The System Made Me a Substitute for His Dead Wife Not Knowing I Was the Original
Ten years after the fire, a System brought me back.
My mission: to save him, the villain my husband had become.
The only problem? I couldn't remember a thing. Not him, not our life, not even my own name until the System gave it to me.
So when I saw him from a distance, a man carved from shadow and ice, I didn’t get close.
His security saw to that.
As they threw me against the alley wall, the world spitting me out like something bitter, a series of comments flickered into existence before my eyes, a ghostly feed only I could see.
【Here we go again. I’ve lost count of how many have tried to ‘save’ the big bad wolf.】
【For a decade, the System has been terrified he’ll burn the world down. So it keeps sending these candidates, these replacements, to try and pacify him.】
【There have been girls who looked just like his dead wife, girls who had her exact personality, even one who came armed with all of her memories…】
【They all failed. Spectacularly.】
【So this one? This painfully average girl? How many days does she get?】
1
When the System dropped me into this life, the man whose moods dictated the stability of the entire world was thirty-four years old. And he had a son who was nearly ten.
I woke from a long, dreamless sleep into a world of total unknowns.
All I knew was my name—Nora. I was twenty-three. The System had just informed me of this. Beyond that, it gave me a litany of warnings, a thousand cautions about the man I was supposed to save. It urged me not to end up like the others who came before me, who had their lives extinguished the moment they entered his world.
The System told me his name was Damian Shaw, a man who sat at the absolute apex of global wealth and power.
He was brutal, vindictive, a caged animal pacing the confines of his own gilded world. The only shred of humanity he had left, it seemed, was reserved for his young son.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a long time.
“I don’t see anything special in me,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Nothing that would make a man like that even look my way.”
The System was silent for a moment.
When it spoke again, its tone was heavy with meaning. “You’re the last chance, Nora. If you can’t do this—”
It cut itself off, the voice hardening with a strange resolve. “No. You can. You have to.”
2
The System’s warnings were not an exaggeration.
The first time I managed to even get a glimpse of Damian Shaw, I was detected almost instantly.
He was standing outside the gates of an expensive-looking private school, waiting for his son. He wore a tailored black coat, the collar turned up against the wind, his frame a stark silhouette against the pale afternoon sky.
He never once glanced in my direction.
I watched the sharp, cold line of his profile, and a strange, uncontrollable emotion bloomed in my chest. It was a grief so sharp, so sudden, it brought tears to my eyes.
The feeling stunned me, rooting me to the spot. I didn't even notice his security approaching until they were on me—two mountains in bespoke suits.
A universe of pain erupted as they heaved me into the brick wall of a nearby alley. One of them, his face a mask of professional menace, leaned down.
“You don’t look at people you’re not supposed to see,” he growled, the threat hanging in the cold air.
He gave my pathetic, crumpled form on the ground a final, dismissive glance.
“Next time, it won’t be this simple.”
3
At that exact moment, the sky began to bleed snow.
I cradled my throbbing arm, leaning against the cold brick. From the mouth of the alley, I watched Damian greet his son. Even with the boy, his expression didn't soften. He just stubbed out his cigarette, his movements precise and economical, and reached down to take the small hand offered to him.
They turned and walked to a black car waiting at the curb.
Maybe my stare was too intense, too desperate. Just before he got in, the boy turned his head and looked directly at me.
I must have been a sorry sight, a mess of snow and blood and bruised dignity.
And yet, instinctively, I managed a small, gentle smile for this beautiful, serious-looking boy.
His gaze was as indifferent as his father’s. His eyes, a deep, quiet gray, assessed me calmly.
He only looked for a second.
A bodyguard stepped forward, pulling the car door open. It closed with a solid, final thud, sealing them inside. The car pulled away from the curb without a backward glance.
4
My heart plummeted, a sudden, sickening feeling of freefall.
Before I could even begin to process the strange tide of emotions washing over me, the white text reappeared, scrolling rapidly in my vision.
