If what Ye Zhen was experiencing on his end was a life-or-death thriller, then on Jiang Xiaoyi’s side it was a joyous New Year’s celebration film.

She stood at the door of the familiar mansion, her heart filled with nothing but excitement.

Wasn’t this Ye Zhen’s former luxury estate?

“Do you like it?” Mother Jiang said with a beaming smile. “Besides this mansion, I’ve also thrown in a little gift for you.”

Jiang Xiaoyi, her heart full of nervous anticipation, opened the mansion’s front door, and then she saw—

Ye Zhen’s cat?!

“Isn’t it adorable!” Mother Jiang said with satisfaction. “This cat had been abandoned by someone. I felt sorry for it, so I took it in. Your dad and I are about to go on a beach vacation, so it’s perfect company for you in your own place.”

Mother Jiang, now a lady of wealth and status with all the busy affairs that came with it, along with Father Jiang, finished showing Jiang Xiaoyi around the mansion. After making her a bowl of fermented rice balls, she left with Jiang Xiaoyi’s old friends who were urging her to go out shopping, bidding her daughter goodbye.

And so, in the vast, luxurious mansion, only Jiang Xiaoyi remained.

Along with Ye Zhen’s “little brother.”

So it seemed that in crossing over into this world, she had not only inherited Ye Zhen’s fortune and identity, but had swept up his actual “little brother” as well?

Wonderful!

It’s easy to grow accustomed to luxury after hardship, and Jiang Xiaoyi felt that although only a little while had passed, she was already gradually settling into her new persona.

A new life, a new beginning—starting with naming the kitten!

Jiang Xiaoyi pointed at the kitten’s nose. “From today on, you’re my son. Your name shall be Ye Zhen’s Little Brother. No objections, right?”

“Meow.”

Ye Zhen’s Little Brother had no idea of the storm brewing behind that name. He simply meowed once, then, oblivious to the hardships of the world, went right back to licking his fur.

“I object!”

A sudden male voice startled Jiang Xiaoyi. She looked up and, to her astonishment, saw Ye Zhen standing right there in her own mansion.

The man’s expression was remarkably composed, his gaze still lofty and aloof, his manner still rather cold. His hands were tucked into his trouser pockets in full boss-mode posture—except…

Except for the faint black shoe-print visible on his white shirt, his somewhat disheveled hair, his flushed cheeks that looked like they hadn’t yet recovered from strenuous exertion, and the wrinkled, muddy cuffs of his trousers—all of which betrayed Ye Zhen’s true, wretched circumstances: a man who had lost his money-conjuring powers and been reduced back to an ordinary commoner.

But the wretched man himself was still not fully aware of it. He found a spot on the sofa, sat down, picked up a bottle of Perrier from the table and drained it, and only then did his expression settle into a look of “I’ve come back to life.”

Once he finished drinking, he finally looked at Jiang Xiaoyi. “What are you doing in my house, messing with my cat? If you disappear within five minutes, I’ll let this slide.”

Jiang Xiaoyi had originally still felt a bit uneasy about her new identity, half-suspecting this windfall was too good to be true. But the moment she saw Ye Zhen—saw this man still so haughty, so full of himself—she felt a surge of courage and made her decision.

She would no longer hesitate. She would boldly accept what fate had bestowed upon her.

Here, she would bid farewell to a life of bowing and scraping for a meager wage, and instead become—

President Jiang, worth ten billion!

Ye Zhen had no idea of the whirlwind of thoughts racing through Jiang Xiaoyi’s mind in that instant.

Though it was still the same mansion, as Ye Zhen looked around, he noticed the décor was completely different. His own house had a strongly masculine feel, but now the whole place was decorated in girlish colors and ornaments. Even the family portrait that used to hang on the wall—his family portrait—had been replaced with one of the Jiang family.

The more Ye Zhen looked around the house, the graver his expression became.

The address and house number were clearly correct, and the exterior of the house was exactly the same—so why was everything inside completely different?

Even when he reached out toward his own cat, the cat, instead of coming to him as it usually did, arched its back, fur bristling, and then, with deadly precision, bit clean through his finger.

At that moment, Ye Zhen’s composed façade finally cracked. He began to grow agitated and flustered.

“What is going on here?!”

“Why has Ruiyi become yours?”

“Why have my parents turned into fugitive deadbeats hiding overseas?”

The man pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Why can’t I use a single one of my credit cards? They’re all showing as invalid. I went to the bank to check, and they said they’d never issued these cards at all. If I hadn’t run fast, the branch manager would already have called the police and had me arrested for forging financial instruments!”

“Has the world gone mad, or have I?!”

Ye Zhen paced back and forth in the hall, muttering to himself. After a moment, as though he’d made up his mind, he began walking upstairs with a blank expression. “Forget it. I must be dreaming. It must be some aftereffect from hitting my head when I jumped into the sea. I’ll go sleep upstairs, and when I wake up, everything will be fine.”

Five minutes later, Ye Zhen came stumbling back down the stairs, looking utterly defeated.

Judging by his state, he had probably calmed down at least a little.

Jiang Xiaoyi calmly took a sip of her black tea, feeling it was time to let Ye Zhen face reality and take a good hard punch from society.

“To put it simply, we’ve crossed over. Here, I’m the boss, and you’re the employee. Our positions have swapped. Understand?”

As she spoke, Jiang Xiaoyi comfortably petted the cat a couple of times. “Remember what you said back when I pitched that parallel-universe comic project?”

“Oh, right—’There’s no such thing as parallel universes. We only have the life we’re living in this one timeline. The whole concept of parallel universes is nothing but lowbrow self-indulgent fantasy.'”

