For a moment, the silence was louder than any scream.
Butler Bu stood in the doorway, his usually kind eyes now shaded with a stern warning. I held the journal tighter, the name "Li Suna" practically burning into my palm.
"You weren't supposed to find that," he repeated, voice low and serious.
"But I did," I said, my voice steady despite the storm in my chest. "And I'm not leaving this room until you tell me the truth."
He stepped inside slowly, closing the door behind him. The weight of his silence filled the dusty air.
"How long have you known?" I asked. "How long have you known… that I'm not her?"
He looked at me, and for the first time, there was no pretense of formality.
"Since the moment you opened your eyes that morning," he admitted. "You spoke differently. Your eyes… they were alive in a way hers haven't been for years."
A chill ran down my spine. "So you knew this wasn't Xiao Xinya."
"No," he said quietly. "I knew it wasn't just her anymore."
I stared at him, heart pounding. "You mean… this has happened before?"
He sighed and sank into a nearby chair like the truth weighed too much. "When she was very young, Lady Xinya began having what the doctors called 'delusional episodes.' She spoke of different worlds, different identities. Her father thought it was a child's imagination. But it became more frequent as she grew up."
"So… she was dreaming of me?" I asked.
"Maybe," he replied. "We never understood it fully. But she always described another version of herself, freer, brighter, more alive. We thought it was escapism."
I shook my head. "That's not escapism. That's me."
Butler Bu's brows furrowed. "Then… it's real?"
I nodded. "I was reading a novel, Reborn of the Vicious Heiress, and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was here, in this body. But now I know — this isn't the body of the main character. This isn't even an extra. It's Xiao Xinya. She barely had any presence in the story. I remember reading her name once. Just once."
He looked down, processing. "And you say… the novel's main character is named Li Suna?"
My stomach dropped. "Yes. Which means if I'm here, then she must be…"
"In your world," he whispered.
We both sat in stunned silence. The truth wasn't just strange, it was impossible. Yet it explained everything.
"Then… this isn't just some magical accident," I muttered. "This was a switch. Two souls trading places."
Butler Bu nodded slowly. "Then we must ask ourselves... why?"
I looked around the room. The journals, the portrait, the hidden memories. "Maybe… maybe she wanted to escape. And maybe I needed something to shake me awake."
He looked at me, eyes softening. "And now that you're here, what do you plan to do, Young Lady?"
I took a deep breath. "First, I need to stop acting like this is temporary. I need to protect this life, her life. But not just that. I need to find out what went wrong here. What made her want to leave."
Butler Bu nodded solemnly. "Then you'll need allies. I'll help you, if you'll allow it."
I looked at him, touched by his sincerity. "Thank you. But there's something I need first."
"What is it?"
I held up the diary. "The rest of this."
We returned to the hidden room and unearthed the other journals. Dozens of them. Each one chronicling Li Suna, Xiao Xinya's descent into something more tragic than any novel.
She had lost her mother.
Been ignored by her father.
Smothered by pressure to be perfect.
Rejected by a fiancé she never wanted.
She had no friends. No freedom. No voice.
I swallowed hard. "She didn't leave because she was weak. She left because this world broke her."
But now, I was here. I wasn't broken. And I would make sure this life wasn't wasted.
As I turned to leave the room, something slipped from the final journal. A photo. A blurry image of three people, two girls and a boy, maybe in high school.
One of the girls was definitely Xiao Xinya.
The other girl… looked exactly like me.
And the boy… he looked familiar.
Too familiar.
My heart stopped.
It was the another male lead of the novel.
What the hell was going on?