【A new player has entered the game.】
【Ten years. I’ve lost count of how many there have been. Dozens? Hundreds?】
【The System is so damn scared of this guy. Terrified he’s gonna have one bad day and just delete the whole world.】
【So it keeps trying to shove people into his life.】
【But Damian only loves his dead wife.】
【That’s why the System keeps sending these ‘substitutes.’】
【Some look like her, some act like her, one even had a complete memory download…】
5
I stared at the frantic stream of text, my brow furrowed. I’d forgotten how to blink.
“This guy,” as they called him, had to be Damian Shaw, the man holding the world hostage with his grief.
And the failed players… that’s why the System had been so insistent on his danger. It had tried everything.
Which begged the question: why did it think I, someone so painfully ordinary, could possibly succeed where all the others had failed?
As if reading my mind, the feed’s commentary shifted to me.
【Honestly, though, it’s not some substitute player who’s been keeping him stable all these years.】
【It’s the son his wife left him.】
【She was gone, just like that. Nothing left of her but that boy.】
【That kid is Damian’s only remaining tether to this world.】
【If it weren't for him, Damian probably would’ve destroyed everything, himself included, years ago. He would have followed his wife into the grave.】
【Which is why every single one of these players has failed.】
【His wife is his ghost, his sacred ground.】
【It’s the one pure thing left in his heart.】
【He will not let anyone defile her memory by wearing her face or claiming her place.】
【That’s why the fakes all die. Each one worse than the last.】
【So what about this one?】
【This plain, unprepared girl with absolutely nothing going for her?】
【How many days do you give her?】
A betting pool started.
【I give her until the next time she meets him.】
【That’s when she dies. I’m in.】
【I’ll take that bet.】
【Same.】
Then, a laughing emoji appeared.
【Dude, she took a pretty nasty fall just now.】
【And it’s snowing. Hard.】
【Who’s to say she even survives the night…?】
6
I lowered my gaze, ignoring the cascade of cruel text. I focused on the bloody scrape on my arm instead.
But, to everyone’s surprise, my next interaction with the world of Damian Shaw came not from me, but from his son.
He came to me.
I have no idea how he found me. I only know that when I opened the door of my room in the cheap motel I could barely afford, he was standing there, a backpack slung over his shoulder, alone.
He had his father’s face in miniature, the same serious, impassive expression.
I froze in the doorway.
He tilted his head back slightly to look up at me, his gaze fixed on my face.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice low and clear.
It was a strange question. He had sought me out, only to ask who I was.
“My name is Nora,” I answered, my voice steady despite my confusion.
The instant the name left my lips, his brow tightened into a deep frown.
7
The white text in my vision never stopped. As I spoke, it erupted in a chorus of unified mockery.
【Has the System just given up?】
【It’s tried look-alikes.】
【It’s tried act-alikes.】
【This is the first time it’s been this blatant. Just dropped in a player with the exact same name.】
【The System really isn’t afraid of making him angry, is it?】
【It might as well just gift-wrap her, drop her on his desk, and say: ‘You wanted Nora? Here’s a Nora for you.’】
Unlike the boisterous feed, the boy in front of me was dead serious.
“My name is Liam,” he said quietly.
His gaze intensified, studying my face, waiting for a reaction I didn't know how to give.
Nora. Liam.
His name felt… connected to mine somehow. And combined with what the feed had revealed…
Perhaps Damian Shaw’s dead wife, his ghost, was named Nora.
8
But my mind was a perfect, silent blank.
I couldn't give Liam the reaction he was clearly looking for. I had nothing to give.
The hopeful intensity in his eyes slowly cooled into a familiar indifference.
Just then, a man in a tailored suit came hurrying down the hall from the elevators. He was a head taller than Liam, but he stopped before the boy and bowed his head respectfully.
“Young master,” he said, his tone urgent. “The car is waiting downstairs. You’ll be late for school.”
Liam’s dark lashes lowered for a moment. It looked like disappointment.
