“Bah! What a little slut! Doesn’t she know her place? How dare she seduce the eldest young master of the Ruan household!”
“If we had known this girl was so shameless and unruly, Madam, you shouldn’t have spared her worthless life back then.”
“Hmph. It’s not too late now.”
“Someone, come here! Take this shameless whore and drown her in the pond immediately!”
The moon disappeared behind thick layers of clouds, leaving the night pitch-black.
Ghostly shadows loomed along the riverbank, illuminated only by a few pale oil-paper lanterns.
The river water was icy cold.
The short life of Ruan Jiaqi flashed before her eyes like a revolving lantern.
She could no longer remember what her original surname had been.
In the twentieth year of the Guangxu Emperor’s reign, her parents had sold her to the Ruan household for ten taels of silver. She was married to the sickly Third Master Ruan, who was more than ten years her senior, as a bride meant to bring him good fortune.
From that day onward, she took the Ruan surname.
Before the bridal sedan even reached the gates, Third Master Ruan had already breathed his last.
On her wedding night, she had held a rooster and entered the bridal chamber alone.
To prove her determination never to remarry, on the second day after entering the Ruan household, she had “voluntarily” used a hairpin to blind her right eye and scar her own beautiful face.
She had entered this world with nothing.
Yet after her death, she left behind a chastity archway.
“Widowed for eight years, she drowned herself in the Fuchun River with a stone in her arms out of longing for her deceased husband, sacrificing her life to preserve her chastity. She died at the age of twenty-two. An inscription is hereby bestowed upon her as an honor and example to others.”
Inside the bathtub, a woman with fair, flawless skin lay immersed in warm water. The steam had given her perfect face a delicate peachy flush, making her look breathtakingly radiant.
Ruan Jiaqi slowly opened her eyes.
A strange voice suddenly rang inside her mind.
【Congratulations, Host. You’re dead.】
【But you’ve transmigrated into a novel!!! I’m the System.】
【Attention! This is a dangerous and wicked ♂ adult-fiction world where everyone is evil.】
【You are the vicious supporting female character who shares your name.】
【You framed the male lead, Hua Feng, drugged him, took intimate photos of him, and even instructed your own uncle to jump off the Hua Corporation building, forcing the male lead to publicly agree to marry you.】
【After successfully marrying into a wealthy family, you repeatedly plotted against the male lead’s first love and his younger siblings behind their backs. You even cheated on him.】
【A video of you and your lover indulging in an outrageous affair was anonymously broadcast on giant screens throughout the city’s CBD, turning you into the laughingstock of the entire internet.】
【Finally, the male lead could no longer tolerate you. He had you thrown into Bangkok’s red-light district, leaving you to fend for yourself in that den of depravity.】
【After getting rid of you, the male and female leads lived happily ever after and even had a pair of adorable twins.】
【As for you, when you were eventually discovered on a dilapidated street corner in the red-light district, you were already dead in a miserable state, barely clothed.】
【This is your tragic life as the most hated woman in the story.】
【According to big-data calculations, the System has automatically selected the optimal solution for changing your fate.】
【One: Play your role as the vicious supporting female lead and strictly keep your identity as a transmigrator secret.】
【Two: Find the anonymous person. They could be anyone around you.】
【Three—and this is the most important one. Pay attention!】
【You need to conquer the male lead, Hua Feng, and ignite the desire hidden within him.】
【Satisfy all the desires he is too ashamed to voice, the violent and secret cravings he hides from the female lead! Make him unable to resist your body!】
【That way, when the main storyline reaches its conclusion, you will receive the “Male Lead’s Protection” buff, which will help you survive the plot and make it through with this healthy body. You will also receive a reward of billions in cash and a luxury mansion from the male lead!】
Ruan Jiaqi sat in the bathtub with a completely bewildered expression.
Who was talking?
What was a red-light district?
And what was this “fine tube”? How could anyone possibly have such a strange name?
…This had to be nothing more than a hallucination before death.
That was what she thought—until she turned her head and saw the face in the mirror.
It was both familiar and strange.
It was still the same face she had possessed in her previous life.
Except that the terrifying, worm-like scars were gone.
Even her right eye, which had once been blinded and deeply sunken from atrophy and decay, was now perfectly healthy.
Only then did Ruan Jiaqi realize just how clear her vision was.
The young girl reflected in the mirror had skin as fair as snow. The weathered, sorrowful look from her previous life had vanished, replaced by a naturally alluring beauty.
She looked like a peony flower covered in morning dew—bright, delicate, and breathtaking.
This young and beautiful body was enough to make any man lose his soul.
She had actually come back to life.
And she was even more beautiful than before.
【Oh, right. There’s one more thing the Host must remember. You are the vicious supporting female lead. Your purpose is to serve as a screw in the plot. You absolutely cannot derail the storyline. You are destined to never replace the female lead.】
【And according to the male lead’s character setting, he can never fall in love with you. So don’t waste your time on meaningless pursuits.】
Ruan Jiaqi tried her best to process what the System was saying. Gradually, uneasiness appeared in her clear eyes.
