When an alien civilization invaded, Zhao Shiyu was among the first batch of players dragged into a massive survival game.
During the talent-selection phase, she drew the “Thief” class skill. And because of that, her base combat ability ended up at the absolute bottom tier—so fragile that she could practically be killed with a single poke.
Because of this, if she wanted to survive, then in that large-scale survival game, more than ninety percent of everything she obtained depended entirely on that skill.
She stole from NPCs.
She stole from bosses.
She stole from elite monsters.
She even stole from other players.
And with everything she stole, she slowly armed herself and gradually grew stronger.
A model citizen who embodied all five virtues had been forced onto the path of a thief.
But being a thief came with risks. If the victim caught you, getting beaten up would be the least of your worries.
Even though Zhao Shiyu had been as cautious as possible, living every day on edge and carefully protecting her hidden identity, there was an old saying: If you walk by the river often enough, your shoes are bound to get wet.
Sure enough, during yet another use of her “Steal” skill, she was discovered.
What she hadn’t expected was that her target’s combat power would be so terrifyingly high.
Even after stacking countless defensive items on herself, she was still instantly killed in a single move.
Unfair.
And yet… not really.
Zhao Shiyu could accept her death quite calmly.
She didn’t even blame the person who killed her.
After all, she had provoked them first.
…
But when her heart was pierced through and her body dissolved into countless specks of light, she realized she hadn’t actually died.
She was alive again.
The moment she opened her eyes, however, the unfamiliar scene before her left her stunned.
Everything she could see was broken and shabby beyond belief.
She had spent five years surviving in the game, yet she had never once seen a place this run-down.
Had she been forcibly thrown into some unknown dungeon instance?
Just as confusion filled her mind, a crushing pain struck her head, as if an invisible giant hand had smashed down on it.
A flood of memories was violently shoved into her mind.
The sudden impact left her gasping like a dying fish, her eyes rolling back as she convulsed. It took a long while before she finally recovered.
Before she could sort through the memories she had just received, she heard the voice of an unfamiliar young girl.
…
[Oh-ho! Has the female lead finally transmigrated over? Is the plot finally starting? Great! I’ve been waiting forever for this day!]
[Come on, female lead, pull yourself together already! Hurry up and recover so you can go find your opportunities! If you don’t go out and seek your destined encounters, how am I supposed to steal them?]
[Hehehe. I’m a transmigrator into a book, after all. As long as I snatch all the female lead’s opportunities, I’ll become the new chosen heroine of this world! So exciting! So exciting!]
…
Zhao Shiyu abruptly turned her head and met a pair of sparkling eyes.
The owner of those eyes was a little girl of seven or eight, her hair styled into twin buns, dressed in a half-new lake-green outfit.
When their eyes met, the girl curved her delicate brows into a sweet smile.
“Xiaoyu, you’re finally awake. Were you having a nightmare just now?”
The voice was exactly the same as the one Zhao Shiyu had just heard.
But the tone was completely different.
If she hadn’t experienced it herself, she never would have believed both voices came from the same person.
Zhao Shiyu stared at her without blinking.
She said nothing.
Her face remained expressionless as she fixed her gaze tightly on the girl’s face.
And sure enough, that voice sounded again.
…
[Why isn’t the female lead talking? Did she just transmigrate and is afraid of exposing herself?]
[Still, Heavenly Dao is seriously biased. She’s just a little kid, yet even rolling her eyes she somehow looks pretty!]
…
Zhao Shiyu: “…”
That confirmed it.
The voice she was hearing was this girl’s inner thoughts.
So she had gained mind-reading abilities?
Then what about her original game skills?
Zhao Shiyu blinked, deciding to test them when she got the chance.
From the original owner’s memories, she learned that this girl’s name was Zhao Shiying, and the place they lived was called Zhao Family Village.
Eighty percent of the households in the village shared the surname Zhao, all belonging to the same clan.
The original body’s grandfather was Zhao Yingzhang, whose wife was Madam Qian.
And as for this Madam Qian—she was incredibly fertile.
She had given birth to nine children in total: four sons and five daughters.
Of them, only six survived. Three daughters had died young.
The eldest was a daughter named Zhao Cuishu, who had married into the Yang family in town.
The Yang family was much better off than the Zhao family.
The main reason they had sought Zhao Cuishu’s hand in marriage was simple—her mother was absurdly good at bearing children.
Just look at it: four sons, and every single one had survived.
With such a fertile mother, they naturally assumed the daughter would be the same.
And sure enough, Zhao Cuishu could definitely give birth.
She had already had two children within three years of marriage, and rumor had it she was pregnant again.
Unfortunately, the first two weren’t the sons the Yang family had hoped for.
They were both daughters.
Madam Qian’s youngest was also a daughter, named Zhao Yingniang.
She was twelve years old and not yet betrothed.
Between those two daughters were four sons:
The eldest, Zhao Guanchun, married Madam Wang.
The second, Zhao Guanxia, married Madam Jiang.
The third, Zhao Guanqiu, married Madam Fang.
The fourth, Zhao Guandong, married Madam Yan.
…
The second son, Zhao Guanxia, had one son and three daughters.
His eldest son was Zhao Yanjing, fifteen years old.
His second son was Zhao Yansong, thirteen.
His third daughter was Zhao Ningshuang, ten.
And the youngest daughter was Zhao Shiyu, only eight years old—the original owner of this body.
…
The third son’s family had two sons and two daughters.
The eldest daughter was Zhao Yanrong, fourteen.
The second son was Zhao Yantong, thirteen.
The third son was Zhao Yanzhi, ten.
And the youngest was a daughter named Zhao Shuangxiao, nine.
…
The fourth son had two daughters and one son.
The eldest daughter was Zhao Xiangyu, twelve.
The second daughter was Zhao Shiying, eight.
And the youngest was a son named Zhao Yanfeng, only seven.
…
Altogether, Zhao Yingzhang’s household could truly be called enormous.
Excluding the already-married Zhao Cuishu, the family still had twenty-five people living under one roof.
And the eldest grandson, Zhao Yanjing, was currently discussing marriage arrangements.
Once he married, another person would join the household.
And after the new bride had children, the family would grow even larger.
Fortunately, old master Zhao Yingzhang was a xiucai—a scholar who had passed the county-level imperial examination.
He ran a private school at home.
Besides income from farming, the tuition fees from his students were one of the family’s main sources of income.
And because Zhao Yingzhang was a scholar, everyone in the family was literate.
Even the girls and daughters-in-law could recognize a few characters.
After all, living in that environment every day, with the school right inside their home, even someone completely illiterate would gradually pick up some reading ability over time.
It was also because Zhao Yingzhang was a scholar—and personally named all the children—that the younger generation of the Zhao family all had names with a touch of literary elegance.
Zhao Shiyu slowly digested all of this information.
At the same time, one thought kept circling in her mind:
She had transmigrated.
Into a novel.
And apparently, she was the female lead.
While the little girl in front of her was another transmigrator trying to steal all of her destined opportunities.