My name is Lin Jian, and I’m twenty-four years old.
I’d love to introduce myself as “twenty-four, still a student,” but unfortunately, I’ve been grinding away as a corporate wage slave for over two years now.
And even more unfortunately, today I just got fired.
The reason is simple: the “deeply affectionate widower” persona I’d carefully built over two years had collapsed.
I know it might be a bit late to say this now, but I need to make something clear: I never meant to be a liar. Everything just snowballed naturally.
It’s like sampling a free piece of ham at a supermarket, thinking it tastes good and having a few more pieces, and then the sales associate assumes you want to buy it, so you’re too embarrassed to say no.
Except the “ham” in my hand was actually a full “deceased magical girl wife” persona, and the sales associate was all thirty-seven of my coworkers plus my boss.
This all started a little over two years ago.
Back then I’d just joined the company, and my desk was completely bare.
New guy, keeping a low profile. But Old Wang at the desk next to mine—a guy obsessed with plastering his daughter’s photos all over his cubicle divider—thought I was too antisocial.
He said, “Xiao Lin, your desk is too empty. No vitality.”
I decided to take the advice to heart—after all, I don’t run marathons, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with “You don’t have as much vitality as me, believe it or not.”
So the next day, I brought a photo.
The photo was of a girl. Silver-gray hair, right eye the color of a starry sky with literal star-patterned iridescence.
She was giving a slight smile at the camera—a difficult expression to describe, like she knew the person taking the photo was nervous and was trying to help them relax.
That was me.
More precisely, it was what I looked like after transforming.
But I couldn’t explain that to Old Wang back then. How would I even start?
“Oh, this is my ID photo from when I was a magical girl a year ago”—say that, and the next day the office break room would have a new legend about “the new guy Lin Jian with a cross-dressing fetish.”
So when Old Wang leaned over and asked, “Who’s this girl? She’s pretty,” I stayed silent for three seconds.
Three seconds. That’s how long it took to decide a persona’s shelf life.
“Her name is Xiao Yao,” I said, deepening my voice with feigned gravitas, placing the photo at the angle between my monitor and the divider that just happened to hide my slacking off. “She was my wife.”
Old Wang froze for a moment.
“Three years ago,” I heard my own voice sink lower, “she sacrificed herself to protect this city.”
Old Wang’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
In the end, he said nothing. He just patted my shoulder.
That pat was heavy.
And man, things snowballed from there: Old Wang is the office loudspeaker.
By that afternoon, the whole company knew that “the new guy Xiao Lin is a deeply affectionate widower who lost his beloved wife.”
The pretty girl from admin walked past my desk with a completely different look in her eyes—a complex gaze mixing sympathy, admiration, and “Oh my god, men like this actually exist in real life.”
I’d originally planned to clear things up in a couple of days.
But something happened on the third day.
That afternoon I was dead tired, dozing at my desk for forty minutes.
When I woke up, there was a blanket over my shoulders. Sent by the admin department.
With a sticky note attached: “Brother Lin, take care of yourself.”
I stared at that sticky note for five seconds.
Then I straightened the photo on my desk a little more.
Damn. This persona is kind of useful. Might as well keep using it.
The next two years proved that this “deeply affectionate widower” persona was far more durable than I’d expected. Way more durable.
It’s like buying a nine-yuan-ninety-nine plastic clothes rack on Pinduoduo with a discount slash and free shipping, thinking you’ll replace it after a month—but it ends up holding your winter coats through three seasons, and it even comes with built-in ironing and anti-mite functions.
Specifically, the benefits were numerous.
First: unrestricted slacking rights.
Nobody questions a young man who “hasn’t moved past the grief of losing his wife” staring blankly at his desk.
When I zoned out at my screen, my coworkers interpreted it as “he’s thinking about her again.”
Most of the time, I was just debating whether to get braised chicken rice or spicy malatang for lunch.
But I couldn’t say that. The atmosphere was already set for me; I just had to play along: sigh sadly, shift my gaze to the photo on my desk, hold for five seconds.
Then go back to thinking about malatang.
Second: social exemption rights.
Company team building—didn’t go. “Can’t forget her.” The whole table fell silent. Old Wang drank for me, and the admin department called me a taxi.
Department dinner—arrived on time, left early. “The memories overwhelmed me.” Nobody stopped me. Went home and rested directly.
Three blind dates—all turned down. “Not ready yet.” The matchmaker wiped her tears, and my mom called to apologize for pushing me.
Can you believe it? My mom actually called to apologize?!
The last time she apologized, I was six years old, when she “accidentally” threw away my Ultraman Tiga figure and a PSP I’d borrowed from a classmate, then had my dad whip me with a leather belt all night, and only softened up a bit the next day when she saw my swollen ass and my silence.
Now—this dead wife persona made my mom learn to apologize.
Whoa. It can even cure family trauma? That’s wild.
Xiao Yao, I know you’re fake, but starting today, you’re officially my real dead wife.
Third: the office invincibility shield.
Project screwed up—”Xiao Lin hasn’t been emotionally stable lately.” Boss sighs, and I punish myself with three drinks.
Overtime unavoidable—”Let him go home and rest early.”
Coworkers volunteer to take over, and the next morning they bring breakfast to thank me for “the hard work yesterday, Brother Lin.”
