The coffee tasted like liquid moonlight—if moonlight could be bitter, sweet, and electrifying all at once. It hit my bloodstream with a jolt that made my synapses fire like New Year's sparklers.
[WARNING: Unknown Substance Detected!] The system's voice shattered into digital static. [Analyzing... Analyzing... ERROR! Cannot parse compound. Host Status: ???]
Jiang Huai'an watched me over his own cup, which steamed with infuriating normalcy. "Drink it all," he said, not as a command but a suggestion wrapped in silk. "The first dose is the most important."
"Dose of what?" I demanded, but my tongue felt fizzy, like I'd licked a battery. Holographic error messages cascaded across my vision, each one more alarming than the last:
[System Firewall: Breached]
[Host Autonomy: Compromised?]
[Romance Value: Calculating... Calculating...]
The last one flickered and displayed: [∞]
Infinity. My romance value was infinity. That was like being told your credit score was the concept of blue.
Jiang set his cup down with a soft clink that somehow silenced the system alerts. "The coffee contains a neural stabilizer. Your system is running on spite and sleep deprivation—which is impressive, but unsustainable. It'll crash you before you reach Level 10."
I gripped the cup harder. "You drugged me."
"I medicated you." He leaned against the café's counter, and for the first time, I really looked at the space. It was minimalist to the point of sterile—white walls, a single espresso machine that looked like it cost more than my severance, and no other customers. No staff. Just us.
"Where's the barista?" I asked.
"I am the barista." He said it the way someone says I am the Senate. "On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and alternate Saturdays. The rest of the time, I'm the CEO of a tech conglomerate that owns the company that owns your severance-paying former employer."
The system flickered back to life, its voice uncertain: [Entity Jiang Huai'an: Status Update. Affiliation: Starlight Tech Parent Corp. Net Worth: ???. Romance Candidate Grade: SSS. Threat Level:... Dateable?]
"Your system is confused," Jiang said, reading my expression. "It thinks I'm either a boss battle or a love interest. Classic programming error."
"You're the system creator," I accused, remembering the stat screen from yesterday.
"Co-creator." He corrected. "Dr. Shen wrote the medical protocols. I handled the... motivational aspects."
[Dr. Shen referenced. Connection: Confirmed. Host should feel vindicated for trusting gut instinct to flee.]
"So this is a beta test?" I slammed the empty cup down. "I'm a guinea pig for your weird revenge-fantasy algorithm?"
Jiang's expression shifted—not into guilt, but something more complicated. "You're not a test. You're a bug fix."
He pulled out his own phone, which was black, featureless, and definitely not a Huawei. A tap, and the café's walls dissolved into holographic screens. Not like the system's retina-display—these were real, projected light showing code streams, data flows... and a face I recognized.
Mine. From yesterday. Crying in the cyber café, moments before activation.
"You weren't supposed to get the system," Jiang said quietly. "It was locked for a specific Host profile. Someone with different stats, different circumstances. But your despair output was so... pure... that it short-circuited the selection filter."
The system stayed ominously silent. I looked at my crying self, captured in 4K misery, and felt a surge of secondhand humiliation. "So unbind me. Give it to whoever you actually wanted."
"I can't." He met my eyes. "The system bonded. You're the Host until completion or death. And given that your 'Despair Stat' was crushing your actual lifespan, I chose to let the bond stand."
"How philanthropic."
"Pragmatic." He waved, and the screens shifted to show my current stats. Charisma: 40. Career: 28. Willpower: 45. Then he pulled up a second set of numbers—faded, grayed out:
[Original Host Projected Stats: Charisma: 78, Career: 65, Romance EXP: 120/100]
[Status: Deceased. Cause: Cardiac arrest due to Broken Heart Syndrome.]
The words hung in the air like a funeral veil.
"She was my sister," Jiang said. "The system was designed to save her. I... miscalculated the emotional feedback loop. The missions worked, but the constant monitoring turned her anxiety into arrhythmia. By the time Dr. Shen diagnosed it, her heart was running on cortisol and false hope."
