Chapter 7: Ning Yu’s First Appearance (The Real Daughter Cometh)

It happened on Day 3 of filming.

Shi Xi was in the makeshift green room, eating a sad sandwich, when the door burst open. In walked a girl who looked like she’d stepped out of a watercolor painting: delicate features, dewy skin, wearing a white dress that somehow remained spotless despite the dusty warehouse.

Ning Yu. The real daughter. The female lead of the original novel.

She was supposed to be working at a noodle shop, being poor and noble. Instead, she was here, holding a clipboard, looking directly at Shi Xi.

“You,” Ning Yu said.

“Me,” Shi Xi replied, not looking up from her sandwich.

“I’m the new production assistant. I start today.” Ning Yu sat across from her, folding her hands primly. “I know who you are, Shi Xi. The fake heiress. The runaway. The girl who abandoned my family.”

“Your family?”

“They were always mine. You just borrowed them.”

Shi Xi put down her sandwich. In the original novel, this was the moment where Shi Xi would snarl, cry, and cement her villainy. But Shi Xi wasn’t the villain. She was the retired legend who couldn’t be bothered.

“You’re right,” she said.

Ning Yu blinked. “What?”

“They’re your family. I don’t want them. I don’t want the money, the mansion, or the drama. I just want to act. So…” She extended her hand. “Truce?”

Ning Yu stared at the hand like it was a dead fish. “This is a trick.”

“It’s not a trick. I genuinely don’t care about you. You’re not my enemy. You’re just… some girl.”

[DING! CAUTION: Ning Yu’s pride is fragile. She expected a fight.]

Not my problem.

Ning Yu’s eyes flickered—confusion, then something harder. “You think you can just walk away? That the story ends because you say so?”

“The story ends when I say so,” Shi Xi said. “I’m the protagonist now. You’re just a supporting character in my novel.”

She stood, grabbed her sandwich, and walked out.

Behind her, Ning Yu’s voice followed, soft and venomous: “We’ll see about that.”