The most difficult client—”Have Xiao Lin go talk to them. When they see him, they won’t have the heart to make things difficult.”
I actually went. The client saw my desk photo, heard my coworkers tell the story of my deep affection, and signed the contract without hesitation.
Honestly, I didn’t do anything.
I just sat there.
The client rep was a woman in her forties. After signing the contract, she talked to me for twenty minutes about her deceased cat.
Fourth: boss favorability.
At the annual party, the boss drank too much and patted my shoulder, saying, “Xiao Lin, life hasn’t been easy for you.”
Of the thirty-seven people in the company, the boss couldn’t remember fifteen of their names.
But not only did he remember my name, he knew my struggles.
The second year, my year-end bonus was twenty percent higher than my colleagues at the same level.
The boss had written four characters on the envelope: “Live well.”
I sat at my desk with the envelope in my hand for ten minutes, desperately forcing a bitter expression to keep my smile from breaking through.
Then I went to the break room to make a cup of coffee.
The coffee grounds were specially bought for me by the admin department—Blue Mountain.
There were only two kinds of coffee by the office machine: regular instant (for all employees) and Blue Mountain (exclusively for Lin Jian).
I’d gone to ask the admin supervisor about it before, saying it wasn’t fair, and she patted my arm and said, “Brother Lin, you deserve it.”
Deserve… it?
I didn’t think I did.
I’m a liar.
But this liar had already been kidnapped by Blue Mountain coffee and the kindness of the admin girls.
He couldn’t climb down, and he didn’t want to either.
Fine. I’ll keep being the deeply affectionate widower. It’s not like I planned to date anyone at the company anyway.
I lived this dream life for two years.
For two years, I lived a life so absurdly comfortable, all thanks to the “Xiao Yao” persona.
So comfortable that I’d almost forgotten—the person in that photo really existed.
She wasn’t my dead wife.
She was me.
Twelve years ago, when I was twelve, I was conscripted by a system called the “Flower Crown” to become a magical girl.
Yes, a magical girl. Male.
Don’t ask. If you ask, the answer is that the Flower Crown doesn’t care about gender, only Flower Essence Affinity.
And my affinity was off the charts. The system gave me missions for nine years, then made me burn my Flower Core to cinders and retire at twenty-one.
After retirement, my transformation abilities were basically gone. The Flower Core was forced into dormancy, the Flower Outfit was locked, and even my Flower Crystal had turned into a dull stone.
The Flower Crown gave me a severance package and a line about “Thank you for your contribution to city safety.” When the golden petals drifted down, I thought to myself, ‘Your HR department must have outsourced to a gacha game operator.’
After that, I returned to normal life. Found a job, rented an apartment, tucked the Flower Crystal into my collar—the stone pressed against my chest like an ember that would never warm up.
Until Old Wang told me to put something on my desk.
Looking back now, that self-media account called “Hammer Has Material” had probably been eyeing me for a long time.
The exposé went live at 4 PM on Wednesday. The headline was twenty-eight characters long—
[SHOCKING! The Internet’s Most Devoted Widower Is a FAKE! P-shop Photos, Chat Records, Transfer Proof, Subject Allegedly a Retired Flower Envoy]
I was slacking off at my desk at the time—no wait, I was “mourning my late wife”—when my phone suddenly started vibrating.
The notification sounds were so dense it was like an angry drummer was rolling all over it.
Old Wang sent the link first.
Then the admin girl.
Then my boss.
Then three failed blind date prospects.
And finally, my mom.
My mom sent three voice messages, each capped at the sixty-second limit. I didn’t dare tap them.
I took a deep breath and tapped into the article.
That “Hammer Has Material” piece was professionally done. Even more professional than I’d imagined.
First image: P-shop comparison. The photo on my desk versus an ID photo from the Flower Crown internal network—same angle, same lighting, even the exact same curve of the silver-gray hair strands. The only difference was the watermark in the bottom right of the internal network photo: a golden flower bud and a serial number.
Second image: chat record screenshots. I’d never seen these screenshots, and I’d never said any of those words in those chats. But they looked so real: the profile picture was my WeChat avatar, and the tone matched the way I talked perfectly. One part read, “That photo was something I made up. There’s no sacrifice—she’s just a retired Flower Envoy.”
I swear on heaven I never sent that message.
But every single word in that message was the truth.
And that pissed me off more than anything.
Third image: transfer records. An account I didn’t recognize had sent three payments to another account I didn’t recognize. The memos read “Material Fee” and “Post-Editing P-shop Work.”
Bro, I neither sent that money nor received it.
Fourth image, the final one—
The retired Flower Envoy archive page from the Flower Crown system.
Code name: Moon Orchid. Flower species: Moon Orchid. Flower Rank: Full Bloom (Retired). Status: Retired.
The most eye-catching thing was the small icon next to the status bar, marked with green text reading “Retired.”
“Deceased” should have been a darker, duller gray.
I kind of regretted not changing my status to “Missing, Presumed Dead.”
Oh right. That was for the severance pay.
“Hammer Has Material” added a line of red text under this image: “Key point: Retired ≠Dead. This ‘late wife’ is not only alive, but her identity is being used by an ordinary white-collar worker to build a devoted persona. May we ask, Mr. Lin, does your ‘late wife’ know about this?”
She knows.
Of course she knows.
Because she’s literally me!