Chapter 4: The Twisted Fruit

The next day, Lin Nuannuan woke with heavy dark circles under her eyes. The dream from last night left her uneasy, and the vanished App was like a thorn lodged in her heart.

She walked into the company with a mindset akin to "marching to her execution." She was prepared for Director Zhang's furious outburst, worse than yesterday's, because she had failed to redo the proposal (she hadn't been able to calm down enough to do it).

Yet, the anticipated storm did not arrive.

The atmosphere in the office area was strange. A suppressed, gossipy excitement flowed through the air. No sooner had she sat down at her workstation than the colleague next to her leaned over, face alight with barely concealed gossip.

"Nuannuan, have you heard? Director Zhang is in trouble!"

Lin Nuannuan's heart skipped a beat, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the mouse. "...Trouble?"

"Yeah! Huge news!" The colleague lowered her voice, her expression animated. "I heard he was taking the metro to work this morning, and I don't know what he ate, but he suddenly… pfft… soiled himself on the platform! Oh my god, it was rush hour, packed with people!"

The colleague described it vividly, as if she'd witnessed it herself: "They say the scene was completely out of control, the stench was horrific, several people vomited on the spot! Someone filmed it. It hasn't spread online, but it's going crazy in a few private groups! Director Zhang's face at that moment, tsk tsk, his dignity was utterly destroyed! In the end, the metro staff had to hold their noses and haul him away, straight to the hospital!"

Lin Nuannuan listened, dumbstruck, her mind a blank.

…On the metro platform… in public… incontinence?

Director Zhang? The man who was always so arrogant, trampling on the dignity of his subordinates?

An intensely powerful, twisted sense of schadenfreude, like an electric current, shot through her limbs. She could barely control the urge to let her lips curl into a smile. Serves him right! It really serves him right! Was there any way more "publicly humiliating," more effective at "social death" for him?

But immediately afterwards, a chill shot from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head, instantly icing over her hands and feet.

That App…

That wish…

It was real!

It had come true! In a way completely beyond her imagination, both absurd and cruel!

She forced herself to remain calm, brushed off the colleague with a few words, and waited until she left before immediately pulling out her phone with trembling hands. The unlocked screen showed nothing. She frantically swiped through her screens, searching for the faint blue loom icon, but found nothing.

Just as she was about to convince herself last night had been another dream, her finger accidentally swiped over a certain folder. Tucked in the farthest, most inconspicuous corner of the folder, the icon lay quietly. Its color seemed slightly deeper than last night, the lines forming the loom seeming to operate silently.

It hadn't disappeared. It had just hidden itself deeper.

All day, Lin Nuannuan was in a daze. The work pressure had temporarily vanished, replaced by a deeper unease. Colleagues around her were eagerly discussing Director Zhang's "exploits." Every gleeful laugh was like a tiny hammer tapping on her sensitive nerves.

She should be happy, shouldn't she? Her revenge was successful. So why did she feel no sense of relief, but rather as if she had personally opened a Pandora's box, releasing something uncontrollable and cold?

In the afternoon, HR sent a notice. Director Zhang was taking "an extended leave of absence due to a sudden serious illness," and his duties were temporarily taken over by the deputy director. This news confirmed the rumors and, like a final verdict, cemented the perfect realization of Lin Nuannuan's wish.

Returning home after work, she closed the door. The world was quiet again. The fear she had deliberately suppressed finally surged up like a tide.

She opened the folder again and stared at the icon. This time, without hesitation, she long-pressed it and selected 'Uninstall'.

A prompt popped up on the screen: "This application is a core system component and cannot be uninstalled."

Core system component?

Her phone was from a niche brand, and she knew its interface intimately. There was no such "core component"!

Cold sweat instantly soaked through her back.

Refusing to give up, she tried connecting it to her computer via USB, wanting to force a deletion. Yet, on the computer, she couldn't find any files corresponding to this App! It was as if it didn't exist in physical storage, yet stubbornly persisted on her phone.

Just as she felt a wave of powerlessness and despair facing the computer screen, her phone screen lit up again.

It was the App automatically popping up its interface. Still the black background, the faint blue loom. But this time, it wasn't showing wish options. Instead, there was a new line of text, even more horrifying:

[Wish fulfilled.]

[Price paid.]

Price?

What price?

Lin Nuannuan was stunned. Last night, intoxicated by the thrill of revenge, she had completely overlooked the matter of a "price"! How could this devil's bargain come without cost?

She suddenly remembered last night's cold, weaving dream. A sense of foreboding gripped her heart tightly.

She desperately tried to recall. What had been paid? Money? Health? Or…

Her gaze swept absently over a photo frame on her bedside table. It was the only photo of her and her grandmother. In it, a much younger grandmother held the seven-or-eight-year-old Lin Nuannuan in front of a fence blooming with morning glories back in her hometown, both smiling with warm, affectionate smiles. Her grandmother had passed away from illness during Lin Nuannuan's middle school years. This photo and the associated memories were the most precious softness in her heart.

But now, as she stared at her grandmother's face in the photo, a strange feeling arose.

That face, that smile, were still familiar. But… the details?

What was the curve of the wrinkles at the corner of her grandmother's eyes when she smiled? Which hand did she usually use to hold her? What was the specific, reassuring smell of sunshine and soap that clung to her?

These once crystal-clear details now felt… somewhat hazy. Like looking through frosted glass—the outline was there, but the vivid, living texture was gone.

It was as if a very important, specific memory of her grandmother, one filled with warmth and scent, had been ruthlessly dug out of her mind, leaving only a hollow, conceptual impression.

"No… impossible…" Lin Nuannuan staggered forward, grabbing the photo frame, her fingers gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white. She stared fixedly at the photo, trying to reconstruct those vivid details in her mind, but found only a vague blankness.

A massive, bone-piercing chill instantly froze her solid.

The price…

The price paid was… memory?

It was one of her most precious memories of her grandmother!

"Ah—!" A short, sharp scream of terror finally broke from her throat. She immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, her whole body sliding down the bedside cabinet to sit on the floor, curling up, beginning to tremble violently and uncontrollably.

More terrifying than the wish being fulfilled was the method of payment. It didn't take your material possessions; it directly altered, erased your past, the very foundation of your emotional attachments!

In the confined room, there was only her suppressed, hiccupping sobs, and on the phone screen she clutched tightly in her hand, that one line of cold, silent proclamation:

[Price paid.]

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