Novel Turned Yuri – Chapter 1
by Little PandaWhat Did a Mere Extra Like Me Do to Deserve This!
Qiao Yu was an author. She wrote romance.
She’d been publishing her work online since starting university, remaining highly dedicated and professional for three years. One night, while typing away in the early hours, her vision suddenly went black. When she opened her eyes again, something calling itself a “System” spoke inside her mind, telling her she had transmigrated into a book.
Qiao Yu looked down at the familiar, baggy blue-and-white tracksuit she was wearing and mused, “Did I transmigrate into my own book, 《The School Prince Insists on Having Me 》?”
The System let out a couple of awkward chuckles. “Not your book.”
As it spoke, a light screen snapped open in front of Qiao Yu, projecting a novel’s page. Having written all kinds of tropes herself, Qiao Yu accepted the situation in record time and began browsing through it with practiced ease.
She glanced at the title first. When she saw that the novel was called 《 Single-minded Devotion》, Qiao Yu couldn’t help but gasp, filled with sudden respect.
Such a concise and direct title. This author must be a master.
With reverence in her heart, she began to read, reading every word with meticulous care. The System remained dead silent the entire time.
About an hour later, Qiao Yu raised her head, looking utterly bewildered.
“I say, System.”
The System cleared its throat, a hint of nervousness somehow filtering through its mechanical voice. “W-what’s wrong?”
“What you gave me isn’t complete,” Qiao Yu said, scrolling down the screen in confusion before returning to the table of contents. “There are only twenty chapters here. The male and female leads have only met once since they grew up.”
The System remained silent for a long moment before finally speaking in a businesslike tone.
“It’s like this.”
“These twenty chapters are already the whole thing.”
“The author of this book met with an accident when writing up to this point. Your task, along with this system’s, is to finish writing the rest of this book.”
Half an hour later, Qiao Yu sat cross-legged on the bed—she had transmigrated into a bedroom with magnificent, luxurious decor, indicating the original owner’s family was likely quite wealthy—silently pondering what the System had just told her.
“…So, what you’re saying is…”
Qiao Yu rested her chin on her hands, which were propped up on her knees, and spoke in an irritated tone.
“I transmigrated into a book with only twenty chapters, and I have to finish writing it?”
“Correct.”
The System swiftly pulled up the writing interface. At the top of the screen, Qiao Yu noticed two prominent floating spheres. One read “Reader Satisfaction” with a value of 25, while the other read “OOC Degree” with a value of 0.
“…What’s this?”
“These are the host’s two evaluation metrics,” the System explained patiently. “They’ll change with every chapter you publish.”
“Reader satisfaction is easy to understand. The OOC degree is linked to the events that occur in this world—this world was constructed with the final assistance of the original author, so everything that happens here follows the laws of this novel.”
“In other words, the host only needs to write down the story as it actually unfolds between the male and female leads! Fabricating events out of thin air will increase the OOC degree.”
“…And what happens if the OOC degree fills up or reader satisfaction drops to zero?”
“This system believes the host would not like to know.”
Got it.
Qiao Yu knowingly closed her mouth and silently went back to reading the book.
The plot of these twenty chapters was not complicated, serving as a highly conventional opening for a romance novel.
In short, the male and female leads were childhood friends. Later, a sudden crisis struck the male lead’s family, forcing them to move away, which severed all contact between the two. During high school, the female lead moved to Beicheng with her mother due to a change in her mother’s job. While searching for a place to live, they received help from her mother’s high school classmate, and the female lead moved into her home temporarily. Yet upon moving in, she encountered the long-lost male lead, only then discovering that the classmate was actually the male lead’s mother.
The female lead recognized him at first glance, but the male lead acted as though he had absolutely no idea who she was and was highly resistant to her presence. Not wishing to force the issue, and keeping in mind that she would be transferring to his high school the very next day, the female lead fell asleep with a heart full of apprehension.
The story cut off right there, leaving the high school life—which was clearly meant to be the main focus—completely unexplored. Just as Qiao Yu was left wanting more, a matter of paramount importance suddenly occurred to her. She hurriedly scrambled out of bed and rushed to the mirror, examining herself in meticulous detail.
