Chapter 7 — Reborn: This Hell Is Mine

What He Realized About Her

Chung Bách Nguyên is not someone who is easily attracted by anyone's beautiful appearance or excessive warmth. From a young age, he was accustomed to being the target of calculating eyes — girls who approached him because of their family background, business partners who pretended to be close for their own sake, even college friends who he later discovered only wanted to take advantage of the Chung family's reputation. That's why he has built up a cold, distant shell, as a self-protection mechanism that few people can penetrate.

But during nearly two months of working with Đường Ý Vy on a lounge design project, he realized he was gradually drawn into something completely different from what he had ever experienced.

The first thing that caught his attention was the way Ý Vy handled her work. She never exaggerates her abilities, but each plan she proposed shows a careful calculation, sometimes far beyond what was necessary for a normal design project. One time, when he accidentally mentioned that the group was about to have an internal audit at the end of the quarter, Ý Vy immediately proposed adjusting the construction schedule of the reception hall to avoid overlapping with the audit team's working time, an acumen about business operations that he rarely saw in a pure design professional.

The second thing, and perhaps more important, was the way she always remained absolutely calm in unexpected situations. Once, during a meeting to present the final plan, an elderly board member suddenly asked an offensive question about whether the design cost was unreasonable. Many people in Ý Vy's position would probably have been confused, but she simply smiled, presented each cost item clearly along with a comparison to market prices, and left the member with nothing to refute.

Bách Nguyên, sitting and observing from the head of the table, had a moment wondering how this young woman, with her gentle and calm appearance, could react so quickly and firmly, as if she had predicted that question would be asked.

He didn't know, of course, that was exactly what had happened. In a previous life, that same board member also asked the same question, except that Ý Vy was confused for a few seconds before finding the right answer. This time, with full memory of the old meeting, she had prepared the perfect answer in advance, just waiting for the right moment to give it.

One weekend afternoon, when the project had entered the completion stage, Bách Nguyên invited Ý Vy to his private office to sign some final acceptance documents. After the work was completed, he, as he rarely did with any partner, invited her to stay for tea, opening up a conversation outside of work.

"Where did you study interior design?" he asked, his voice as natural as a common social question.

"I study at the University of Architecture, thanks to a scholarship from the Sunshine Foundation," Ý Vy replied, pouring more tea into his cup. "If I didn't have that scholarship, I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to pursue this field."

"I heard Mrs. Dieu mention, she grew up in an orphanage founded by Mrs. Ninh Diễm Thu." Bách Nguyên looked at her, his eyes had some real curiosity, not nosy curiosity but a sincere concern. "It certainly isn't easy."

Ý Vy was silent for a moment, then smiled slightly. "There were also difficult times, but I think I was luckier than many other children because I had Mrs. Diễm Thu and a younger sister always by my side. Having family, even if not biological family, is still the most precious thing," she said those words with all the sincerity she had, because even though she knew in advance what Tuệ Nghi was plotting, the feelings she had for her childhood with her adopted brother, for the truly warm years she had, were still not fake. That's what makes her situation more complicated than any simple revenge story — she doesn't hate Tuệ Nghi, she just can no longer turn a blind eye to the truth.

Bách Nguyên looked at her, there was a long moment of silence, then he said, his voice deeper than usual: "I grew up in a family full of material things, but sometimes I wonder if I really understand the meaning of the word 'family' the way you just said. Since childhood, I have been used to the fact that every relationship around me is associated with benefits, with family position. You are the first person to make me think about it in a different way."

That was the first time, in both lives, that Ý Vy heard Bách Nguyên share something sincere, not social or professional. She looked at him, feeling a real vibration in her heart, not only because of the feelings she had in her previous life, but because in this moment, she felt like she was truly connecting with a person, not simply repeating a known scenario.

"I think," she replied, her voice gentle, "family doesn't have to be perfect or complete. What's important is whether the people in it are sincere with each other or not."

That sentence, even though she did not mean it, had a much deeper meaning than Bách Nguyên could understand at that moment. Ý Vy is talking about her own situation, about the concerns she is facing every day: whether Tuệ Nghi's feelings for her are genuine or not, and if so, why are they accompanied by such secret calculations.

From that afternoon, the relationship between Ý Vy and Bách Nguyên began to move to a new stage, more intimate and more sincere. He began to proactively invite her to dinner outside of work hours, no longer using work as an excuse like before. She realized that every time she was with him, she did not need to play any role, did not need to calculate every word like when dealing with Tuệ Nghi. It was a rare feeling of relief during the wary journey she was pursuing.

One evening, when they were both walking along the riverbank after a meal, Bách Nguyên suddenly asked her, half joking, half serious: "Have you ever felt like you knew something was about to happen? Like a premonition so strong that it can't be explained." Ý Vy paused for a moment, her heart beating faster for a brief moment, before regaining her composure and asking him again why he asked that. He just laughed, saying that lately he felt like she always knew exactly what to say and do, as if she had been through all of this before. Ý Vy responded with a gentle joke about women's intuition, skillfully steering the conversation in another direction, but in her heart, she understood that she needed to be more careful not to accidentally reveal the abnormality in the way she reacted to the world.

Phó Nhật Khang, Bách Nguyên's closest assistant, was also the first person within the group to recognize the change in his general. While preparing documents for a meeting, he once joked with his colleagues that he had never seen his boss proactively rearrange his busy schedule just to have more time to meet a design partner, and that perhaps this was the first time he saw Bách Nguyên really relax in front of a woman.

But she also knows that this increasingly deeper connection between her and Bách Nguyên, although it brings true happiness, is also an alarm signal for someone else - someone who is silently watching all developments from afar, and will not easily accept to stand by and watch her opportunities gradually disappear.

One time, when Ý Vy accidentally mentioned that Bách Nguyên had invited her to a weekend concert, she noticed that Tuệ Nghi was unusually silent for a few seconds before smiling wryly, asking a few questions and then quickly switching to another topic. Ý Vy understands that every piece of news about the progress in the relationship between her and Bách Nguyên, even if told unintentionally, is like a small knife cutting into her adoptive sister's pride. She doesn't intentionally flaunt her happiness, but she also no longer intentionally hides or minimizes things like before, because she understands that being honest about her own life is not a sin, even though it can make others feel sad.

Ms. Dieu, when she happened to meet Ý Vy at the Ánh Dương Foundation office to complete the scholarship sponsorship procedure for the next course, also commented that she had never seen Bách Nguyên be so open with anyone since he returned home to take over the group. She said, her voice full of meaning, that if Mrs. Ninh Diễm Thu were still alive, she would be very happy to see her adopted daughter find someone worthy of trust. Those words warmed Ý Vy's heart, but also evoked a vague worry in her about whether, from Tuệ Nghi's perspective, similar compliments for her sister had ever been said in front of her, and if so, what emotions they had planted in her heart all these years.

Just as she predicted, just a few days after that afternoon of drinking tea, Tuệ Nghi began to change tactics.