At 9:47 AM on October 24th, I was still Song Anran, the world's most dutiful girlfriend. By 4:13 PM, I was a homeless, jobless, motherless-waiting-to-happen disaster.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the text message.
I'd spent three hours perfecting Gu Chenyu's favorite lunch—braised pork belly with preserved vegetables, the recipe his Shanghainese grandmother swore by. The Tupperware sat on my desk, still warm, nestled next to the presentation I'd slaved over for his company's merger. My phone buzzed.
Gu-laoban: It's not working. Don't contact me.
That's it. Eight characters. No punctuation, no context, no goddamn dignity. My thumb hovered over the screen, waiting for the follow-up. Had his phone been stolen? Was this a prank? Three years of morning coffees, memorized preferences, and pretending not to notice perfume that wasn't mine—and I got eight characters?
I called. Straight to voicemail. Texted: Chenyu? Is everything okay? The blue checkmark mocked me. Read 10:02 AM.
My coworker Mimi peeked over. "Anran, you look like you've seen a ghost."
I felt like a ghost. The kind that haunts relationships, cooking meals and organizing calendars while being simultaneously invisible. My phone buzzed again—hope flared, then died.
Gu-laoban: Please respect my decision. We're done.
The Tupperware seemed to pulse with radioactive humiliation. I stood, hugged it to my chest like a bomb, and walked to the break room. The new girl from HR was microwaving fish. I dumped three years of effort into the trash while she watched, eyebrows raised.
"Rough morning?" she asked.
"You have no idea," I said.
My boss, Mr. Liu, called me in at 11:30. He had that expression—the one men get when they're about to use words like "unfortunately" and "restructuring." His desk featured a photo of his third wife, who looked younger than me.
"Song Anran, you've been an asset." Past tense. "But the marketing department is undergoing strategic restructuring."
"Restructuring," I repeated, because sometimes saying the lie out loud makes it real.
"We're eliminating your position. Effective immediately." He slid an envelope across the desk. Severance. Two months' salary. "You'll, of course, receive excellent references."
I thought about begging. I'd seen other women do it—tearfully remind bosses of their dedication, their late nights, their value. But my mouth tasted like ash and my phone burned in my pocket, a dead weight of eight-character rejection.
"Can I work out the notice period?" I heard myself ask. Pathetic. Even at my lowest, I was still the girl who wanted to be helpful.
Mr. Liu looked relieved I wasn't crying. "Best to make a clean break. You know how it is."
I didn't. I didn't know how any of this was.
The security guard escorted me out. Not corporate policy, I'd later realize—just Mr. Liu wanting to avoid a scene. Mimi waved sadly from her desk, mouthing Call me. I had fifteen minutes to pack my life into a cardboard box. The Tupperware was already gone, so at least I didn't have to decide whether to keep that particular artifact of my stupidity.
My phone rang while I was waiting for the elevator. Mom. I almost didn't answer. What kind of daughter wants to talk about Braised Pork Text Message Gate and Unemployment: The Musical? But she'd been feeling dizzy lately, and I was still programmed to worry.
"Anran?" Her voice was thin, frayed at the edges. "Are you busy?"
In the elevator's mirrored wall, I saw myself: twenty-six years old, wearing a blouse I'd bought because Gu Chenyu liked the color, holding a box of things that suddenly belonged to someone else. "Never been freer, Mom. What's up?"
She laughed, then coughed. The sound rattled. "The hospital called. They want me to come in for some tests. It's probably nothing—"
A beat. Then, softer: "They said I need surgery. Something about a blockage. Anran, they want two hundred thousand yuan upfront."
The elevator dinged. Lobby. I stood frozen as suits streamed around me, a river of purpose flowing past a rock named Song Anran, Who No Longer Had Purpose.
"Mom," I said carefully. "Your insurance—"
"Doesn't cover it. I checked." Another cough. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll figure something out. I just wanted to hear your voice."
She hung up first. I think she knew.
I sat on the steps outside the office building, phone in hand, and systematically destroyed what was left of my dignity. Ten calls to Gu Chenyu. All sent to voicemail. Text messages—long, pleading, angry—forming a digital trail of my unraveling. At 2:13 PM, I sent the last one: Please. Just loan me the money. I'll disappear after.
Read 2:14 PM.
No reply.
I called Lily. She answered on the third ring, voice thick with sleep—she worked nights at the club. "Anran? What's wrong?"
Her loyalty was a knife that cut me open. I told her everything, voice cracking like a teenager's. When I got to the ¥200,000, she inhaled sharply.
"I have maybe thirty thousand saved. It's yours."
