Chapter 1

Prologue

Three years after my death, my husband threw the divorce papers at the android that had been living my life.

He did it just to see a flicker of jealousy or rage on her face. He wanted to see me break.

But he was destined for disappointment.

Three years ago, I traded my soul to the System to cure his terminal cancer.

The woman staying by his side was just a machine, a tool without a single drop of emotion.

It wasn't until his wedding day to another woman that the truth came out.

His childhood sweetheart pushed me into traffic, and as the tires crushed me into scrap metal, he finally realized something.

I wasn't human anymore.

Chapter 1

When Silas Hayes tossed my ring into the water, I didn't hesitate to jump in after it.

It was the middle of winter, and a thin layer of ice had formed over the surface of the pool.

The water was bone-chillingly cold.

It took me nearly half an hour to find that plain, ordinary silver band.

It was a gift Silas had given me years ago, back when we had nothing.

As I tried to climb out, I realized my joints were locking up. My body refused to move.

"Silas, I don't know what's wrong with Sienna. She just jumped in the moment she saw me," Kendra Sinclair said, her voice trembling with fake concern.

"Do you think she's trying to frame me for something?"

She walked over to Silas, her brow furrowed in a practiced pout.

Silas didn't even flinch. He just wrapped his designer fur coat tighter around himself, his eyes full of scorn.

"Sienna Xavier, what kind of pathetic stunt is this? Are you trying to play the victim now?"

The temperature was below freezing. Silas watched me standing there, soaked to the bone and shivering, without a hint of worry.

"Get out of the water. Or are you waiting for me to come down and carry you?"

He scoffed, his face twisted with pure annoyance.

Kendra sighed, pretending to care. "Sienna, please get out. It's freezing. You're going to make Silas worry."

I tried to speak, but the water had caused a short circuit in my vocal processor. All I could do was move my lips silently.

My left leg had hit the edge of the pool during the jump, tearing the synthetic skin and revealing the silver titanium frame beneath.

Silas didn't notice.

His patience finally snapped. He crossed his arms and looked at me with cold indifference.

"If you love that water so much, stay there for the rest of your life!"

I watched from within the machine as he walked away. The android remained motionless, staring at his retreating back.

He didn't look back, not even once.

No normal human could stay in icy water for that long without a reaction.

Silas either didn't notice the abnormality, or he simply didn't care because his eyes were only for Kendra.

I suspect that even if I had frozen to death right there, he would have cheered.

I had forgotten that I was the person he hated most in this world.

But the real me was already gone. The thing standing next to Silas was just a heartless robot.

I was a Transmigrator. My mission in this world had been to save Silas Hayes.

I arrived when I was only thirteen.

The first time I saw him, he was huddling in a corner of a miserable orphanage, counting ants.

Life there was brutal and lean. There was never enough to eat.

At ten years old, Silas was so malnourished he looked like a scrawny seven-year-old.

I followed the cliché script. I gave him everything, worked every job I could find, and paid for his education.

We survived the hardest years of our lives together.

It took a long time to earn his trust.

A person who has never known love doesn't give their heart away easily.

I understood his fears. I cooked for him, worked double shifts, and shielded him from the world.

Once, Silas was bullied by his classmates for being an orphan. I tracked them down and fought every single one of them to stand up for him.

Their parents made my life hell afterward.

But I didn't care. Every time someone laid a finger on Silas, I found a way to make them pay.

Back then, I went to school every day with a face covered in bruises.

That was when Silas gave me his first genuine smile. He asked me who I really was.

Following the System's instructions, I told him I was the child of his parents' old friends.

I told him our parents had died in the same accident and that his mother had never stopped looking for him.

Silas believed me.

After that, life became peaceful. We grew up side by side.

We were childhood sweethearts, though Silas eventually fell into a passionate, whirlwind romance with Kendra in college.

But in the end, I was the one who stayed.

My mission was technically complete the year we got married.

However, during the process of saving him, I had fallen hopelessly in love with that resilient boy.

I chose to stay in this world for him.