The Blood Moon hung low, a swollen crimson eye bleeding light over the Shadowed Woods. Kane’s fangs tore through the vampire’s throat, hot blood spattering his silver-gray fur. Behind him, his pack howled as they reclaimed their kin—twelve wolves, emaciated and scarred, from the blood-soaked outpost. Victory tasted like iron… until the elder’s silver dagger buried itself in his shoulder. Poison seared his veins. He staggered, vision blurring, as the vampires’ jeers faded. Something pulled him—warmth, faint but unyielding—like a heartbeat in the dark. He crashed through a veil of magic, and there it was: a cage of moonlight,Suspended atop a tower, holding a girl. Her chains glinted. A servant’s syringe pierced her arm, drawing silver blood that shimmered like starlight. She didn’t scream. Five hundred years in Valerius’s dungeon had taught her silence. But when her eyes met his—golden, wild, drowning in pain—something in her stirred. Not fear. Recognition. “Find the wolf,” Valerius purred, swirling her blood in a crystal vial. “Let us see if moonlight can revive a dying king.” Kane’s claws shredded the cage. She fell, and he caught her, her scent flooding his senses—antidote. Salvation. He ran, her weight a feather on his back, as Raymond’s arrows hissed past. Then the Blood Moon reached its zenith. Pain erupted. His fangs sank into her neck. Silver blood met crimson. Runes blazed—wolf and moon, intertwined—branding their souls. The poison in him burned away. On her skin, a wolf’s mark bloomed, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. “Mine,” he snarled, though he didn’t know if he meant the blood… or her. She stared at the mark, then at him. “You’ve doomed us both.” Valerius’s laugh echoed across the marsh. “Indeed. And the game has only just begun.”   Two souls bound by a curse. A king who’d burn the world to protect her. A prisoner who’d learn to break chains with more than teeth. When the Blood Moon rises, even monsters fall in love.

The fire tasted like iron. Shen Mingwei could feel it—crawling up her shins, searing through the rags they’d thrown on her, devouring the last of her breath with a roar. Chains bit into her wrists, rusted links grinding bone as she strained against them. Outside the inferno, laughter cut sharper than the flames. “"Sister， does it hurt?” Shen Yuerou’s voice trilled, sweet as poisoned honey. “You always thought you were too good for the likes of us—too noble, too pure. Look at you now.” Mingwei’s throat burned. She wanted to scream, to curse the sister who’d stolen her name, her life, her family. But the smoke had stolen her voice. All she could do was bare her teeth, blood trickling from her split lip, and fix her gaze on the silhouette beside Yuerou. Prince Zhao Heng. Her former fiancé. The man who’d smiled as he watched her father beheaded, as her mother’s coffin was tossed into the river, as she was dragged to this hellhole to rot. “Finish it,” he said, voice cold as winter. No flicker of remorse, no trace of the boy who’d once brought her jasmine flowers and whispered promises. The fire coiled around her, a living thing. Mingwei closed her eyes, and in the darkness, a vow formed—bloody, ravenous, unbreakable. If I survive this, I will drag you all to hell with me.   Pain jolted her awake. Not the white-hot agony of burning, but a dull throb behind her eyes. Mingwei gasped, sitting up so fast her head spun. She was… in a bed? A canopy bed, draped with silk curtains in her favorite shade of lavender. Sunlight filtered through the lattice window, dappling the carpet where a familiar figure knelt, sobbing. “Miss! You’re awake!” Hua Ping, her maid, scrubbed at her tears, face blotchy. “Thank the heavens—you fainted earlier, I thought—” Mingwei froze. Hua Ping. Alive. Not beaten to death in the courtyard for trying to shield her from Yuerou’s goons. Not another ghost from a life that had ended in ash. She touched her throat. No burns. No raw, torn flesh. Just smooth skin, warm beneath her fingers. “What… day is it?” she croaked, voice hoarse but there. Hua Ping blinked. “Why, it’s the day Aunt Liu brings Miss Yuerou to the mansion, miss. Don’t you remember? You were so excited to meet your new sister—” The world tilted. Fifteen. She was fifteen again. The day Shen Yuerou, that viper in silk, first crossed the threshold of the Duke’s mansion. The day it all began. Mingwei swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her bare feet hitting the cool floor. She walked to the mirror, and there she was—pale, yes, but unscarred. No whip marks on her back, no hollow hunger in her eyes. Just the face of a girl who still believed in kindness, in family, in Prince Zhao Heng. A girl who hadn’t learned yet how sharp a sister’s smile could be, how deadly a prince’s charm. But she knew now. “Miss?” Hua Ping hovered, uncertain. “Are you all right?” Mingwei turned, and for the first time in years, she smiled. Not the soft, demure curve she’d been taught to wear, but something sharp, something hungry. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes, which had already hardened into flint. “Fetch my green gown,” she said. “The one with the silver embroidery.” Hua Ping frowned. “But Miss, that’s your best dress—” “Yuerou’s arriving today, isn’t she?” Mingwei ran a finger over the edge of the mirror, where a chip marred the polished surface. A chip she’d made, years later, when she’d smashed it in a rage after Yuerou stole her mother’s jade pendant. “I should welcome my new sister in style, shouldn’t I?” Her voice was light, almost playful. But when she met Hua Ping’s gaze, there was no warmth in it—only a quiet, burning resolve. This time, she wouldn’t be the fool. This time, the fire would be theirs.   Outside, the sound of a carriage drew near. Mingwei smoothed the folds of her gown, her fingers brushing the hidden pocket where she’d slipped a single hairpin—sharpened to a point, just in case. Let them come. Let Yuerou simper and simper, let Aunt Liu plot, let Prince Zhao Heng spin his lies. She was back. And hell was coming with her.

