Picked Up the Female Lead When She Was Young (GL) - Chapter 1

Dark clouds rolled across the sky, and the muffled thunder seemed to want to tear the world apart. The rain fell in a torrent, fine as needles, stinging the back of a slender hand.

Xia Wanshuang closed the window to keep the rain from soaking the floor. She looked at the back of her hand and fell into a daze.

[System]: Host QAQ

[System]: I’m so sorry, I think I made a mistake.

“Can we go back to the original time?”

[System]: No, my database is corrupted now. I can’t find the original time, and I can’t connect with the higher-ups either.

“So, we’re cut off?”

[System]: You could say that. Host, what are we going to do?

“You’re the system!”

[System]: But I’m just a newbie, wuwuwu.

Hearing the system’s sobbing in her mind, Xia Wanshuang was speechless.

“Aren’t I, too?”

She was a newbie as well!

[System]: I’ll try again!

The voice in her mind suddenly disappeared. Xia Wanshuang figured the system was busy and let out a long sigh, collapsing onto the bed behind her. She stared at the cobwebs on the ceiling, a headache starting to form.

She, Xia Wanshuang, female, 28 years old, Han Chinese, had been a star student since she was little. She went to a teacher’s college, became an active member, joined the party, and then became a glorious “gardener of the country”—a teacher. Her life was supposed to be that of an ordinary public school teacher, but a short while ago, that life ended.

Xia Wanshuang had witnessed a school bullying incident. She yelled for them to stop, but they were defiant and didn’t listen. She recognized the leader was the child of a school board member. She called the security guard and then went over to block them herself.

Xia Wanshuang was wearing high heels and slipped during the commotion. She saw the bullied child on the verge of death and someone else holding a stick, so she stepped in front to shield them. As a result, she was hit on the head and immediately passed out.

When Xia Wanshuang opened her eyes again, she was in the hospital, in the form of a soul, watching her own body on the bed with its heart stopped.

The feeling was strange, and the points of light that appeared next to her were even stranger.

The voice calling itself a system told her that her selfless spirit had attracted its attention. As long as she followed it and completed a certain number of tasks, she could be reborn.

Xia Wanshuang, of course, agreed. Although she was an atheist, as a Chinese language teacher, she had read plenty of novels, not to mention the transmigration and wuxia novels she’d confiscated from her students. So, she didn’t find it particularly unbelievable.

The system told her that the structure of some worlds was unstable and needed “patches.” She was to play a key character who drove the plot forward—the classic “female antagonist”—to be the female lead’s love rival.

Xia Wanshuang said she had no problem with that. She had participated in school plays since she was a child and was confident she could play the role with style. Then, the system messed up.

It was supposed to transmigrate her to this same-named female antagonist’s body at age twenty-four, to be the female lead’s love rival and follow the plot. But now, in the original owner’s current tiny body, she looked barely ten years old.

This was going to be difficult.

[System]: Host, wuwuwu, it’s really not working, I can’t fix it, I can’t connect, aahhh!

“Honey, calm down. We can’t leave now, can we?”

[System]: Yes, and I can’t log out. I’m sorry, host, this is my fault, I dragged you down QAQ.

The system’s heart ached. It had followed the instruction manual perfectly, but something went wrong. The time jump was incorrect, sending them back to the original owner’s childhood. Besides the limited data, even the communication channel was sealed off.

“So we have to stay here, forever?”

[System]: I’m not sure, but the mission still has to be done. Maybe when we reach that point in the timeline, we can leave.

“Age 24?”

[System]: Yes!

“How old is the original owner now?”

[System]: Almost ten…

“Hmm… so only a little over ten years. No big deal.”

Xia Wanshuang wasn’t bothered. It was a second chance at life she had gotten for free.

[System]: Host, I’m so sorry, wuwuwuwuwu.

A task that should have taken only a few months was now going to be over ten years. The system was filled with self-reproach and despair over being cut off from its network.

“It’s fine. Do you have any background information? Give me a copy, or the memories of this child. I’ll sort through them.”

Xia Wanshuang was a methodical person. She had seen a lot in her life and was exceptionally calm.

[System]: Yes, yes, fortunately, some of the data is still here. I’ll transfer it to you. Your brain might get a little jumbled, are you ready?

“Hit me.”

Xia Wanshuang closed her eyes, and images flashed through her mind. Her temples throbbed for a moment. She clenched her fists, then relaxed, and began to slowly sort through the information.

First, she received the plot outline of this world, the part about the female lead, which was what she was supposed to understand to aid in her role-play.

In this part of the memory, there wasn’t much description of the original owner, Xia Wanshuang. It was all written from the perspective of the female lead, Zhou Qinglang.

