"Dancing baby! Duomi, Dance up!"
Ji Qiuge's graceful body spun lightly across the stage, the gilded fragments on her skirt shimmering brilliantly under the lights.
She raised her slender arms, tracing a beautiful arc as she turned.
With a leap and another spin, her right hand curled beside her cheek like a kitten's paw, while her left hand held a rose hairpin—snatched from her head at some point—like a fairy wand.
"Please, Radiant Light, grant me the power to love you!"
The performance ended.
The entire venue fell silent.
To be fair, her black curls now cascaded loose around her, making her even more captivating than moments before.
Beautiful—genuinely beautiful.
But…
No one quite knew how to react, so they remained frozen in place.
Ji Qiuge stood there, enduring the embarrassment, and heard the System's voice.
[Congratulations, Host, on completing the task. You have received one Word-Alteration Card.]
[Host, you did wonderfully. You are the most devoted person I have ever seen! You have earned the admiration of Duomi Tiannu!]
Ji Qiuge: "…"
Ha.
Meanwhile, the host finally snapped back to reality.
"Ah… what a refreshing performance indeed! Everyone, let's applaud!"
The crowd clapped instinctively, then also came to their senses, looking at Ji Qiuge with especially complicated expressions.
The main thing was that her conviction was simply too strong—she performed without a shred of visible embarrassment.
At least, no one on the outside could tell.
And so, everyone felt secondhand embarrassment for her, toes curling in discomfort.
In fact, no one dared to replay the moment in their minds, afraid that tonight's dreams would still be filled with "Radiant Light, grant me the power to love you."
Ji Qiuge, with a composed expression, parted her red lips, bit down on the rose hairpin, and reached up to sweep her hair back behind her head.
The sequence of movements came across as both innocent and alluring, and the fans who had just been cringing immediately began cheering wildly.
"Sister Ji, you're still the prettiest! Even if you want to be a Dancing Tiannu, you're still the prettiest!"
Ji Qiuge cast them an appreciative glance.
Many people around were laughing too—there was no real mockery. Though startled by Ji Qiuge's performance today, compared to her usual aloof, high-and-mighty demeanor, today's silliness made her hard to dislike.
After all, she was still the eldest daughter of the Ji family. If it had been the female lead, who had just arrived at school today, doing something like this, the outcome would have been very different.
Yun Xiuze nudged Ye Lingjun with his elbow.
"Hey, today this young lady actually isn't looking down her nose at people for once! Has she been watching too many cartoons lately? Hilarious—if I'd known this was coming, I'd have filmed it in advance. What a shame…"
Ye Lingjun was watching Ji Qiuge. At his words, he lowered his gaze, concealing the emotions in his eyes.
"Oh, your new deskmate is here!" Yun Xiuze bumped him again.
Ye Lingjun frowned instinctively and looked toward the entrance of the banquet hall.
The female lead appeared flustered from getting lost trying to find her way, panting for breath, hair disheveled, still wearing the same clothes from this morning. She stood hesitantly at the door, clearly uncertain whether she should step inside.
"Oh, isn't this our classmate Su Xiaoxiao? Why are you only arriving now?" A familiar voice reached Ye Lingjun's ears.
He didn't need to guess—he knew it was Ji Qiuge's voice.
The ninth time he'd heard the same words.
He knew the reason for Ji Qiuge's strangeness—it was that System. He had once possessed one too.
Unfortunately, it was useless.
Ye Lingjun's eyes held a mixture of pity and disgust.
Su Xiaoxiao became the center of everyone's attention, looking even more ill at ease. She instinctively lowered her head and clutched the hem of her clothes tightly.
Ji Qiuge walked step by step toward her in her wine-red high heels.
The contrast between the two was exactly as described in the original plot—Su Xiaoxiao felt utterly shabby next to Ji Qiuge, like an inconspicuous weed growing among blooming roses, yet somehow placed right under the sunlight.
"Su Xiaoxiao, why didn't you change into an evening gown? Oh, silly me—I forgot! You must not have one. I should have explained it to you."
Ji Qiuge felt nothing inside as she humiliated the female lead.
"But it's fine—after all, you didn't know before. Come, the dance is just starting."
With that, Ji Qiuge reached out to take Su Xiaoxiao's hand, but Su Xiaoxiao instinctively dodged and took half a step back.
The Soul-Bullet Sisterhood instantly sprang into action.
Chen Yunmei furrowed her brows and sneered, "Ji Qiuge, what's wrong with you? Why waste words on someone like her? Look, she's even rejecting you!"
"Exactly!" Sun Ruoruo chimed in with full agreement. "Besides, even if you let her attend the dance, does she even know how to dance?"
Su Xiaoxiao lowered her head even further, tears already welling up in her eyes.
Ji Qiuge gave a fake smile.
"It's only natural she doesn't know how—after all, her background isn't the same as ours. But she can learn."
The other students in the banquet hall were also whispering among themselves.
"That Su Xiaoxiao is that commoner girl? My god, I've never seen anyone wear such ugly glasses!"
"Don't say that—maybe like in a manga, she'll turn pretty once she takes them off?"
"What are you talking about!"
"Hahaha, she should at least know that for a banquet at our kind of elite school, you need to dress properly, right?"
A typical scene of mockery—everyone was attacking Su Xiaoxiao under the influence of the plot.
Ye Lingjun felt that force pushing him to step forward, his expression cold.
Yun Xiuze beside him held him back and repeated the same words as before: "Don't meddle in other people's business."
His part of the plot came to an end, and Ye Lingjun finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He lowered his head, numbness resurfacing in his eyes.
Su Xiaoxiao, surrounded by all those voices, trembled and finally couldn't hold it in anymore—she covered her face and ran out.
Ji Qiuge also breathed a sigh of relief.
It was over.
But soon she turned serious again.
"System, I want to see the next part of the plot."
The male lead was about to appear—that was the most important part.
The System immediately showed her the next segment: after the female lead ran out, she collided with the male lead.
[Just as she was thinking, Su Xiaoxiao, not paying attention to the road ahead, suddenly tripped and fell. Her glasses flew off, and a car screeched to a halt right in front of her.
Under the blinding headlights, Su Xiaoxiao could barely open her eyes. She only noticed a pair of black handcrafted leather shoes appearing before her.
"Trying to scam me?" A dignified, magnetic voice reached her ears, tinged with disgust.
Hearing this, Su Xiaoxiao finally couldn't hold back her anger. "You rich people think money makes you so great? You see everything as dirty, don't you?"
With that, she roughly wiped her tears, quickly got up, and ran off.]
Ji Qiuge finished reading and fell into thought.
“This… alright, I won’t bother criticizing this plot. So, can I make changes now?”
[You may, you can modify one character within it. But are you sure you want to change it here? Wouldn’t you rather wait until you’ve met the male lead?]