Chapter 1
Shi Sheng was an author. An author who loved cliff-hangers and dropped countless books. A stepmother-styled author who killed off countless protagonists. On this beautiful day, she finally understood something.
Authors who write cliff-hangers will be punished.
She was currently squatting in front of a book-shaped crystal half the height of a person and suffering from a bit of a headache.
She had clearly been ‘debating’ with her readers about how the male lead was turned gay by one of the side characters but said side character was ‘straightened out’ by the female lead. This of course led to the male lead being forced to live a lonely life of misery. So… How did she end up here?
‘I want to go back!’
[I have already stated the conditions for returning. You have 5 seconds to consider. If you have not decided by then, you will be terminated.] A robot-like emotionless voice sounded.
Shi Sheng, “…”
‘As expected of a System! Terminate this, terminate that… How cruel ah!’
At this moment, a countdown timer was displayed on the crystal screen, [5… 4… 3…]
“Okay, okay!” For the sake of survival, Shi Sheng surrendered all her dignity.
‘I want to go back to write cliff-hangers… and a twisted plot… and kill off my protagonists… *sob* Who told me to be a stepmother author?’
Being an author, she couldn’t be any more familiar with System-genre novels. After all she had once written- *cough* She seemed to have dropped that one. But she was still familiar with the genre!
At this moment, the countdown on the screen disappeared, to be replaced by a few lines of data:
Name: Shi Sheng
Morality Points: -100,000
Contribution Points: 0
“Nani? So simple? Where are the ‘wisdom’, ‘battle power’ and ‘mental strength’ stats? This doesn’t fit with the System-genre! Also, why is my Morality Points at -100,000?”
Looking at that long string of 0s, Shi Sheng got even more of a headache. She had to eliminate this many 0s in order to return… When was she going to get back?!
‘I didn’t kill people or commit arson! Why is it so far in the negatives?!’
[Authors are gods. They grant their characters everything, from their life to their personality as well as create a world. And these worlds will grant heaven-defying luck to those protagonists.
However, not every protagonist has the moral character to use it wisely. The result is the deaths of the side characters, whose resentment cause the collapse of those worlds.
Your job, as the Host, is to enter these worlds as a side character and fulfill their wishes in order to clear out their resentment.]
‘To put it simply, the protagonists aren’t being good protagonists!’
“You still haven’t told me why my morality points are at negative 100,000?” This was more important since it concerned when she would be able to return.
[Once the Host’s Morality Points have sunken below negative 200,000, the Host will be terminated.]
‘Nani?! There’s a limit?! You’ve gotta be kidding me!’
[Initialising transfer…]
“Fuck!” ‘Why is this System so abnormal? Hey, aren’t you going to tell me the reward for completing tasks? Don’t I get a Beginner’s Package? Aren’t you going to give me some guidance? Also, where are my cheats?’
Shi Sheng only had time to curse before darkness engulfed her vision.
“Young Miss, we have reached.” A delicate female voice sounded from beside Shi Sheng’s ear.
Shi Sheng’s eyes shot open and she found herself sitting in a car. A woman was standing outside the open car door and had bowed down to look at her.
At this point, Shi Sheng was very speechless.
‘That damned System didn’t even explain anything properly before tossing me into a scenario? Fuck I am so giving a bad customer review!’
“Young Miss? Are you feeling uncomfortable?” Seeing that Shi Sheng’s expression wasn’t quite right, she immediately got a bit anxious. “Would you like to rest in the car for a bit? The party won’t start for a while yet.”
“En.” ‘Calm down, calm down. I(bbb)[1] am probably just using someone else’s body right now.’
The woman’s words granted Shi Sheng a chance to go over the plot and the memories of this body.
The woman closed the car door and went back to sit in the passenger’s seat. Shi Sheng hurriedly shut her eyes to receive the plot.
[Do you want to receive the story as well as this body’s memories? Yes/No]
System’s icy-cold robot voice filled her mind and Shi Sheng took a deep breath before replying in her mind, ‘Yes’.
[Sending story…]
Shi Sheng’s brain felt like it had suddenly been shoved full of pieces of iron, dulled, heavy and aching very badly as countless pictures flashed in her mind. She gritted her teeth so as not to let out a cry of pain, lest the person sitting in the seat in front notice.
The original owner of this body was called Xu Chengyue. She was born into a wealthy family who doted on her excessively. She had gotten engaged to Nangong Jing just as she entered University.
