The day I announced I was retiring from writing, the whole internet erupted in celebration. The only one whose face went deathly pale was Bai Qianqian, the little apprentice I had trained myself. She posted on Weibo in the middle of the night, trembling as she defended me: “Master only made a mistake in the heat of the moment. Please don’t be too hard on her...” The photo showed her kneeling before a Buddha and praying for me.
I sneered and closed the page. After all, in my previous life, it was that very hand that pushed me into hell.
Back then, my novel had just gone viral, and readers were calling it “the most beautiful love story in a decade.” But the day after I signed the screen adaptation contract, Bai Qianqian suddenly posted a comparison chart. From the central plot points to the scene descriptions, the similarity was precisely 82.3 percent, and her manuscript was dated a full month earlier than mine.
The most devastating blow came from my boyfriend of seven years, Lu Chen. The public trial lasted forty-nine days. My editor tore up the contract on livestream, and readers piled copies of my book outside my door and set them on fire. In the end, a young man holding a Bai Qianqian fan sign stabbed me seven times.
When I opened my eyes, I was sitting in the defendant’s seat. Bai Qianqian was wiping away tears in the witness box, and Lu Chen had just raised his right hand to swear an oath. This time, I would watch them hang from the nooses they had prepared for me.
