-control has limits. Short of forcing me to drop dead, how could I have possibly pushed you away?”

My face instantly flushed red as a beet. I desperately wished I had a roll of duct tape to seal his mouth shut. “Are you insane, Song Qingchen?! Are you an animal?! You knew I had a boyfriend, and you still—?!”

Whatever. If he was going to misunderstand, let him keep believing it. Maybe the “taken” status would shock a shred of sanity back into his brain.

“Pervert, psycho, lunatic… I’ve heard those words so many times I’m immune, Shuyan. I tried to control myself. Look at me.”

Only then did I notice the state he was in. Song Qingchen was covered in dust and grime, and his usually immaculate white dress shirt was stained with a massive patch of fresh red. His normally straight, imposing back looked shockingly frail, almost pitiful.

He slowly rolled up his sleeves. Beneath the fabric, there wasn’t a single patch of unblemished skin. Raw, charred skin from electric shocks, scabbed-over wounds, and fresh, bleeding razor cuts overlapped one another in a horrifying tapestry.

“Shuyan, short of dying, I’ve tried every form of self-torture imaginable. But I still can’t stop loving you. I can’t stop craving you.”

He kept his head bowed, looking utterly broken and desperate. His hands clenched together so hard his knuckles bled. “I know I’m pathetic. I know I’m disgusting.”

“If I could turn back time, I would rather be the dog at your feet than ever be your uncle.”

I froze for five solid seconds before this horrifying scene. This man—a genius with a ruthless mind who dominated the business world, a man whose default setting was cold, arrogant perfection. Ever since I was little, he had stood high above the clouds, blocking out the sun and controlling everything. Yet right now, he was laying his raw, pathetic wreckage bare before me.

Remaining on his knees, Song Qingchen dragged himself across the floor, crawling toward me inch by inch.

“Shuyan, you despise these feelings because I once bore the title of your uncle, don’t you?”

“If I completely sever ties with the Song family right now, discard the Song name, and never speak to them again… Shuyan, could you spare me a single chance?”

“I can get plastic surgery to change my face. I can alter my voice, my personality, and turn into a complete stranger. You like foreign, mixed-race guys, right? I can have my face reconstructed to look like his… I can even eliminate him and take his place!”

With a sharp snap, I violently ripped my hands free from the scandalous cuffs I’d been locked in since last night. Staring into his half-crazed, desolate eyes, a mix of heartache and absolute horror washed over me.

“Song Qingchen, dial down the drama, will you?! I wanted to get away from you to keep myself alive! It had nothing to do with your face or your identity!”

“And that mixed-race guy is completely innocent! He’s gay, and he’s not my boyfriend! Stop dragging innocent bystanders into your horror script!”

As a villainous female supporting character, the golden rule of survival was to stay as far away from the main cast as possible. What other choice did I have? I honestly assumed that over the past three years, Song Qingchen had been happily playing house with the real heiress and had completely forgotten about his fake niece.

Hearing my frantic explanation, Song Qingchen suddenly burst into a quiet laugh, heavy tears dripping onto the icy floor.

“Shuyan… do you love him that much? You’re willing to make up stories to trick me just to protect his life?”

“Fine, Shuyan. I can spare him. Call him right now and break up with him immediately.”

We were never dating in the first place, how am I supposed to break up with him?! Not to mention it was the middle of the night over there; calling him out of nowhere to demand a breakup would make him think I’d escaped from an asylum.

Song Qingchen reached out to snatch my phone. But before he could unlock it, his own phone rang incessantly. The screen flashed with the caller ID: 【Song Ting】.

Without blinking an eye, Song Qingchen cut the call off. But the person on the other end was relentless, immediately ringing a second time.

I raised an eyebrow, my voice laced with sarcasm. “Not picking up? What if your precious niece fell into the ocean and is waiting for her young uncle to save her life?”

“It has nothing to do with me.” Song Qingchen’s icy, ruthless tone made my jaw drop in disbelief.

“You… don’t care about the real heiress at all?”

“Of course I do,” Song Qingchen’s eyes suddenly burned with a terrifying, unyielding obsession as he locked his gaze onto mine. “I care that she’s trying to swallow my company whole—and then turn around to harm you.”

“What do you mean?” My throat tightened involuntarily.