The wind howled as Su Wanqing fell, the ground racing up to meet her. Below, the city lights blurred into a sickly mosaic—just like the last fragments of her life: her parents’ car crumpling against a truck, the twins’ wails as they were torn from her arms, Gu Yanchen’s face, cold as marble, as he whispered, “You and the Su family—all of you deserve to vanish.” Pain exploded. Then darkness. She woke gasping, silk sheets clinging to her sweat-soaked back. The chandelier above her was familiar—the one in their wedding suite, its crystals refracting the soft glow of table lamps. A glance at the calendar on the nightstand sent her heart slamming into her ribs: their third wedding anniversary. The night everything began to rot. Footsteps approached. Gu Yanchen stood by the dresser, adjusting his tie, his profile sharp and unyielding. “I have to go to the office,” he said, voice smooth as ever. “Emergency meeting.” Liar. Su Wanqing’s fingers curled into the sheets, nails digging into her palm. She’d heard this lie before. Three years ago, he’d left “for work” to meet Lin Weiwei at Platinum Hotel, Room 808. That night, he’d also wired the first 5 million from Su’s subsidiary to his private offshore account. And tonight, if she let him go, her parents would die in a “car accident” this Saturday. The twins would be born, then stolen, raised to call Lin Weiwei “mother.” And she? She’d spend years as a hollowed-out wife, watching her family’s empire crumble, until Gu Yanchen厌倦 her and pushed her off this very building. But she wasn’t that woman anymore. She let the corners of her lips lift, a fragile, drunken smile. “Yanchen,” she murmured, voice soft as down, “it’s our anniversary. Stay. Have a bowl of hangover soup with me? Please?” He turned, irritation flickering in his eyes before he masked it with a sigh. “Fine. But make it quick.” As he walked toward the bathroom, Su Wanqing’s gaze locked on his wrist—a silver chain, identical to the one Lin Weiwei wore. Proof, as if she needed it. She slipped out of bed, moving silently to his discarded suit jacket. Her fingers brushed the pocket where he kept his phone, memorizing the faint indent of its shape. Three years ago, she’d been blind to the way he flinched when she touched his things, to the late-night calls he took on the balcony, to the way he hated scallions in his soup—just like Lin Weiwei did. Foolish. Naive. Dead. But now? She was reborn. Gu Yanchen emerged, and she swayed, feigning dizziness, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I’m so tired,” she mumbled, while her fingers danced over his phone, inputting the passcode she’d once laughed at—her birthday, his birthday, a lie he’d thought she’d never see through. The screen lit up. WeChat, top chat: Weiwei. 808, as usual. Hurry. She took a breath, committing the words to memory, then let the phone slip from her grasp. It clattered to the floor. “Oh! I’m so sorry—” He cursed under his breath, bending to pick it up, his attention fractured. Perfect. By the time he left, she’d already texted Lao K, the paparazzi Gu Yanchen had screwed over last year: Platinum Hotel, 808. Exclusive scoop. Name your price. Then she called the Su Group’s CFO, her tone crisp, no longer the docile wife. “Freeze all transactions from Ruida Trading tonight. Tell them it’s a system glitch. I’ll handle Gu Yanchen.” Hanging up, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. The woman staring back had puffy eyes, lips still trembling from the memory of falling—but there was fire in her pupils now, a wild, unyielding thing. This time, she promised the girl she’d been, the parents she’d failed, the twins she’d never held, I’ll burn it all down. For you. She reached into her neckline, gripping the jade pendant her mother had given her. It had been clasped in her fist when she fell. Now, it felt warm, almost alive, against her skin. Gu Yanchen’s car engine roared outside. Su Wanqing smiled, cold and bright. Let the games begin.

