I was transmigrated into a book with a mission: win the heart of Julian Vance, the cold-blooded ascetic. He was cruel, numb, heartless, and untouchable. He killed me exactly nine times. The first time, he skinned me alive and stitched the pieces into his own patchwork robe. The second time, he cut me open to take our unborn child, fashioning the tiny skull into a ceremonial bowl for his altar. The third time, he carved out my flesh to make ritual artifacts, ground my 206 bones into dust, and scattered them on the prairie for the eagles to peck. ... 1 Every time I died, the world reset, and my progress bar dropped back to zero. I knelt until my knees were raw, praying for him. I endured seventy miscarriages in a single year. When he called me "dirty," I ate mud for three years, just because he said it would purify me. But he still killed me. By the ninth attempt, I was riddled with holes, body and soul. Julian Vance had no heart. I begged the System to end the mission, but it was offline for upgrades. In a twist of fate, the reset was delayed. Floating as a spirit, I watched him gently caress the funeral portrait of his arranged fiancée, Emily Thorne. His eyes held a tenderness I had never seen directed at me. "Just wait a little longer, my love. Once I kill that bitch again, we'll go back to before you took your own life." "If she hadn't drugged me, you never would have walked in on us. That was supposed to be my wedding, not your funeral." He wasn't affected by the reset. He remembered everything. He wasn't a stone I couldn't warm. He had hated me to his core ever since Emily died. The mission was doomed from the start. My spirit followed Julian as he drifted toward a door covered in scriptures. What lay behind it shocked me. The room was filled with silicone molds of Emily's lower body, arranged in neat rows. Julian Vance, the cold ascetic who had rejected me for nine lifetimes, picked one up and kissed it fervently. He looked more devout in that moment than he ever had while praying. 2 When the kiss ended, he stripped off his clothes and used the mold with a terrifying madness. I watched, suffocating in shock. In all nine lifetimes, except for the first where I drugged him, he had refused to touch a woman. In the fourth life, when I lost control and kissed him, he felt so defiled that he poured boiling oil over himself, scrubbing his skin raw. That was the only time the world reset because he died. Since then, I never dared to touch him. But now? He was rolling his eyes back, groaning, sweating like rain in front of a piece of silicone. I looked at his ecstasy, then at my own hands, pale and wrinkled from wearing rubber gloves to clean his home. The irony was crushing. It wasn't piety. He just thought I was dirty. Suddenly, the System came back online. "Host death detected. Initiating reset." In a trance, I was back at the wedding altar. Julian was putting the ring on my finger. The reset point was earlier this time. Emily rushed onto the stage, tears streaming down her face, holding a knife. "Julian, are you really going to marry her?" Julian's eyes darkened. He reacted instantly, shoving me hard. I crashed into the champagne tower. Glass shards embedded in my flesh. Alcohol seeped into the wounds. Even breathing hurt. 3 Julian didn't even look at me. He rushed to Emily, tears in his eyes as he wrestled the knife away. "Baby, don't do this!" He... cried? For nine lifetimes, every reset wiped the slate clean. I was used to him being affectionate one second and cruel the next. I endured the humiliation and torture to heal him, to win him. If the System hadn't lagged, I wouldn't have known he remembered everything. He had tears. Just not for me. "The wedding is off," he announced coldly, holding Emily. I staggered to my feet. "What?" His face twisted in disgust. "Chloe, did you think drugging me and crawling into my bed like a whore would force me to marry you?" The guests gasped. "Oh my god, she looks so innocent, but she's just loose!" Emily sobbed in his arms. "Julian, when I heard you two... I couldn't take it..." He gently wiped her tears, then turned a look of pure loathing on me. "Your cheap tricks make me sick." He grabbed my wrist and dragged me over the broken glass. "You think I don't know? Every time you..." He stopped abruptly. My pupils contracted. I challenged him. "Every time what?" Say it. Tell them everything you remember. But he just let go, letting me tumble down the stairs. My forehead hit the floor, blood instantly masking my face. He stood above me like a high priest looking down on a sinner. "Stop trying to seduce me. I will always despise a slut like you." 4 It hurt. Memories of nine deaths flashed before my eyes. The searing pain of being skinned alive in the first life. The gut-wrenching agony of being cut open in the second. The salty sting of having my bones crushed in the third. ... The System glitched. All the pain from nine lifetimes hit me at once. He kissed Emily tenderly, not sparing me a glance. Guests surrounded me, spitting. "Slut! You deserve it!" Suddenly, hotel security rushed out. At his command, they tore at my clothes. I heard his low instruction: "When you're done, smash a champagne bottle inside her. Make sure she can never carry a bastard child." Lying in the wreckage, I laughed. "Julian Vance, you're a great actor." He turned back, eyes cold. "What did you say?" I wiped the blood from my mouth. "I said, I hope you live happily ever after." In my heart, I called out to the System. "I forfeit the mission." The cold mechanical voice responded: "Host has confirmed mission abandonment. Extraction in fifteen days." That stormy night, after the guards were finished with me, they threw me out the back door.