Caring Protagonist

The year my parents died in an accident, I was a sophomore in high school.

My relatives had their eyes on the inheritance and compensation money they left behind, and they kept coming by to harass me.

Finally, I knocked on the door of my Tattooed Neighbor.

“Hey, are you in the underworld?”

When a wealthy family came to the orphanage to choose a child, they wavered between me and Cheng Yun.

A barrage of comments scrolled before my eyes:

[The female supporting character is about to start acting pitiful again so she can get adopted.]

[Even if she does get adopted, she’ll just be abandoned later anyway.]

[She’ll spend her whole life hated by everyone, chasing what she can never have. Just another girl obsessed with competing against other girls.]

I silently lowered my head.

Because the “female supporting character” they were talking about was me.

Suddenly, two figures loomed over me.

A Northeastern couple who had never been mentioned in the plot looked down at me, their faces lighting up with surprise.

“Oh my goodness, look at this pretty little thing!”

“Sweetheart, your uncle and auntie are having pork and glass noodle stew at home today. Smells amazing. Wanna come back with us and have some?”

When I was four, a fortune-teller said I was fated to bring misfortune upon my parents. So they sent me away to a rural estate. For ten years, they never came to see me, nor did they care whether I lived or died.

At fourteen, they brought me home-so they could marry me off.

My legitimate elder sister laughed. “A fool marrying a sickly wretch. A match made in heaven.”

My parents said, “If this engagement weren’t impossible to break, and if your sister weren’t about to marry into a noble family, you wouldn’t even be worthy of carrying his shoes.”

“A married daughter is water poured out. Once you’re gone, don’t come back for anything.”

Only he held my hand and taught me to write my own name.

And then he taught me to write: “A woman, too, must respect and cherish herself, strive without ceasing, and press ever forward.”