Chapter 1

June had barely begun, yet the weather was already unbearably hot.
At noon, thunder cracked suddenly across the sky, and rain poured down in sheets. It rained the entire afternoon, and the air turned heavy with dampness, but at least it had cooled off.
Gu An’an sat expressionless as she scrolled through her wallet, bank cards, and online accounts. Seven hundred sixty-nine yuan and forty cents.
That was all her money.
The fridge held half a portion of leftover takeout, two bunches of greens, five cucumbers, and a bitten sausage.
Her entire supply of food. Barely enough to fill the gap between her teeth.
Gu An’an ran both hands through her hair in frustration, feeling like a hamster trapped in a spinning wheel. She had been lying around like a corpse for an entire day and night since she woke up. She’d tried reviewing everything from relativity to quantum mechanics and astrophysics, even though she hadn’t studied any of it, but still couldn’t figure out what triggered her “time travel.”
Because yes, she, Gu An’an, a stunning sophomore at a certain media university, had somehow crossed over into a novel. Yesterday, she was chasing a thief when an electric scooter hit her head-on. The next thing she knew, she’d woken up in this shabby rented apartment.
And not just any novel, but that novel, the one she’d once roasted online so badly that readers had printed her comments and hung them on the wall.
Even worse, she’d become the useless cannon fodder in it, who happened to have the exact same name as her.
Gu An’an admitted she liked reading romance novels, especially the domineering-CEO kind. As long as the writing wasn’t too outrageous, she was usually pretty forgiving. But this one? This one was so dumb it gave her secondhand embarrassment. She seriously doubted the author had even graduated from middle school. The lack of legal awareness alone challenged the limits of her patience.
The title was Just Spoil You. Enough said. The author’s IQ was clearly a concern. But the chapter titles were even worse gems:
“If anything happens to her, I’ll bury you with her!”
“If you can’t cure her, your whole family dies!”
“If she so much as breaks a nail, I’ll wipe out your nine generations!”
“If she cries, I’ll make your ancestors pay with their lives!”
Just reading those was enough to make you want to offer up your own life, in exchange for the author to stop writing.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the author seemed addicted to writing “red-eye” and “lip-biting” scenes. Everyone’s eyes turned red every three sentences, and every emotional beat involved someone biting their lip. It was like reading an obituary in real time. Gu An’an honestly suspected the author worked in the funeral industry.
The book’s entire purpose seemed to be: If it annoys one reader, it’s a success.
What really made her want to stab her own eyes out was that her cannon-fodder namesake was unbelievably stupid. Out of concern for her mental safety, her best friend had once forced her to memorize the whole novel as a “preventive measure”, in case she ever transmigrated. Gu An’an didn’t want to burn her eyes with that trash, but she was too superstitious to refuse.
Still, even with the threat of death, she couldn’t finish something that read like pure... excrement.
And now? Great. The curse had worked. She’d actually transmigrated. Damn it!
If she’d known this would happen, she’d have finished the damn book, even if she’d needed an IV drip to get through it.
Her namesake character barely appeared in the story. She wasn’t even as relevant as the fourth female lead. But somehow, she was present at every major plot point as the greedy social climber, the embarrassing sycophant, the irrelevant background extra, and the annoying gossip. Basically, she existed to be shallow, petty, and to make the heroine look kind and pure in contrast.
And her ending? The female supporting character accidentally drugged the male lead, and Gu An’an, caught in the crossfire, was tossed into the ocean and fed to the sharks by his bodyguards.
Who could save her now?!
Shark bait? Should she start swim lessons immediately? Would 700 yuan be enough to hire a private coach?
Ughhh...
The worst part was that the male lead’s family actually had ties to hers.
Gu An’an’s grandfather had been comrades-in-arms with Grandpa Xie, the patriarch of the Xie family, and had once saved his life. Because of that, the two families made a verbal engagement, a baby betrothal. But when the children were finally born, both turned out to be girls, so the arrangement was dropped.
Still, Grandpa Xie never forgot his debt. After a devastating earthquake killed everyone in the Gu family except An’an, he personally arranged for her to be brought to the Xie household.
