Male Protagonist is Delicate and Helpless after Breaking Off the Engagement

Xie Ting'an is the young and capable head of the Xie Corporation in Rong City, having rebuilt the family business from a state of near-bankruptcy into a corporate powerhouse over the course of three years. Despite his professional success, he is a workaholic with deteriorating health, suffering from chronic exhaustion and auditory hallucinations. His younger brother, Xie Yurun, is impulsive and easily manipulated by fair-weather friends. The narrative begins when Xie Yurun drags his brother to an entertainment club to humiliate Gu Mingchen, the fallen heir of the rival Gu family. After the Gu family patriarchs died in a cruise ship accident, the Gu Corporation collapsed, and Gu Mingchen was reduced to working as a waiter, subjected to abuse by the city's elite youth.

While observing Gu Mingchen being forced to drink a mixture of alcohol and chili oil, Xie Ting'an is suddenly contacted by a mysterious system. The interface reveals that he is a character in two novels: a "chasing wife crematorium" story and a "divorce harem" story. In these narratives, Xie Ting'an serves as the primary antagonist. The system projects a future where, one year from now, the Xie family will be ruined, his parents will die, his brother will be imprisoned, and he himself will be driven to suicide by the very person he is currently mocking, Gu Mingchen. The system offers him a chance to change this fate by completing tasks that involve punishing those who wrong the target or disrupting the plot's original trajectory.

Xie Ting'an accepts the system's offer, selecting the most emphatic options to bind with it. His first task is to make the person humiliating Gu Mingchen suffer a punishment. Instead of directly intervening in a way that might seem suspicious, he subtly manipulates the situation. He has the bully drink the drugged alcohol mixture that was intended for Gu Mingchen, exposing the boy's treachery to Xie Yurun. This act not only completes the task but also serves as a warning to his brother about the fake friends surrounding him. Following this, Xie Ting'an discovers that Gu Mingchen was drugged and rescues him, providing medical attention in a private room. This intervention marks a significant shift in their relationship, moving from mortal enemies to an uneasy alliance.

The system then issues a second task: to sabotage a "good event" involving the Gu family. Xie Ting'an investigates and finds that the Sun family, Gu Mingchen's fiancés, are attempting to forcibly break off the engagement. In the original novel, this event leads to Gu Mingchen falling ill and deepening his resentment. Xie Ting'an arrives at the dilapidated residence with his bodyguards, confronting the Sun family patriarch. He reveals his identity, terrifying the Sun family into submission. However, Gu Mingchen, desperate to maintain his family's dignity and perhaps clinging to a last shred of hope, produces a gold thumb ring—a symbol of the Xie family's authority that Xie Ting'an had previously lost in a bet with Gu Mingchen's father. Gu Mingchen asks Xie Ting'an to witness the engagement, hoping to use the ring's prestige to force the Sun family to back down.

Xie Ting'an faces a critical dilemma. If he witnesses the engagement, he aids the Gu family, potentially altering the plot in a way that might accelerate his own downfall or change the dynamics with Gu Mingchen. If he refuses, he risks offending Gu Mingchen further. The system's presence and the knowledge of the tragic future weigh heavily on his decisions. He realizes that his actions now have ripple effects that could either save him or lead him deeper into the narrative traps set by the novels. The story concludes with Xie Ting'an holding the thumb ring, the fate of the engagement and his own future hanging in the balance, as he navigates a world where he is no longer just a businessman but a player in a systemic game designed to control his destiny.