We returned to the city, but nothing felt the same.
The streets were too loud, the people too distant. I sat beside Hoai Trach in the back of his car, my hands clutched tightly in my lap, as if letting go would make the last twenty-four hours dissolve like a dream.
But it wasn't a dream.
There was a man in a raincoat.
There was a truth hiding beneath this world.
And I wasn't just Lâm Hoa Tư anymore.
"I don't think I can go back to pretending," I said quietly.
Hoai Trach turned his gaze from the window. "Pretending what?"
"That I belong here. That this is my story."
He didn't speak right away. But when he did, his voice was lower than usual. Gentler.
"Maybe it wasn't your story before. But that doesn't mean it can't become yours now."
I looked at him, startled.
"You don't think I'm crazy?"
"I think you've been hiding a truth so heavy it could crush anyone else. And yet... here you are."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So instead, I whispered, "Thank you."
He didn't answer, but his hand rested gently on mine the rest of the ride.
Back at his penthouse, I stood by the windows as he made a call. I barely heard the words. My thoughts were somewhere else—on the notebook, on the raincoat, on the feeling that my life wasn't entirely mine.
That I had inherited someone else's sins.
And someone else's enemies.
When Hoai Trach hung up, I turned to face him.
"I need to find the original Lâm Hoa Tư's journal," I said. "If this notebook was just a part of what she left behind, then there has to be more."
He nodded.
"I already sent a team to sweep the apartment."
"You trust them?"
He gave me a look.
"I trust them with my life. And now, with yours."
My heart did something strange at those words. But I pushed it aside.
"There's something else," I said hesitantly. "Something that's been bothering me since the gala."
"What?"
"The look in your eyes."
He stilled.
I stepped closer. "You didn't just see me differently that night. You felt something."
His jaw tightened. "What are you trying to say?"
I swallowed hard.
"I'm trying to understand how the man who hated me now looks at me like I'm... worth protecting."
A beat of silence. Then two.
And then he said, "Because I was wrong."
I blinked. "What?"
"I saw what I wanted to see. A spoiled heiress. A manipulative woman. I never gave you a chance to be more."
"And now?"
His gaze didn't waver.
"Now I see someone who fights fate. Someone who stands in a storm without flinching. And it scares the hell out of me."
My breath caught.
"I scare you?"
He stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"Because I've built my whole life around control. Around knowing how things work. But you... you broke the script. You made me question everything."
The air between us felt charged. Like something electric. Something inevitable.
But just as he reached for me, a sharp knock shattered the moment.
He cursed under his breath.
"It's them," he said, already moving toward the door.
A man in black stepped in, carrying a folder.
"We found it."
Hoai Trach took the folder, opened it, and froze.
"What is it?" I asked, moving to his side.
He handed it to me wordlessly.
Inside were photos.
Pages from another journal.
But this one wasn't about parties or wine or polite masks.
It was filled with codes.
Symbols.
And names.
Lots of names.
Some were crossed out.
Others were underlined.
But one name—circled three times in red ink—made my blood freeze.
Mine.
My name.
Not Lâm Hoa Tư.
Mine.
The name I hadn't spoken since waking up in this world.
"How...?" I whispered.
Hoai Trach's voice was like steel. "Someone knew you were coming."
I looked up at him, eyes wide. "You think she left it for me?"
"She didn't just leave it. She planned it."
I shook my head. "But why? Why me?"
His eyes were dark.
"That's what we're going to find out."
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I sat in the guest room, surrounded by the journal pages, tracing the strange symbols over and over again.
Some were mathematical. Others looked like ancient scripts. But the one thing they had in common was intent.
These weren't the scribbles of a paranoid woman.
These were instructions.
Blueprints.
A warning.
I flipped the page and saw it.
A symbol I hadn't noticed before.
It looked like a door.
And beneath it, written in shaky letters:
"The story repeats. Unless she remembers."
I stared at the words until they blurred.
And I whispered to the night:
"Then I will remember."
Even if it kills me.