He turned to leave, his movements sharp and decisive. But after a single step, he paused. He frowned again, looking not at me, but at the grimy glass of the hallway window opposite my door.
“You should get those injuries looked at,” he said.
I followed his gaze to the window and saw my reflection. The crude bandages wrapped around my arm and right leg. The System hadn't given me any advantages, no magical starting funds. The little cash I had was barely enough for this motel room and cheap food. A hospital was a luxury I couldn't imagine.
Liam was already gone.
My eyes lingered on the window, on the blurry, distorted image of my own face.
9
There was a mottled scar on my right cheek.
The System said I died in a fire ten years ago. It drew its energy from the world it managed, but Damian Shaw was a man who repaid every debt, real or imagined, a thousand times over. His wife had died in an "accident" connected to the world's original hero and heroine. So he had, without mercy, destroyed everyone involved.
That hero and heroine, the world’s designated protagonists, had been dead for five years.
With them gone, the world had fallen completely under Damian’s control. The System itself was barely surviving, starved for power. It had only managed to restore my body to about 80% of its original state. I was healthy, but my skin was a roadmap of faded and raised burn scars of varying sizes.
I looked at the strange face in the glass. It was a plain face, made ugly by the scar.
Choosing me, this version of me, to win over a man like Damian…
I couldn't see a single glimmer of hope. No wonder the feed was filled with nothing but laughter at my expense.
10
Hope or no hope, I still had a mission.
I had to win him over. That was the purpose of my resurrection, and the only way I was allowed to keep living.
But before I could even think about Damian Shaw, I had to solve the immediate problem of my own survival.
After days of searching, I found a job as a night-shift stocker at a bookstore in the lobby of the building directly across from Shaw Corp headquarters.
My shift ended at midnight. The tower opposite was still blazing with light.
I sat on the steps outside the bookstore, opening a box of cold takeout.
At 12:07 AM, Damian’s black Maybach swept past. The tinted windows were impenetrable, a wall of black glass.
I knew he was in there. The white text was buzzing with commentary. It seemed they had a better view than I did, a camera inside the car itself, and they used it to continue their running critique of me.
【Looks like the System gave up and now the player has given up, too…】
【Every other candidate who came here was immediately scheming, trying to get in front of him, trying to find an angle.】
【Her? She’s casually getting a job and living her life.】
【Guess that first meeting with his security guards scared her straight, huh?】
【Am I really just supposed to sit here and watch her organize bookshelves every night?】
【If you’re this useless, you shouldn’t have taken the mission from the System in the first place…】
I dropped my gaze, tuning out the hostile words. That’s when I noticed a stray dog, tail wagging hopefully, nosing at my leg.
I picked out the only two pieces of meat from my meal and gave them to him. We shared the rest of my cold dinner under the city lights.
11
I worked at the bookstore for nearly a month. My injuries had mostly healed.
It was then that I saw Damian again, by accident.
It was 11 PM, and my boss asked me to deliver a stack of specially ordered books to an office in the tower across the street. After clearing multiple security checkpoints, I finally set foot inside the monolithic building for the first time.
I dropped off the books and was heading back to the elevators. The building was quiet at this hour, most of the floors dark. As I waited, I heard a faint sound from the end of the long, empty corridor.
It sounded like someone trying to choke back a cry of extreme pain.
The elevator was taking forever.
I hesitated, then looked toward the end of the hall.
The feed screamed at me not to get involved, to mind my own business. They were even giving me strategic advice: use this chance to sneak down to the parking garage and ambush Damian when he left for the night.
But I could still hear that muffled, desperate sound.
I stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked toward the sound.
12
I don’t think anyone could have expected who I found.
Crouched on the floor of the starkly lit emergency stairwell landing, it was Damian Shaw.
He was dressed in a crisp black shirt and trousers, his shoulders broad even when he was curled in on himself. It was a picture of profound, shocking vulnerability.
