“You unfilial brat! Not only did you fail to protect your sister, you even caused her to fall into the water!” A mature man’s voice roared in anger, sounding both impossibly distant and strangely close.
Because he was not speaking to her.
“I pushed her into the water?” A young, low voice let out a soft laugh. Compared to the mature man’s fury, the young man’s tone was exceptionally cold. “She obviously fell in by herself.”
There was even a trace of indifference in it.
That clearly infuriated the older man even more.
“Y-you…! And you still dare argue back?! Looks like I really need to teach you another lesson.”
“…”
The chaotic voices around her burst like fireworks in her ears. Wuli listened in a daze, and only after the noise gradually faded did her eyelids finally twitch open amid the commotion.
“Your Grace!! Miss Wuli is awake!!”
Someone shouted first, instantly drawing everyone’s attention toward her.
Wuli’s pale blue eyes were distant and emotionless, still clouded with the confusion of just waking up.
A noblewoman seated beside the bed hurriedly helped Wuli sit up when she saw her awaken. “My dear, is there anywhere you still feel uncomfortable?”
Wuli met the noblewoman’s gaze. Who was this?
The moment she realized something was wrong, a thin layer of cold sweat broke out across Wuli’s back. Her mind froze as she stared blankly at the noblewoman for a moment before her pale blue eyes slowly shifted away, sweeping past the standing duke, the maid waiting off to the side, and finally landing on the white-haired young man staring steadily at her.
…Shuen????!!!!
She transmigrated?????!!!!!!
Wuli’s vision went black.
《A Maiden’s Western Fantasy World》, a niche otome game.
It told the story of the female protagonist’s tangled love and hatred with three men.
The three men: the protagonist’s older brother, Shuen; the protagonist’s fiancé, Glenn; and the protagonist’s professor, Fion.
After retiring from the entertainment industry and finding herself with far too much free time, Wuli had stumbled across this game by chance.
Originally, she only wanted to find something fun to pass the time.
But the further she played, the angrier she became.
Because this game was absolutely insane.
Whenever you tried to follow the normal otome-game route and romance the male leads, all sorts of ridiculous death endings would appear. Her brother deciding she was too troublesome and pushing her into a river. The prince finding her an eyesore and shooting her dead with a single bullet. The Saint believing she was too perfect and sacrificing her to the gods…
The countless bad endings left Wuli questioning her entire life.
‘I’m the heroine, okay?!?! These are the male leads, right?!?! Then why do they keep killing me?! If I’m not being murdered, I’m on my way to getting murdered!’
In short, this game pissed Wuli off beyond belief.
So she slammed the mouse button and submitted a review.
【Visitor0388849】：Trash game, trash plot, trash male leads. No matter what you do, you die. Bad ending here, bad ending there. I can’t feel any love at all, only the sorrow brought by this garbage game. Hope it dies early, hehe.
Hehe.
And then the moment she opened her eyes, she had appeared here.
Falling into the water… younger sister…
From the looks of it, this was the very first act of the game.
!?!
The instant Wuli raised her eyes, she saw the young man standing off to the side as though none of this concerned him.
White hair. Blue eyes. A sharp, elegant nose bridge. Thin, indifferent lips.
That otherworldly male lead aura… this was one of the male leads, her older brother, Shuen!!!
The same male lead Shuen who had pushed her into the water and tried to drown her.
Wuli sucked in a sharp breath.
Out of everyone present, only she knew that this male lead was the real culprit who had pushed her into the water.
Shuen stood there with an expression that practically screamed ‘How could I possibly do something like that?’ He looked utterly self-righteous, as if her falling into the water had absolutely nothing to do with him.
《On Whether I Should Expose the Murderer Standing Right Beside Me》
Every gaze in the room landed on the recently awakened young lady, waiting for her response.
Wuli’s lips twitched almost imperceptibly.
“Was it your brother who pushed you? Don’t be afraid. Mother will stand up for you.” Seeing her remain silent, the noblewoman beside her spoke gently.
There it was. It was all here.
This was the very first major scene of the otome game, and also the one Wuli remembered most clearly.