The mirror reflected a high school girl clad in a uniform. She was quite tall, around 170 centimeters, with messy, shoulder-length black hair cascading over her shoulders. Her face was clean and fair, her features neat and well-proportioned. The outer corners of her eyes tilted slightly upward, and a pool of amber light swirled in her pupils, making her look lazy, like a cat that had just woken up from a nap.
Well, it was still her own face, just a few years younger. Patting her cheeks in relief, Qiao Yu asked the System, “What kind of character did I transmigrate into? Have I appeared in the book before?”
The System thought it over carefully and confirmed decisively, “You have.”
As it spoke, the light screen scrolled rapidly before locking onto two lines in Chapter 18, right when the main leads met at his house.
【Cong Ye had no intention of even greeting her, looking straight ahead as he walked past Lin Qing to head upstairs. His mother stopped him with a sharp reprimand: ‘Why are you only coming home now? Where did you go?’
He knitted his brows impatiently but stopped nonetheless. ‘Out playing with friends.’】
Qiao Yu read those few lines over and over again. Cong Ye was the male lead, and Lin Qing was the female lead. Where on earth did she come into this?
In her bewilderment, a sudden stroke of realization hit her, and she paled in horror. “Could it be… I’m the male lead’s mother?!”
For a moment, the System was at a complete loss for words.
“…Probably not.” Qiao Yu calmed down, checking the high school girl in the mirror once more with lingering doubt. “As expected of a mother, there’s no way she could look like me. So I am…” She placed her finger on the light screen with a subtle expression. “…these ‘friends’?”
“Exactly.” The System eagerly offered further details on her character setup. “The host met the male lead after he left the female lead, and you’ve been together ever since. You’re in the same high school class now.”
Qiao Yu felt a jolt of alarm and quickly interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘been together ever since’?”
They hadn’t given her the role of a vicious female second lead, had they? There was no way she could pull that off!
The clever System immediately detected her anxiety and puffed up its chest with pride. “Don’t worry! To allow the host to focus on writing without having to worry about roleplaying, this character has absolutely no special relationship with the male lead. At most, your bond is a bit deeper because you share similar family backgrounds and go to school together. The host is entirely free to act as she pleases!”
So “been together ever since” just meant attending school together. Qiao Yu let out a sigh of relief and asked, “So, what point in the story is it right now?”
“Currently, it’s the final night of summer vacation after Grade 10 for the host and the male lead. The events of Chapter 20 have already taken place.” The System answered fluently, a hint of excitement creeping into its humanlike mechanical voice.
“Which means the female lead is transferring into the host and the male lead’s class tomorrow!”
The next morning at 7:20 AM, Qiao Yu got into the car bound for school, carrying dark circles under her eyes that seemed to reach all the way to her chin.
She had spent the better part of the previous night trying to wrap her head around the story’s background and character settings, only realizing around three in the morning that she had school the next day. She had hurriedly gone to sleep, only to be jolted awake after barely three hours by the System screaming in her head like a banshee.
Qiao Yu had struggled to get out of bed, wash up, and eat. By the time she finally settled into her family driver’s car, she felt as though she’d lost half her life.
Pity a former college student. While staying up late to write was normal for her, it had been a very long time since she’d last gotten up at six in the morning.
The System, which didn’t need to sleep, was completely refreshed and in high spirits as it enthusiastically cheered her on.
“Today’s such a wonderful day! Look how beautiful the weather is, host!”
Great, my ass. It’s so gloomy outside that even the sun couldn’t get up as early as me.
Suffering from a splitting headache due to her lack of sleep, Qiao Yu had no desire to humor the System, which was blatantly lying through its teeth.
Thinking about how she had finally made it to college and enjoyed a few years of leisure, only to find herself forced back into the grueling, ascetic life of a high schooler, grief washed over Qiao Yu. Ignoring the System as it continued to chirp in her mind, she leaned forward to ask the driver to wake her once they arrived, then let her head loll to the side and fell fast asleep in the back seat.
As a result, she overslept and ended up late.
Qiao Yu looked impassively at the 8:03 AM displayed on her phone. Not only had she missed morning study, but the first period had already started three minutes ago. Simply giving up on rushing to the classroom, she slung her backpack over one shoulder and walked toward the teaching building at a leisurely pace.
