Dusk painted the entire city in a warm, amber glow.
Su Mu was dressed casually in a pair of simple jeans and a crisp white shirt. Behind her trailed four burly bodyguards, each carrying over a dozen shopping bags in both hands.
The original host’s life was actually fantastic, wasn’t it? Su Mu mused. When she beat someone up, her dad cleaned up the mess while she enjoyed a life of luxury and freedom. Why did she ever insist on clinging to a scum of a man like Shen Yeyi?
“H-Host, why did you buy so many clothes?” w-444 asked timidly, staring at the pile of bags in the bodyguards’ hands. Many of the outfits weren’t even her style or size.
“I liked them, so I bought them.”
Su Mu didn’t even look up as her fingers swiped casually across her phone screen, offering a blatantly half-hearted answer.
w-444 desperately wanted to slap a slipper right onto its host’s face. Liked them?! Absolute nonsense! It was clearly because those gorgeous sales associates kept pouring out shameless, sweet-talking flattery free of charge!
Its heart overflowed with resentment, yet w-444 didn’t dare voice a single complaint out loud.
“H-Host, I can be sweet-talking too… I mean, I’m really good with words! Why don’t you like me a little instead?”
“Oh.”
And after that “oh,” silence fell.
w-444 sobbed internally, practically biting through its little handkerchief in frustration, before decisively logging into The Little Cuties’ Haven.
What kind of romance system was it if it couldn’t even talk sweet?!
w-444: “Sob sob sob! Emergency question: My host loves hearing sweet, flattering words. What should I do?!”
w-738: “…Praise her.”
w-233: “Praise her, obviously! Praise whatever she does! Even if she were as ugly as a troll, you praise her until she sounds like a goddess who descended from the heavens!”
w-748: “Praise her +10086…”
w-233: “Oh, right! My sister system just found out that your host apparently has a total soft spot for this exact thing! Do you guys have any idea where her former system got so many luxury skins?”
w-444: “TELL ME! I NEED TO KNOW!”
w-444 clutched its trembling little paws, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
w-233: “That ice-cold system literally memorized a whole dictionary of sweet flattery! She bought skins for it like money was water! w-444, your whole ‘sob sob sob’ routine won’t work on her at all…”
w-123: “AAAHHH! Is this host still looking for a system?! I’m amazing at sweet-talking! I guarantee 365 days of unique flattery without repeating a single line! The newly released skins look so good, I want them so bad! AAAHHH…”
Seeing the flood of posts begging for its host’s contact info, w-444’s little face froze. It immediately logged off.
Mumu Little Cutie is HERS! No one else can have her!
Su Mu had no intention of paying attention to her system anyway. She simply bundled today’s recorded video clips into a file and sent them straight to her father.
“Dad, take a look at this video and see how much money the Shen family is willing to pay to buy it back.”
Compromising videos of the newly engaged Shen Corporation CEO were definitely something the Shen family would care about. Keeping the videos herself was useless anyway.
Threaten Xiang Qing with them? Or threaten Shen Yeyi?
Not a chance.
If she felt annoyed, she’d simply beat them up.
“My sweet girl, are you short on cash?”
Before Su Father’s voice message even finished playing, a notification pinged on Su Mu’s phone.
It was a bank transfer alert.
For ten million dollars.
Su Mu: “…”
“I’m not short on cash. We’ll talk when I get home.”
Su Mu locked her phone. Just as she was preparing to return to the Su family estate, the system’s voice rang out again—this time sounding surprisingly panicked.
“M-Mumu… I think I just grew a tail!”
Su Mu: “???”
“The moment I lay eyes on you, it just wags and wags for you! What kind of once-in-a-millennium aura do you possess that leaves me so utterly powerless?! Mumu, please stop radiating your charm everywhere—your Little Cutie can’t handle it…!”
Su Mu: “…”
Stopping dead in her tracks on her way home, the corners of Su Mu’s lips curved slightly upward.
“You guys go on ahead. I’m going to take a stroll on my own.”
Rather than driving, Su Mu hailed a taxi and had the driver head directly toward a nearby internet café.
