Night pressed down ever deeper, as viscous as spilled ink, swallowing the entire Huangnigang City Village in its black tide. In Lu Chen's cramped ten-square-meter rental room, the only light came from an old smartphone on his desk, its cracked screen spider-veined with a fine fracture. Its faint, wan glow illuminated Lu Chen's face, twisted and ghastly from sheer exhaustion, manic exhilaration, and a headache that throbbed like a hangover.
He had hardly slept at all.
Beyond the grimy curtain—stained by oil and dust so thick its original color had vanished—the neon lights of Star City blazed on through the night. They were like countless demonic eyes, red-rimmed with desire and temptation, casting fractured, surreal reflections across the bloodshot terrain of his pupils.
"The Heart-Hunting Score…"
The words whispered silently across Lu Chen's lips, suddenly igniting in his mind like a black flame capable of reducing everything to ashes. It burned and leaped with ferocious intensity, carrying with it an indescribable shock that pierced bone, a terror so deep it felt primal—and, beneath it all, a faint, deadly beauty, like a hell-bloom at the bottom of an abyss, flickering with hope.
He knew that this unexpected boon—or curse—might forever alter the course of his life, his very fate, sending him hurtling toward a horizon brimming with boundless unknowns and unimaginable possibilities.
He greedily replayed in his memory the whirlwind of the past two days, each moment more surreal than the last.
From the suffocating corporate bullying at Feichi Group—cold, merciless power plays—to the twisted, ugly grin of Wang Hai, contorted by jealousy and pathological control; from the moment when, on the brink of collapse, a mysterious "click" sounded in his mind—like the instant of a cosmic Big Bang—and he first "heard" the hidden thoughts and darkest impulses of colleagues like Wang Hai, Zhao Yuhang, and Xu Tingxia, stripped of their masks;
to the mortifying desperation when his landlord, the fearsome Liu Guifang, cornered him at the door, shrieking for rent she claimed was overdue; and the thrill—pure, intoxicating thrill—when he dared to activate the Heart-Hunting Score, peering into her soul to discern her genuine anxiety over her son's studies and her husband's illness, then using a few dozen yuan and a well-timed show of empathy to defuse a crisis that might otherwise have left him homeless;
and then yesterday, when, risking a total mental breakdown, he slipped into Wang Hai's office like a top-tier psychologist, peeling away layer after layer of Wang Hai's terror over the Jiang Wanxing incident, his petty calculations to shift blame, even his lewd imaginings of Director Shen—the ice-cold beauty he publicly revered—and relishing, for the first time, the sweet taste of revenge as he toyed with the very man who had tormented him.
All of it replayed in his head like a dark, magical-realist thriller, each detail unnervingly vivid, each memory sending his blood racing.
He truly possessed a kind of mind-reading skill—what he himself preferred to call the Heart-Hunting Score.
This ability was far deeper than the crude, surface-level mind-reading found in subpar web novels—merely eavesdropping on someone's internal monologue. Instead, it let him probe directly into the deepest, most primal layers of a person's soul, mapping out their emotional spectrum and the architecture of their desires.
What he "heard" were fragments—shards—of their strongest feelings at that moment: greedy yearnings, hidden fears, scheming calculations, secret hopes. These fragments, as if alive, assembled themselves in his mind into a clear, unerring "map" of his target's inner world.
On that map, every person's true self lay out like musical notes on a score: some soared with the greed for power and wealth; others sank into the dark undertow of fear and shame; some shimmered with pure kindness and beauty; while others shrieked with the discordant, nauseating noise of envy, hatred, and lust.
And Lu Chen was evolving from a meek, disposable ant into a master "mind hunter," able to read every bar of that psychic score and bend it to his will.
The Heart-Hunting Score was, without question, an unrivaled divine weapon—its edge capable of cutting through the densest illusions of falsehood, exposing the hidden recesses of the human heart. In the cutthroat arena of business, the treacherous currents of the workplace, or the swirling abysses of love, wielding it effectively would be like a dimensionality-reducing strike: absolute control in his grasp.
Imagine discerning every opponent's true bottom line before negotiations began—their psychological thresholds, their fatal flaws—and standing undefeated at every deal. Imagine unmasking those who smiled poisonously at him, preemptively defusing their plots and traps.
Even the thought of Xu Tingxia—her pure, sweet face gently flushed—surfaced in his mind, along with her hidden anxieties, her compassion, and an unspoken spark of admiration for him, a flutter he could just barely sense.
