2:17 a.m.
Jia sat at the convenience store counter with her chin propped in her hand. The hum of the refrigerator motor. The smell of instant ramen broth. Taxi headlights sliding past the window. No customers. No manager. The world pretending to be asleep.
The only reason she was still awake was money. Rent, phone bill, overdue credit card balance, and a life so directionless she hadn't even decided whether to go back to school next semester.
"If my life were a genre, it'd definitely be tragedy."
She muttered it to herself and scrolled down on her phone.
The web novel she'd been obsessed with lately was *The Crimson Moon of Wolyeong Palace*. The male lead was Dohyun Lee—the king's third son, a prince who had saved the kingdom on the battlefield and come home to find that no one inside the palace walls trusted him. Cold, untouchable, perfect. The kind of man who had readers flooding every comment section with *King Dohyun deserved the throne, period.*
The problem was the ending.
The moment Jia tapped the latest chapter, she nearly swore out loud. Dohyun had been framed for treason. He stood alone at the execution grounds as moonlight fell over him. The retainers he'd trusted had turned their backs. The woman he'd loved had testified against him.
The final line was cruel in how beautiful it was.
*— The prince never knelt. Only at the very last moment did he look up at an empty sky and smile.*
Jia shot to her feet.
"Okay, author. Seriously? Why would you kill Dohyun? Is this a joke?"
The comment section had already exploded. *I want a refund. If you kill the male lead it's not romantic fantasy, it's a funeral. BRING DOHYUN BACK.* Thousands of them. Jia pressed her fingers hard against the screen and typed her own.
[If this ending can be changed, I'll go in there and change it myself.]
She hit post.
The ceiling lights flickered.
One bulb cut out and came back on. The refrigerator went silent. The sensor above the automatic door let out a long, flat electronic beep. Jia looked up.
Someone was standing outside the glass door, dark as a mirror.
At first she thought it was a customer. But something was wrong. The person wasn't wearing modern clothes. A black silk robe, a sash embroidered with silver thread, long hair half-tied back. The face was unmistakably the same as the illustration she'd been staring at on her phone seconds ago.
Dohyun Lee.
Jia's breath caught.
"That's impossible."
The man stood on the other side of the glass and looked at her. Deep, cold eyes. A face far sharper than any illustration. His lips moved.
*— Did you call for me.*
No sound reached her ears, but the meaning landed directly in her mind.
Jia stepped back. The counter hit her from behind. Her phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. The last line of the chapter blurred on the screen.
*— One who seeks to change the ending must pay the price.*
"What is this."
At that moment the door opened. Instead of the soft bright chime of the entry bell, she heard the ring of metal on metal—blades colliding. Instead of cold night air, the smell of incense and blood rushed in together.
The floor dropped out from under her.
Her body fell. Something pulled her down like hands dragging her underwater, and she couldn't breathe. Sentences streaked past her eyes. The scene where Dohyun is framed. A court lady carrying a cup of poisoned tea. The prince at the execution grounds beneath a crimson moon.
And woven strangely through all of it—her own name.
*— Jia Jang. The one who knows the ending.*
The last thing she saw was her phone lying on the convenience store floor. A new comment notification glowed on the screen.
[So. Will you come in?]
Jia tried to scream.
No sound came out.
Instead, a low voice pressed itself against her ear.
"Open your eyes."
Jia gasped and opened them.
Cold stone floor. An unfamiliar ceiling. Candle flames trembling. And dozens of eyes staring down at her.
"She's alive! We thought she was dead—she's awake!"
"Collapsing right in front of Wolyeong Palace—have you lost your mind?"
Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly upright. Jia's instinct was to pull free, but her arm felt strange—too thin. The clothes she was wearing weren't her convenience store vest. A rough linen skirt. A worn jacket. A small name tag tied at her waist.
A name she didn't recognize was carved into it.
*Sowol.*
"Sowol, snap out of it! Today is the day His Highness the Third Prince returns!"
The Third Prince.
Jia's stomach dropped.
Drums sounded in the distance. The palace gates swung open, and armored soldiers filed in one after another. At the center of the procession was a black horse.
The man on its back wore armor stained with blood. The dust of the battlefield had settled on his shoulders. His eyes were colder than death.
But Jia recognized him.
Dohyun Lee.
The prince who, in the novel, had ninety days left before he died for treason.
He turned his head slowly. Among the crowd of people, his gaze found her—directly, inexplicably.
One of Dohyun's eyebrows shifted, almost imperceptibly.
And a single line surfaced in Jia's mind.
*— Time remaining until Dohyun's death: 90 days.*
She stood frozen where she was.
The tragedy she'd been reading wasn't over.
It had only just begun.