CHAPTER 25: CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE UNKNOWN VARIABLE

The set was alive with movement—lights shifting, props being placed, final checks echoing through the space.

In the middle of the controlled chaos, An Ning sat perfectly composed, a picture of ease amid the storm. The kind of stillness that drew the camera’s eye without effort.

It was one of her new endorsement photoshoots—a sportswear brand that wanted vitality and confidence, though An Ning’s aura made even waiting between shots look deliberate.

The deal had come shortly after the dating show aired. Her clips especially from the Escape Room, where her vitality and the way she’d left Zhao Guangyao completely speechless—caught the brand’s eye. They thought she looked "real", yet still beautiful.

The brand, eager to seize on her rising popularity, had reached out within days.

An Ning felt that it was fitting. After all, she’d survived an actual emotional escape room on livestream; posing in leggings and a windbreaker was practically a vacation.

Now, under the lights, she adjusted her stance, one hand on her hip as the photographer called out directions.

"Perfect—chin up a little! Yes, that look!"

A flash. Then another.

She tilted her head slightly, eyes focused past the lens. The faint smile playing on her lips was effortless—warm enough to invite, distant enough to intrigue.

The camera loved her. It always had.

She had done so many photoshoots that she knew exactly which angle was her best, which pose made her look prettier, and how to let the spotlight fall where it should—on the brand’s clothes, not her.

Still, as the shutter kept clicking, she felt a strange pull in her chest. Images flickered through her mind—brief, disjointed, gone before she could catch them.

They weren’t memories. At least, not hers.

Her expression didn’t falter, but her pulse quickened.

Each flash of light seemed to echo something inside of her—an echo of déjà vu, deep and unnerving.

"Beautiful, hold that—yes!" the photographer called out.

She turned slightly, the curve of her lips never breaking but behind her calm eyes, a thought began to form.

This wasn’t just familiarity.

These memories were pieces of the same scene, repeating again and again—only with minor differences.

It was as if someone kept repainting the same picture, insisting it was new.

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the yoga mat she was posing with, nails pressing into the smooth fabric.

The déjà vu sharpened until it almost hurt.

Her breath came steady, but her thoughts jumbled into a mess as she tried to unravel it.

Was this the system’s doing?

But it didn’t seem like it; the little melon felt like a newly born system, still trying to understand the world. That wasn’t something that could be an act.

Or....

A possibility flickered in her mind—wild, irrational, but impossible to shake.

The original An Ning.

Could it be that the girl whose body she now inhabited hadn’t just lived once?

Maybe the original An Ning had gone through it all before—the same engineered traps, the backlash, the same end—over and over, each time trying to fix something she wasn’t able to fix until she gave up totally.

Now those fragments were surfacing.

A shiver went down her spine. It wasn’t fear—it was certainty. At the same time, her heart went out to the original An Ning.

What must it have felt like—to be completely helpless, trapped in a story that refused to change?

To watch people you loved suffer again and again, powerless to stop it?

Because An Ning remembered what she’d read of the original timeline. It hadn’t gone into detail, but it had included the ending of the An family.

She remembered the headlines, the aftermath, the grief that followed like shadow after flame.

An Hongsheng collapsing at home the moment he received news of Yancheng’s accident—his heart giving out before anyone could reach him.

Gu Yuehua, holding the family together for a while after, her strength thinning with every passing day until her body finally gave up.

Their deaths weren’t just tragedy. They were inevitability.

It was as though fate itself had written their endings in ink that refused to fade.

And somewhere in that endless loop, the original An Ning must have tried to change it. Must have screamed, begged, fought.

Only to fail, over and over again.

An Ning’s chest tightened. For the first time, she didn’t just pity the girl—she mourned her.

But pity was a useless emotion.

Because she was certain that she transmigrated here with a reason.

Not as punishment. Not as a replacement.

But as a correction.

Perhaps fate, or whatever ran this world, had grown tired of the same ending. Perhaps the little melon itself was born from that exhaustion—a final attempt to rewrite a story that refused to stay fixed.

The little melon peeked nervously from behind her, watching her posing effortlessly. "Ningning, are you okay? Your heart rate is high."

"I’m fine," she communicated in her mind, shifting her pose just enough for the next flash. "Just thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

An Ning paused for a while. "About this world in general, maybe this isn’t just a novel setting, maybe this world is real. A parallel world."

The little melon blinked, its glow flickering in confusion. "A...parallel world? But the system data said—"

"Data isn’t everything," An Ning interrupted quietly, angling her chin slightly toward the light as the photographer cued her. Her voice, though silent in the real world, carried calm conviction through their link. "Stories need rules, but real people break them. Maybe the original An Ning tried—but she couldn’t change anything because she was part of this world."

The little melon hovered uncertainly. "But if this place is real, then..."

"Then everyone here is, too," An Ning finished. Her tone was soft, but her eyes—bright under the light—held something like resolve. "Their pain, their joy, their mistakes—none of it was unreal. It all mattered to someone."

If this was a real world, then it meant every choice she made—every "melon" she consumed—rippled through lives, not just plot lines. The luck value she gained was borrowed from somewhere. She had an inkling it might have once belonged to the original An Ning.

Most importantly, the tragedies she prevented had weight.

She closed her eyes briefly, letting that understanding settle.

Maybe that was the difference between her and the one before her. The original An Ning had tried to change the endings but she couldn’t.

Now, she was here to change it—because she was the unknown variable.

An Ning opened her eyes, the faintest hint of a smile touching her lips as the camera clicked.

She would accomplish what the original An Ning couldn’t—because the people she now cherished were no longer just characters in a novel.

They were real and so is she.