[Trigger warnings for my darlings: This is not a strong female lead or overpowered protagonist satisfying read. The female lead is relatively independent, but in the early stages, her personality is just to slack off and let things be. So, as long as the female supporting characters do not provoke her, she is too lazy to care. The female lead is also quite self-interested, so although she sympathizes with the original owner of the body, she will not do dangerous things for her.]
[The world setting is one where females are valued but it is not a strict matriarchy; the strong are respected. At its core, it is still a 1v5 romance novel, so there will be a lot of plot points where the male leads help solve problems. Of course, our baby female lead is not a helpless clinging vine either. Those who mind this, please feel free to click away~]
Gu Chenyuan's dagger was pressed against Jiang Lijin's neck. The sharp blade sliced through her skin, and bright red blood flowed down her pale neck, dripping onto the pure white carpet, a shocking sight.
She did not struggle, only quietly looked at this man she had humbly fawned over for three whole years. In those deep, handsome eyes of his, there was not even a single shred of pity, only disgust, deep disgust...
"Jiang Li, right now, you do not even have the qualifications to be Wanwan's substitute." His voice was sharper than the blade.
Su Wanwan leaned delicately into his embrace, carrying her usual, pretentious sobbing tone, her voice pitched sweet and piercing: "Sister Lili, I am sorry, do not blame Chenyuan. He just loves me too much and cannot bear to see me suffer even a little grievance..."
But actually, at this very moment, Jiang Lijin could no longer hear what Su Wanwan was saying. Because the system was sounding the highest-level death alarm in her mind:
[Warning! Warning! The male lead's affection points have been completely cleared to zero! The host is about to face forced obliteration by the system! Please take survival measures immediately! Immediately!]
Immediately following was the anxious, almost crying shout of Xiao Er, the system that had accompanied her for three years: [Host! Host, do not just space out! Quickly think of a way! Cry! Kneel down and kowtow to him, beg for his forgiveness! Over the past three years, we have taken knives for him, drawn blood for him, done so much, he must still have some feelings for you!]
Feelings?
Jiang Lijin looked into Gu Chenyuan's temperatureless eyes and suddenly smiled.
To hell with survival measures!
To hell with the simp missions!
To hell with being a substitute female lead!
This utterly rotten plot, she did not want to serve it for another day!
As Gu Chenyuan frowned, thinking she was going to wag her tail and beg for pity like she used to, Jiang Lijin suddenly lunged. With a fierce strength born from who knows where, she violently reached out, not to push away that fatal knife, but to firmly grip Gu Chenyuan's knife-wielding wrist. With a resolute smile, she viciously yanked it across her own carotid artery!
"Pfft—"
Blood gushed out, splattering across half of Gu Chenyuan's face. Those eyes of his that were always cold finally cracked with extreme shock in an instant.
The moment the agonizing pain exploded, the world also quieted down.
Jiang Lijin thought to herself: Let everything end just like this. In this book-transmigration mission, she had transmigrated with her physical body. If her body died, her soul would also be obliterated by the system. That was fine too; this was what she deemed the ultimate release anyway.
But... she opened her eyes once again.
The first thing she saw was the flowing blue water-ripple-like light and shadows on the ceiling, flashy and colorful. A man with a cold aesthetic like Gu Chenyuan would definitely never like this... She stared at it for a full three seconds, belatedly realizing that this was definitely not a hospital, and even less like the underworld.
What did this mean? Was the system into recycling trash, issuing her a new abuse-enduring mission?
She did not even have the strength to sigh. They would not even let her die a quick death?
She tried calling out in her heart: [Xiao Er?]
There was no response. Her mind was filled with a panic-inducing, dead silence.
[Hey, do not play dead, I know you can hear me. Did my mission not fail? Whether you want to obliterate me or whatever, do as you please. What is the meaning of playing dead now? And where is this place?]
Her shouts echoed in her empty mind, then slowly dissipated.
Was Xiao Er gone?
That mechanical voice that had accompanied her for three whole years, that would quietly play funny videos for her after she was humiliated by Gu Chenyuan, that would clumsily comfort her with "Do not cry Host, we will fight again next time" when Su Wanwan framed her, was it completely gone?
