Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

At five in the morning, the corrugated iron roof of the abandoned meat processing plant was frozen and brittle.

"Bang—!"

The heavy, rusty iron gate was kicked open from the outside and slammed against the door frame.

Dust fell from the roof in a flurry.

Gu Xidong suddenly opened his eyes.

He lay in his worn-out sleeping bag by the ice rink, his left leg still burning with the pain from being kicked hard by Ling Wuwen the day before.

But deeper inside, a faint yet real tingling sensation is coursing through the muscle fibers.

He propped himself up, his pupils suddenly contracting—

His decadent "kingdom," built with empty wine bottles and takeout boxes, has vanished.

Instead, there was a military camp that was so orderly it was almost cold and indifferent.

Cases of sports drinks and protein powder were lined up like soldiers in formation where he had lain the night before.

Beside it, a brand-new electronic weighing scale reflected the pale morning light streaming through the broken window.

Ling Wuwen stood in front of the "square formation," holding a tablet to check the data.

He was dressed in a black tracksuit, his long hair was tied up high, and his face was expressionless.

"You fucking..."

Gu Xidong's voice was hoarse as he tried to stand up, but an old injury to his left leg made him stagger.

Good morning, my "patient".

Ling Wuwen didn't even look up. "Today's breakfast: 300ml electrolyte water, 40g whey protein powder, 150g chicken breast, two slices of whole wheat bread. Approximately 450 calories. Your basal metabolic rate is 1650, which is the optimal starting value."

She looked up, her gaze landing precisely on him:

"If that's not enough, there's also mass gainer. But I don't recommend consuming too many carbohydrates right now—that will slow down your recovery training."

"I told you to get out."

Gu Xidong gritted his teeth, squeezing out the words through his clenched teeth.

He felt like a beggar who had been stripped naked and thrown into the street.

All the "shells" used to numb oneself were shattered by this woman.

"I am your rehabilitation therapist, nutritionist, and now your life manager."

Ling Wuwen closed the tablet and handed over a disposable paper cup. "Drink the first cup of water. Then weigh yourself."

"I said, get out!"

Gu Xidong waved his hand, knocking the paper cup away.

The water spilled on the ground, spreading like blood.

Ling Wuwen stared at the paper cup, his eyes expressionless.

"You currently weigh 78.3 kg, nearly 15 kg lighter than your peak weight. You have suffered severe muscle loss, and your body fat percentage is pathologically low. Your body is like a piece of dried-out, cracked, rotten wood. Without intensive nutritional intervention and functional reconstruction, the little recovery you've made in your left leg won't last more than three days before it's completely ruined due to a second muscle tear."

She paused:

"You only watched the first video on the USB drive. There are three more. I'll watch one video after each stage of 'taming' is completed. This is a transaction."

"Domestication?"

Gu Xidong sneered, "You think you're training monkeys in a zoo?"

He pointed to the protein powder: "I won't eat these. I only drink alcohol. Go buy some, otherwise..."

"Or what?" Ling Wuwen raised an eyebrow. "A hunger strike? Damage the equipment?"

Gu Xidong turned around, grabbed a discarded plastic bucket, and smashed it to the ground.

"Bang!"

Ling Wuwen did not blink.

"Very good." She nodded. "Hunger strikes and vandalism are 'childhood' protest behaviors. In that case, let's move on to the 'punishment' phase."

She walked to the broken bucket, took out a lighter from her pocket, and "snap" lit the remaining newspaper inside the bucket.

Flames shot up.

"Your breakfast."

Ling Wuwen remained expressionless. "Now, eat it. Or, use it to dry your clothes."

Gu Xidong looked at the ball of fire, then at her.

I felt like I'd met a madman.

2

For the next three days, Gu Xidong endured the most painful and humiliating period of his professional career.

Ling Wuwen's "deprivation" was comprehensive.

She confiscated all lighters and matches and cleared away all flammable materials from the ice rink.

Like a strict prison guard, he monitored his every move with a stopwatch—eating, drinking, training, sleeping, all of which required obedience.

Gu Xidong attempted a hunger strike.