She had crammed the original owner’s background information yesterday. Sharing her name, this character lacked nothing in terms of family background and wealth, making her a genuine second-generation rich kid. It was precisely due to their similar family backgrounds that Qiao Yu and the male lead, Cong Ye, had run in the same circles.
Presumably, the original owner had a bit of a willful streak, so being late shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
Qiao Yu yawned, recalling the information she had swallowed whole the day before.
As for how exactly she was supposed to write this continuation, she had inquired about it in detail.
Just as the System said, she had transmigrated into a fully developed novel world where the plot and character relationships would unfold naturally. She only needed to observe everything clearly and write it down.
Given that time in this world moved differently from the real world, and key plot points worth writing about did not happen every day, she only had to guarantee a minimum of one chapter per week. Compared to having to update daily in her original world, this schedule was incredibly lenient.
“Publish here,” the System said, bringing up an operating interface on the light screen. Qiao Yu stared at it in a daze, her eyes catching a 【View Comments】 button nearby. Without thinking, she clicked it, and thousands of comments instantly unfurled before her eyes.
【Waaaah, when is Author-Author coming back to update?】
【Don’t rush them, person above! Author-Author said they don’t like being rushed! What if they stop updating altogether because of you guys nagging!】
【Leaving things on a cliffhanger here is so frustrating! I haven’t gotten a single bite of sweetness from either the cohabitation or the high school arc!】
【In my heart, the male and female leads have already gone through the whole cycle of mutual pining, misunderstandings, dating, getting married, and having three kids. Amen.】
Blinded by the sheer intensity of their eager anticipation, Qiao Yu read a few with trembling hands before quickly closing the tab.
“That’s how things are,” the System said in a faint voice. “There are really a lot of readers looking forward to this book. That’s why the reader satisfaction is still at 25, even after it’s been dropped for so long.”
Qiao Yu felt the burden on her shoulders instantly grow three hundred times heavier. Clinging to a sliver of hope, she asked with a tremble in her voice, “A-After I write and publish my weekly chapters, those readers won’t…”
“Ah, they’ll leave comments for you just the same.”
Qiao Yu let out a silent wail and rolled onto the bed, clutching her head. Consequently, during her meager three hours of sleep, she was plagued by nightmares of being utterly torn to shreds by furious readers after posting her updates.
Pulling herself out of her memories, Qiao Yu let out a long sigh, a sense of tragic determination rising in her chest.
Although I was forced to become a ghostwriter, I’m still a romance author, after all. I have my dignity!
Qiao Yu puffed out her chest and made up her mind, her grip tightening on her backpack strap. She looked so solemn and resolved, one might think she was marching off to blow up an enemy bunker.
Not only would she finish this book, but she’d also make sure the readers loved it!
“In that case, let’s head into the classroom quickly!”
Sensing her determination, the System instantly perked up.
“It’ll be bad if we miss the female lead’s transfer!”
This was a pivotal plot point that would definitely be featured in the novel. If they missed it, they’d have to rely on asking others or the host’s own imagination. One wrong step, and the writing might end up OOC.
Pity that it, a magnificent System, hadn’t been able to drag the host to class on time despite acting as her alarm clock twice this morning. But it wasn’t too late to mend the fold! If they went now, they might still make it!
“No way.”
To its surprise, Qiao Yu rejected the idea with cold indifference. She had already entered the Grade 11 teaching building and reached the door of Class 2-1, but instead of pushing it open, she just crouched outside, looking incredibly suspicious.
“…What’s the host doing?”
Standing at 170 centimeters, her attempt to act sneaky outside the door looked rather comical. The System couldn’t help but ask, only for her to hush it immediately.
“Don’t interrupt me!” Qiao Yu peered carefully through the window in the closed door. Sure enough, she could vaguely make out two figures standing in front of the blackboard. Aside from the teacher, the other person was wearing a school uniform, though her features were blurred by the glass.
Confirming her suspicion, she pressed her ear against the door to listen closely to the activity inside, taking a moment in the midst of her busy espionage to explain things clearly to the ignorant System.
“The female lead’s doing her transfer student introduction! At such an important moment, she should either not be interrupted at all, or only by the male lead. Why should a mere extra like me stand out so much? What did I do to deserve that!”
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