Li Weiyi lay sprawled across the desk, chewing on her pen tip, her mind filled with passionate determination to defy fate and change destiny. She scribbled down rapidly:

Break up the lovebirds;

Learn painting;

Stay away from the scumbag;

Buy stocks;

Hoard properties;

……

Night fell, and a solitary lamp in the room illuminated the boy’s handsome face. His eyes were unfocused, wearing a silly grin.

Commotion came from downstairs as Wu Xinhui’s mahjong game broke up. The four wealthy ladies planned to go out for late-night snacks and spa treatments. Li Weiyi listened with one ear and caught that today’s biggest winner was one of the flattering trio, while Wu Xinhui lost the most—around a hundred thousand yuan. But she didn’t care at all.

Li Weiyi thought again of that row of luxury cars in the garage, her brow furrowing deeply as she wrote down the last line in wild, illegible characters:

Prevent Fuming Group from going bankrupt!

If she had to live as Zhang Jingchan for a long time or even a lifetime, preventing bankruptcy would safeguard her happiness in the latter half of life—she didn’t have the ability to repay a billion yuan debt. If she could switch back, she also wanted to leave Zhang Jingchan a different future.

Under each item on her plan, she wrote many detailed provisions in fine print:

For instance, continue persuading her sister—ideally get some dirt on Zhou Zhihao, sow discord, and make them break up completely.

For instance, leave a handwritten letter for the seventeen-year-old Li Weiyi, detailing in full how she would meet the scumbag Xie Zhilu at university. Better yet, predict several important events in her life to enhance credibility, and absolutely ensure that she stays far away from the scumbag—never interact with him until death.

As for painting, that was something Li Weiyi had loved since childhood. As a child, she had only studied for two years at the youth center, but had already been praised by teachers as talented, with her works winning awards everywhere. When she entered middle school, her parents felt it wasn’t a proper pursuit and made her stop. But she had actually continued drawing secretly all along. In high school, when the school recruited art specialty students, she pestered her parents relentlessly and successfully studied with a teacher after class for a year, becoming one of the most outstanding in her grade. But when she reached her second year of high school, studies became increasingly demanding. Her parents didn’t understand, and her homeroom teacher also felt that with her good academic performance, she was university material and didn’t need to learn painting. Being young, her resolve wasn’t firm either, so she complied.

But in all the years since, she had never been able to give up painting. Almost every day in her spare time, she would put down a few strokes. If she had time, she would watch those online tutorials from famous illustrators or go to art exhibitions. She had studied finance in university and worked in finance after graduation, doing quite well at it. But deep in her heart, she had always known clearly that it wasn’t what she truly loved.

What’s more, the company had laid her off anyway. So the vague regret and unwillingness in her heart over these years completely rebelled.

If she could do it over, she wanted to be an illustrator. To live freely, to love freely, to paint freely. Even if the income was lower, she would be willing.

Just thinking about that kind of life made her feel unprecedented ease, joy, and liberation.

But how could she get her parents to agree? She would be entering the second semester of her second year of high school after the New Year.

Li Weiyi was pondering bitterly when suddenly her spirit shook violently—

If Zhang Jingchan entered her body, he probably wouldn’t be willing to learn painting, would he? No, no, no, what was she thinking? She needed to learn it herself—what did it have to do with Zhang Jingchan? But now, as the heir to Fuming Group, convincing her billionaire father to let her learn painting would be nearly impossible, right? And if she changed Zhang Jingchan’s university major without notice, that seemed quite underhanded. What if they suddenly switched back someday? By then, Zhang Jingchan wouldn’t even have stored up business knowledge in university, yet would face a billion-yuan debt—wouldn’t that be even more miserable…

Li Weiyi fell into complete confusion.

Looking up again at this resplendent villa, thinking of the last task—saving Fuming Group—she felt even more of a headache. She had only seen fragmentary reports about it in the news. Now, with only about half a year left before the group’s bankruptcy, she didn’t even know where to start.

Li Weiyi threw down her pen, heaved a long sigh, and collapsed on the desk.

The next morning, when Li Weiyi woke up, she found herself still lying in the two-meter by two-meter bed. The first thing she did was send her sister a text message: “Sis, good morning, are you awake?”

Li Xiaoyi replied almost twenty minutes later: “Hello Achan, I’m at work.”

Li Weiyi: “May I ask if my good friend Li Weiyi is okay? Has she woken up?”

Li Xiaoyi: “Yesterday afternoon we took her to the hospital again. All her indicators are still normal, and she’s still hospitalized for observation. When I left this morning, she still hadn’t woken up.”

Li Weiyi: “Okay, you must notify me if there’s any news. Sis, stay away from scumbags, and you’ll have a happy life.”

Li Xiaoyi only replied with a smiley face emoji, saying nothing else.

Li Weiyi immediately felt uneasy. After all, her sister had known that scum for over a year, and she remembered that during this period, Zhou Zhihao had indeed been very good to her sister. Trying to make her sister change her mind with just a few words would be difficult. Never mind, keep trying. There’s no marriage that can’t be broken up, only people who aren’t devious enough.

Ms. Wu Xinhui had played with her wealthy lady friends until very late last night and hadn’t gotten up yet. Li Weiyi, as usual, drank bird’s nest soup, ate breakfast, and curled up on the sofa looking at her phone.

Looking through chat records, photos, and videos.

She had no interest in prying into Zhang Jingchan’s privacy, but she needed to understand more about the nineteen-year-old him.

She first looked at text messages and QQ chat records, discovering that this person spoke very concisely to everyone, as if saying one extra word was a waste—perfectly pretentious. Zhang Jingchan chatted most with Li Yunmo, and two other boys, all classmates.

Then there was his official girlfriend Cheng Ruiyan. But this person spoke stiffly even to his girlfriend—many messages didn’t exceed five characters. Scanning roughly through them, she didn’t see a single sweet nothing. Li Weiyi clicked her tongue in disdain.

Looking at the photo album next, there weren’t many photos, and most were of scenery. With Li Weiyi’s fairly decent aesthetic sense, she really couldn’t see what was beautiful about the landscapes he photographed. She only saw a bunch of problems—wrong framing, wrong lighting, terrible composition… After looking for a while, she had an epiphany. So Zhang Jingchan also had the legendary “boyfriend photography skills.” These photos were all his self-admiring “masterpieces.”

Li Weiyi giggled, thinking to herself, I’ll take a few good ones for you. If we switch back someday, you’ll be amazed.

There were also a few photos of his girlfriend, though they were clearly selfies. The girl was like a peach—both pure and sexy—making even Li Weiyi, a woman herself, exclaim “wow.”

Zhang Jingchan only had about ten photos of himself. This person probably didn’t like taking photos.

One of them looked like someone had secretly snapped it with his phone, and the image quality was a bit blurry. In the library with soft yellow lighting, the tall boy wore a white T-shirt that outlined his shoulder blade definition. He was looking down at a book, his nape pale and straight, his arms exposed outside the T-shirt lean and muscular. Many people sat around him, but they all seemed like background scenery.