He hid the chicken breast under his tongue and pretended to swallow it.

Ling Wuwen merely glanced at him coldly, then took out his phone and played a blurry, noisy audio clip.

A man's voice, filled with sobs and despair, roared.

He couldn't hear what was being said, but the fear and despair chilled Gu Xidong to the bone.

—It was the voice of his missing mentor after the "black swan event".

"This is a 'preview' of the second video."

Ling Wuwen turned off his phone. "For every meal you go on a hunger strike, I'll delete one minute of the audio. I'll keep deleting it until it's all gone."

Gu Xidong finally gritted his teeth and swallowed the tasteless chicken breast.

He also tried to sabotage.

While Ling Wuwen was out resupplying, he overturned all the protein powder boxes, scattering the powder all over the ground, and used an ice skate to cut open the boxes.

He sat amidst the chaos like a victorious general, waiting for her return, anticipating either anger or disappointment.

When Ling Wuwen returned, he did indeed stop.

But there was no anger, no disappointment.

She simply sighed, put down her things, and silently began to clean.

Carefully collect the spilled protein powder and put it into a large bucket, then seal the torn boxes one by one with tape.

He did not utter a single word throughout the entire process.

That silence was more oppressive than any reprimand.

Finally, she placed the bucket of protein powder mixed with dust and debris in front of Gu Xidong.

"Since you like 'mixed flavors',"

She said expressionlessly, "This is all you've been drinking all day."

Gu Xidong looked at the bucket of filthy powder, his stomach churning.

He felt like a clown jumping around on the beam. All resistance seemed childish and ridiculous in the face of this woman.

3

The fourth night.

The abandoned factory had no electricity, only a searchlight powered by a generator.

The pale beam of light struck the ice surface, making the space appear even more eerie and desolate.

Gu Xidong collapsed onto the ice like a dog whose spine had been removed.

He is undergoing the "proprioception recovery training" devised by Ling Wuwen.

You need to skate a perfect figure 8 by relying solely on the feel of your skates without looking at the ground.

This should have been as natural as breathing for these former world champions.

But now, his brain seems to be separated from his left leg by an abyss.

Every exertion of force and every turn requires expending all one's strength to control and perceive.

Sweat blurred his vision, and his breathing was heavy, like that of a dying ox.

"Stop." Ling Wuwen's voice was as sharp as an ice pick.

Gu Xidong stumbled and fell to one knee, panting heavily.

"Your center of gravity has shifted by 0.5 centimeters."

Ling Wuwen walked up to him and lightly touched the ice with the tip of his ice blade.

"Because of that 0.5 centimeters, your left medial collateral ligament is under an extra 30% of pressure. Can you feel it?"

Gu Xidong remained silent. He sensed it—

A sharp, needle-like pain.

"You're getting revenge on me," he gasped.

"No," Ling Wuwen denied it decisively.

"I'm fixing you. A scrapped part has no right to demand that the machine adapt. You are the one who must adapt to the machine."

These words pierced Gu Xidong's deepest fears like a knife.

Yes, he's a "scrap".

A worthless piece of trash abandoned by the world.

"Go and rest." Ling Wuwen glanced at his watch.

"Next round in ten minutes."

Gu Xidong remained unmoved.

He lay face down, his face pressed against the cold ice, feeling the chill that instantly brought him back to his senses.

He needs alcohol.

I need that feeling of forgetting everything, of being in a blissful state.

Alcohol was his last and only weapon.

He must regain control of his life.

4

midnight.

The factory was deathly silent. The generator had stopped, the searchlights were off, and the space was plunged into complete darkness.

Gu Xidong slipped out of his sleeping bag as quietly as a nimble cat.

Instead of wearing the professional sports shoes that Ling Wuwen had prepared, he changed into a pair of old canvas shoes.

He didn't even take his coat from the doorway, wearing only a thin tracksuit, and slipped out of the huge iron gate like a shadow, clinging to the wall.

The wind outside was cold, carrying the distinctive smell of the city's outskirts—a mixture of garbage and dust.

He didn't go far—he knew there was a dirty, 24-hour convenience store nearby.