What on earth? Wasn’t the original plot supposed to feature Song Ting and Song Qingchen as a devoted, blood-related uncle-and-niece duo? He was supposed to cherish her like his own life! Without me causing trouble, shouldn’t their relationship be thicker than glue?

“For the past three years, Song Ting has teamed up with your parents and grandfather, trying every trick in the book to oust me from the board and strip me of my power in the Song family.”

Song Qingchen reached out a trembling hand to touch my cheek, but just as his fingers hovered near my skin, he pulled back, as if terrified he might taint me.

“Shuyan, I don’t have a family. In this lifetime, I only have you.”

“The day you packed your bags and left the villa, they surrounded me and interrogated me, asking how I could entertain such sick, twisted feelings for you.”

“But I wanted to ask them back—what reason do I have in this entire world not to love you?”

The wound on Song Qingchen’s arm continued to bleed, leaving a terrifying red smear on the floorboards. His lips were bone-white, his complexion drained from blood loss.

“Song Qingchen, shut up and get to a hospital right now!” My heart pounded frantically against my ribs, my hands clenching tightly into the hem of my nightgown.

“My Shuyan was always so sweet, so lively, so soft… You used to call me ‘young uncle’ in that sweet voice, throwing yourself into my arms to act spoiled…”

“Truth be told, before you were born, I had planned my own suicide. But every time I thought about leaving, about a child like you falling into the hands of those cold-blooded, selfish monsters in the Song family, I couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes.”

“So I fought my way up. I had to become more ruthless, more powerful than all of them. Only then would I have the right to protect you and bring you home.”

“Everyone told me I wasn’t allowed to love you.”

“So tell me, Shuyan… how am I supposed to stop?”

He forced a faint, broken smile, murmuring like a lost soul. “Maybe there is a way after all… Maybe Song Ting was right. I really should just die. A sick, disgusting pervert like me… existing in this world only taints your happiness.”

“Song Qingchen!” I gasped, lunging forward to grab his hand. Staring into his hollow, utterly hopeless gray eyes, I finally understood what it felt like to have your heart turned to ash.

I bit my lip, deciding to throw the entire “villainous supporting character” script straight into the trash. Time to lay all my cards on the table.

“The truth is… I’ve never found you disgusting.”

Song Qingchen’s eyes flickered slightly. I took a deep, shaky breath and yelled straight into his face: “I like you too! I’ve liked you since high school!”

“Shuyan, I won’t drag you down with me when I die. You don’t need to make up lies out of pity just to comfort me.”

Song Qingchen staggered over to his safe, scanned his fingerprint, and pulled out a heavy set of keys.

“This villa… I transferred the deed to your name when you turned eighteen. I’ve already drafted my will—when I die, every single asset and share I own goes to you.”

“Take these keys. You’re free to come and go, free to leave this place whenever you want. I don’t want to see you off, and I certainly don’t want to watch your back as you walk away from me ever again.”

“Shuyan, if you get married in the future… please don’t bring him to my grave. I’m afraid I’ll turn into a vengeful spirit and take his life—and I couldn’t bear making you a widow.”

“Song Qingchen!” I couldn’t take it anymore. Grabbing him by the collar, I pulled myself up on tiptoes and aggressively shut his death-obsessed mouth with a fiery, passionate kiss.

Just as I suspected, my old room in his villa had been preserved in pristine condition, without a single speck of dust. Every sticky note, every little trinket sat in its exact original spot, precisely as I had left it three years ago.

I ran to the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and pulled out my high school diary. My face burning red, I flipped to a random page and shoved it directly in front of his eyes.

No matter which page was opened, it was crammed edge-to-edge with his name, without missing a single day.

“Do you believe me now?! Hand-written entries from three years ago—I dare you to try faking that!”

Song Qingchen took the diary with trembling hands, his palms shaking violently with raw emotion. The very next second, he yanked me fiercely into his chest, holding me so tight it felt as though he wanted to fuse me into his very bones.

“Shuyan… tell me you love me.”

“It’s written all over the diary, go read it yourself,” I mumbled, burying my face into his chest.

“No. I want to hear you say it.”

I wrapped my arms around his blood-stained back, whispering softly into his ear:

“Uncle, I love you.”

“Song Qingchen… I love you.”