Catfishing with the Female Lead’s Photos, Only to Find the Male Lead is a Chaebol

Chu Yiran transmigrates into a novel just four hours after arriving in the body of a twenty-two-year-old woman working as a personal assistant to Song Qingwan, the wealthy heiress of the Song family. The original host had secretly used Song Qingwan’s photos to scam fourteen million yuan from Shen Yu, the ruthless head of the Shen Group and the Song family’s biggest business rival. When Shen Yu messages that he has arrived in the city and demands a meeting, Chu Yiran realizes she is trapped between a vengeful tycoon and a betrayed heiress. Facing social death and bankruptcy, she devises a desperate plan to survive.

To avoid the meeting, Chu Yiran fakes a severe seafood allergy on Song Qingwan’s yacht, causing the vessel to divert to the nearest port. She is taken to the hospital, buying herself three days before Shen Yu threatens to find her personally. During this time, she discovers the original host left behind only seventy-three thousand yuan despite spending fourteen million. Realizing she cannot run or confess, she chooses to repay the debt slowly by finding a high-paying job. She applies to the Shen Group, the very company she is trying to avoid, securing a position as an Administrative Affairs Specialist on the thirty-fifth floor. Her strategy is to hide in plain sight among thousands of employees while saving money to return the funds anonymously.

On her first day, Chu Yiran encounters Sun Wanqing, the Deputy Director of Administration, who is known for her harsh management style and recent bad mood. Sun Wanqing assigns Chu Yiran a massive backlog of procurement records left by a predecessor who quit after three weeks. While sorting the documents, Chu Yiran discovers discrepancies in supplier invoices involving a company called Hengyuan Trading. She reports the anomalies to Sun Wanqing, only to receive an anonymous text message warning her to withdraw the email. Later, she finds a note revealing that the actual controller of Hengyuan Trading is Sun Wanqing’s ex-husband, suggesting the procurement irregularities involve related-party transactions and potential embezzlement.

Chu Yiran’s primary conflict intensifies when she is forced to participate in the company’s all-staff briefing. She learns that Shen Yu will attend in person. Terrified of being recognized, she volunteers for tea service in the front section, hoping to remain invisible. During the meeting, she refills a water kettle near the stage and nearly collides with Shen Yu, who briefly looks in her direction. After the meeting, she discovers he left behind a black fountain pen. Although she intends to return it anonymously, she is instructed to bring it to the sixty-second-floor CEO’s office for a token of appreciation. There, she meets Shen Yu’s executive secretary, Wang Yan, who hands her a gift box. The encounter leaves her anxious, as she fears her voice or appearance might betray her true identity to the man she has been deceiving online.

Simultaneously, Chu Yiran struggles to maintain her online persona with Shen Yu. When she accidentally sends a romantic line copied from the internet, Shen Yu detects the inconsistency in her writing style. She recovers by sending a voice message, mimicking the original host’s coquettish tone, which Shen Yu accepts. However, he notes that her voice is more convincing than her text, forcing her to rely on voice messages to sustain the deception. As she navigates the treacherous office politics involving Sun Wanqing and the suspicious procurement records, while simultaneously dodging Shen Yu’s growing suspicion and his demand for a physical meeting, Chu Yiran must balance her double life. She aims to repay her debt and escape the web of lies before Shen Yu uncovers the truth about the stolen identity and the fraud.