Playing Brain Games with the Movie Emperor

Yu Jiantao was reborn in the year she went missing.

She had been the apple of the Yu family's eye in Songcheng, but got lost as a little girl and ended up in the mountains.

After overcoming countless hardships to return home, she discovered that her parents had adopted a girl her age, whom they had treated like their own daughter for more than a decade.

Though she had finally made it home, Yu Jiantao felt as if she'd lost everything. Her adopted sister had taken her parents, her inheritance, and even her best friend.

She watched as that adopted sister used the family's resources to become a top-tier star, admired by all and perched high above them, while Yu Jiantao was killed in an attack by her extreme fans.

...Even as she lay dying, Yu Jiantao couldn't understand how things had come to this.

She couldn't accept it. Given another chance, she would take back everything that belonged to her!

Her first step: escape the ramshackle mountain hut and make her way home.

*

Shen Nanji had recently become obsessed with a casual puzzle game.

Its graphics were crude and its gameplay simple, but it was strangely addictive. It was called "Help the Stranded Little Girl Return to Her Rich Family."

"Level One: Help the cold little girl get warm."

On the screen, the little girl shivered so hard her teeth were frozen together, while a bitter wind howled through a gaping hole in the window.

Shen Nanji glanced at the three icons below: curtains, wooden boards, and a campfire.

"Choose the wooden boards."

The sturdy boards were hammered onto the window with a bang, bang, bang. The wind stopped for a moment, then the flimsy hut couldn't bear the weight and collapsed in the blink of an eye.

"Your decision was wrong. The little girl is even colder!"

Shen Nanji: ?

"Watch an ad to get another chance to choose."

Shen Nanji: "...I'll watch."

The famously aloof movie star spent every break from filming glued to his phone, watching ads and playing a trashy game until he forgot to eat or sleep. The crew had no idea what to make of it.

"Shen, is this game really that fun? Doesn't it make your blood pressure spike?"

Shen Nanji nodded silently. "It's fun. No, it doesn't."

Ad after ad, game after game. He'd keep at it until he finally got the poor little girl a perfect ending!

After guiding her all the way back to the rich family, Shen Nanji reached the final level.

"Final Level: Help the little girl uncover the truth behind everything."

Using his own intelligence (not really), he finally exposed the adopted sister's true nature: she was a descendant of a family of witchcraft practitioners, skilled in the art of exchanging lives?

What a melodramatic plot!

Shen Nanji was displeased. Shen Nanji kept watching ads.

That life had to be exchanged back.

Bonus Scene:

After being deceived by a villain for more than a decade, the Yu parents finally came to their senses and were consumed with regret.

They were willing to offer their biological daughter all the resources they could to win her back, only to discover that a certain inexplicable movie star had already paved the way for her.

Yu parents: "Who are you?"

Shen Nanji (seriously): "I raised this little girl. I'll take care of her."

Yu parents: "?? Someone's stealing our daughter!"

Yu Jiantao: "So you're the one who keeps coming up with nasty tricks to hurt me?"

Shen Nanji: "..." (guiltily averting his eyes)

(1v1, both leads are each other's first and only partner. They only meet after the female lead comes of age; there is no romance before then.)

(Blurb written on June 25, 2026.)

Theme: If your conscience is clear, you have nothing to fear.