“The male lead… is my husband here?”
【Bingo~】
“But if he can never develop feelings for me, then no matter how much I… seduce him, wouldn’t it all be pointless?”
【Host, don’t worry. This is an adult-fiction world! As everyone knows, men! Naturally! Know how to separate desire from love!】
【Love is love. Desire is desire.】
【So even if the male lead has absolutely no feelings for you, his body can still burn and boil for you!】
【Besides, as the male lead of an adult novel, he naturally has to be extremely virile! With absurdly strong stamina and inhuman levels of energy! Otherwise, how could he qualify as the male lead?】
【How could one woman—the female lead—possibly satisfy all of his needs?】
【So from now on, your path to survival is to use your beauty and charm to conquer the male lead’s body and awaken the most primal desires buried within him!】
【Host, do you understand?】
Ruan Jiaqi did not understand.
But she was utterly shocked.
In her previous life, she had seen plenty of men with multiple wives and concubines, such as Master Ruan and Second Master Ruan.
Even at their advanced ages, they continued taking young concubines. Their lives were already halfway into the grave, yet they still wanted fresh young shoots planted on their graves.
There was nothing unusual about that.
But if someone claimed that while these men embraced one woman after another, their hearts would forever belong to only a single woman…
That would be a ghost story.
【Hehe, the basic law of tragic romance novels—the ultimate machine for smashing moral values. You don’t have much time left, Host. You’d better adapt quickly!】
As a young widow who had never been intimate with a man, she was now expected to become a third party and interfere in someone else’s relationship.
Yet that very man was also her legal husband.
Ruan Jiaqi spent a while trying to digest it all. Her reason wavered between morality and immorality, and the more she thought about it, the more confused she became.
Forget it.
She was already here.
At least for now, she was alive and possessed this healthy, flawless body.
She might as well enjoy the present.
Ruan Jiaqi slowly sank deeper into the warm, fragrant bubble bath, letting out a comfortable sigh.
In the materially impoverished era of her previous life, a bathtub had been an extremely rare and luxurious foreign import.
Across the entire town, the only other one besides the one in Madam’s room was impossible to find.
Someone of her lowly status naturally had neither the opportunity nor the qualifications to enjoy such a thing.
She was reclining comfortably against the soft cushion, closing her eyes and preparing to savor this moment of peace.
Suddenly, an angry female voice came from outside.
“Ruan Jiaqi! What the hell are you doing in there? Why are you taking so long?!”
Startled, she slipped beneath the water and accidentally swallowed a mouthful of rose-scented bubble bath.
Then—
Bang!
A young girl in a red dress rudely pushed the door open and barged inside.
【This is Hua Yao, the male lead Hua Feng’s younger sister.】
【She has a mild brother complex and worships the strong.】
【She’s also a huge fan of the female lead and a hardcore shipper of the male and female leads, so she’s very hostile toward you.】
Hua Yao was wearing an off-the-shoulder evening gown that revealed her elegant neck and shoulders.
With her arms crossed over her chest, she stood beside the bathtub, looking down at Ruan Jiaqi. Her perfectly drawn eyeliner lifted slightly at the corners, and her expression was filled with disdain.
“There was no sound for ages. I thought you’d drowned. Turns out you’re still alive. What a shame.”
“What are you looking at? Hurry up, get dressed, and come with me. The welcome-back banquet is about to begin!”
“Welcome-back banquet?”
“So you didn’t know?”
Hua Yao revealed a smug smile.
“My big brother is back in the country. Didn’t his assistant even bother to tell you about something this important?”
She watched with satisfaction as Ruan Jiaqi’s brows gradually knitted together, then gave a mocking laugh.
“Oh~ That’s right. With the shameless way you climbed into his bed to force your way into the family, did you really expect anyone to treat you like Mrs. Hua? You can keep dreaming!”
“Only someone like Sister Yuxi—successful in her career, elegant, and intelligent—is worthy of my big brother. A parasite like you, who gets something for nothing and only knows how to hurt others for your own benefit, wouldn’t have a chance even in your next life.”
Ruan Jiaqi hugged her knees and quietly curled up in the bathtub. She remained completely silent as she listened to the insults raining down from above, looking like an exquisite porcelain doll.
Hua Yao was quite pleased with her performance.
She leisurely admired her freshly manicured nails, waiting to see Ruan Jiaqi’s humiliated and miserable expression.
Then she lowered her gaze and saw Ruan Jiaqi staring at her.
The girl, about the same age as her, was immersed beneath water scattered with rose petals. She lifted a small, porcelain-white face from the bath. The steam had made her skin even more delicate and rosy, while her eyes were clear and remarkably calm.
In an almost pleading tone, Ruan Jiaqi looked at Hua Yao and sincerely asked:
“Do I have to go to your brother’s welcome-back banquet?”
“…”
Hua Yao froze.
The smug smile on her face instantly stiffened, and for a moment, she seriously wondered if she had heard correctly.