Mr. Joko’s automatic scooter ground to a halt with a slightly mournful screech right in front of the grand drop-off zone of the luxurious Balai Sudirman wedding venue. A hundred-meter red carpet stretched out gracefully beneath a majestic canopy adorned with fresh imported flowers, welcoming blue-blooded guests, capital-city socialites, and distant relatives carrying thick envelopes stuffed with heartfelt blessings.

Mira dismounted from the scooter with high-level acrobatic finesse—a delicate combination of lifting her baby pink tulle gown so it wouldn't get caught in the motorcycle chain, maintaining her balance on her single remaining high heel, and frantically smoothing down her Super Saiyan bangs, which were still standing rigidly at attention from the ride-hailing helmet incident.

"Thanks a bunch, Mr. Joko! Keep the change to buy yourself some iced sweet tea, so you don't get too stressed out driving a woman with a concrete updo like me!" Mira blurted out in a breathless rush, shoving a crumpled ten-thousand-rupiah bill into the driver's hand.

Mr. Joko accepted the money with an expression hovering somewhere between profound emotional trauma and an overwhelming urge to weep. "You're very welcome, miss! Good luck with the wedding reception. If you end up getting thrown out by security because your face looks like a street-theater performer, just call me again—I'll gladly swing back around to rescue you!"

Without wasting a single microsecond, Mira limped her way toward the main entrance of the building. Every time her normal heel struck the floor, it produced a sharp click, followed by a muffled tap from her right foot, which was protected only by a thin cotton sock thanks to the heel snapping off back at home.

People around the lobby instantly whipped their heads around in unison. Sharp-suited gentlemen and ladies draped in luxurious traditional kebayas paused mid-step, locking eyes on Mira with deeply bewildered stares. Some assumed Mira was an up-and-coming indie art-house actress shooting a surrealist film; others hastily drifted away, convinced she was an uninvited guest who had wandered out of a local psychiatric institution.

Mira couldn't care less. She locked her face into a stiff Pepsodent grin beneath her crimson-painted lips, held her head as high as her concrete coiffure would allow, and marched with firm purpose toward the reception desk guarded by four broad-shouldered ushers clad in matching batik uniforms.

"Good afternoon, miss. Please present your physical invitation or digital barcode for the check-in process," greeted one of the female ushers with a welcoming smile that instantly narrowed when her eyes swept across Mira's appearance—from the tips of her Super Saiyan hair down to her mismatched, crippled footwear.

"Good afternoon to you too, you lovely, cheerful young lady!" Mira replied, artificially pumping her voice full of forced elegance despite gasping for breath beneath her armor. "My physical hardcover rose gold invitation happened to be left behind in my boarding room desk drawer because I was rushing, but don't you worry... I have my digital barcode right here on my high-tech smartphone."

Mira confidently plunged her hand into a tiny hidden pocket folded into the layers of her gown. She fished out her budget smartphone—a device that had clearly suffered right alongside its owner through years of hardship. The phone's screen was webbed with a spiderweb of cracks across the bottom-left corner, a proud souvenir from an unfortunate bedside drop three months prior.

She pressed the power button to illuminate the screen and began tapping frantically at her apps.

"Huh? Why is the screen pitch black?" Mira muttered under her breath, furrowing her brow. She held down the power button longer. Zero signs of life. The screen remained stubbornly pitch black, stubbornly refusing to cooperate at the single most crucial moment in human history.

The female usher began tapping her fingernails rhythmically against the desk surface, her welcoming smile slowly dissolving into the suspicious glare of a supermarket cashier confronting a shopper caught trying to pass off Monopoly money.

"Um... miss? Have you got your barcode ready? The queue behind you is starting to pile up quite a bit, and we have many VIP guests waiting to enter," the usher prompted, her voice stiffening with impatience.

Cold sweat mixed with the two-centimeter layer of compact powder on Mira’s face began to melt away in real-time, streaming down past her brick-red blush and carving thin brown trails that strangely resembled a topographical mountain hiking map.

"Hold on, just a second, miss! This phone is just throwing a tiny little tantrum, you know how electronic gadgets get when forced to labor under the extreme atmospheric pressure of Jakarta," Mira reasoned frantically, rubbing the phone screen aggressively against her tulle skirt in a desperate prayer for quantum-physics level miracles.

"Miss, if you don't have a barcode or a physical invitation, standard operating procedure dictates we cannot grant you entry," stated a broad-shouldered male usher standing to her left, eyeing Mira with the steely vigilance of an anti-terrorism agent guarding a high-profile wedding cookie buffet.

"Oh, come on now, don't be like that, mister! I am the ultimate unforgettable ex... I mean, a very close personal friend of the groom! Satya and I used to share instant noodles back when we lived in the same alley!" Mira pleaded half-heartedly, her voice climbing into an octave high enough to make her Super Saiyan bangs twitch violently in horror. "Just run a manual search in your computer database, type in Mira Anastasya, my KBD identity photo with my sweet smile is bound to pop right up!"

"I'm sorry, miss, but our database has no record of a Mira Anastasya listed among either the VIP or regular guest lists. We only have relatives of the bride and the groom's corporate father-in-law's business associates," the female usher replied firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Panic escalated rapidly inside Mira’s chest. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a runaway tractor engine. She hammered down on the phone's power button over and over with brutal desperation, praying for a stray flicker of blue light or a brand logo to surface.

And right there, at the apex of absolute dramatic tension, cosmic catastrophe struck.

Just as the burly security guards began closing in with synchronized steps, preparing to gently escort Mira's arms away from the red carpet zone, Mira's phone screen flickered to life for precisely half a second. A tiny, blinking red battery icon flashed on screen alongside a tilted electric-plug logo, accompanied by micro-text right in the center: Battery Low... Shutting Down.

Bum. The screen flatlined permanently. Pitch black, without mercy, without a single shred of pity.

The security guard stepped directly beside Mira, casting a downward glance at her sweat-streaked, powder-caked face before shifting his gaze to the dead, useless phone resting in her palm with a level of intense institutional suspicion.

"Will you walk out of this building with us voluntarily right now, or are we going to have to involve the authorities for trespassing at a sacred official ceremony?" the security guard demanded in a heavy, uncompromising tone.

Mira swallowed hard. Standing right there at the threshold of the luxurious ballroom, beneath the collective gaze of dozens of elite guests watching her every twitch, Mira realized that her Operation Ex-BF Wedding Revenge had officially mutated into an Operation Wedding Crasher Arrest.