Chapter 2: Dream Plot Text Messages

Chapter 2: The Plot Messages in the Dream

Five minutes later, the nurse led Qi Heyin to the black SUV sent by the Qi family—a low-key vehicle.

The accompanying bodyguard folded and stowed the wheelchair in the trunk, while Qi Heyin was helped into the spacious back seat.

As the door closed, the woman in the passenger seat turned around and smiled at her. "Heyin."

The woman had a practical black pixie cut and wore frameless glasses. Her features bore some resemblance to Qi Heyin’s, though she appeared more mature and severe.

Dressed in a slightly formal white suit, she looked like she'd come straight from an important meeting.

Seeing her, Qi Heyin’s eyes lit up with joy. "Sister!"

The nurse also greeted, "President Qi."

Qi Yue responded with a smile, reaching out to pat Qi Heyin’s head. After looking at her face for a moment, she remarked, "You look much better than when I visited you in Akso last week, though you're still very pale."

Her gaze shifted to Qi Heyin’s legs, covered by a thin blanket.

"How's your recovery going? Can you walk on your own yet?"

Qi Heyin replied, "I can, but only for less than half an hour. Any longer, and I get too weak."

Qi Yue nodded, then glanced at the nurse.

"Miss Qi’s body is recovering rapidly. Dr. Wen previously estimated that after about two more weeks of rehabilitation, Miss Qi could stop using the wheelchair and walk normally," the nurse added.

Hearing this, Qi Yue visibly relaxed. "That’s good."

She looked down at Qi Heyin, her expression complex and somewhat emotional. "Such a difficult illness... I didn't expect that Wen family member could really cure you..."

After a brief silence, Qi Yue sighed. "Heyin, you made the right choice. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have tried to stop you back then."

The sudden apology caught Qi Heyin off guard. After a moment, she realized Qi Yue was referring to her opposition two years ago, when Qi Heyin wanted to go abroad for treatment under the Wen team.

"How could I blame you?" Qi Heyin shook her head immediately. "Dr. Wen’s proposed treatment was radical and risky. Statistically, staying in the country for conservative treatment was indeed the safer option. You were just worried about me."

Pausing, she continued, "Besides, you weren’t the one who opposed it most fiercely. In the end, it was you who helped me leave with Dr. Wen’s team."

At this, Qi Yue seemed to recall something. After a moment of silence, her usually composed face showed a flicker of lingering fear. "Ah, right. The one who opposed it most fiercely was that Shang kid."

"After you left secretly, he turned the imperial capital inside out looking for you. When he found out I’d let you go with the Wens, he went completely mad—came to Qi Corporation multiple times to block me, even pressured Wen’s hospital..."

"That boy was really hard to deal with," Qi Yue said helplessly.

When her sister mentioned Shang Wenze, Qi Heyin smiled faintly.

Two years ago, their most serious conflict since they'd met erupted over whether she should seek treatment abroad. It was then that she finally saw the man’s true nature.

The warm, sunny childhood friend who had accompanied her for years was fake—just an act.

The real him was domineering, cold, stubborn, and arrogantly superior.

It was only after witnessing his true personality that Qi Heyin stopped deluding herself. She realized Shang Wenze was exactly as described in the original novel—a Celestial Noble through and through.

If she didn’t resist or make changes, the original novel's plot might really come true.

......

Qi Heyin had realized this world was from a novel when she was fifteen.

She had been exceptionally intelligent since childhood, far beyond what was normal. While other children were still playing in courtyards, building sandcastles or splashing in water, she had already begun reading and comprehending many dense, challenging texts.

The Qi family had originally planned to send her to a special imperial academy for nurturing extraordinary talents once she reached school age. However, Qi Heyin had been frail since childhood, and not long after, she was diagnosed with a rare illness, forcing her education to be put on hold.

The Qi family was not a prominent noble house. By this generation, her father’s title was already dwindling, and the family’s main income came from his work as a renowned painter and her mother’s book royalties. Her elder sister, after coming of age, had started her own small news company.

Though not wealthy, her family loved her deeply. Her parents and sister invested heavily in funding her endless medical treatments and, to fulfill her desire to learn, hired private tutors for her.

From then on, Qi Heyin’s life cycled between the hospital and home.

At the age of nine, she unexpectedly met a boy named Shang Wenze. He often visited the Qi family to see her, brightening her monotonous life.

With the freedom to learn, the love of her parents, the companionship of a friend, and her illness—though incurable—remaining under stable control... Qi Heyin had once believed this peaceful, happy life would continue indefinitely.

Until she turned fifteen and had a dream.

Qi Heyin dreamed of a trashy romance novel.

The protagonist was an extremely delicate and timid girl. An orphan from the lower districts of Gena State in the empire—the so-called lowest slums—she had nonetheless achieved the highest scores in all subjects and was admitted as a special admit to Faro, the empire’s most elite aristocratic academy.

Faro Academy had a long history, exceptional faculty, and a prestigious reputation. The protagonist had long yearned to attend, unaware that beneath its glamorous facade hid corruption. The academy was strictly hierarchical, with noble students universally disdainful and exclusionary toward scholarship students. The student council, dominated by top-tier nobles, had privileges exceeding even the authority of the Board of Trustees.

This was no utopia of knowledge but a playground where the empire’s young elite acted with impunity.

Shortly after the protagonist entered Faro Academy, she caught the attention of several male characters—powerful Celestial Nobles. At first, they mocked, ridiculed, and hurt her, but eventually, all became deeply infatuated with her.

Thus, they began to coerce, torment, and attempt to possess her, clipping her wings to force her to stay.

Why did the protagonist have to suffer, whether the Celestial Nobles loved her or not? Even in the dream, Qi Heyin found it incomprehensible.

