Bai Ju was late. Very late.
He rushed out of the house in a panic, his heartbeat louder than his own thoughts. For as long as he could remember, he had been chasing a place in the entertainment industry, clawing his way through tiny roles and forgettable appearances. Nothing steady. Nothing important. Just scraps.
But yesterday, everything had changed.
The modelling agency he worked with had called to tell him they wanted him on a huge shoot with superstar Su feiyu.
Bai Ju had nearly stopped breathing on the spot.
Him. On the same set. Even if he was only one of Su feiyu's extras, it was still the biggest opportunity of his life. A real break. The kind people waited years for. The kind that could finally drag a nobody into the light.
He couldn't miss it.
So he had run.
He had rushed out of the house, barely thinking, mind spinning with excitement and fear. He only remembered the street ahead of him, the traffic, the feeling that every second mattered.
And he should have looked, Should have watched the road.
The next moment came in shattered pieces.
A car screechedto a stop and the ground rushed up too fast. Bai ju felt Pain.
Then blood. So much blood.
Voices screamed around him, distant and muffled, as if the world had been plunged underwater. His vision blurred at the edges, darkness crawling inward.
Was he dying?
That thought hit harder than the car ever could have. He had just gotten his chance. His first real chance. And now this?
What a joke.
What a miserable, cosmic joke.
He tried to laugh, but no sound came out. His lips barely moved.
Fuck me.
His body felt cold. Heavy. Far away from him already.
If there really was a God somewhere out there… if any God was listening…Then give me another chance. He pleaded silently in his mind as his eyes finally slid shut.
When he woke again, the first thing he heard was the steady beeping of a machine.
His eyelids felt impossibly heavy, but he forced them open anyway. A white ceiling came into view, stark and sterile. For a few seconds, all he could do was stare at it, disoriented.
Then the pain hit him, Every part of him hurt.
He tried to move and instantly regretted it. His whole body felt like it had been taken apart and stitched back together wrong. A sharp hiss left his lips.
The room smelled strongly of antiseptic.
A doctor had just entered, white coat crisp, expression focused. Bai Ju parted his lips to speak, but even that hurt.
"W-where…"
The doctor stopped mid-step.
His head snapped up, surprise flashing across his face before it was quickly smoothed over. He hurried to the bedside, cautious now, as though unsure whether this was genuine consciousness or just a reflex.
"Mr. Mo Fei…?"
His tone was careful.
Bai Ju frowned weakly.
The doctor leaned in and checked his pupils with a small flashlight. "You're in Zhou Hospital," he said calmly. "You were brought in three days ago."
Three days?
The words rang in Bai Ju's head.
The doctor muttered something under his breath while glancing at the monitor. "Pulse stabilizing… consciousness regained…"
Then he looked at him again.
"You suffered severe trauma from a fall. Multiple fractures. Internal bleeding." He paused, adjusting his glasses. "Frankly… you're lucky to be alive."
Bai Ju stared at him.
A fall? Wasn't he hit by a car? And why had he called him Mo Fei?
His frown deepened. He tried to push himself upright, grimacing as pain shot through his ribs, but the doctor quickly moved to help him sit up. As Bai Ju shifted, something brushed against his neck.
Hair.
Long hair.
Red hair. That stopped short of his neck.
His breath caught.
His eyes lowered to his hands. His skin looked… different. Fairer. Cleaner. Almost too perfect. Bandages wrapped around one of his hands and around his neck, but even beneath them, this did not feel like him.
A cold unease spread through him.
How long had he been here?
And why did none of this look right?
He lifted a trembling hand to touch his face.
Bandages.
Smooth skin.
Wrong.
His throat burned as he forced out a single word.
"Mirror."
The doctor paused.
For a long moment, he studied Bai Ju's expression, the confusion, the fear, the way he was looking at his own hands like they belonged to someone else. Without a word, he reached for a small rectangular mirror on the bedside table and handed it over.
"Easy," the doctor said. "Your body is still recovering."
The mirror felt far too heavy in Bai Ju's hand.
Slowly, he lifted it.
And the face staring back at him was not his own.
He froze, Pale skin, Sharp cheekbones, Thin lips.
Deep red hair falling in soft disarray around a delicate, beautiful face that looked like it belonged on magazine covers and luxury billboards.
It was a face everyone knew.
A face splashed across headlines, screens, and gossip sites.
A face infamous enough that even Bai Ju, someone who had spent years scrambling at the edges of the industry recognized it instantly.
Mo Fei.
His breathing stopped and His hand shook.
The doctor noticed immediately.
"I expected some disorientation," he said carefully. "Memory loss is common after traumatic injury." He glanced down at the clipboard in his hand. "You were found outside your apartment building three nights ago after falling from the eighteenth floor."
The eighteenth floor? Bai Ju's mind went blank.
The doctor pulled a chair closer and sat down, his voice growing more serious. "Mr. Mo Fei… do you remember what happened before the fall?"