I felt the floor tilt. "You built a revenge system that kills people?"
"I built a system that saves people," he corrected sharply. "But Version 1.0 had bugs. Version 2.0"—he gestured to me—"has you."
The system finally spoke, its voice smaller: [Version 2.0 Patch Notes: Reduced monitoring frequency. Added 'Emotional Regulation' subroutines. Implemented 'Mandatory Rest' protocols. Host's well-being: Priority Alpha.]
"That's why the coffee," I said, connecting dots that were suddenly luminous. "Emotional regulation."
"And why I appear as a barista." A ghost of a smile. "Lower threat profile. Less system friction. Your software sees me as a safe NPC when I'm in apron-mode. The moment I'm 'CEO Jiang,' the threat assessment spikes. Creates lag."
I remembered the error messages. The [Threat Level: UNKNOWN] warnings. "So you're... what? Debugging me in real-time?"
"Co-piloting." He pulled a silver token from his pocket and pressed it into my hand. It was cold, heavy, and had the same heart-and-horns symbol as my app. "This grants you access to Café Illusion during off-hours. Consider it a safe zone. The system can't monitor you here."
I stared at the token. "Why would you give me a blind spot?"
"Because every program needs a back door." His gaze was intense enough to make the system's glitchy warnings flare again. "And because Version 1.0 died without one."
The café door chimed. Not the imaginary one—the real one. A delivery man in SF Express uniform stood there, holding a box. "Miss Song? Signature required."
Jiang stepped back, his barista persona sliding back on like a mask. "That would be your nutrition reset. System-ordered, but I made the selection."
I signed. The box was lighter than it looked. Inside: seven days of pre-made meals, each in minimalist packaging labeled with stats. [Day 1 Lunch: Grilled Salmon, Quinoa, Asparagus. Effect: Energy +20, Skin Clarity +5.]
"Are these... legal?" I asked.
"Mostly." Jiang was already wiping down the counter that didn't need wiping. "The micronutrient blend is proprietary. Dr. Shen's contribution. Won't show up on drug tests, unless you're being tested for 'sudden competence.'"
I should have left. Should have run screaming from the man who admitted his tech had killed his sister and was now using me as a patch. But my phone pinged with a new mission:
[Daily Mission Update: Nutrition Reset - IN PROGRESS]
[Energy: +20 (Projected)]
[Motivation: Currently Spite-Based. Recommendation: Accept.]
Spite had gotten me this far. It seemed foolish to change strategies now.
"Thirty days," I said, pocketing the token. "Then what?"
"Then you either become the woman the system thinks you can be," Jiang said, "or you prove it wrong entirely." He smiled, and for the first time, it looked genuine. "Either way, I get my data. And you get your revenge."
"Win-win."
"Exactly."
I left the café with a box of sketchy superfood and a head full of questions. The system was uncharacteristically quiet, processing. As I walked, a new screen appeared—not a mission, but a warning:
[Host Awareness: 40% (Risk of Rejection Increasing)]
[Recommendation: Provide Distraction.]
My phone buzzed with a real call. Not Gu. Not Mom. Not Lily.
A number I didn't recognize.
I answered.
"Miss Song? This is HR at Starlight Tech. We received your application for Project Manager. We'd like to interview you tomorrow at 10 AM."
The system unfurled a banner of victory across my vision: [Mission: Career Restart - STAGE 1 COMPLETE!]
I looked back at Café Illusion. Through the window, Jiang Huai'an was gone. The café was dark, locked, like it had never been open.
But the token in my pocket was real. The coffee hummed in my veins. And my reflection in a passing storefront window—glowing skin, straight spine, eyes that weren't dead—was different.
[Charisma: 40 → 42 (Confident Stride Unlocked)]
For the first time in three years, I looked like someone who might be the protagonist of her own story.
The system purred: [Next Mission: The Interview. Time to make Gu Chenyu's company regret losing you.]
I kept walking. The doormat was dead.
Long live the bug fix.