But I didn’t even get a chance to explain.
The comment section exploded before I even finished reading the article.
Top comment (32K likes): “So these days you have to make up a dead wife too? You’re one of the Three Duo of the Bai Family? So disgusting, profiting off sympathy.”
I wanted to reply: Brother, you’re absolutely right! I think it’s disgusting too! But she does exist—I have her entire bank card password memorized, even though it’s my own bank card password—but who would believe that if I said it? Looking at the comments, I almost didn’t believe it myself.
Second comment (28K likes): “Ladies, see clearly, ‘deeply devoted’ men are all a persona. One photo fooled you for two years. If he hadn’t been exposed, he could’ve fooled you for a lifetime.”
I wanted to reply: Sister, you’re also right! The most absurd part of this scam is—I really could have fooled everyone for a lifetime. Because the person in the photo would never complain, and would never come out to expose me. She retired, she went through Core Burnout, she can’t even transform anymore. In a sense, she really is “dead.” It’s just that my kind of death is a bit special.
I typed that out.
Then I laughed at myself in anger, deleting it as I laughed. Was I insane?
Third comment (21K likes): “So that girl was a real Flower Envoy? Then why didn’t she expose this guy? Chilling to think about.”
I couldn’t mock this one. Bro, your “chilling to think about” is right, but the direction of the “chill” is completely backward.
Fourth comment (15K likes): “LOL, a guy coasted for two years on a made-up wife persona. Isn’t this better than a TV drama?”
Thanks. I think it’s pretty entertaining too. If only I could turn off the comments.
Fifth comment (12K likes): “Hammer Bro, you’re too ruthless. You even dug up the retired Flower Envoy’s file. Doesn’t the Flower Crown intranet require clearance?”
I want to ask that question too! The Flower Crown’s internal files are classified and not open to the public.
So how did they end up leaked to a self-media account? Your HR operates like a gacha game, and your security is gacha-level too?
Unless—
Someone inside Flower Crown gave the file to Hammer Has Material. Or Hammer Has Material himself is someone inside Flower Crown.
That thought sent a chill down my spine.
But the comments kept coming. I scrolled down. One after another.
“Suggest calling the police. Impersonating a Flower Envoy’s identity is illegal.”
“This Moon Orchid girl is so pretty… sorry, off track, but she really is pretty.”
“Doesn’t anyone think it’s weird? A retired Flower Envoy lives in this city, why doesn’t anyone recognize her?”
—Because after she retired, she ceased to exist, and became me. This logic is too convoluted, the waters are too deep, bro, you can’t grasp it.
“Lin Jian, are you even human? Using a fallen Flower Envoy as a persona? Oh wait, not fallen—she retired—using a retired Flower Envoy as a persona? That’s worse than making up a fallen one!”
I stared at that comment for a long time.
She was right.
I couldn’t argue.
I slumped in front of the computer, fingers resting on the keyboard. I couldn’t type a thing.
My phone kept vibrating.
On DingTalk, my boss sent a new text message.
“Lin Jian, come to the office tomorrow to handle the paperwork.”
He didn’t even call.
Well then.
At least he didn’t ask me to return the extra year-end bonus.
The perfect persona that had sustained me for two years—from “the internet’s most deeply devoted widower” to “the internet’s most disgusting liar”—took just one article, four images, and three hours.
Ha. More efficient than my day job.
My gaze finally landed on the image at the end of the article—the Moon Orchid’s retirement file page.
The girl in the photo looked at me.
Silver-gray long hair, a star glint in her right eye, smiling at the person taking the photo.
That was me, twelve years ago.
That was the part of myself I burned away with the Burning Flower.
I instinctively glanced at the bottom right of the screen, looking for the column the retirement file page didn’t capture—I knew it was there. Because I’d checked my own file.
The “Reason for Retirement” column read:
[Burning Flower · Flower Core severely damaged. Post-recovery evaluation: lifelong Core Burnout. Note: This individual no longer possesses Flower Envoy abilities and is not eligible for the reserve conscription list.]
The words “lifelong Core Burnout” were automatically highlighted in red by the system. Like a terminal diagnosis on a medical record.
Hammer Has Material didn’t capture that column.
He only captured “Status: Retired.”
Damn self-media outlets, never telling the whole truth.
He didn’t care what this retired Flower Envoy had been through. He only cared how much traffic “Retired ≠ Dead” could generate.