She was fourteen then, traumatized, orphaned, and clinging to the Xies like a lifeline.
When Grandpa Xie’s friends teased him for doting so much on a girl outside the family, they joked that maybe the grandchildren would marry instead. Grandpa Xie had no grandsons, only a beloved grandson by marriage, Lu Xingyu, whom he’d taken in and raised personally.
No one took the joke seriously, except Gu An’an.
She thought the old man had taken her in to be Lu Xingyu’s future fiancée.
So, from the moment she entered the Xie household, she treated him as her destined fiancé. She followed him everywhere, like a lovestruck puppy. He found her annoying at times but never pushed her away, which she took as silent consent.
Childhood sweethearts, constant bickering, it all seemed sweet enough. But everything changed in college.
When Lu Xingyu was a junior, he fell in love at first sight with Su Ruan, a soft-spoken freshman.
No matter what Gu An’an did, she couldn’t win him back. She cried herself sick over it, but being dependent on the Xies, she couldn’t do anything. Desperate, she joined forces with Miss Shen, another girl hopelessly in love with Lu Xingyu.
But villains never beat heroines.
No matter how rich the Shen family was, Shen Shan still lost miserably. She went all in, drugging someone at Lu Xingyu’s engagement party with Su Ruan.
But things went wrong. The drugged drink ended up in the hands of the Xie family’s new head, Xie Jinxing.
Everything fell apart.
And, as always in these trash novels, when chaos erupted, the villains might survive, but cannon fodder always died.
So Gu An’an was the unlucky one dragged down by everyone else’s mess.
When the bodyguards stormed in, they hauled her up and tossed her into the ocean.
Three minutes flat. Game over. Even the sharks probably blinked, confused by their midnight snack.
Gu An’an rolled her eyes. Seriously? Murder in the middle of the night and not a single cop in sight? Where’s morality, humanity, the rule of law?!
Author, aren’t you afraid of getting arrested for writing this crap? In any normal world, every single one of them would be rotting in jail!
But alas, logic didn’t exist in toxic novels.
At this point in the story, the sweet, innocent heroine and the vicious second female lead were just starting their battle over the handsome campus prince, Lu Xingyu. Their war had spread from confession walls to social media, splitting the whole university into two factions: Team Shen Shan, representing the wealthy socialites, and Team Su Ruan, the grassroots underdog fans.
Naturally, Gu An’an was on Team Shen Shan. She wasn’t rich herself, but hey, the enemy of her enemy was her friend.
A few days ago, during the university’s welcome gala, Shen Shan made her move.
As the campus goddesses of the Fine Arts and Literature departments, the two girls clashed over who would perform last. Gu An’an, acting as Shen Shan’s loyal sidekick, was ordered to sabotage Su Ruan’s gown. Nervous but obedient, she snipped a small hole in the dress.
But, of course, things spiraled out of control. Despite the tiny cut, the dress completely split open and Lu Xingyu happened to witness everything.
His dormant virgin heart was instantly awakened. Swiftly, he draped his suit jacket over Su Ruan, called a stylist, and turned her into a radiant goddess who outshone everyone that night.
Instead of humiliation, Su Ruan became the campus sweetheart.
A Cinderella moment, if Cinderella’s fairy godmother was a clueless himbo named Lu Xingyu.
Naturally, the villains didn’t get away with it.
After some investigation, Lu Xingyu found the “culprit”, Gu An’an.
She confessed everything.
Since the Shen and Lu families were close, he couldn’t touch Shen Shan, but he could take it out on the cannon fodder. That night, during a thunderstorm, he barged into her apartment, verbally destroyed her for half an hour, and demanded she withdraw from school.
She couldn’t fight back. So she did.
And from then on, she became Shen Shan’s pathetic little sidekick, existing solely to get humiliated.
Gu An’an: ...For f**k’s sake.
Her once-sleek black hair was now a messy bird’s nest. She rolled over, exposing smooth white skin and a body that could make an angel weep.
If nothing else, this useless girl had top-tier looks.
But Gu An’an wasn’t in the mood to admire herself. She rubbed her temples, thinking hard.