The moment I pushed the heavy door open, his head snapped up. His eyes were alert, sharp with suspicion and pain. Sweat beaded on his temples.
I had stumbled into something I was never meant to see.
I froze, my hand still on the door. Trapped in his gaze, I forced myself to speak. “…Do you need me to call a doctor?”
He just stared at me, his expression cold and unreadable.
I instinctively raised a hand to my face, pressing the plain white mask I wore more securely against my skin. Because of the scar, I always wore one in public, afraid of frightening customers or children.
The weight of his stare was immense. I wanted to back away, to disappear.
But then I saw the vein throbbing at his temple, the bloodless press of his lips, and a strange, unwelcome wave of empathy washed over me.
I took a step forward and pulled a small bottle of painkillers from my pocket. I’d never seen a doctor for the injuries his men had given me. When the pain was unbearable, I’d just chewed one of these and waited for it to pass.
It seemed the cheap pills I kept in my bag finally had a use.
13
Under his relentless gaze, I placed a single pill on the cool concrete beside him.
I turned to leave, but his hand shot out and clamped around my wrist. His grip was ice-cold, the chill seeping straight into my bones.
I had no choice but to look down at him. Our eyes met, the distance between us suddenly gone.
“Who are you?” he finally asked, his voice a raw rasp.
The light was dim, but I saw something flicker in the depths of his black eyes, a ghost of a reflection that was there and then gone.
He moved too fast for me to react. Before I could protest, his other hand came up and hooked the elastic of my mask, pulling it down.
His dark pupils reflected the stark geography of the scar on my face.
We were so close.
I saw his eyes… tremble. Just for a fraction of a second.
This face of mine. It was still a shock.
I reached up, pulling the mask back into place. As I did, I saw his hand fall open slightly, as if from a sudden loss of strength. A silver chain spilled from his palm.
It was what he had been clutching so tightly.
A silver locket.
I could just make out the faded, smiling face of a young woman etched onto its surface.
I pulled my gaze away. I left the pill and walked away.
This time, he didn't stop me.
At the door, I glanced back one last time. He was still sitting there, a figure of absolute black in the sterile white light.
A monument to ruin.
14
The white text was criticizing me again. They called me an idiot, hopeless.
【I’m done…】
【She is officially the most useless player I have ever seen.】
【She just stumbled onto a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a total stroke of luck, and she didn’t even know how to use it?】
【She just walked away?】
【Shouldn’t she have stayed? Comforted him? Shown some concern?】
【She finally gets a moment alone with him and she just LEAVES?】
【WHAT IS SHE EVEN DOING?】
Some of them were even more vulgar, suggesting I should have thrown myself into his arms, used the oldest tricks in the book to seduce him.
They were convinced I was a lost cause anyway. A person like me could never complete the mission. They were practically begging for me to do something stupid, to provoke Damian and get myself killed so they could move on.
They didn’t want to watch my story anymore.
If I died, a new, more competent player would take my place.
15
The bookstore owner signed a long-term contract with a client in the Shaw Corp tower. I started volunteering for the delivery runs.
Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of Damian from a distance.
He was always in black, not a hint of color on him, save for the occasional flash of a white shirt collar at his throat. He moved with a relentless purpose, a coterie of suited subordinates trailing in his wake, their heads bowed. In public, he was the cold, unapproachable king. There was no trace of the pale, vulnerable man from the stairwell.
Sometimes, passing by the break rooms, I’d overhear employees gossiping. They said the terrifying CEO’s office was a black hole of color. No fresh flowers, no art, just oppressive shades of gray and black.
The story of Damian’s dead wife was an open secret in the company. Maybe it was because his son was a frequent visitor. Or maybe it was because of the simple, plain wedding band he wore, a ring that was never, ever removed.
They whispered that he was living like a monk, that he was keeping himself pure in her memory.
I clutched a heavy stack of books to my chest and walked silently through the crowds of bright, successful people.
For the first time, I began to seriously question whether agreeing to this mission had been a mistake.
