Chapter 3

When Qin Ran was nineteen, she once again became Yu Shuman’s junior.

Yu Shuman had always kept in touch with her, and Qin Ran had no idea how Yu Shuman managed to keep chatting with her for so long. Qin Ran was a very reclusive person. She also looked gloomy—so gloomy that Yu Shuman had to use her own experiences to comfort her. Qin Ran’s connection to this world was not very deep, so she barely had any friends.

As for relatives, she did not even have half of one.

Qin Ran was not exactly an enthusiastic person when it came to replying to messages either, but she could not withstand Yu Shuman’s endless attempts to chat with her. Yu Shuman would always share all sorts of things with her through messaging apps, talkative to the point that Qin Ran suspected she had been turned into Yu Shuman’s diary. But whenever she looked at Yu Shuman’s messages, Qin Ran never found them annoying, because Yu Shuman’s smile would always appear in her mind.

By this point, Qin Ran had no choice but to admit that she had fallen in love with Yu Shuman at first sight.

And it was the kind of love that had taken root so deeply that she could not pull it out even if she tried.

Sometimes, Qin Ran herself wondered how she had ended up liking Yu Shuman. She did not think she had been born liking girls. In her previous life, although she had never been in a relationship and had never felt any particularly strong affection for anyone, Qin Ran also did not think she was into Girls’ Love… Though, as a shut-in, she did watch yuri anime now and then. But she truly had never felt that kind of attraction toward women before.

Until now.

Now, the moment she received a message from Yu Shuman, she would think of her smile, and her entire heart would soften.

If this was not love, then Qin Ran did not know what was.

Thinking back on it now, perhaps on the day they first met, on that evening when the sun was setting, when she saw warm golden sunlight fall over Yu Shuman and make her smile look incomparably bright and beautiful, Qin Ran’s heart had been left behind right there.

After realizing her own feelings, Qin Ran did not launch an attack.

She was not someone who would take the initiative to pursue others. Besides, they were both living honestly and practically in the real world. Yu Shuman still had a seriously ill mother. To rashly drag her onto the road of Girls’ Love would not be a good thing for Yu Shuman.

The saddest thing in the world was probably this: falling in love with someone, only to discover that your love would be nothing but trouble for them.

In this situation, Qin Ran could only bury her feelings deep inside her heart and keep acting as Yu Shuman’s junior, quietly savoring the bitterness known as unrequited love.

Even so, she still followed in Yu Shuman’s footsteps and went to the same university, waiting at the school gates for Yu Shuman to come pick her up.

This was something Yu Shuman had arranged with her in advance. She had said that as her senior, it was only right for her to take care of her junior.

Qin Ran had messy hair draped over her head and wore a pair of round-framed glasses. Her clothes were also unfashionable and dull, making her the kind of person others would sweep a glance over and never look at again. She was pulling a suitcase and carrying a laptop bag on her back. Standing at the crowded school gates, she was the most unremarkable presence there.

But Yu Shuman was different.

Compared to three years ago, she was even more vivid and captivating. She had already been beautiful to begin with, and after entering university, she had become even more eye-catching. Her outfit was simple: a white T-shirt, a pair of plain denim hot pants, and unauthorized copy white sandals. Her entire person seemed to radiate the words youthful vitality.

The ponytail she had properly tied back during high school had also changed into another style. Now, she wore her hair in a bun, with a few disobedient strands falling loose. This hairstyle, however, fully displayed her superior face.

There was also a tiny mole beneath the corner of her mouth, making her originally slightly youthful face look a little more mature all at once.

She only had to stand there and raise her hand to wave at Qin Ran, and she unconsciously attracted everyone else’s attention.

Yu Shuman was so bright and moving that Qin Ran’s whole heart could not help trembling. However, her pair of glasses concealed all of Qin Ran’s emotions.

Yu Shuman came up to Qin Ran, a smile appearing on her face. “I didn’t expect that after three years, you’d still be my junior!”

Three years ago, Yu Shuman had been in her third year of high school, while Qin Ran had been in her first year.

Three years later, Yu Shuman was in her third year of university, while Qin Ran was in her first.

The amount of time she and Yu Shuman had actually spent together was not much. After all, only one year after Qin Ran entered high school, Yu Shuman had graduated. Aside from chatting on their phones, they had no other connection.

But after two years without seeing each other, Yu Shuman was still the same as before, passionate and warm like a ball of fire.

During winter and summer vacations, logically speaking, Qin Ran should have been able to see Yu Shuman. But Yu Shuman spent all of her vacations working part-time—for her own tuition, her living expenses, and also to repay the help stolen content she had received from that “kindhearted member of society.”

Yu Shuman knew that Qin Ran had no one at home. When she heard that Qin Ran had gotten into the same university as her, she decided to come help her.

As a senior, Yu Shuman knew the way around easily. She found Qin Ran’s dormitory building, made the bed and folded the bedding with Qin Ran, collected the items issued by the school, and then took her to the student center to put money into her campus card.

Knowing Qin Ran’s situation, she even quietly asked, “Do you have money on you?”

“I do.”

It was still cashback from the money she had spent on you.

Qin Ran directly topped up one thousand yuan.

After that, Yu Shuman told Qin Ran where the small convenience store was and which cafeteria served cheap food that still tasted good. At noon, as her senior, she brought Qin Ran without hesitation to the third floor of Cafeteria No. 1 and treated her to stir-fried dishes.

There were only two of them, yet Yu Shuman ordered two meat dishes, two vegetable dishes, and one soup.