In this world, she had become all alone once again.
But before she could swallow down this bitterness, an extremely impatient voice smashed over: "If you are awake, stop playing dead."
Only then did Jiang Lijin slowly move her eyes.
Three men stood by the bed... No, accurately speaking, they did not quite look like normal "humans." Their average height started at two meters, with broad shoulders and long legs. Even more bizarrely, they had hair colors and pupils different from ordinary people, with handsome features, looking more like those top-tier cosplayers she had seen in her original world.
It was just that the aura radiating from them, an aura belonging to apex predators, pressed down on her weak body, making her chest tight and causing physiological discomfort.
The silver-haired man on the left was looking down at her with a gaze like he was looking at trash.
"How do you even have the nerve to faint?" The silver-haired man sneered, his eyes full of contempt. "Who are you putting on a show for? Do you think pretending to faint can stall for time?"
The blue-haired man standing in the middle was relatively milder. He pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, but his tone was equally devoid of warmth: "Jiang Lijin, since you are awake, let us talk about the divorce."
As soon as he spoke, Jiang Lijin froze.
How did he know this name?
The name "Jiang Lijin," she had only ever mentioned to Xiao Er. In the orphanage on Blue Star, she was called Jiang Li. Before being bullied and setting a fire to perish together with her abusers, she was called Jiang Li. Being a substitute simp in the book world for three years, she was also called Jiang Li.
Only in the dead of night, during countless times when she was tortured to the point of wishing for death, would she say to Xiao Er: When I finish this mission, I am going to change my name to Jiang Lijin. Like ashes, completely burning down the past to obtain a new life.
So, how did this strange man in front of her know?
She lifted her heavy eyelids to look at them. The red-haired one on the right did not spare her a single glance, looking down and irritably fiddling with a high-tech optical computer on his wrist, saying impatiently, "Why waste words with her? Make her sign the papers and get the hell out."
Then, as if feeling that operating it with one hand was not satisfying enough, he tore the optical computer off, his long, slender fingers typing rapidly on the virtual screen.
Jiang Lijin frowned and did an action that made the three arrogant men in front of her freeze at the same time. She closed her eyes, pulled up the blanket, and peacefully laid back down on the bed.
[Xiao Er?] She called out in her heart once more, unwilling to give up.
It was still a dead silence.
"Truly gone, huh..." she muttered in a low voice, a mocking arc pulling at the corners of her mouth. That was fine too, at least she got some peace and quiet.
Right at this moment, a sharp, piercing pain suddenly struck her mind. A flash of white light passed, and the memories belonging to the "original owner" of this world flooded into her brain like shattered glass shards.
The Interstellar Era... the Beastman Empire... S-grade males... genetic matching... a useless female with C-grade mental power...
She was still digesting this massive amount of information, but the three noble S-grade men in front of her obviously didn't have such a good temper.
"Are you deaf?!" The silver-haired beastman completely lost his patience. He suddenly reached out his broad palm, about to grab her shoulder.
According to the fragments of memory that had just flashed back, this hot-tempered silver-haired man was named Rex. His true form was a silver wolf, and he was also one of her legal "husbands."
Before his hand could touch her, Jiang Lijin abruptly threw off the blanket and sprang up from the bed.
The movement was too fierce, and coupled with the original owner's inherently weak physique, it made her instantly dizzy, her vision going black for a moment. But she gritted her teeth fiercely, forcibly swallowing back that wave of weakness. Her back was perfectly straight, and her pitch-black eyes stared unblinkingly at the three men in front of her... her "husbands."
"Just now," she spoke, her voice hoarse from lack of water, "did you say something?"
Rex's hand froze in mid-air, his brows furrowing. "What else?"
This woman usually didn't even dare to breathe loudly when she saw them. How did she dare to look at him with such eyes today?
"What did you say? Say it again." Jiang Lijin picked at her ear and asked seriously, "My ears were ringing just now, I didn't hear it clearly."
Kieran, who stood in the middle and seemed to have the best temper, frowned slightly. Suppressing the strange feeling in his heart, he repeated, "We hope you can agree to break the engagement. The forced match between you and us is a system error in itself. Continuing it is torture for all of us."