But Bai Ju barely heard him.
He could only stare at the reflection in the mirror.
A face that wasn't his.
A life that wasn't his.
And somewhere beyond the hospital door, he could already feel it, An entire world waiting to tear this body apart.
He blinked once. Then twice.
No.
No, no, no.
This had to be a dream. A fever. A concussion. Some deranged final hallucination before death.
But the pain in his body was too real. The smell of the room was too real. The mirror in his hand was too real.
He was in Mo Fei's body.
Mo Fei, the so-called industry witch. The beautiful disaster. The man whose scandals had been flooding every headline for weeks.
Bai Ju's chest rose sharply as panic punched through him.
"No fucking way!" he blurted.
The words scraped painfully against his throat, but he forced them out anyway. In desperation, he grabbed the doctor's wrist.
"What the hell… happened to my face?"
The doctor went still.
Not because of the grip, patients panicked after trauma all the time. But because of the words.
"…Your face?" the doctor repeated.
He gently but firmly eased his wrist free, his expression shifting into something more clinical, more alert.
"You suffered injuries from the fall, yes, but there was no reconstructive surgery performed," he said. "You had bruising, a fractured rib, and a cervical strain. Nothing that would alter your facial structure."
He gestured faintly toward the mirror.
"That is the same face you were admitted with."
Bai Ju felt the room tilt.
The doctor straightened. "Patient: Mo Fei. Age twenty-two. Professional model."
His gaze sharpened as he studied Bai Ju's face.
"You've been registered under that name in our system since the moment you were admitted."
Then he leaned in again, flashlight in hand, checking Bai Ju's eyes once more. His pupils responded normally. Neurological signs, normal.
But his words?
Not normal at all.
The doctor lowered the light slowly.
"Mr. Mo Fei… are you experiencing memory loss?"
Before Bai Ju could come up with anything resembling an answer, the hospital room door flew open.
A woman stormed inside like a force of nature.
Black sunglasses. Expensive coat. Hair slightly messy, like she had come straight from an airport and hadn't bothered to stop for anything, not food, not sleep, not dignity.
The instant she saw him sitting up in bed, she stopped cold.
Then her eyes widened.
"Mo Fei?!"
Before anyone could react, she crossed the room in seconds and threw her arms around him.
"You idiot!"
Her voice cracked.
"I leave the country for two weeks and you try to die on me?!"
The doctor sighed quietly, already looking tired.
"Miss Aria, visiting hours do not begin for another...."
"Doctor, respectfully," she snapped without even glancing at him, "not the time."
She pulled back just enough to grip Bai Ju's shoulders, scanning his face like she needed proof he was really alive.
Up close, he could see it clearly, her eyes were slightly red. She had definitely been crying.
This was Aria Lin.
A-list actress. Top model. Industry royalty.
And she was holding him like she actually cared whether he lived or died.
Bai Ju blinked at her in a daze, struggling to make sense of the situation through the pounding in his head.
This was insane. He was in Mo Fei's body. Aria Lin was in front of him. A doctor thought he had memory loss. The whole world probably thought he was Mo Fei.
There was only one thing he could do for now.
Play along.
Figure the rest out later.
He swallowed painfully and forced the words out.
"A-Aria…"
His voice trembled. "You're squeezing too hard."
Aria let go immediately.
"Oh shit, sorry," she muttered, stepping back half a pace. But she kept one hand on his shoulder, like she still needed the contact to believe he was real.
Her face was strained beneath the makeup. She looked exhausted.
"Mo fei" she said more softly. "You took a hell of a fall."
The doctor gave a small nod. "Good. Recognition of familiar individuals is a positive neurological sign."
Aria shot him a flat look that strongly suggested she thought he was an idiot.
"Is he actually okay," she asked, "or are you just saying that so I don't panic?"
The doctor remained maddeningly professional. "Physically, Mr. Mo Fei is extremely fortunate. Recovery will take time, but there is no major neurological damage that we can detect so far."
He paused.
"Mentally… he may still experience confusion due to trauma."
Aria exhaled and dragged a chair closer to the bed before sitting down beside him.
For a moment, she just looked at him.
Not at the scandal-ridden public image of Mo Fei.
At him, As if checking whether he was truly still here.
Then something in her expression hardened.
"Do you remember what happened that night?" she asked quietly.
The room seemed to tighten around the question.
Even the doctor glanced up from his notes.
Aria leaned forward, elbows on her knees, voice dropping lower.
"That bastard who started this whole mess…" Her jaw clenched. "Did he come to your apartment again?"
Bai Ju stayed silent, his mind still scrambling to keep up.
Aria rubbed at her temple, clearly trying not to lose her temper in front of the doctor.
"I swear to God, Mo Fei," she said, fury slipping into her voice, "if that lying piece of trash had anything to do with this...."
She cut herself off.
