WARNING: MTL
The six-year-old girl was shocked.
The sunlight was dazzling, and the summer day was scorching.
Fengyi Elementary School, 1st Grade, Class 3.
During the noisy recess, a small and thin girl was violently pushed to the ground.
She looked up to see the chubby face of the boy who had pushed her, full of arrogance: “What are you looking at? You were in my way. If you are not happy, go ahead and call your parents!”
Before the little girl could respond, the chubby boy continued loudly, “Can’t call them, right? My parents said that you don’t have a mother, and your father doesn’t care about you. You are a child that nobody wants!”
Jiang Zimin lowered her head at the words, then stood up silently and returned to her seat, avoiding him.
From beginning to end, she did not utter a single word of retort.
Seeing her remain silent, the chubby boy approached her again, intending to bully her some more, but was stopped by the homeroom teacher who had just walked into the classroom.
“Stop, no bullying your classmates!”
The homeroom teacher, wearing black low-heeled shoes, took three steps in two strides and angrily walked forward.
Seeing this, the chubby boy immediately turned his head and ran away.
After sternly reprimanding the chubby boy, the homeroom teacher punished him by making him stand at the back of the classroom. Only when the boy walked away with a tearful face did she walk over to Jiang Zimin and look at her.
Jiang Zimin remained seated and silent, unmoved, as if she was used to being bullied.
The homeroom teacher was silent for a moment, then gently patted her on the shoulder and said, “If something happens, come to the office and find me.”
Then she left.
This was not the first time it had happened.
Such matters cannot rely entirely on the teacher; parental guidance and education also play a part. She had previously called the parents of both sides.
Fengyi Elementary School is a school for wealthy families; most of the parents here are either rich or noble.
The chubby boy’s family is one of them.
His parents always pampered him and never thought their child was in the wrong.
They spoiled him to death, truly spoiled him to the extreme.
And what about Jiang Zimin’s parents?
Jiang Zimin’s family is not actually any worse off than the chubby boy’s.
But her mother passed away, and her father is always nowhere to be found. At most, the teacher can only reach his assistant, who would then say, “Mr. Jiang is busy; let’s talk about it later.”
Later, later, and later never comes.
He really seems to not care about this child.
And his indifference, on the contrary, makes the child suffer bullying.
The homeroom teacher walked towards the office, thinking as she walked.
Sometimes she really didn’t understand, if they didn’t care, why did they have the child in the first place?
Oh, Jiang Zimin also has a stepmother!
No, that stepmother doesn’t seem to care about the child either, never showing up at school.
She doesn’t even know the stepmother’s phone number.
She shook her head again.
Really don’t know why these people have children if they don’t want them…
Jiang Zimin’s silence continued until she went home after school in the afternoon.
The housekeeper came to pick her up by car.
She sat in the back seat, opened her palm, and looked at the scraped skin on her hand.
It still hurt a bit.
Thinking of the chubby boy’s words, she gently clenched her fist and looked up at the driver’s seat: “Uncle, is my dad coming home today?”
The driver replied, “Mr. Jiang has some matters to attend to recently and won’t be coming back here.”
“Oh…”
She lowered her head again, her shoulders slumped.
She wasn’t completely indifferent.
She just… always felt she had no one to rely on.
As the chubby boy said, she has no mother, and her father doesn’t care about her… she is a child that nobody wants.
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In the quiet atmosphere, the car safely arrived at its destination—the Jiang family’s villa.
Jiang Zimin obediently got out of the car and, looking up, saw a woman standing at the door.
The woman was tall and beautiful, with long black hair gracefully falling over her shoulders.
She was dressed in white, with a clean, unadorned face, looking pure and elegant.
She was her stepmother, Qiu Baiyu.
She was a stepmother, but Jiang Zimin had never called her “mom.”
They almost never communicated.
Because her stepmother didn’t care about her either.
Jiang Zimin’s impression of this stepmother was simply: very beautiful, liked her father but seldom saw him, and never spoke to her.