16
I’d been in this world for over two months.
Everything I learned pointed to one fact: Damian Shaw had loved his wife with a terrifying, all-consuming devotion. No wonder so many players had come and gone, all of them failures.
The chances of my success were zero.
Even the white text seemed to have accepted my incompetence. They barely bothered to insult me anymore.
It felt like my very existence was a desecration of the love between Damian and his dead wife.
I had no past. And it seemed I had no future, either.
Should I even continue with this hopeless mission?
I was lost in thought, the tall stack of books in my arms obscuring my view. I didn't see the woman in the crisp white suit, a coffee cup in her hand, until I walked right into her.
Coffee splashed across the books and, more damningly, all over the front of her pristine white jacket.
I immediately started trying to wipe the books, apologizing profusely.
The woman’s voice was sharp. She grabbed my arm. “Who let you in here?”
I explained I was from the bookstore downstairs.
She let out a cold laugh. “I wasn’t aware this company was in the habit of collaborating with some shabby little bookstore.”
17
More and more people were turning to stare.
I kept my head down, repeating my apologies. “Your jacket… I can have it cleaned for you. Or, I can pay for a new one.”
“Can you afford it?” she sneered, looking me up and down.
Her fingernails were long and sharp. With a flick of her wrist, she hooked my mask and pulled it away from my face.
It fluttered to the ground. My face was exposed to everyone.
I heard a collective gasp from the onlookers behind me.
“You…” The beautiful woman’s voice trailed off, her eyes wide.
I closed my eyes for a brief second. Then I bent down, picked up the mask, and put it back on, hiding my shame.
“I’m sorry,” I said, bowing my head again. “Whatever you think is fair, I’ll accept it.”
The entire floor was silent.
And in that silence, an elevator chimed, a crisp, clear ding.
The doors slid open. A man stepped out. His tall frame cast a long shadow that fell right at my feet.
18
“I’m the one who signed the contract with their bookstore.”
Damian’s voice was low and cool, devoid of any warmth. The moment he spoke, every head in the vicinity bowed.
The white text reacted even faster than I did.
My vision was flooded, a blizzard of white. This time, the message was simple and uniform.
Question marks. A screen full of question marks.
【Did I miss an episode?】
【I’ve been watching this whole time, I haven’t been gone, can someone PLEASE tell me what is happening right now?】
【Damian… bro… why did you suddenly show up?】
【Wait… I’ve had my eyes on this girl 24/7. Is it possible she did something I don’t know about?】
I slowly looked up. Damian’s polished black shoes were stopped right in front of me.
A cool touch on my wrist. Damian had taken hold of it. His grip was firm, a silent command that allowed for no resistance.
I didn’t dare try to pull away. I couldn't have, even if I wanted to. My hand went limp, and the stack of books I was holding tumbled to the floor.
I turned my head and met his gaze.
He was looking down, his dark eyes fixed on mine, seeing something deep inside me. But just as I tried to read the emotion there, he subtly shifted his gaze away.
“Same as always,” he murmured, his words meant only for me. “No improvement at all.”
Despite the criticism, the hand holding my wrist didn't loosen in the slightest.
19
With Damian’s arrival, the entire situation inverted itself.
The System, the feed—they had all described his terrifying nature to me. But this was the first time I had witnessed his cold, absolute power firsthand.
He didn't listen to a single word of the woman's stammered explanation.
He simply raised a hand, a slight, dismissive gesture. Two of his security guards appeared as if from nowhere and dragged the woman away.
No one dared to object. No one even dared to look up.
The man in front of me was a dangerous enigma.
I watched the woman disappear down the hall, then slowly looked up at Damian. A strange, inexplicable smile was playing on his lips.
It was directed at me.
His thumb began to gently stroke the inside of my wrist.
He leaned in slightly. “I just took care of that for you,” he said, his voice a low murmur. He then asked, his tone deceptively casual, “How are you going to thank me?”
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