" Pang!"

Nuan Nuan's eyes snapped open, her body shivering as a cold liquid splashed onto her. Groggily, she realized she was still in the desolate place where she was forcefully brought yesterday.

"Stand up right now, or else I'll smack you in the face!"

The menacing voice jolted her upright. Nuan Nuan's gaze locked onto the man in black, his expression impassive as he loomed over her. The same man who had ordered her abduction.

Tied up in the darkness, Nuan Nuan's assumptions seemed grimly accurate – she was trapped in a dungeon. The air reeked of dampness, and the shadows swallowed every hint of light.

The man's calm demeanor chilled her to the bone. His gaze scraped over her like trash, dismissing her very existence.

Silently, Nuan Nuan prayed, her mind racing with dread. Was she kidnapped for ransom? The thought twisted her stomach into knots. Her family's financial struggles meant no one would come for her, even if they could afford it.

A deeper pain stabbed at her heart. She was the outcast, the black sheep. Her own birth mother had turned against her, favoring her stepdaughter, Chu Anxin.

Nuan Nuan's eyes stung, tears welling up as the weight of her isolation crushed her.

"No one will come for me," she whispered to herself, the darkness closing in.