“Leon Sterling, this is all your fault!”
“If you hadn’t gone bankrupt, I wouldn’t have been mocked today!
I wouldn’t be stuck without the latest limited-edition handbag, and I wouldn’t have to live with you in this dump.”
“I don’t care!
I’m eating a Black Swan cake tomorrow.”
A clear, soft voice, tinged with a sob, echoed through the cramped studio apartment.
Hazel Sinclair stood in the shabby studio apartment, her gaze fixed on the man crouching in the bathroom, washing clothes by hand.
His back was to Hazel, and he didn’t stop what he was doing.
He washed slowly, his movements clumsy and unfamiliar.
He wore a pair of faded jeans and a cheap shirt.
But even such cheap clothes couldn’t conceal Leon Sterling’s powerful, commanding aura.
Seeing him wash the clothes in silence, Hazel Sinclair stomped her foot in frustration and yelled at his back, “You’re a total clam!
A stone-faced jerk!
Why don’t you say anything?”
“You won’t even try to comfort me.”
“No wonder Serena Sinclair refused to marry you.
Serves you right!”
When Leon Sterling still said nothing, Hazel grew even more furious.
‘This bastard!
He’s giving me the silent treatment!’
Prone to tears, she became more and more incensed until the corners of her eyes reddened, her delicate, beautiful face filled with indignation.
“You useless piece of trash,” Hazel Sinclair choked out, then turned and ran.
Only when he heard the door slam shut did Leon Sterling stop his work.
An unreadable emotion flickered in his dark eyes.
Sitting on a planter in the run-down residential complex, Hazel Sinclair wiped her tears and asked the system, her own heart completely unmoved, ‘So, how’d I do?
He must feel terrible after I yelled at him like that, right?’
Hearing this, the system seemed to hesitate.
‘If she hadn’t said it all while crying, Leon Sterling might have actually felt a little hurt.’
[Aversion Value: 0]
The system wanted to give her a hint, but seeing how immersed Hazel was in her own performance, it decided to keep quiet.
‘He must really despise me now,’ Hazel continued.
‘He probably can’t wait to divorce me.’
The more she thought about it, the more excited she became.
She was already fantasizing about the life of luxury she would have after completing her mission.
This was Hazel Sinclair’s seventh day in this world.
She had died suddenly at her desk from chronic overwork.
When she opened her eyes again, she found she had become the villainess of a novel and was bound to a “Vicious Female Supporting Character” system.
The system had given her a mission: maintain her character’s persona without going OOC (Out of Character) and, simultaneously, make the male lead despise her.
The villainess was the heroine’s foil—a hypocritical, money-grubbing gold digger who was only interested in wealth and would do anything to get it.
The male lead, Leon Sterling, had been the chairman of the Gable Group.
He trusted his friend too much, and his company was eventually carved up and taken over.
After the company went bankrupt, the two of them were forced to live a spartan life in a tiny, run-down apartment.
His wife, whom he’d had an arranged marriage with, had a complete personality shift after learning of his bankruptcy.
Her greedy, malicious nature was exposed, and her daily routine became berating, belittling, and showing her disdain for Leon Sterling.
For money, she even used her beauty to seduce a wealthy man, making the male lead a cuckold.
The male lead had already lost all his confidence due to his friend’s betrayal and his company’s failure.
His wife’s infidelity was the last straw, making him suicidal.
That is, until he met the heroine, who was like a ray of sunshine.
She healed him, helped him regain his confidence, and through his own efforts, he eventually returned to the top.
As for the villainess, she didn’t even last long enough to see the male lead’s comeback.
She was killed after the man’s wife discovered her affair with the wealthy tycoon she was homewrecking for.
She contracted an STD, was brutally beaten, and died a miserable death in an alley.
Seeing that ending, Hazel Sinclair immediately accepted the system’s mission.
Once she accumulated enough aversion points, she would fake her death and disappear.
The reward was two hundred million and a mansion.
She was incredibly tempted.
‘But is that Black Swan cake really so expensive?’ Hazel, her eyes still red, stared at her phone screen, which showed the very item she had just demanded from Leon Sterling.
The cheapest one cost a thousand dollars.
Her heart ached—
A thousand dollars!
That could last her more than half a month.
She could just get something cheap from a meal-sharing app.
‘Stupid system, why didn’t you tell me?’ Hazel seethed.
‘This cake is so expensive!’
Other things she could resell on a second-hand marketplace to recoup some of the cost, but a cake?
Once you eat it, it’s gone.
Hazel scratched her calf, annoyed.
[It has to be expensive.
Otherwise, how would it fit your persona?]
[And another thing: lose that poor-person mentality.
You *should* be eating things like this.
In fact, it’s all you deserve.]
“What else do you want besides the cake?” Leon Sterling’s deep, resonant voice sounded beside her.
Hazel stopped her internal argument with the system and looked up at him.
Leon Sterling was tall, around six-foot-three.
Just by standing there, his sinfully handsome face was enough to make countless people stop and stare.
‘Every time Hazel saw his face, her heart would shamefully start to pound.’
‘But her persona now was the villainess, not some giddy, lovesick girl.’
“I want flowers and milk tea, too,” Hazel said, her sweet voice carrying to Leon Sterling’s ears.
“Evelyn Kendrick and her friends were all laughing at me.
They called me a broke loser.”
Hearing this, Leon Sterling’s gaze swept over her.
He took in the 39.9-dollar nightgown she wore, purchased from a budget shopping app, and the street-stall slippers on her small, fair feet.
Before, her clothes, jewelry, and bags had always been the latest styles.
Her nails were always perfectly manicured, and her face was a mask of exquisite makeup.
She’d looked like a beautiful, talking doll.
But now that he was bankrupt, the Sinclair Family had completely abandoned her as well.
“It’s all your fault I’m being called poor!” Hazel immediately seized the opportunity to belittle Leon Sterling.
“If you’d never gone bankrupt, they would never dare to laugh at me!”
Just as she finished speaking, SMACK!
Hazel slapped her own fair, smooth calf.
A red mark quickly appeared.
The mosquito that had been feeding on her was now dead beneath her palm.
‘Damn it, there are so many mosquitoes here.’
Hazel wiped the dead mosquito off with a look of disgust.
Seeing her legs covered in bites only made her more resentful.
She looked up, fixing her beautiful, amber-like eyes on Leon Sterling.
“Why didn’t you come down to get me sooner?” she demanded.
“Look, now I’m covered in mosquito bites.”
“You can’t earn money, you don’t know how to comfort anyone…
you’re just a lump of wood.”
Leon Sterling said nothing.
He simply reached out, took her by the wrist, and led her upstairs.
Their building was a walk-up, and their apartment was on the top floor.
The rent was cheap because it was the top floor, but now that it was summer, the entire apartment felt like a sweltering steamer.
Even at night, lying in bed with the fan on was still unbearably hot.
He had her sit on the sofa, then rummaged around for some cooling balm and carefully applied it to her bites.
“I’m sorry,” the proud Leon Sterling said, his eyes on the mosquito bites covering her calves and arms.
The usually silent man couldn’t help but speak.
“I’m the one who dragged you into this.”