Because it was completely deranged!!!
The story gave two choices: “Yes” and “No.”
If you admitted “yes,” then on the very next route, her brother would directly kill her. Instant death. Game over.
Then the shitty system would smugly congratulate you for successfully unlocking a bad ending.
If you answered “no,” you survived, but her brother would spend the rest of the route dragging her along the border between life and death, making her repeatedly experience the thrill of “almost dying.”
Wuli had already been rendered speechless by this plotline once before.
And now she had to experience it all over again!!
This time in person, no less!!
Wuli parted her lips slightly. Shuen’s deep blue eyes, dark as an abyss, fixed silently upon her.
‘Haha. Looks like I can only save myself.’
Under everyone’s watchful gaze, the young girl’s lashes trembled, soaked with moisture. Tears rolled down along the curve of her face as she looked pitifully toward Shuen and called out a single “Brother,” instantly snapping everyone present awake.
She cried miserably, sniffling as she reached both arms toward Shuen.
Everyone could see it clearly.
It was the posture of someone asking to be carried.
“…”
A strange silence fell over the room.
Even Shuen looked stunned. He shot Wuli a suspicious glance.
Wuli’s hand remained awkwardly frozen in midair, but based on what she knew of Shuen from playing the game, he would never openly treat her badly in front of others for the sake of appearances.
So there was a very high chance he would accept the hug.
The white-haired young man raised a brow and walked over.
‘What is she trying to pull now?’
He did not understand, but he was more than willing to see what Wuli was planning. And so, following the gesture of her outstretched arms, he leaned down and gave her a light embrace.
Wuli immediately tightened her grip around him, hugging him even harder as her crying grew louder, as though she intended to wipe every tear and bit of snot onto his body.
“It was my brother who saved me. My brother saved me.”
The girl cried with complete sincerity, not sounding fake in the slightest.
The atmosphere in the room became even quieter.
A trace of coldness flashed through Shuen’s eyes as his finger curled around a strand of Wuli’s white hair.
She only talked about him saving her, deliberately avoiding the fact that he had harmed her.
Was she doing this on purpose? Trying to win sympathy from him, her brother?
At the very least, it seemed his little sister was not stupid enough to outright expose him in front of everyone.
All eyes around them were fixed on the siblings. Everyone knew the Sinclair brother and sister had an awful relationship, which made the current scene absurdly bizarre.
What they did not know was that something even stranger was coming.
Shuen actually raised a hand and gently patted Wuli’s back, soothing her with careful tenderness.
“Don’t be afraid, Ah Wu. Your brother’s here.”
It looked exactly like a scene of deep sibling affection.
From the very moment Wuli regained consciousness, Shuen had already planned everything out.
If she dared say that he was the one who pushed her into the water, then the next time, Shuen would not save her.
If she exposed his hypocrisy in front of everyone, then he would make her life worse than death.
But unfortunately, Wuli had done none of those things.
Shuen comforted her patiently, inwardly finding it rather regrettable.
Hearing those words while fully aware of every thought running through Shuen’s mind, Wuli immediately broke out in goosebumps.
If she did not already know he had been the one to push her into the water, she might actually have believed him and been moved to tears by this perfect older-brother act.
The noblewoman seated at the bedside heard it as well. She glared viciously at the son born from the duke’s previous wife, then felt another wave of heartache for her precious younger daughter.
The duke himself looked stunned. He clearly remembered that his son and younger daughter had never gotten along, so how had they suddenly ended up hugging each other?
Even the maid standing nearby was too shocked to utter a single word.
After a long silence, the duke finally spoke.
“That’s enough. Stop crowding around here and let Wuli rest properly. Have the physician examine her again later.”
That sentence finally brought an end to the farce.
Still teary-eyed, Wuli slowly let go of Shuen’s hand.
‘Good, good, good. Looks like I managed to clear the first stage.’
Wuli quietly let out a breath of relief as she watched everyone leave the room.
Shuen was the last to go.
At the very last moment, he turned back and gave his younger sister a long, deep look.
Wuli curved her lips into a smile at him.