She walked up to Qiu Baiyu with her schoolbag on her back, slightly bent over, and obediently said, “I’m back.”
Qiu Baiyu didn’t move or speak, just looked at her.
Calmly, unprecedentedly watching her.
Her stepmother’s face was expressionless; when she didn’t speak, she seemed rather aloof and unapproachable.
Jiang Zimin was frozen in place by her gaze, feeling a prickling sensation on her back, not daring to move.
How strange.
Why was her stepmother suddenly staring at her today?
She had never even glanced at her before…
This answer was known only to Qiu Baiyu.
Because… she wasn’t Jiang Zimin’s stepmother at all.
Her surname was Qiu, and she was also called Qiu Baiyu, coincidentally sharing the same name as this stepmother.
This was a world within a novel, and not long ago, she had just been in a car accident in the real world, dying on the spot. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself here, becoming a character in the novel.
A supporting character.
And there was a system.
A system from who knows where, speaking like a Minion, indistinguishable whether male or female, and emotionless, sounding like a robot.
【We have detected that the host tragically lost her life in a car accident, so we have prepared an opportunity for the host to experience a brand-new life. At the same time, the host also needs to complete the script tasks we have given.】
【Relevant tasks will be issued at the appropriate time and place.】
After saying this, they first gave her a wave of background story.
The protagonist of the book is a domineering CEO male lead and a white moonlight female lead. They will start a melodramatic mode and have a grand and intense melodramatic romance. After overcoming numerous difficulties, they will walk into the marriage hall hand in hand and live a happy and fulfilling life.
Her role as the wealthy stepmother is one of those numerous difficulties.
The child in front of her is also one of them.
The elements in this book are a bit complicated, including the white moonlight, the stand-in, and the child.
The white moonlight is the female lead.
The stand-in is Qiu Baiyu.
The child, Jiang Zimin, is the result of the domineering CEO’s drunken fling with another woman.
Because the daughter was not born to his lover, the male lead has always been indifferent to her, raising her just like that, even less attentively than a pet—at least pets can see their owner, be kissed and hugged by their owner.
Completely the behavior of a scumbag father, severely stepping on Qiu Baiyu’s landmine.
Jiang Zimin’s mother died early when she was young, her father didn’t care about her, her paternal grandparents treated her like a wild child, and her maternal grandparents used her as a tool to ask for money. No one loved her, so she was very lacking in love.
She also wanted to establish a parent-child relationship with her father, always cautiously hoping, and then being disappointed again and again. Later, when she learned that her father never came home to see her because he was pursuing the female lead, she completely exploded. She couldn’t stand the sight of the white moonlight, causing trouble and targeting the white moonlight countless times.
After getting together with the domineering CEO, the white moonlight tried several times to mend the relationship with her, but to no avail.
In the end, because she didn’t like her new mother, she was sent away by her father and shut out.
Returning to reality, Qiu Baiyu silently looked at the timid child in front of her, and… the blackening1 progress bar above her head.
The progress bar was at 10%, not much but not particularly little either.
And Jiang Zimin was the task given to her by the system: to max out Jiang Zimin’s blackening value and cultivate her into the next generation’s malicious supporting female character.
Yes, the system handed her the script of an evil stepmother.
In the plot, the white moonlight and the domineering CEO would have a daughter, and this daughter would be the next generation’s female lead. The grown-up Jiang Zimin would fall in love with the male lead at the same time as her.
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Upon learning that the male lead liked the white moonlight’s daughter, Jiang Zimin would completely transform into a malicious supporting female character, becoming even more unscrupulous, settling new and old scores together.
But evil cannot prevail over good, and in the end, she would gain nothing, only meeting a tragic and desolate end.
This was her entire life.
Qiu Baiyu looked once more at the weak and pitiable child in front of her.
Looking back at her life in the plot, every word is filled with cruelty.
What a vicious setting, what a vicious system.