There he could find the cheap liquor he needed there.

His steps were quick, filled with an almost frenzied excitement. Freedom! He had finally broken free from that woman's control!

He turned into a narrow alley filled with garbage cans.

This is a shortcut to the convenience store.

Just as I was about to run out of the alley and see the warm lights of the convenience store, a figure stood silently in the shadows at the alley entrance, like a sculpture that had been waiting for a long time.

Gu Xidong abruptly stopped, his heart leaping into his throat.

The figure slowly emerged from the shadows and stepped into the dim light.

It was Ling Wuwen.

She was wearing a black down jacket, her hands in her pockets, and showed no surprise whatsoever.

"You..." Gu Xidong's throat went dry.

"Go to the convenience store and buy a bottle of Red Star Erguotou, 56 degrees, 100ml."

Ling Wuwen calmly finished the sentence for him, "This is your goal tonight, isn't it?"

Gu Xidong's face turned red.

He felt like a thief who had been stripped naked, with all his thoughts laid bare.

"Get out of the way," he uttered through gritted teeth.

Ling Wuwen remained unmoved.

"Gu Xidong,"

She looked at him, her eyes devoid of anger, only displaying a cold indifference bordering on pity.

"You think you're rebelling against me? You're destroying yourself. You're also destroying your brother Ling Wufeng's hope."

"Shut up!" Gu Xidong's defenses completely crumbled at the mention of "Ling Wufeng".

He pounced like an enraged lion, yelling, "You have no right to mention him! You're a madman!"

He tried to push her away and rush over to buy alcohol.

But as soon as his hand touched her, she twisted it behind his back at a tricky and bizarre angle.

A sharp pain shot through my shoulder.

He didn't even see how she made her move.

"You're too weak."

Ling Wuwen's voice was as cold as the winter wind in his ears.

"How can someone who can't even control their own desires take revenge? How can they face those who trample on them?"

"Let me go!"

"I won't let go."

"What exactly do you want?"

I want to bring you to your senses.

As Ling Wuwen spoke, he suddenly pulled him out of the alley and dragged him directly into the stinking sewage ditch next to him, which was covered with a thin layer of ice!

"Splash—!"

The icy, foul-smelling sewage instantly overwhelmed Gu Xidong.

He struggled to lift his head, spitting out a mouthful of dirty water, and cursed angrily.

Ling Wuwen also jumped into the sewage ditch, grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up, saying to him face to face, word by word:

"Since you want to drink, I'll let you drink as much as you want."

She grabbed a handful of foul-smelling black mud and tried to stuff it into his mouth.

"You're insane!"

"Yes! I'm crazy!"

For the first time, a mad flame blazed in Ling Wuwen's eyes. "You're not going to drink? Fine, then we'll stay here all night."

She let go and jumped ashore, walked to the alley entrance and picked up a plastic bucket that was half-filled with dirty water.

Then he walked back and, in front of Gu Xidong, poured the half-bucket of dirty water over himself from head to toe.

Cold, dirty water streamed down her hair and cheeks, but she didn't blink.

"You..." Gu Xidong was completely stunned.

"Since you don't want to go back, then we'll train here."

Ling Wuwen's voice trembled in the cold wind, yet his tone was firm and terrifying.

"Your current sensory threshold is too low. You need stimulation. You need an extreme environment to awaken the dormant pain tolerance within your body."

She looked at him.

Those eyes, shining brilliantly in the darkness, gleamed with a light that Gu Xidong couldn't comprehend—a mixture of madness, pain, and a certain morbid pleasure.

"Come on!" she beckoned. "Push-ups. Now. Here. Until dawn."

5

That night became the longest and most painful night of Gu Xidong's life.

He did push-ups in the stinking sewage ditch.

Every time I push myself up, I feel my left leg muscles tearing and screaming.

The icy sewage soaked through his clothes, feeling like countless steel needles piercing his skin. A gust of cold wind nearly froze him to death.

Ling Wuwen stood by the ditch, also soaked and shivering.

