The sea was a slow, glittering sheet of gold under the late afternoon sun.
When Shen Ruoxi stepped off the yacht, her heels clicked against the dock with quiet confidence. Her black silk blouse fluttered lightly in the wind, tucked into tailored white pants that hugged her frame in all the right places. Minimal jewelry. A red lip. And a gaze that held no interest in pretending to be demure.
She wasn't here to blend in.
She was here to stir the pot.
A soft chime echoed from her earpiece. *"Welcome to Heartfire Paradise, Doctor Shen. Please proceed to the villa."*
She smiled slightly at the title.
Not *Ms.* Not *contestant*. *Doctor*.
It didn't matter that she hadn't touched a scalpel in three months—Shen Ruoxi had graduated top of her class from Qinghua Medical, interned in one of the best trauma centers in Shanghai, and once resuscitated a CEO mid-flight on a plane to Paris.
But none of that made headlines.
What did? Her unapologetic Instagram feed. Her flirtatious commentary on a medical livestream. That one viral clip where she told a male patient, *"Try not to fall in love with your doctor, darling. I don't do follow-ups."*
So when the producers of **Heartfire Paradise** called, she said yes.
Not for love. Not even for fame.
She just liked to watch people unravel.
---
The villa was all clean marble and tropical wood, perched above the ocean like it had been carved from sunlight.
By the time she arrived, the other contestants were already gathered—five men, five women, each of them carefully styled to look effortless. There was laughter, drinks clinking over ice, a low buzz of new chemistry.
All of it stopped the moment she stepped through the glass doors.
She felt it immediately.
The shift.
The eyes.
Someone near the kitchen dropped a fork.
Shen Ruoxi paused at the threshold, glanced around slowly, then offered a soft, curved smile—one that suggested she'd already sized them up, and found them charmingly predictable.
"Hope I didn't miss anything important," she said. Her voice was low, smoky, and touched with amusement. "I got held up checking for red flags. Didn't want to bring any."
Silence. Then, faint laughter. A few of the men smiled. One woman narrowed her eyes.
"Shen Ruoxi?" a voice spoke up from the left. Tall, sharp-suited, clearly upper class. His tone was even, unreadable.
"Guilty," she replied, turning toward him. "And you are?"
"Gu Zeyan."
She recognized the name. Tech entrepreneur. Old money. The kind of man who rarely looked flustered, and never chased anything—because everything came to him.
"Ah." She gave him a once-over. "The one with the poker face."
His brow lifted faintly. "You read people that fast?"
"No," she said, smiling as she walked past him and grazed his wrist with two fingers. "But I like to guess. It makes it more fun when I'm right."
---
That evening, the contestants gathered in the outdoor lounge, lanterns swaying above them as waves crashed faintly below. The air smelled like hibiscus and citrus. Everyone had a drink in hand, laughter returning in cautious spurts.
Shen Ruoxi sipped white wine, legs crossed elegantly, entirely at ease. She didn't interrupt conversations—she redirected them. She didn't flirt like a child batting her lashes—she leaned in when she spoke, placed a warm hand on a knee when she laughed, and listened like every word was worth savoring.
"You're... touchy," Li Shixun said, somewhere between flustered and fascinated. He was sitting much closer than he had an hour ago.
She smiled and tilted her head. "I'm a doctor. Touch is part of the job."
"Pretty sure that's not standard bedside manner."
"Only with patients I like," she replied, and her fingers trailed lightly across his knuckles as she reached for her glass.
---
Later, in the private confessional booth, with her makeup perfect and her tone unhurried, she looked into the lens and spoke like she wasn't being filmed for a national audience.
"They're interesting," she said. "Predictable in some ways. Charming in others. A few are clever enough to pretend they're not trying to impress me." A beat. "Those are the ones I'm keeping an eye on."
She leaned closer, resting her chin on her hand.
"Let's see who cracks first."
Blackout.