Dropping out was not an option. This was a top-tier BeiJingchuan University, a 985 school. That diploma was her lifeline.
But Lu Xingyu wouldn’t make things easy.
If only she still lived at the Xie estate. Then she could cry to Grandpa Xie and let him handle the spoiled brat.
But the original Gu An’an had insisted on “independence and self-reliance.” On her nineteenth birthday, she’d moved out and even rejected the Xie family’s financial help, and they’d actually let her.
Now her empty wallet could barely last another month.
If she got expelled on top of that, with only a high school diploma, she’d be reduced to installing phone screen protectors at street stalls.
Was she really going to end up as someone’s bag-carrying lackey?
“Ugh...” She flopped back on the bed. Although she had inherited the original owner’s memories, she barely knew Lu Xingyu anymore. And she hadn’t visited the Xie family in over half a year. What excuse could she use to go back?
A thunderclap split the sky.
Lightning flashed, rain hammered the windows, and the room grew dim. Gu An’an turned over lazily, her hair spilling down like a dark waterfall.
Suddenly, her phone lit up and started vibrating.
She glanced at the caller ID, and instantly sat up straight.
Housekeeper Zhao.
Gu An’an: !!!
She answered reverently.
A familiar elderly voice came through, calm and gentle. “An’an, how are you getting on living alone? Jinxing will be back in a few days. The Old Master wants you home for dinner, says it’ll be nice to have everyone together.”
Finally! She’d been wracking her brain for an excuse, ask and you shall receive!
“Yes, Uncle Zhao! Of course I’ll come early!”
Her enthusiasm made him pause, then chuckle. “Having trouble out there?”
“Oh, no, no! I just... miss Grandpa Xie, that’s all.” She quickly toned down her excitement. “By the way, Uncle Zhao, why is Uncle Jinxing coming back all of a sudden?”
Of course, “Uncle Jinxing” wasn’t really her uncle. He was Xie Jinxing, the Xie family’s precious late-born son, the novel’s male lead.
Madam Xie had given birth to him in her late forties, nearly dying in labor. He was only a few years older than Lu Xingyu. Since Gu An’an had grown up with Lu Xingyu, she naturally called him “Uncle” too.
“The weather’s been unpredictable lately. The Old Master’s health isn’t great,” Zhao explained. “Jinxing’s been away too long. It’s time he took charge of the family business.” He sighed softly and stopped there.
Gu An’an wisely didn’t pry further. She agreed to come back that evening and hung up.
Instantly, her gloom vanished.
Finally, a lifeline!
She threw on some clothes and dashed out, ignoring the rain, to find food.
After eating, she didn’t want to return to her apartment. If things went as in the novel, Lu Xingyu would show up tonight to “convince” her to drop out.
No thanks. She’d rather wander the streets in the rain with her flimsy umbrella.
Maybe she’d find a part-time job along the way, something to cover next month’s rent.
But as soon as she reached the main road, she ran into a massive traffic jam.
Cars were piled up crookedly in every lane, horns blaring despite the storm.
Ahead, a crowd had gathered around something, or someone.
Curious, Gu An’an pushed through the onlookers, rain pouring down her umbrella.
And there she saw it: a fragile little white flower of a girl, sitting daintily in the middle of the flooded street, looking pitiful and delicate beneath the rain.
In front of her, a sleek black Bentley had stopped just a meter away.
People whispered, some tried to help, but the girl subtly brushed them off. Police lights flickered through the storm as the downpour blurred every face.
Someone knocked on the Bentley’s window.
After a pause, it rolled down slowly, revealing only a faint silhouette. Through the curtain of rain, she could just make out a pale jawline, a sharp nose, and perfectly sculpted lips.
The crowd fell silent for a beat.
A few words were exchanged; then a man in a suit stepped out, probably the assistant. He pulled out a card and handed it to the drenched girl on the ground.
Gu An’an squinted through the rain. That teary, rain-soaked “poor little thing”...
If her memory served her right, that was the novel’s female lead, Su Ruan.
Gu An’an: ...Tsk.