Qin Ran tugged at Yu Shuman and said this was too much and too expensive, but Yu Shuman told her not to take it to heart. It was a rare occasion. Besides, if they could not finish it, she could pack it up and bring it back to eat for dinner.

After that day, whenever the weekend came, Yu Shuman would come find Qin Ran and take her along to w[read the original at bailiantales.com]ork part-time while studying.

Yu Shuman was already in her third year, so she had relatively few classes. Aside from working part-time on weekends, on mornings and afternoons when she had no classes, she would also go to the business districts downtown to hand out flyers or dress up as a mascot to earn some extra money.

Qin Ran was always worried that something might happen to Yu Shuman. After all, she was too beautiful. So beautiful that she seemed like a fairy who had accidentally fallen among mortals.

Even when she was wearing a mascot costume and sweating from the stuffy heat, the moment she took off the mascot head and revealed her smile, other people would still stare at her in a daze. Even the sweat covering her forehead looked as though it was glowing beneath the sunlight.

She also returned late after work. Although public security was quite good now, there was no guarantee that there would not be people harboring malicious intentions. As a woman, simply living in this world was already difficult. If she really encountered someone with evil designs, no amount of regret afterward would help.

Faced with Qin Ran’s advice, Yu Shuman simply said, “Junior, when you were in middle school and high school, weren’t you already working night shifts at that little supermarket? Don’t worry about me.”

Yu Shuman indeed did not get into any trouble.

Instead, she encountered something rather good.

She was discovered by a talent scout.

Because her looks were far too outstanding, even simply handing out flyers on the street was enough for an entertainment company’s agent to spot her at a glance.

This matter left Yu Shuman very conflicted, and afterward, she discussed it with Qin Ran for a long time. Qin Ran could already tell that the reason Yu Shuman Read on BaiLianTales was so torn was because she was tempted.

All Qin Ran could say was: follow your own heart.

Two days later, Yu Shuman told Qin Ran over the phone that she still wanted to go.

That entertainment company treated Yu Shuman fairly well, but it simply did not have many resources. After searching here and there, the biggest resource they could find was a talent survival show. They went through enormous effort before finally managing to squeeze Yu Shuman into it.

But as Qin Ran listened to the name of that variety show, she kept feeling that it sounded somewhat familiar.

The name of this variety show was a little chuunibyou. It was called Debut! Girls. The more Qin Ran listened to it, the more worried she became. In the end, she found someone and bought a copy of internal materials.

There was a loophole in the system’s rule about spending money.

As long as Qin Ran did it under the banner of “I’m doing this for Yu Shuman,” she could spend the money directly. After all, the system’s goal was to make the host into a tycoon. It was originally a feel-good-story system, so there was no way it would deliberately make trouble for the host for no reason.

Under this loophole, Qin Ran could get however much money she wanted from the system.

It was just that Qin Ran had never really wanted to use the system much.

Until she finished reading the internal materials in her hands.

Qin Ran’s brows tightly furrowed. Sitting in her school dormitory, a lost expression appeared on her face.

She had no way to tell anyone about this, because she had discovered that the world she lived in was actually the world of a novel.

She had not merely been reborn and transmigrated into another world. Instead, as the kind of book-transmigrator that had been extremely popular before she transmigrated, she had arrived inside the world of a novel.

She had also been very honored to become a passerby character who had never even been mentioned in the novel, the kind with not even the tiniest bit of screen time.

Yu Shuman, on the other hand, was much more unfortunate.

She was a female supporting character.

And not only that, she was a vicious female supporting character.

Even worse, she was the female lead’s foil.

However, Yu Shuman did not have many opportunities to appear, because she only occupied a certain amount of screen time in the very beginning of the story. After that, she would only be mentioned a few times in various characters’ lines. Of course, every single one of those mentions was about how miserable the female supporting character had become.

As for the very beginning of the story, it was this talent survival show, Debut! Girls.

This was also the starting point of the female lead’s conquest of the entertainment industry. She shone brilliantly in the show, while Yu Shuman, as her foil, was naturally trampled into the dust.

Memories from Qin Ran’s previous life came rushing back. Qin Ran could not understand why she had transmigrated into a novel she had read. It was not as though she had stayed up late reading this novel.

At this point, she could only rely on her memories to recall the novel’s plot.

This was a story about the female lead bravely charging into the entertainment industry. The female lead was a big shot with multiple hidden identities. For example, she was a top designer in the fashion circle, a top singer in the traditional-style music circle, and she had even done quite a bit of research into traditional Chinese medicine as the disciple of a certain great master.

Not only that, this was also a novel where everyone doted on the female lead. She had three older brothers above her, as well as a CEO childhood sweetheart who had grown up with her. She had entered the entertainment industry only because she wanted to play around for a bit, and then, as a matter of course, became famous all across the country.

Under the constant protection and escort of her childhood sweetheart CEO, she successfully became a top celebrity in the entertainment industry. In the end, she lived happily ever after with that CEO childhood sweetheart.

And Yu Shuman was merely the vicious female supporting character who served as the female lead’s stepping stone at the very beginning of the story.

Qin Ran actually did not have any particularly deep impression of this vicious female supporting character, who had barely been given much ink in the novel. In the end, the only thing she remembered was this:

“She degraded herself and actually went to those kinds of drinking parties to accompany men.”

Qin Ran clenched her fists tightly.

What kind of joke was this?

Who dared make her senior go accompany men at drinking parties?!