Poor Protagonist

I was the bedchamber maid of the Second Master of the Marquis’ Mansion.

I heard he was quite handsome, but incapable of performing as a man, which had only made his temper stranger by the day.

So on the day I was to attend his bed, I stewed him an enormous pot of lamb tails. “My lord, as they say, for limp-tail syndrome, you supplement form with form…”

Before I could say another word, he lifted his eyes and smiled.

“Get out.”

The day Grandpa’s legs were crushed, I knelt on the ground, kowtowing as I heard the thoughts of the people around me.

[The heroine is so pitiful. Shouldn’t we help her?]

[No! If we help her, how is Song Hansheng supposed to make his entrance? He’s my favorite male lead in a redemption romance!]

[Shen Song is the heroine’s true love!]

[Nonsense! The heroine is the wife I picked for my darling Jiang Yanbei!]

Later, those male leads really did enter my life, one after another.

They loved me, saved me, fought over me, and tried to force me into their arms…

But I hated this world, and I had no need to be saved.

My goal was to kill the male leads.

Dad bought a new electric scooter.

My brother climbed onto the back seat, and my sister was lifted onto the footboard.

I ran behind them, grinning so hard my teeth showed.

Dad went around and around, but never once stopped to give me a turn.

When I could not keep up anymore, I went to ask Mom to speak for me.

Then I heard her talking about me.

“We only had her so we could use the cord blood for her sister, but who knew her sister had been misdiagnosed?”

“Oh, what a waste—all that suffering for nothing!”

I had just turned six that day, and the words I wanted to say stayed trapped behind my lips, so I never asked for a ride again.

For years afterward, I ran the road from home to school.

Then the provincial team recruited me, and I was interviewed.

Dad wheeled out that same electric scooter.

“It’s all thanks to me training her with this thing, because how else could she run so fast?”

I came to the city looking for work, and somehow ended up as the male secretary to a young, domineering CEO.

Like an idiot, I asked him, “Bro, I don’t have much schooling. What can I do?”

The CEO frowned around the cigarette between his lips and motioned for me to bend lower. “You can.”

Three months later, I was standing beside the CEO’s bed while he shifted over with his laptop in his arms to make room for me, then reached out to blow-dry my hair.

All at once, it hit me.

Wait.

Something about this doesn’t seem right.

In my senior year of high school, my parents cut off every cent of my living expenses and tried to force me to drop out.

With nowhere else to turn, I enrolled at an elite school packed with rich heirs.

My grades were good enough to earn a full tuition waiver, but tuition was not going to keep me fed.

After going hungry for half a month, I finally worked up the courage to face the classmates who never studied and ask, “Does anyone need their homework done? It’s only five yuan per assignment.”

The young masters and heiresses, who had been busy showing off their wealth, fell silent and stared at me in shock.

Then the room erupted.

“Five yuan? Who do you think you’re insulting? Five hundred—I’m first!”

“Five thousand! Put me at the front!”

“Fifty thousand—and I mean dollars!”

“I’ll top every bid! Let’s see who dares fight me for first place today!”

In the year I was desperately poor, I deliberately fed two of my fingers into the factory machinery and had them crushed, all for the thirty thousand yuan my grandmother needed for surgery.

The factory manager frowned with such pain that he wanted to compensate me eighty thousand yuan. I was too guilty to take it, so I only asked for thirty thousand.

Years passed. My grandmother had been gone for many years.

Then I saw a trending news report: the factory from back then had been swallowed by a fire.

The factory manager had died of a heart attack. His wife had vanished.

Their twelve-year-old son had been sent to an orphanage.

Looking at those helpless, terrified eyes on the screen, I poured the medicine I had been about to swallow down the drain.

Then… let me live once more.

For that thirty thousand yuan from back then.

I found the secret crush diary of the gloomy top student.

[Today was the physics final. Rice Ball Classmate sat right in front of me. Her neck is so long and white; I really want to grab it and kiss her.]

[I dreamed about her dancing last night. Can I just lock her up and make her dance for me alone?]

[Rice Ball Classmate came to ask me a question today. Her hair kept brushing against my arm. It was so itchy I almost lost control.]

[That guy from the next class keeps coming to see her, and she actually smiles at him. I really want to dispose of his body and then lock her away.]

[I accidentally picked up Rice Ball Classmate and brought her home. I’m holding back so much I’m going crazy.]

[Saw Rice Ball Classmate eating ice cream. I’m using my mind to soul-travel into that ice cream.]

Reading this diary made my face flush and my heart race. I quickly put it back where I found it.

That top student usually looks so cold and aloof, like he has no desires. Who would have thought he was such a pervert behind closed doors?

This Rice Ball Classmate is way too pitiful.

Even after I returned to my seat, my heart was still pounding with lingering fear.

Just then, the top student, Shi Jianjin, walked over. “Meng, I bought an extra rice ball. Here, it’s for you.”

Huh?

Seeing my confused expression, Shi Jianjin casually flicked my forehead. “Don’t you always eat rice balls? Rice Ball Classmate.”

Rice Ball Classmate?

Me: ???

I am the most pathetic pervert alive.

After a year of crushing on the class heartthrob,

I finally couldn’t suppress my urge to spy on him anymore.

So I installed a cheap camera in his home.

Less than three hours later, the camera ran out of battery and shut off.

I tried to send him a creepy message:

-I like you I like you I like you I like you

Before it could even send, my phone notified me that my service had been suspended for unpaid bills.

Because I was broke,

I was forced to become an upstanding person.

Until one day, when I opened my door,

Xie Yu was on my bed, half-dressed and tied up with rope.

When he saw me come in, he even deliberately tightened the ropes, looking pitiful as he said,

“You don’t like me anymore, Xiaocui?”

In the Fifth Year of Taiyuan, at the Start of Summer, a princess died in the Beiliang Royal Palace.

And a toad.

Anping was that unfortunate princess.

And I was that unfortunate toad.

Fortunately, since her death, I have become her.

While I was hauling cement at a construction site to pay off my debts, the scrolling comments said I was the villainess.

The year I was most desperate for money, I copied the female lead, Su Wanwan, and got close to the male lead, Gu Zhiyan, before she could.

Because Young Master Gu was just that rich.

Even a little money slipping through his fingers would be enough for me to pay off my debts and cover my tuition.

I was a penniless wretch willing to do anything for money.

To win the favor of that cold, aloof young master, I spent a whole year pretending to be a pure, fragile Little White Flower.

Just when I was about to succeed in capturing his heart and marry into wealth, Su Wanwan suddenly appeared in front of Gu Zhiyan.

I thought my strategy had failed, but my debts were paid off anyway.

So I stopped pretending and went back to the slums.

On the night I had nowhere to go, I met a mission-taker.

He mistook me for the female lead and took me home.