Chapter 1
By the fourth time Dana Cenyue imprisoned me, I had finally learned my lesson.
I stopped running.
I became her sweet, obedient little songbird.
Sometimes, just to sell the act, I would even murmur to the system in my head, “Dana loves me this much. I should learn to love her too. No one else could ever give me a life this good.”
As time passed, her need to cage me loosened.
Her eyes lingered on me less.
And finally, a new girl appeared beside her.
She was timid, frightened of Dana, the kind of girl who looked like she might shiver apart under a single cold glance.
I nearly cried with joy.
“This works,” I whispered to my system. “It actually works. After four lifetimes, I’m finally going to complete the mission.”
Then I became even more careful.
Because in my first three lives, Dana had tested me again and again.
An unlocked villa with no one guarding it. A front door left open. A car conveniently waiting by the roadside.
Every single time, I had believed I finally had my chance.
And every single time, I had been dragged back.
She would smile that dark, beautiful smile of hers, fingers digging into my waist so hard it felt like she wanted to crush my bones.
“Yuanyuan,” she would murmur, “why do you never learn?”
Then came the punishment.
Every time.
“This won’t be another one of those tests, right?” I asked my system nervously.
It tried to reassure me.
“She tested you many times, yes. But has she ever used another woman before? Clearly you’ve become too obedient. You’re no longer exciting to her. She’s bored.”
The moment it said that, it all clicked.
Of course.
Dana liked birds that wanted freedom.
Birds that kept slamming against the cage until their heads bled.
Birds with enough spirit to fight back.
Not a pet that had already been trained.
If I had known it was this simple, I would have surrendered in my first life.
Hiding behind a pillar on the second floor of the villa, I peeked downstairs.
The girl in the white dress stood in the middle of the living room, trembling from head to toe. Even her voice shook.
“Everyone knows you kept the former Miss Sullivan locked up here,” she said. “Everyone knows you tormented her night after night. Isn’t having her already enough for you, Ms. Duan?”
Dana leaned lazily against the sofa, long fingers resting against the armrest, lips curving in a faint, careless smile.
“Go ask her,” she said. “Ask her whether she’d be willing to leave if I let her go.”
The girl froze.
Fear flashed across her face, then disgust.
A few seconds later, she lifted her chin and met Dana’s gaze directly.
“Even if you managed to tame her,” she said, “you’ll never tame me.”
Dana let out a soft laugh.
The pressure in the room deepened instantly.
The girl’s face turned pale, but she still clenched the hem of her dress and refused to yield.
She was just like I had once been.
Dana raised her eyes and looked her over with detached amusement.
“You do remind me of Yuanyuan,” she said. “But she’s learned to behave now.”
Her tone was calm, almost cold, as if she were merely stating a fact.
“You can keep your backbone if you like. But what about your family’s debt? What about your brother in prison?”
The girl swayed.
The light in her eyes dimmed at once.
Dana lifted a hand and spoke to the housekeeper without looking away from her.
“Prepare a room for her.”
That was all.
But the fact that Dana was interested at all made both me and my system breathe easier.
At last.
At long last, success felt close enough to touch.
No one knew how I had survived the previous three lives.
In this story, Dana Cenyue was the cold, twisted, obsessive villainess.
I was the caged girl forced into her love.
My mission could be summed up in six words:
The canary must escape the cage.
In the first three lives, the more she forced me, the harder I resisted.
The first time, after being trapped beside her for what felt like forever, I finally found a chance to run.
I threw myself toward the ocean.
She caught me by the wrist.
We struggled in the waves, and the sea took both of us down.
In the violent churn of black water, she held me close and whispered against my ear, almost tenderly, “If I die with you, Yuanyuan, then I’ll die happy.”
The second time, I learned my lesson.
If I couldn’t escape, I would kill her first.
I found a chance to poison her.
Even as the poison took hold, she stared at me with that same obsessive smile.
“I had everything notarized,” she told me. “When I die, all my money will be yours. But if you dare spend my money on another woman, I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you forever.”
She died.
But my mission still failed.
The system told me Dana had to be alive when I escaped. That was the condition.
The third time, I planned countless escapes.
Every one failed.
Every time, she found me.
She would grip my chin so hard my face ached and ask, with violent darkness burning in her eyes, “Why can’t you just stay?”
Later, chains appeared on my wrists.
Then on my ankles.
I was kept beside her like a doll, unable to move, forced to endure whatever mood she was in.
Eventually, in that life too, I poisoned her.
And that brought me here.
Life number four.
If force wouldn’t work, then I’d do it differently.
I’d give her exactly what she wanted.
I became soft.
Obedient.
Gentle.
I stayed by her side and pretended to love her.
And just like the system predicted, Dana lost interest.
Now, watching her notice this new girl, I felt the first real hope I’d had in years.
Maybe this time, I would get out alive.