Even more baffling was that she discovered her own likeness and that of her childhood friend Shang Wenze in this illogical story.

Shang Wenze was actually one of the male characters!

And she, Qi Heyin, as the male character’s childhood sweetheart, bore the tragic fate of a frail girl destined to die young—merely a plot device to advance the romance between the male and female leads.

The book explicitly stated she would die at sixteen. Her death would become an inescapable shadow in Shang Wenze’s heart, a persistent grief waiting for the female lead to eventually heal...

Other parts of the dream were fragmented and hazy, and upon waking, she could no longer recall the faces of the male and female leads or the intricacies of their entanglements. Yet, one image remained vividly clear: Shang Wenze standing alone before her grave, offering flowers.

Beside a fresh bouquet of white campanula stood a stone-carved tombstone. Embedded above it was a black-and-white portrait photo—a young girl smiling softly, her likeness preserved as if still alive...

—This can’t be happening!

Qi Heyin bolted upright.

The dream felt too real. After waking, she sat in shocked stillness for a while before, with a skeptical heart, asking her parents to use their connections to search for someone in the lower districts of Gena State.

The girl was quickly found. Her name and every detail matched the female lead from the dream perfectly.

Some time later, during a hospital follow-up, Qi Heyin discovered that her previously stable condition had abruptly deteriorated.

She finally accepted it—this world was the novel from her dream.

Everything in the dream... was real.

The speed of her illness’s progression was beyond imagination. Soon, her body began exhibiting symptoms similar to ALS. Her limbs grew weak; at times, her hands could barely grip, and her legs struggled to stand or walk. Additionally, she suffered sudden attacks of inexplicable, excruciating pain—like insect bites—searing through her entire body.

Faced with this crisis, the imperial hospitals gave her two choices: remain in the country for conservative treatment to prolong her life, or seek surgery overseas.

"If you choose the second option, you'll have a different attending physician," the doctor told her. "Do you know Wen Xinglian from the Wen family? That young master is a genius in the medical field. He's very interested in your condition and asked me to explain: the Wen family has built a private hospital in Axos in the Southern Hemisphere, along with a secret laboratory dedicated to cutting-edge medical research... The new technology gives him some hope for a cure."

"...Oh, of course, there’s no guaranteed success rate. So, Miss Qi, you need to think carefully. If you choose the second option and it fails, you might not even be able to continue conservative treatment when you return."

The implication was clear: choosing the second option meant becoming Wen Xinglian's lab rat. There was a chance of a cure, but the odds were stacked against her.

Yet Qi Heyin couldn't possibly choose the first option. The book’s storyline made it clear that staying in the country for conservative treatment would inevitably lead to death—she’d be dead by sixteen.

She had to roll the dice.

So, at the end of her fifteenth year, she dug in her heels and chose to go abroad, despite everyone's objections.

As for the poor heroine in the story, before leaving, Qi Heyin helped her find her family based on the book's clues.

The girl's true family was well-connected. This way, even if she still ended up attending Faro Academy later, she wouldn’t go through the same ordeal.

Qi Heyin had already rewritten the story from the start with her own hands.

......

Again, in the car.

Her sister Qi Yue asked a few more questions about Qi Heyin's life at the hospital.

"After returning this time, you won’t need to go back to Axos for follow-ups, right?" she asked.

Qi Heyin shook her head. "No, the two-year isolation treatment phase is over."

Qi Yue said, "Oh," then asked, "What about Dr. Wen? Didn’t he come back with you this time?"

"He’s a total workaholic. When we left, he was still in the lab writing a research report," Qi Heyin replied after a moment’s thought. "He’ll probably come back in a few weeks."

Qi Yue smiled. "We really must thank him properly this time, and the Wen family too. I’ll visit them in a few days, though I’m not sure if the gifts I’ve prepared will be to their liking."

—Talk about a 180.

Qi Heyin glanced silently at her sister, thinking to herself that this was nothing like when Qi Yue had secretly cursed Wen Xinglian as a deranged researcher who tricked her naive little sister into going abroad as a lab rat.

"I mentioned this to Dr. Wen too," Qi Heyin said. "He told me it’s the thought that counts."

The car carrying the group left Svarog Air Harbor and headed toward the villa district in the eastern suburbs of the capital.

The cold moonlight draped over the overpass. Beneath the steel framework of the bridge, the river glided soundlessly, its surface shimmering.

Qi Heyin quietly watched the scenery outside the window for a while before lowering her head and fishing out her phone from her travel bag.

Having not checked it for over ten hours, her screen blew up with notifications as soon as she turned it on.

"Mom: Honey, has your sister picked you up yet?"

"Dad: Mom and Dad are waiting for you at home [hug emoji][heart emoji]"

"Dr. Wen: Did you get home safely, Heyin?"

"Dr. Wen: Stick to your rehab routine. I’ll have Xiao Ran (his assistant) keep an eye on you."

"Jiang Yunxin: Heyin! You’re back! [party emoji][dancing emoji]"

"Jiang Yunxin: I’ll come see you in a few days! [shy emoji]"

"Shang Wenze: You're back in the country?"

"Shang Wenze: I'm abroad. My dad asked me to accompany him on a diplomatic trip to the Western Continent—it'll take two months."

"Shang Wenze: This sucks. I can’t even come pick you up."

"Shang Wenze: You wouldn’t see me for two years, and now that you’re finally back, I still can’t."

"Shang Wenze: I had my assistant get your favorite white asters and sent them to your place. (Pic) (Pic)"

......

"Shang Wenze: I’ll do whatever you say from now on."

"Shang Wenze: After you left, I was a wreck—worried, scared, and heartbroken."

......

"Shang Wenze: I’ve missed you like crazy these two years, He Yin. Welcome back."