Watching Su Mu’s swift sequence of actions, w-444 blinked in confusion.
What was her host trying to do? Was its sweet-talking still not good enough?!
“Mumu, what are you doing…?”
“Earning reward points to buy you a skin.”
w-444: “…”
w-444: “AAAAHHH! My Mumu said she’s going to buy me a skin! AAAAHHH! I haven’t seen what a new skin looks like in decades, I’m going to lose my mind…!”
w-234: “HOLY CRAP, what is going on?! How is your host being so generous?!”
System skins in the System Mall were obscenely expensive. To make matters worse, the reward points allocated to systems after each mission were meager at best. Generally speaking, a system’s lifetime savings could only afford one or two sets. Yet the Mall kept dropping gorgeous new skins every few days, leaving plenty of systems drooling with envy.
w-444: “Can’t talk right now! I’m off to bond with my Mumu! I love my Mumu, mwah!”
After boasting to its heart’s content, w-444 logged off with sheer delight, leaving behind a group chat drowning in pure envy.
In the original plot of this brainless romance novel, The CEO’s Runaway Bride, there were three key male supporting leads besides the male lead himself.
First was Lu Xu, Xiang Qing’s gentle senior from university. His family owned a modest amount of assets. He had been pursuing Xiang Qing since her freshman year without success, eventually becoming her loyal “Number One Supporting Lead”—always on call whenever she needed him.
In the original storyline, Lu Xu was the very person who brought Xiang Qing to crash the wedding. Afterward, he accompanied her abroad, took care of her during her pregnancy, and attended to her every need.
As for the funds used to support her overseas life, they were supplied by Male Supporting Lead Number Two: Su Chen, the original host’s adoptive brother. Eight years ago, Su Father had sent Su Chen abroad to study.
Upon returning years later, Su Chen happened to run into Xiang Qing. Moved by her resilience, his frequent interactions with her slowly blossomed into deep devotion. However, Xiang Qing’s heart belonged solely to Shen Yeyi.
Furthermore, because Su Chen was Su Mu’s brother, Xiang Qing had made her stance crystal clear: she refused to live under the same roof as someone as money-obsessed as Su Mu, and she utterly despised the Su family.
In reality, Su Chen had already carved out a significant place for himself in the international financial sector through his own talent—a fact even Su Father was unaware of. Xiang Qing, however, had learned about it, which somewhat softened her opinion of him, though she kept this secret close to her chest.
Later, when the Su family faced total ruin, Su Chen could have easily saved them. Had he intervened, the Su family would have recovered, and with Su Chen’s backing, retaliation against the Shen family would have been inevitable.
Upon realizing this, a heavily pregnant Xiang Qing fell to her knees and begged Su Chen. She pleaded with him not to interfere—arguing that even if the Su family went bankrupt, Su Chen would still be fine, but if the Shen family fell, Shen Yeyi would lose everything.
In the end, Su Chen stood by and did nothing, allowing the Su family to crumble into dust. Before Su Chen could even rush back to the country, Su Father and Su Mother committed suicide. Devastated and wracked with guilt, Su Chen never set foot in the country again for the rest of his life.
If Male Supporting Lead Number One was the gentle caregiver, Number Two was the silent guardian, providing shadow financial backing.
As for Male Supporting Lead Number Three…
He was a catalyst of prestige and romantic tension between the main leads.
Bai Xiu—a random passerby whom Xiang Qing had once casually comforted—grew up to become a top-tier Movie King. He fell deeply for Xiang Qing and publicly confessed his love for her countless times.
When Xiang Qing returned with her twins, seeing such a handsome, powerful Movie King publicly pursuing her made the already obsessed Shen Yeyi refuse to let go even more, driving him to lock Xiang Qing away for himself.
As the saying went: Even if it’s a pile of garbage, as long as people are fighting over it, it suddenly smells sweet.
In this romance novel, although the original host served as the villainous female supporting role, she hadn’t actually done anything to the female lead at the beginning. She had even stepped in to save her and helped her find a job.
Even when her resentment grew later on, it was entirely born from the fact that the female lead had stolen her fiancé.