Naturally, the Xu family could not even compare with the Nangong family in terms of wealth. That she even managed to get engaged with Nangong Jing at all was due to an agreement by the older generation. However, Nangong Jing did not like this new fiancée of his and so had always given her the cold shoulder.
However, Xu Chengyue truly liked Nangong Jing. Despite how she had been rejected so many times, she had never given up. The pride and conservatism typical to a rich family’s daughter were all hidden away by her whenever she faced him. She remembered Nangong Jing’s every like and dislike as well as his every sentence.
Xu Chengyue thought that her efforts would manage to move Nangong Jing one day. However, even until Su Yiyi showed up, Nangong Jing never liked her back.
The cold and aloof Nangong Jing was a warm and considerate person to Su Yiyi. Xu Chengyue was not willing to just give up and admit defeat so she confronted Su Yiyi with her status as Nangong Jing’s fiancée and warned her to distance herself from Nangong Jing.
Knowing that Nangong Jing had a fiancée, Su Yiyi began to distance herself from him. Once Nangong Jing found out it was because Xu Chengyue had confronted Su Yiyi that she was keeping her distance from him, he wanted to break their engagement.
Of course, Xu Chengyue was unwilling to. She cried and put up a huge fuss yet none of it changed Nangong Jing’s mind about dissolving the engagement.
In the meantime, Su Yiyi had been cajoled back to Nangong Jing’s side. When faced with Xu Chengyue’s accusations, she would always act like she was wronged, like an innocent white flower and always expressed that she would leave Nangong Jing. However, even after she said so, nothing changed. If anything, the two became even more outrageously open with their flirting.
Unable to bear it any longer, Xu Chengyue revealed Su Yiyi’s existence to Nangong Jing’s parents. Su Yiyi only came from a normal household so his parents, quite predictably, didn’t agree to their relationship.
Nangong Jing’s patience for Xu Chengyue had finally dropped to rock bottom. Her revealing Su Yiyi’s existence to his parents was the final straw which caused him to make a move on the Xu family. The Xu family faced utter bankruptcy. Due to Nangong Jing’s unspoken warnings, no one dared to lend a helping hand to the Xu family. Some even started throwing stones down the well.
Xu Chengyue’s parents died in a car accident, leaving Xu Chengyue to clean up the mess that the Xu family had become. Having been a young lady pampered all her life, how would supporting the fallen Xu family on her own be not be difficult?
So, Xu Chengyue went to plead Nangong Jing for help. However, she hadn’t managed to see Nangong Jing, but met Su Yiyi instead. Due to her grief and heartbreak, Xu Chengyue was in a bad way. This lead to her not standing stably and bumping into Su Yiyi, causing her to fall down the stairs. Who knew that Su Yiyi had been pregnant with Nangong Jing’s child and this fall caused her to have a miscarriage.
Nangong Jing was stunned and enraged. This matter caused the last bit of feeling between them to completely vanish. The Xu family completely fell into decline and Xu Chengyue was humiliated to death by the creditors who the Xu family had owed money too.
On the moment of her death, Xu Chengyue realised that her fate was because she had fallen for Nangong Jing. Had she been more reasonable and stopped chasing him earlier when it was clear he wouldn’t like her back, the Xu family wouldn’t have gone bankrupt and her parents probably wouldn’t have died. She probably also wouldn’t have had such a miserable fate.
[1] The raws state ‘本宝宝’ and as with all addresses beginning with the word ‘本’ or ‘ben’, it is meant to address oneself, often in a lofty manner and to separate oneself from the ‘peasantry’. In this case, Shi Sheng, is somewhat calling herself ‘This baby over here’. However, since it sounds awkward and would probably ruin the flow of the translation, I will just use I but differentiate it with the short form of the pinyin, ‘(bbb)’ or just leave it out unless the context requires me to differentiate it.
Author’s note:
About the main character: Shi Sheng is not a good person. She has a grudge against society. If she’s not doing so well she’ll damn well pull others down with her. Not all protagonists are good people. You have been warned.
Translator’s Corner
Hey so I decided to pick up this book because of my favourite character of all time, Shi Sheng.
*SPOILER* SHE IS FREAKING BADASS *SPOILER*
So, this is the first arc on the book so the plot isn’t going to be advancing very quickly. The male lead will be referenced later on though just by name so you can skip this arc if you want.