I stared at the girl’s right eye in the photo.
My right hand had somehow pressed against my chest. Beneath my clothes, the Flower Crystal pressed against my palm. A piece of ember that would never warm up.
The star glint once bloomed in the eyes of the girl who held the Flower Crystal.
I remembered the first transformation. That right eye glowing. Silver-white light. Like the moon’s radiance rising, like stars breaking through dawn.
I remembered her staring at the mirror for five minutes—a twelve-year-old girl who, minutes earlier, had been a boy, standing before the mirror in a gorgeous dress straight out of a magical girl anime, unable to tell if it was shame or excitement.
Maybe both.
Maybe also a heavy, dizzying sense of being “chosen.”
The Flower Crystal floated up from the girl’s chest, hovering before her eyes.
Inside the crystal, the silver-white Moon Orchid fully bloomed, golden petals peeling from the crystal’s surface, spinning and drifting to my front.
The crystal’s surface glowed with its first greeting to her—
Moon Orchid, Serial Number 354, Flower Seed: Stealth Maneuver Type. Welcome to the Third Sequence of Flower Crown.
Beneath that line was smaller text: Your serial number will be stamped on your right arm guard. This is your honor.
Honor.
Twelve years later, a self-media account used that honor’s ID photo to give me a full internet expose.
To hell with honor.
That night, I didn’t go back to the rental apartment.
I booked an overnight booth at an internet café, leaving Hammer Has Material’s article page open on the screen.
The comment count had surpassed fifty thousand.
My Weibo followers had jumped from four hundred to a hundred and twenty thousand, almost all of them gawkers and haters.
Over two thousand private messages—eighteen hundred of them cursing me, the remaining two hundred asking “can I get to know the Moon Orchid girl?”
Humans are truly something.
The internet café was quiet at 3:00 AM. The fluorescent light above hummed.
The guy at the next booth was playing a MOBA, his keyboard clacking fast as rain against a window.
I sat alone in the corner, staring at that retirement file page on the screen.
The girl in the photo looked at me.
She’d been looking at me for twelve years.
From her first battle to her retirement file, from the Flower Crown intranet to a self-media account’s exposé headline.
My phone vibrated. Another new private message popped up.
Sending harassing messages in the dead of night. Real dedicated.
No profile picture. A pure black default frame. Sent at 3:12 AM.
Someone’s burner account.
I reached to close it, then froze the moment I saw the content.
The private message was just one line:
“Lin Jian, long time no see.”
My fingers hovered above the keyboard.
Why… this phrase?
Exactly the same six characters. Exactly the same punctuation. Exactly the same greeting.
Twelve years ago, the night I was conscripted by Flower Crown.
A Flower Crystal materialized beside my pillow. Golden petals drifted down.
The crystal’s surface glowed with the first line of text to me—
Lin Jian, long time no see.
The Flower Crown system’s unified notification. Every conscript received it the moment they obtained their Flower Crystal.
Then, guided by the system, the conscripts would undergo their first transformation, becoming Flower Envoys.
Granted a halted youthful appearance, the protection of the Flower Outfit, the awakening of the Flower Seed.
Becoming a designation above the Flower Crown sequence—becoming a named beam of light in the eyes of ordinary people.
Then they grow, fight, the lucky ones retire, the unlucky ones suffer Core Burnout, and the most unfortunate of all—die.
I snapped back to reality.
This private message was wrong.
It came from an account with no profile picture.
It shouldn’t know those six characters.
And it especially shouldn’t be carrying—that thing I hadn’t felt in three years—a Flower Element fluctuation.
I jerked my head down.
By the leg of the internet café desk, the Moon Orchid Flower Crystal, which had stayed dark ever since my retirement, lay quietly in my backpack’s side pocket.
I’d taken it off along with the necklace it hung from when I checked in, and put it in my bag.
This crystal should have been black.
Now it was glowing.
In less than half a second—
A fine silver light seeped from the scorched scar at the crystal’s center.
That was all.
Along the crack of the orchid pattern, the charred edges faintly gleamed silver.
Like a tiny unburned spark pressed beneath the ashes.
Then the light died.
As if nothing had ever happened.
I stared at the Flower Crystal.
The internet café’s fluorescent light kept humming.
The guy next door won his match and was muttering excitedly under his breath.
Streetlights spilled through the glass from outside.
On my phone, that private message was still there.
“Lin Jian, long time no see.”
I turned off the screen.