Thirty thousand. A kindness that felt like drowning and being offered a thimble.
"I'll figure it out," I lied.
I called the hospital next. Negotiated like my life depended on it, which it sort of did. Could I pay in installments? No. Was there a payment plan? Not for this procedure. The administrator's voice was professionally sympathetic and personally unmoved.
"Miss Song, we need the deposit by 8 AM tomorrow, or we'll have to transfer her to a public facility."
The public hospital had a three-week wait. Mom didn't have three weeks. I knew this because Dr. Google had informed me that "blockage" without context was medical speak for fix this now or she dies.
I have no memory of the next few hours. Auto-pilot deposited me on a Line 2 subway, box on my lap, staring at my reflection in the dark window. The girl looking back had Gu Chenyu's favorite hair tie. She wore mascara that had run during the HR meeting. She was holding a severance envelope that wouldn't cover a tenth of what she needed.
At 7:47 PM, I found myself in a cyber café I'd never been to, near the hospital. It was ¥10 an hour, and the kid behind the counter didn't ask why a woman in business casual was crying into a cup of instant noodles. I paid for three hours, found a corner booth, and opened my laptop.
What was I going to do? Crowdfund? Help, my ex dumped me and my mom needs surgery—please donate? I'd seen those campaigns. They worked for people with better stories than mine. More tragic backdrops. Less pathetic ex-boyfriends.
My inbox had one email—from Gu Chenyu's assistant. A calendar invite for next week. Lunch meeting: Discuss potential collaboration. My finger hovered over the delete key, then stopped. Collaboration. He knew I'd been fired. Was this... pity? Or something else?
Did it matter? ¥200,000. That was the only number that meant anything.
I opened an incognito tab. Typed: how to make money fast legal. The results were depressing. Sell plasma? Maximum ¥500 a month. Online loans? Predatory interest that would bury me alive. Sugar daddy websites? I clicked one, saw the profile requirements—be fun, be flirty, be desperate—and closed it.
Desperate I was. Fun? The fun had been deleted with my job.
At 1:32 AM, the café's fluorescent lights buzzed. The few other patrons were teenage boys gaming, their screens casting alien light. I was the ghost in their backdrop, the future they didn't want to become. My phone battery hit 5%. Mom had texted: Don't worry, darling. Get some rest.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd rested. Maybe before I met Gu Chenyu, when I was just Song Anran, not Gu Chenyu's Girlfriend Who Was Convenient.
My screen flickered. Not the laptop—the air in front of me. I blinked, chalking it up to twenty hours without food or sleep. Then it happened again, a blue rectangle hovering in my peripheral vision like a migraine aura.
I waved my hand through it. It stayed.
The teenage gamer to my left glanced over. "Yo, lady, you okay?"
"Do you see that?" I pointed at the floating blue box.
He looked, saw nothing, and moved seats. Smart kid.
The rectangle solidified. Text appeared, letter by letter, like someone typing very slowly:
[System Booting... Host Compatibility: 99.9%]
[Despair Level: CRITICAL. Spite Level: OPTIMAL.]
[Initializing...]
I slapped my cheeks. Hard. Pain bloomed, but the box remained, now displaying a cheerful font:
[Welcome, Host! Tired of being dumped? Let's change that.]
"Okay," I whispered to the empty air. "Okay, this is it. I've officially cracked."
[Error: Host mental stability sufficient. System binding in 3... 2... 1...]
A new screen popped up, like a character sheet from a game I'd never played:
Name: Song Anran
Charisma: 32 (Below Average)
Career: 28 (Unemployed)
Romance EXP: 0/100 (Dumped)
Special Status: [Doormat], [Invisible Woman], [Human NPC]
[Ultimate Romance System Activated!]
[Mission 1: Survive 24 Hours Without Crying.]
[Reward: ¥50,000. Failure: Permanent Depression Debuff.]
The ¥ symbol glowed gold. Real gold, like it meant something tangible.
I laughed. It came out strangled, half-sob, half-hysteria. The gamer kid shot me another look. I didn't care. The box had a countdown timer: 23:59:48... 47... 46...
[Accept? Y/N]
My finger trembled over the phantom keyboard. This was insane. This was—
Mom's surgery. ¥200,000. Eight-character rejection.
My life had already become a tragicomedy. Might as well add a floating game interface to the script.
I pressed Y.
[Mission Accepted! Welcome to the Game, Song Anran. Try not to die of heartbreak before we make him regret it.]
The timer started ticking. The ¥50,000 glowed brighter. And for the first time since 9:47 AM, I felt something other than devastation.
I felt spite.
And it felt like power.