This was a novel that combined urban corporate intrigue, a wealthy family, and a mistaken identity plot. The female lead grew up with an elderly scavenger. After the old woman died, she was sent to an orphanage. However, she didn’t stay long because the orphanage announced it was closing due to financial issues, and the children were sent to other orphanages.

Zhou Qinglang was one of the children sent to the orphanage in Tongli City. But after she arrived, she found that there was something wrong with this place. Some young children would disappear to unknown places and never return. Having grown up on the streets, Zhou Qinglang was highly vigilant. When she felt something was wrong, she ran away and continued her life as a stray. She managed to attend elementary school with the help of kind people, then paid for middle and high school herself by getting scholarships every semester. She continued this until university, and then worked her way up at a company to become the marketing director in a short amount of time, catching the eye of the male lead.

After a few incidents, their relationship evolved from a working partnership to a budding romance. This is when the female antagonist appears.

The original owner was the male lead’s childhood friend. She loved and adored him, and intensely disliked the female lead, so she did a lot to trip her up and interfere with her relationship with the male lead. After a misunderstanding, the female lead went back to her original city, starting the mistaken identity storyline.

The plot outline Xia Wanshuang received ended there.

“System, what about the rest?”

Xia Wanshuang, having read what felt like a novel about an inspiring female lead, was quite impressed.

[System]: There’s no more. Your storyline ends here. Once the male lead casts you aside and goes to chase the female lead, you can retire with your mission complete.

That was how it was supposed to be! How simple! But now… the system felt like it was going to break down just thinking about it.

“I see.”

Xia Wanshuang was a little disappointed not to see the rest of the story. She filed that part of the plot away in her mind and began to sort through the other information.

This part was the original owner’s memories. After processing them, Xia Wanshuang felt that this child’s life was also pretty tragic.

The original owner grew up in Tongli City with her parents. But when she was six, her father was killed by a drunk driver. Her mother, who already had some mental health issues, was devastated by the loss of her husband.

Suddenly, the original owner went from a carefree life to a harsh reality. She went to school while taking care of her emotionally unstable mother, but one day, she came home from school to find her mother gone.

After asking around, she found out her mother had left on her own, and no one knew where she went. They couldn’t be reached. With the help of a neighbor, they reported her missing after 48 hours, but the police searched for a few days and found nothing.

With her father gone and her mother missing, and no other relatives, the original owner was left to fend for herself. She didn’t want to go to an orphanage, because she still had her mom and wasn’t an orphan. So she stayed at home, waiting for her missing mother to return one day.

During this time, she received a lot of help from a neighbor, and she became especially dependent on the neighbor’s son, who was about her age and happened to be the male lead. This continued until the neighbor’s family moved away.

After being cast aside by the brother she had longed for at twenty-four, the original owner sadly left the city, and her memories ended there.

Xia Wanshuang finished sorting through everything and sat up on the bed.

“So the child’s mother never came back?”

[System]: I don’t know either. Now, everything you know is everything I know.

“That’s good, too.”

Although the original owner’s background was a bit tragic, it was actually beneficial for Xia Wanshuang. If the original owner’s parents were still around, Xia Wanshuang would have to figure out a way to deal with them.

So, the current situation was this: she had transmigrated into the body of a ten-year-old child whose father was dead and mother was missing. She had to wait until she was twenty-four to play the role of the love rival, and then she could leave.

Xia Wanshuang glanced at the pouring rain outside the window and took a deep breath.

Okay, this wasn’t too difficult. But there was one immediate problem.

“System, do we have any money?”

The memories mentioned that the original owner was taken care of by the neighbor lady until the family moved away during high school, but it didn’t detail her financial resources.

Xia Wanshuang wasn’t comfortable sponging off the neighbor, so she needed to figure out her financial situation first.

The system stuttered for a moment, then used its little search function, and found that it was still working.

[System]: Wait, host, I’ll check for you.

“Don’t call me ‘host.’ It’s too formal. We’ll probably be together for over ten years.”

Xia Wanshuang didn’t really like the name “host.” It made her feel like a parasite.

Hearing Xia Wanshuang say that, the system felt even sadder.

[System]: Host… Shuangshuang! I found it! There’s two hundred in the dresser, five hundred forty-five in the bedroom nightstand, and one hundred five thousand six hundred twenty-eight and forty-six cents in a bank card!

“Wow, this is great!”

This was completely workable. One hundred thousand yuan was more than enough to raise a child through middle and high school.

Xia Wanshuang felt a little giddy, thinking that life still had some hope.

Suddenly, the system thought of a problem and spoke in a hesitant, cautious voice.

[Do we know the password?]

Xia Wanshuang’s smile froze.