But she remained motionless, like a statue. She said nothing more, only staring intently at him with her strikingly bright eyes.

Whenever he was about to give up, she would come over and kick him, or, as she did yesterday, jump into the water to do it with him.

She wasn't supervising.

She was...enjoying it.

Gu Xidong could clearly see an almost greedy, yearning for pain in her eyes.

This discovery terrified him more than the biting cold and the excruciating pain in his left leg.

He began to wonder: Who exactly is this woman?

She wasn't just after revenge.

She was satisfying her morbid addiction to pain by tormenting him.

The thought took root and sprouted like a seed in his cold, chaotic mind.

6

As dawn broke, Ling Wuwen finally called a halt to the training.

Gu Xidong was too weak to get up and lay on the ground like a dead fish, panting heavily.

Ling Wuwen came over and helped him up.

"Let's go back." Her voice was soft, carrying a hint of weariness after satisfaction.

She did not take him back to the abandoned ice rink.

Instead, they went to a nearby basement apartment that they had rented earlier, which was simple but had heating.

As soon as he entered the room, he was greeted by a wave of warmth. Gu Xidong's frozen body finally regained a semblance of feeling.

Ling Wuwen pressed him down into a chair and turned to go to the bathroom to run a hot water bath.

Gu Xidong slumped down, his gaze unconsciously sweeping over the unfamiliar room—it was small, clean, and empty.

His gaze finally settled on the table.

An open laptop is on the table.

The screen was still lit.

On the screen were neither the "black swan event" investigation data he had imagined, nor nutritional formulas.

Instead, it is a detailed surgical plan for human knee joint anatomy and reconstruction, complete with 3D modeling diagrams.

The title is: "Surgical Plan for Minimally Invasive Repair and Functional Reconstruction of Complex Injury to the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and Meniscus in Gu Xidong's Left Knee".

Created by: Dr. Elias Thorne.

Date: Three months ago.

Gu Xidong's mind went blank as if struck by lightning.

He looked up sharply towards the bathroom—the door was ajar, and the sound of running water could be heard.

He struggled to his feet and walked to the computer, his hands trembling as he clicked on the details of the proposal.

He didn't understand most of the technical terms, but he understood the most crucial point:

This plan was prepared for him.

It was prepared to repair his left leg and allow him to return to the field.

The designers were clearly well aware of his injuries.

A terrifying and mind-blowing idea popped into his head:

Ling Wuwen...

She wasn't trying to use him, this "scrap," for revenge.

From the very beginning, she never intended for him to die as a "useless person".

Everything she did—those cruel "violent therapies," those inhumane "deprivation and domestication," even last night's insane "zero-degree physical training"...

She was... fixing him.

She was digging him out of the ruins in a way he couldn't understand, an extremely barbaric way, and trying to piece him back together.

She was not the "priest" in the revenge ritual, offering him as a "sacrifice".

She was the true "chess player" who had already prepared all the escape routes for him.

Everything she did was based on one premise—

Gu Xidong must first come back to life, he must first get better.

So, what is the real purpose of the woman who keeps claiming that she is only "using" him and using him as a "pawn"?

Also, who is Dr. Elias Thorne?

Gu Xidong stood frozen in front of the computer, the cold light from the screen reflecting on his pale, shocked face.

The sound of water in the bathroom stopped.

The door was pulled open.

Ling Wuwen changed into clean clothes and walked out with his hair still wet and dripping water.

She immediately spotted Gu Xidong standing in front of the computer, and the undisguised shock on his face.

Her eyes flickered slightly.

But he didn't explain, nor did he panic.

She simply walked up to him and turned off the screen.

Then he looked up and stared directly into Gu Xidong's eyes, uttering a name in an unprecedentedly low and hoarse tone that made him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave:

"Gu Xidong, do you really think you're the biggest loser in this 'black swan event'?"

She paused, a cold, mocking smile curving her lips.

"No. The biggest loser has always been... my brother, Ling Wufeng."

"And you..."

Her words stopped abruptly.

But her eyes had already said the rest of the sentence for her—

But you, Gu Xidong, have never been the "loser".

You are the one... chosen.