Undaunted by Ye Zhen’s increasingly stormy expression, Jiang Xiaoyi grinned. “But who could have guessed—the world is unpredictable. Humanity’s understanding of the universe and all things natural is so small and limited, and yet some people think they’ve got it all figured out.” She let out an exaggerated, theatrical sigh. “So those who disrespect science are doomed to perish in the end.”

“Who would have thought that I, Jiang Xiaoyi, would personally prove the scientific validity of that parallel-universe comic project.”

Even now, having crossed over, thinking of the “Origin” studio still filled Jiang Xiaoyi’s heart with a twinge of regret. But it was fine—she was no longer the old Jiang Xiaoyi. She had returned as a conquering monarch: Jiang Niuguolu Xiaoyi—

“These days, President Ye’s era has passed. The universe has entered a new epoch and a new order. The future belongs to me, President Jiang.”

Then Jiang Xiaoyi suddenly frowned, remembering something. “Wait, this mansion is mine now. How did you get in?”

She turned toward the door and found her front gate securely locked. She pulled up the mansion’s security camera footage on her phone but saw no sign of Ye Zhen sneaking in. She was completely baffled.

Ye Zhen’s expression soured. “This house was mine to begin with. I can come in whenever I want.”

That would never do! What if there really was some secret passage into the mansion, and Ye Zhen could just waltz in whenever he pleased from now on?

Unacceptable!

Jiang Xiaoyi immediately grabbed her phone. “If you don’t tell me how you got in, I’m calling the police. Breaking and entering with intent to rob—I—”

Jiang Xiaoyi was about to continue her righteous tirade, but Ye Zhen cut her off, his voice sharp and irritable—

“Don’t you dare call the police!”

Jiang Xiaoyi stared at him without a word, then followed his gaze as it drifted out the window, landing on a small section of the back garden wall. There, on the white surface of the wall, a large, dark shoe print was now faintly visible…

Had the pampered, aristocratic prince Ye Zhen actually stooped to scaling a wall—so beneath his supposed status?

Jiang Xiaoyi was furious. “You actually climbed the wall?! You dirtied my wall! You owe me for that!”

Yet in the face of this accusation, Ye Zhen showed not a trace of guilt, remaining perfectly composed. “Do you have proof? There’s no camera covering the west side of the back garden by the wooden gate.”

Skeptical, Jiang Xiaoyi checked, and sure enough, the man was right.

So she glared at Ye Zhen and immediately called the mansion’s estate manager. “Replace that wooden gate with an iron one. Raise it by a meter. Cover the top entirely in spikes—the kind that’ll turn a man into a woman the instant he tries to climb over. And install three more cameras pointed at it…”

Once that was arranged, seeing Ye Zhen’s darkened expression, Jiang Xiaoyi finally felt a wave of satisfaction.

She smugly patted Ye Zhen on the shoulder. “Little Ye, what’s done is done. Try to look on the bright side.”

Ye Zhen looked ready to explode with rage. “You’re living in my house, sleeping in my bed, stealing my little brother, and now you want to be my mother too! How on earth am I supposed to look on the bright side?!”

“Who wants to be your mother?!”

Ye Zhen pointed at the cat. “I heard you just now—you said it’s your son first, and then named it Ye Zhen’s Little Brother. By that logic, doesn’t that make me your other son too?! You think I’ll just submit to that? You think I’ll play the role of your son for money?”

“I, Ye Zhen, really did raise a viper in my bosom. If I’d known this would happen, I would have fired you long ago and let you starve!”

Jiang Xiaoyi was not pleased. “First, I only want a cat for a son—I don’t want a son like you. Second, from now on, watch your tone when you speak to me. None of this casual ‘you.’ Address me as ‘Madam,’ or ‘President Jiang.’ Third, you’d better wise up—right now, the only thing standing between you and starvation is me firing you!”

Ye Zhen had probably never been treated this way in his entire life. His eyes turned red with anger. “This is theft! You stole my life from me!”

Jiang Xiaoyi petted the cat a couple more times. “Then go ahead and sue me!”

Ye Zhen was practically trembling with rage.

But Jiang Xiaoyi wasn’t done yet. Mimicking Ye Zhen’s old manner, she said in an insufferably smug tone, “You need to learn to see things from the other person’s perspective. Look at you—sure, you’re poor and miserable now, and hmm, why does it smell like there’s a whiff of urine on you? Maybe I’m smelling it wrong. Anyway, setting that aside—at least in this parallel world, you’re not missing any limbs. Look, you can still climb walls quite nimbly. That shows your stamina is pretty good.”

Jiang Xiaoyi continued earnestly, “Besides, you’ve got such a great job with Ruiyi—weren’t you just promoted to my temporary assistant? And the salary’s the same as what I used to get, five or six times above average…”

“Ha, you think you can make me your assistant? Dream on.” Ye Zhen let out a cold sneer, as if he’d heard the funniest joke in the world. “In this lifetime, I, Ye Zhen, would never work as an assistant—especially not for someone of your caliber.”

“Don’t waste your breath. Even if you’ve stolen my life in this parallel world, I’ll take back what’s mine piece by piece. Your assistant position—I’m not taking it. I’ll find work worthy of me on my own and reclaim the glory that belongs to me.”

Faced with the disaster of crossing over, Ye Zhen still remained unfazed, his tone forceful, even straightening his back to defiantly quit a job on the spot, declaring he’d never be an assistant. It had to be said, Jiang Xiaoyi found herself somewhat surprised and even a little impressed by his bravado and confidence.

If only Ye Zhen hadn’t come crawling back to her, utterly disheveled, half a month later.