On the right, the red-haired Arden finally raised his head, his red eyes full of undisguised sarcasm. "To put it bluntly, you are not worthy of us. C-grade mental power, D-grade genetic level, what else do you have besides the identity of a female? Top-tier S-grade males like us are only worthy of pure-blooded females with S-grade mental power like Felwin. Your meager mental power doesn't even qualify you to give us mental guidance..."
"Stop." Jiang Lijin pressed her throbbing temples and raised a hand in an extremely perfunctory manner.
The three men, who were used to being high and mighty, paused at the same time and looked at her.
Jiang Lijin took a deep breath, feeling terribly weak all over. But it didn't matter, she was too used to this kind of weakness. During the three years she spent as a simp being abused by the male lead in the book world, she had long forged a will of steel.
"Let me get this straight." She stretched out her pale, slender fingers, counting them off one by one. "First, the three of you are my legal husbands in the legal sense. Second, you want a divorce because I am a C-grade piece of trash, and you have an S-grade white moonlight goddess in your hearts. Third, you just spent three minutes directing graceless personal insults and attacks at a patient who just woke up from a coma, which is me. I didn't summarize it wrong, did I?"
She raised her head. There was no expression on her pale little face, but those eyes were astonishingly bright.
Rex felt inexplicably irritable under her gaze. His beastly intuition told him that the woman in front of him seemed different, but he still snorted coldly, "So what if it is?"
"Nothing much," Jiang Lijin said lightly.
The next second, she suddenly smiled. That smile was radiant, flamboyant, and even carried a hint of madness that had been suppressed for too long. "I just wanted to confirm the situation. Now that the confirmation is done, it's my turn."
She stepped barefoot on the cold metal floor. The chill shot up from the soles of her feet, but she didn't care at all. She walked towards the three of them step by step. Even though she was a head and a half shorter than them, the "I'm not afraid of anything" aura radiating from her actually forced the three S-grade beastmen to subconsciously take half a step back.
"First of all, regarding the divorce—divorce! We must divorce! Right now, immediately!"
Jiang Lijin pointed at them, her eyes full of disgust as if she were looking at some non-recyclable trash. "Just look at you guys with your colorful bird's nest hair... you punks, whoever doesn't divorce is a coward! Where is the divorce agreement? Bring it over, I'll sign it right now!"
The three men instantly froze in place.
"Secondly," she took another step closer and raised her head, "about me being a C-grade piece of trash. You're right, I am trash. So what? Did my C-grade self eat your family's rice? Did my breathing pollute your family's air? The mastermind matched you to a C-grade like me, is that my problem? Why don't you take a good look at yourselves in the mirror and think about what's wrong with you? Is it because you haven't worked hard to improve yourselves over the years that the system judged you're only worthy of a C-grade like me?!"
Kieran, who had always been eloquent, was actually choked up at this moment and couldn't make a sound.
"Finally, and most importantly." Jiang Lijin stood on her tiptoes and reached out to poke Rex's hard chest muscles vigorously, her momentum arrogant to the extreme. "The three of you, prick up your ears and listen carefully! From today on, I, Jiang Lijin, will no longer revolve around you self-righteous male dogs! From now on, I'm done serving you! Go fawn over whatever S-grade goddess you want, it's none of my damn business!"
She paused, glancing around at the three handsome faces that had completely petrified, their expressions a colorful mix of emotions, and a malicious sneer curled the corners of her mouth.
"But—if you dare to speak to me in that high and mighty tone again..."
"I will immediately log onto the Star Network and, in accordance with the Empire's 'Rare Female Protection Regulations', write three real-name complaint letters to the Supreme Court, detailing how the three of you mentally abused and personally attacked a weak legal spouse. After all, you admitted it yourselves just now."
Jiang Lijin tilted her head, her smile sweet and deadly. "Oh, right, I've even thought of the news headline for the interstellar media. It'll be called—'Shocking! Three S-grade Beastman Elites of the Empire Jointly Bully a Weak Female Due to Disdain for Her Low Grade. What Has Become of Morality?'"
The spacious and luxurious bedroom fell into a deathly silence.