The pen hovers over the clause "peaceful divorce after one year," ink glinting like a shard of ice. Across the polished table, Shen Zhixia’s signature is a sharp slash—her nails, dug into her palm, leaves half-moon marks. "Don’t mistake this for emotion," Ling Xu’an’s voice cuts through the silence, his gaze fixed on the stock charts scrolling across the screen. "The title of ‘Mrs. Ling’ is just your stepping stone." She smiles, a flicker of irony in her eyes. "Relax, Mr. Ling. I care more about Ling Group’s database than your heart." Thus begins their pact: a marriage of convenience, forged in the fire of family feuds and corporate ambition. He needs a bride to outmaneuver his scheming uncle; she needs access to the Shen family’s secrets to uncover her mother’s suspicious death. But in the gilded cages of their clans, nothing stays transactional. A spilled glass of wine at a banquet, and he steps in to shield her—for the sake of "contract stability," he claims. A locked diary in her mother’s old room, its pages whispering of three families bound by more than business. A late-night kitchen, where the tech tycoon who rules boardrooms fumbles with a coffee machine, and she, the "country bumpkin" scorned by her kin, steps in to fix it. Lines blur. Secrets unfurl. The fake smile she wears to deflect her stepsister’s venom, the insomnia he hides behind cold composure, the childhood candy wrapper they both cherish—unwittingly—like a lost promise. When the past comes roaring back, and enemies plot to burn down their fragile truce, they must choose: honor the contract, or burn it to save each other. After all, even the coldest deals have a way of thawing. Especially when love is the fine print no one saw coming.

The moment the copper hairpin sliced through the barrier, Su Qingyuan heard the faint crackle of time freezing behind her. She didn’t dare look back. Rain sluiced down her neck, soaking the half-eaten osmanthus cake in her pocket and smearing the spicy strip crumbs on her sleeve. This was her 99th escape—ninety-nine times she’d fled the Star Palace, ninety-nine times she’d dodged the Xuanjia guards, and ninety-nine times she’d ended up staring into those obsidian eyes that held the weight of spacetime itself. “Chaotic spirit body,” the blood scroll in the imperial library had hissed, its characters bleeding like fresh wounds, “ninety-nine failed escapes, and you shall become the vessel for the Godly Lord’s power.” She’d laughed then. What did a scrap of parchment know? She was just a nobody plucked from the mortal realm, taken in by the Di clan after her village burned. A nobody who’d stumbled upon their dirtiest secret while dusting ancient tomes: the “adopted orphan” charade was just a gilded cage. She was a living sacrifice, bound to Di Yechen by the Blood Oath of Unity—his birthright, her death sentence. The first escape had been clumsy. She’d crawled through the bronze drainage pipes of the Star Palace, choking on moss and pride, only to be hauled up by her collar at the boundary gate. Di Yechen had held her contraband—a single spicy strip—between two fingers like it was a rotting corpse. “Mortal filth,” he’d sneered, black robes billowing around them like storm clouds. But when she snuck a peek that night, the forbidden snack was tucked under her pillow, its wrapper smoothed neat as a prayer. The seventh escape taught her to be crafty. Old Chen’s transformation talisman turned her into a fat tabby, and she’d curled up in Di Yechen’s study, watching him frown over scrolls. When he reached for his teacup, she’d pounced—knocking ink onto his official documents, just to see that icy composure crack. He’d fished her out by the scruff, growling “imbecile,” yet by dawn there was a saucer of cream by her makeshift bed of silk cushions. By the twenty-second escape, she’d learned his tells. The way his jaw tightened before he feigned indifference; how his spacetime magic always hesitated when she darted toward mortal villages; the softening in his gaze when he thought she wasn’t looking, like he was memorizing the curve of her stubbornly set mouth. This time, she’d hidden in a mortal temple, sharing her last osmanthus cake with a one-eyed stray. The rain had barely let up when the door creaked open. Di Yechen stood in the threshold, his black robes beaded with water, holding the copper hairpin she’d stolen from the Absolute Spirit Pavilion—the one that had suddenly erupted with spacetime power during her 43rd escape. “Playing house with strays?” he said, voice colder than the snow-capped peaks of the God Realm. But his fingers brushed a cobweb from her hair before she could flinch away. Su Qingyuan clutched the hairpin tighter. She knew the rules: one more failure, and the blood oath would claim her, her chaotic spirit swallowed by his power forever. Yet here he was, as he’d been 98 times before—offering her a choice disguised as a confrontation. “Catch me first,” she shot back, darting into the downpour. Behind her, she heard the faint hum of his magic—not to bind her, but to shield her from the worst of the storm. Ninety-nine escapes. Ninety-nine games of cat and mouse. She’d thought it was a curse, until she realized: The Godly Lord who could freeze galaxies had never wanted to win. He just wanted to chase her through every lifetime—through rain-soaked temples and starlit palaces, through mortal markets and demon realm wastelands—until she finally understood. This wasn’t imprisonment. It was the slowest, sweetest courtship the three realms had ever seen. And this 99th time? She planned to make him work for it.