"[…Lu Chen…if you look closely, his eyes are actually…quite handsome. Dark and bright…if he could be a bit more confident, more…assertive, he might be a truly attractive man…]"
These celestial echoes of her heart made Lu Chen's own heart—long frozen by Wang Hai's cruelty and life's hardships—stir with a sweetness unlike anything he'd known.
If he could truly master the Heart-Hunting Score to read the hidden desires and fears of a girl like Xu Tingxia, perhaps he could become a consummate love-strategist, winning her heart with precision and charm, making her the most precious bloom on his personal "Rosy Ledger."
The very idea sent an electric jolt through his soul, igniting every vein.
He dared to dream that, at the height of his mastery, no barrier—even that of Director Shen's iron-clad defenses—could withstand his insight; that every subtle yearning, every forbidden temptation hidden in the hearts of countless beauties would be laid bare, and that they would flock to him, his devoted captives.
The potential was staggering—enough to make his blood sing with excitement, and yet chill him with its magnitude.
But alongside this overwhelming promise came a brutal cost.
Lu Chen pressed his aching temples—each pulse a massacre of steel needles within his skull. Every time he activated the Heart-Hunting Score, especially when delving deep into a complex mind or bombarded by a sea of conflicting thoughts in a crowd, he was besieged by crushing mental fatigue and a headache that threatened to split his soul. It was agony beyond words.
He now understood that his psychic stamina—and whatever mysterious energy sustained the Heart-Hunting Score—was finite. Using the ability was like draining a precious reservoir with no guarantee of replenishment. Overuse risked torment at best—exhaustion, delirium, an incapacity to move—and at worst…he dared not imagine. Perhaps he would become a drooling idiot, or collapse, dead, in an instant.
"It seems the Heart-Hunting Score is truly a poisoned chalice," he thought with solemn awe. "Each time I draw it, I slay the obstacles before me, but I risk my very life!" He admonished himself to become like the greatest gamblers—calculating every move to ensure the reward far outweighed the risk. Otherwise, he would plunge into an irreversible abyss.
His mind drifted back to Wang Hai's vile ultimatum: placate the legendary "She-Devil" Jiang Wanxing—a woman so feared by every seasoned salesperson at Feichi Group—and secure a thirty-million-yuan contract within three days. To anyone else, it was a suicide mission, bound to collapse their sanity.
But armed with the Heart-Hunting Score, and aware now of both its prodigious power and dire cost, Lu Chen saw it as the ultimate high-stakes gamble.
If he could, as he had with Wang Hai and Liu Guifang, penetrate Jiang Wanxing's deepest yearnings, fears, and hidden needs, might he not discover the unique key to unlock her heart?
His pulse thundered at the thought. This mission was more than survival—it was a battle for his destiny, a defiance of the life that had crushed him.
For more than twenty years, he had been a pathetic ant in Star City's merciless concrete jungle, trampled at will, deprived of dignity. He'd endured every humiliation. Now he hungered for change, for power, for control of his own fate.
Now, fate seemed to have cracked open, offering him a gleaming weapon of unimaginable sharpness—a weapon that could either slay his shackles or cleave his spirit.
He could seal it away like a coward, remain a miserable ant until reality ground him into dust.
Or he could seize it like a true warrior, risking every cut and splash of blood to carve out a new dawn—for himself, and for those who once believed in him.
Lu Chen's gaze sharpened to a steel edge. He knew the Heart-Hunting Score might unleash innumerable dangers and inflict a price deeper than death. Yet, compared to the power it promised—power to defy heaven and earth—those risks seemed insignificant, even seductive.
He refused to be trampled any longer. He would become the master of his own destiny—and of others'.
Outside, the night lay thick as ink spilled across the world. Inside Lu Chen's heart, centuries of suppressed fire roared to life. He turned to the dossier on Jiang Wanxing—her flawless but frost-cold ID photo staring back—and exhaled like a warrior breathing in steel-chilled wind.
With trembling purpose, he picked up the cheap, dried-out ballpoint pen and began circling, underlining, dissecting every nuance in her files, plotting the first step of what might determine his entire future.
Wang Hai's cold, loaded pistol of a deadline—three days to triumph or die—pressed every moment against Lu Chen's temple like a grim reminder of his peril.
Yet he believed: even a single tenth of the Heart-Hunting Score's true power could produce miracles that would shake Feichi Group and make the proud "She-Devil" Jiang Wanxing bow to him.
For Lu Chen, this long night was far from the anguish of past sleepless hours. It crackled with meticulous strategy, boundless ambition, and the exhilarating gamble that lay ahead.
The Heart-Hunting Score…
These three words—mystical, forbidden—might indeed change his life and destiny forever.