The project coordinator suddenly jumped to his feet. His voice barely contained his excitement as he exclaimed, "This piece has a soul! Every line seems to be breathing."

The room erupted in awe.

I sat in the corner. My hand gripping the pen was slick with sweat.

This was the ark I'd built through countless sleepless nights. It was finally going to carry me out of this torment.

The shortlist would be announced the next morning.

But the night before, just as I finished double-checking the data and preparing to encrypt it, the screen suddenly flashed, turning into a blinding blue.

A string of garbled code scrolled rapidly, and within seconds, the system froze completely.

I tried rebooting, updating, and controlling in the background, but the screen remained still.

Tens of gigabytes of design data were gone.

A cold shiver ran up my spine.

I suddenly remembered that Giada had boasted on social media about meeting a "genius hacker" just a few days ago.

In that instant, the string of my sanity snapped.

I grabbed a cab and headed straight for Soave Manor. Upon entering, I kicked open Giada's bedroom door.

Mamma and Papa were gathered around her bed, fussing over her.

When they saw me burst in with bloodshot eyes, Mamma paused for a moment, then smiled in relief. "Cristina? You're finally back. I knew you wouldn't last out there…"

I ignored her, my gaze fixed on Giada lying in bed. "Did you hire someone to hack my laptop?"

Giada flinched and curled deeper into her blankets. Her eyes instantly welled up. "Cristina, what are you talking about? I haven't even left my room. How can you just come back and yell at me?"

"Cristina, are you done?" Papa snapped, his voice sharp and piercing. "You finally come home, and instead of apologizing, you're yelling at Giada?"

Mamma caught on and joined in, shouting, "Giada has a heart condition! Don't you know that? Are you trying to kill her? I'll get Ivano here to let him see what kind of crazy woman you've become!"

She actually did it.

In less than ten minutes, Ivano arrived.

Seeing Giada with red eyes, curled up on the bed, he frowned and subtly positioned himself in front of her. "Cristina, I didn't expect jealousy to change you like this. When you won the award, you didn't share any of the glory with Giada. Now, when your laptop crashes, you blame it on her?"

He stepped forward, looking at me with nothing but disappointment in his eyes. "Did I not give you enough money? Is this a stunt to get money for repairs? If you can't handle the hardships out there, just give up and apologize.

"I never said you couldn't come back to me. Why must you make the whole family so unsettled? You're nothing like the smart, thoughtful Cristina I used to know!"

I stood there, staring at these people—some related by blood and some by an engagement.

My parents were endlessly scolding me, and my fiancé blamed me for competing for attention and scheming the moment he walked in without even asking for an explanation.

Each of them used their sharpest words to defend Giada, stabbing me.

Suddenly, I laughed.

I laughed until tears hit the floor. "You're right. It's pretty ridiculous that I came back in the middle of the night like this."

Without explaining, I just turned and walked out.

Behind me, voices shouted, but I couldn't hear them anymore.

Back in my cramped apartment, I collapsed onto the couch, burying my face in my knees.

It was ruined. Everything was ruined.

Just as I was about to give up completely, my phone, which I'd left on the side, lit up.

It was an email. The sender's name was a string of encrypted gibberish.

My hands shook as I opened it.

Inside the attachment was a massive compressed file. The name was "Midnight Sun".

I staggered to my backup laptop, downloaded the file, and unzipped it.

When the files appeared on the screen, tears burst from my eyes. Inside were all the original drafts and data for my design.

And in the body of the anonymous email, there was only one brief sentence. "Your talent should never be confined by any cage."

Third-person POV

The night after Cristina received the anonymous email, Ivano sat at the head of a private room in an upscale club on the outskirts of the city, casually sipping his drink and making small talk.

Odorico Dante, a partner on the Fennaris project, approached with his own glass and clinked it against Ivano's.

"Mr. Dominici, you truly have some remarkable talent around you. Just the other day, I saw the design sketch posted by Ms. Giada Soave. The Soave family sure has put a lot of effort into nurturing her. Even her casual sketches have a certain charm."

Ivano took a sip of his drink calmly. "She just does it to pass the time. She's not a professional designer."

"Of course. She's the Principessa, after all. As long as she's happy." Odorico laughed, agreeing.

Then, he swiftly changed the subject. This time, his tone was more excited. "But speaking of real professional designers, we've unexpectedly recruited a rare genius for our overseas project today!"

Ivano didn't look up as he wasn't particularly interested in office gossip.

Odorico grew increasingly animated as he spoke. "The lady's design drafts are incredible! They completely stunned several senior Fennaris artists at headquarters. She's the most talented person I've ever seen. She's bound to shine in this field!

"And funny enough, she shares the same last name as Ms. Giada. Her name is Cristina Soave. Mr. Dominici, have you heard of her?"

Ivano's fingers stopped playing with his glass.

Cristina Soave.

The name struck him like a dagger.

He suddenly remembered what Giada had said at the party a few nights ago about Cristina working multiple jobs.

He had thought that she was doing menial, unimportant work and had casually transferred some money to her.

He also recalled the words he'd said the night before, accusing her of childish manipulations to gain attention.

He had belittled her so much, but it turned out that her designs had earned high praise from industry leaders.

Cristina was slaving away at side jobs just to be sent abroad for the project. She had been preparing to leave all along, and no one had noticed!

She had once returned home for her family. If she left this time, would she ever come back?

Ivano suddenly threw his glass down.

Panicked, he rushed out of the room and dialed Cristina's number with trembling hands.