Although she couldn’t be considered a great benevolent person, she was definitely not a villain. At least she had no reason to treat this child this way.
She also had no compelling reason to stay here.
Qiu Baiyu was not someone who would do whatever others told her to do. Her personality was all about “if you force me to do something I don’t like, I’ll rebel and go crazy to show you, never backing down.”
If she felt like going crazy, she would, without considering manners with ill-mannered people, and thus her mental state had always been quite good.
She had to think about how to leave here.
But she was already dead; after leaving here, where would her soul go?
The underworld?
Does the underworld really exist in this world?
She began to grow curious.
She didn’t move, and the child Jiang Zimin also didn’t dare to move.
After a long time, she finally saw Jiang Zimin timidly raise her hand to touch her own face and softly ask, “Is there something on my face?”
Qiu Baiyu snapped back to reality, realizing that this child had been standing here with her as a form of punishment.
At this moment, she noticed something, frowned, and reached out to grasp Jiang Zimin’s hand, opening her palm and bending down slightly: “What happened to your hand?”
In the small palm, there was a glaring wound that looked very painful.
Faced with this sudden concern, Jiang Zimin felt very uneasy, her expression wooden and dazed.
By the time she reacted, she was already sitting on the sofa, stretching out her hand to have medicine applied.
Qiu Baiyu gently helped Jiang Zimin apply and disinfect the medicine, taking a moment to glance at her expression.
The child’s expression was dazed, as if encountering concern for the first time, unable to speak.
Qiu Baiyu lowered her eyes and asked, “How did you get hurt?”
The young child came back to her senses and slowly replied, “I fell at school…”
Qiu Baiyu frowned, “You fell by yourself?”
Jiang Zimin, “A classmate pushed me…”
Qiu Baiyu’s frown deepened, “Why did your classmate push you? Was it a boy or a girl?”
Jiang Zimin’s voice was small, “A boy. He said I was blocking his way…”
Qiu Baiyu paused in applying the medicine, and two words flashed through her mind: school bullying.
“How dare he do that, isn’t he afraid you’ll tell your parents?”
“He’s not afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because he knows I don’t have a mom, and my dad doesn’t care about me.”
“…”
“He said I am a child nobody wants.”
“…”
Qiu Baiyu’s fist clenched tightly.
Too familiar, this kind of plot is too familiar… she had also been hurt like this when she was a child.
“He hit you, did you fight back?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you fight back?”
This question stunned Jiang Zimin. After a long while, she finally answered, “Because I can’t hit people, it’s impolite…”
Qiu Baiyu was taken aback by what she heard.
The next second, a transparent panel that only she could see suddenly appeared before her eyes. On it, it was clearly written: 【Malicious Supporting Female Character Mission Released: Please respond, “Yes, you cannot hit people. If you are bullied, it is your problem.”】
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Qiu Baiyu: “…”
Such a familiar phrase.
Is this what they call “the right time, the right place”?
Her gaze passed through the flickering transparent panel and landed on Jiang Zimin.
The young child had a timid expression, was very cautious, still had her hand up, and didn’t complain about the pain.
This look was very reminiscent of someone.
It resembled her younger self.
Jiang Zimin, seeing her stepmother suddenly fall silent, didn’t know what she had said wrong and could only sit quietly, waiting for the other person’s next move.
A few seconds later, she finally heard Qiu Baiyu’s voice again—
“Hit.”
Qiu Baiyu ignored the flashing red warning on the panel, her expression serious and resolute.
“If he doesn’t show you respect, why should you be polite to him?”
“If he pushes you, you push him back. If he hits you, then you hit him back. If he slaps you, you give him two hard slaps, let him know you’re not someone to be messed with.”
Jiang Zimin was stunned, her young face full of surprise.
The aloof stepmother had this side to her?
At six years old, she was shocked.
Footnotes
- Blackening (黑化): a term used in fiction to describe a character’s transformation to a darker, often more evil persona