Outside the room, faint voices drifted through the door, muffled, restless, insistent.
Reporters.
Even in the hospital, the vultures were circling.
And Bai Ju, now trapped in a body that did not belong to him had no idea what kind of hell was waiting once that door opened.
"Right now, the internet thinks you tried to kill yourself because of the scandal."
Aria's voice was sharp, but not cruel. There was bitterness in it, the kind that came from watching something ugly unfold in real time and being powerless to stop it.
She looked back at him, her gaze steady.
"Brands dropped you. Half the industry turned their backs. The other half are just waiting to see if you survive so they can keep dragging you."
A small, humourless smile touched her lips.
"Three days ago, you could barely speak without crying."
From where he stood, the doctor quietly observed the exchange, curiosity flickering beneath his professional calm.
Aria leaned a little closer.
"Mo Fei," she said, and this time her voice softened. "...Are you really okay?"
Bai Ju forced himself to answer.
"I'm fine…"
The words came out weak, but steady enough.
Fine.
What a ridiculous word.
He was alive, yes. Somehow still breathing. Somehow trapped inside the body of an A-list model whose life had apparently gone up in flames. Scandal, public humiliation, attempted suicide rumours, what a lovely welcome package. Truly premium suffering. Five-star disaster.
He gave the faintest smile and let his head sink back into the pillow with a quiet sigh.
The doctor took that as his cue to intervene.
"His vitals are stable," he said calmly. "But he needs rest. Stress will slow recovery."
Aria waved a hand dismissively, not even glancing his way. "Yeah, yeah. Rest, water, peace of mind. I know the script."
The doctor gave a small, polite nod, as though he had dealt with her type many times before and had long since stopped taking it personally.
"I'll have the nurses bring medication shortly," he said. His gaze shifted once more between the two of them. "If the confusion continues, we may run further neurological tests."
Then he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Silence settled over the room.
For a moment, Aria remained seated exactly where she was, elbows resting on her knees, staring at him with an intensity that made Bai Ju feel like she was trying to peel back his skin and inspect whatever was underneath.
"You nearly died."
Her tone wasn't angry. If anything, it sounded more confused than anything else, like she had arrived prepared for one version of Mo Fei and instead another.
Outside the window, the afternoon sunlight filtered weakly through the curtains, washing the room in a pale, exhausted glow.
Aria exhaled and rubbed at her temple.
"The scandal isn't dying down either."
She reached into her coat, pulled out her phone, and tossed it onto the bed beside him.
The screen was already on.
Bai Ju turned his head and looked.
Trending headlines glared back at him like weapons.
MO FEI ATTEMPTS SUICIDE AFTER HOMEWRECKER SCANDAL.
THE WITCH OF THE INDUSTRY FINALLY PAYS THE PRICE.
BRANDS CUT TIES WITH DISGRACED MODEL.
Comments flooded beneath them in endless streams.
Hundreds. No, Thousands. Most of them vicious, Cruelty packed into neat little lines of text, thrown casually by strangers who would probably eat lunch right after ruining someone's life.
Aria watched him closely, studying every flicker of reaction.
"Public opinion is… ugly right now."
Then she gave a small shrug.
"But knowing you, you'd normally be curled up crying under this blanket."
Bai Ju stared at the screen for a beat longer before looking away.
Even if he wasn't the real Mo Fei, it still felt absurdly heartless to shove a phone full of hatred into the hands of someone who had supposedly just tried to die over it. What kind of friendship was this? Brutal honesty? Emotional terrorism with good cheekbones?
He almost laughed. Instead, the laugh stayed lodged painfully somewhere inside him. This kind of thing really could drive a person into the ground.
He turned his face slightly toward Aria and said, "I guess almost dying could change a bit about someone."
Aria did not answer immediately.
She only looked at him. His words lingered in the space between them.
After a moment, she sighed and leaned forward again, her elbows returning to her knees.
"Right now, the narrative is simple," she said.
She began counting on her fingers.
"Engaged woman, Affair, husband exposes everything, Mo fei exposed as a homewrecker, Career destroyed."
Her lips curved with bitter amusement.
"And when celebrities fall, people celebrate like it's a national holiday."
Then she lifted her eyes back to his face.
"But the thing that pisses me off…"
Her expression darkened.
"…is that you didn't even know she was engaged, but that bitch keeps claiming you knew the whole time."
Her jaw tightened.
"I've been in this industry long enough to know when something smells like bullshit."
With that, Aria stood and walked toward the window. She pulled the curtain aside just enough to glance outside.
A few reporters still lingered near the hospital entrance, cameras in hand, stubborn as flies around a corpse they hoped would twitch again.
Aria let the curtain fall back into place.
Behind her, Bai Ju lay still against the pillows, his body aching, his thoughts racing.
He had woken up in a stranger's life.
And from the sound of it, that life had already been pushed to the edge long before he arrived.