Chapter 29 – Breaking Point
That evening, the digital war climaxed.
The System malfunctioned violently.
Xiao Xi collapsed onto the worn carpet of her dressing room, her body shaking uncontrollably.
Her vision went black, instantly replaced by a blinding, chaotic flood of red error warnings and screaming code inside her mind.
[System… unstable… data overwritten… core functions failing… unauthorized user escalating access… danger to host imminent…]
Her hands shook violently.
She pressed them over her ears, trying to muffle the deafening digital noise.
"Stop! Please stop!" she gasped, her body arching in pain.
She could feel the hacker tearing apart the core of her new reality.
A series of frantic, loud pounds hammered on the dressing room door.
"Xiao Xi? Are you okay in there? You're delaying the wrap-up!" a stressed staff member called through the thin wood.
She forced herself up, using the vanity counter to steady her trembling body, sucking in ragged breaths. She couldn't let anyone see her like this.
Not the staff, not the ubiquitous cameras, and definitely not Gu Yanzhou.
If they saw her breakdown, the hacker would win, and she would be institutionalized.
She wiped the tears and sweat from her face, straightened her ruined clothes, and forced the familiar, defiant smile back onto her lips.
It was a performance of pure willpower.
When she opened the door, she came face-to-face with the one person she couldn't face: Gu Yanzhou.
He stood rigid in the hallway, his face haggard and lined with fatigue.
His eyes, however, widened at the sight of her shocking paleness and the subtle tremor in her hands.
"You're sick, Xiao Xi," he stated, dropping the controlled distance.
"I'm fine," she lied, automatically.
"You're lying," he countered, his voice flat with certainty.
"Then believe the lie!" she whispered fiercely, attempting to step past him and escape the suffocating proximity.
He didn't move.
He grabbed her wrist gently, stopping her escape, the desperation cracking his voice, raw and unfiltered.
"Why are you avoiding me? Why the silence? What did I do? Tell me so I can fix it, Xiao Xi. I can fix anything, just tell me what it is!"
Her heart clenched so tightly it hurt.
Lin had lied.
His mother had interfered.
He didn't know the reason for their distance; he thought he had failed her.
But just as she opened her mouth to reveal the truth about Lin's malice, the System chimed one last, critical warning:
[Host cannot disclose unauthorized interference. Final Protocol Activated.]
She forced her expression back to the brittle, cold smile.
She couldn't tell him about the hacker without risking the final system shutdown. She had to maintain the lie that she was choosing distance.
"There's nothing to fix, Gu Yanzhou," she lied, pulling her wrist free, her tone final and empty.
"We served our purpose.
The contract is over."
Then she walked away, her steps mechanical, leaving him standing there, shattered and utterly confused.
For the first time since their alliance began, he didn't follow.
He stood motionless in the empty hallway, the pain of her rejection a crushing weight he couldn't fight.