The moment Wang Jian and his crew were snapped into silver handcuffs, Mu Yue on the other end received an excited broadcast from Little Villain.
"Congratulations, Host! Your point balance has increased by a massive amount!!!"
Whoa! Mu Yue's eyes lit up. She had known the points would be substantial, but the reward far exceeded her expectations. Ten thousand points was such a sweet haul, and what's more, she barely had to lift a finger for it.
After all, this time the male lead had thrown himself entirely into the mess, reached out to collude with Spade to stir up trouble, nursed a grudge against the Tang family, and even changed his plan that very morning to pull a double-cross. He got caught red-handed with irrefutable evidence, so much so that Mu Yue couldn't even find a gap to frame him further—otherwise, the villain points would have climbed even higher.
But it was precisely because Mu Yue had only recorded the video and called the police that everything went so smoothly. If she had tried to frame the male lead to lock him up, his protagonist halo would definitely have kicked in, and her schemes as a villain would have backfired for sure.
Stashing the ten thousand points in her metaphorical pocket, Mu Yue hummed a tune as she left the restaurant. The scenery that had already been quite nice now looked absolutely stunning. She wandered through the scenic area, enjoying every fun amusement ride it had to offer, and took breaks every now and then to check on Wang Jian's situation. Watching the group being escorted into the police vehicle, the whole drive going off without a hitch—save for a few more red lights and heavier traffic than usual—until the whole crew arrived at the police station without incident, Mu Yue's mood got even better.
With the male lead landing in jail, the power of the plot would definitely have tried to fish him out, but unfortunately for him, his protagonist halo had been chipped away again and again, and he never had enough connections or a strong enough background. No matter how many red lights stopped the car, no one dared to take the huge risk of stepping in to rescue him. Worse still, as he was getting out of the police car, his ex-girlfriend—the former top campus beauty who he had dumped long ago and who was no longer qualified to stay by his side—happened to be there.
Showing up at a police station didn't necessarily mean someone had committed a crime; they could be there for other matters. But Wang Jian and his gang got out of the car in such a recognizable, dishevelled state that the ex campus beauty immediately felt even more turned off. She had only thought Wang Jian, that lowlife, was the type to want two-timing and look down on women, but never imagined he would end up getting locked up. The campus beauty shook her head, glad she had gotten away from him when she did.
Mu Yue wasn't sure if her bad luck item was still working its magic, but regardless, seeing the male lead at his most pathetic, with nothing left of her feelings for him but disgust, dealt him yet another heavy blow. After all, in Wang Jian's imagination, the one struggling in hard times was supposed to be that materialistic campus beauty—she would have a worse life after leaving him, and in the end, come crying and begging him to take her back.
But as luck would have it, the area right in front of the police station was wide open, and Wang Jian wasn't even free to move around, so he had nowhere to hide at all.
The good news for him was that he soon had no time to think about what his ex would think of him, or what she would say about him behind his back to their mutual friends. The bad news was that Spade was being led out of another police car right then.
He stared wide-eyed at Spade, and Spade caught sight of him too, his face twisted with unmasked, genuine resentment.
Wang Jian's heart thudded hard. He swallowed dryly, carefully glancing over at the Tang family members, a terrible premonition creeping over him. He prayed it wouldn't come true. But today was destined to let him down.
Leaving the scenic area, Mu Yue heard there was a fruit picking garden nearby. On a whim, she detoured straight for it, enjoying the view of the group at the police station through her connection, watching them panic and break down one by one.
Spade was not just the male lead's current associate and sidekick, but also one of his most important tools—there was no way Mu Yue would leave him out of the fun.
Long before this, Spade had committed no small number of crimes. Apart from using his technical skills to smear classmates and teachers, dragging them into online harassment that pushed some to the brink of depression and even suicide, he was also adept at hacking into different bank systems to siphon off money. He had always thought money was just a string of numbers to him, just as the novel had described him.
But in reality, he was terrified. Worried that the large total amount of stolen money would be traced back to him, he had kept each individual sum small and scattered across different accounts. No matter how the original story tried to glorify him, at his core Spade was no different from a petty thief—just a rat hiding in the shadows.
The moment Mu Yue had noticed Spade, she could have asked her System Darlings to pull the evidence from the internet to send him to jail, but that would have been such a waste. Now, getting arrested tied directly to the male lead, he could dump all the blame on Wang Jian—It's all Wang Jian's fault! If it weren't for him, I never would have gotten caught!
The male lead's "romance lines" were so lacking without all that angsty, tangled love and mutual backstabbing, it felt like something was missing. Now this plot point made it feel far more fleshed out. The only pity was that Mu Yue would probably never get to hear the male lead say "thank you" to her.
Mu Yue didn't linger in the city for long. She got a message on her chat app from Ye Luling, inviting her to visit her private island. Mu Yue was quite intrigued by the idea of a private island, so her butler immediately booked the flight route and airport access. Two days later, she boarded her luxury private plane and left the city.
Ye Luling was the first golden opportunity Mu Yue had snatched away from that womanizing male lead Wang Jian. They had stayed in occasional, limited contact, but now that the vacation had started and they had plenty of free time on their hands, Ye Luling had been messaging her far more often.
Compared to Ye Luling, the Tang family's status was barely worth mentioning. The Ye family were top-tier billionaires, ranked among the richest families internationally, with most of their enterprises based domestically. The Ye family had deep roots and extremely abundant assets, and Ye Luling had indeed grown up doted on by everyone, earning her the title Little Princess. But her father was really hard to judge—he seemed to dote on his daughter, yet absurdly trusted an outsider fiancé far too much.
If Mu Yue hadn't stepped in back on the cruise ship, Ye Luling would have been devoured completely, with nothing left of her.
In the original novel, after the male lead slept with his 16-year-old daughter, Ye Luling's father practically "fell for him at first sight". Instead of flying into a rage, he even wanted to reward the male lead.
Probably due to the plot's nonsense, even after all that "affection", Ye Luling's father still put the male lead through a series of tests instead of handing over all the family assets immediately. Later on, after the male lead had lived off the wealth of countless families and made a name for himself internationally, Ye Luling's father acted like an ancient court official, using the excuse that he wanted his daughter to have a better status in the male lead's "harem" as a justification, claiming he was reluctantly compromising for his daughter's sake, before pouring all kinds of resources straight into the male lead's hands.
What a load of garbage. If he really loved his daughter, why wouldn't he give all the best things to her, instead of handing them over to an unrelated man who was already surrounded by multiple women?
Even though she had never met him, Mu Yue already felt deep disgust for Ye Luling's father. While the Little Princess was still young, Mu Yue, as this villain, decided to teach her a thing or two about how to seize power for herself. Even if she couldn't fully get the idea across, she would at least instill in her the mindset that power and wealth must be held in one's own hands to truly belong to them.
She acted on the thought right away, communicating with her four System Darlings to quietly push all kinds of sobering short essays and news stories to Ye Luling's most frequently used social media accounts. Of course, if the Little Princess simply wanted to live a carefree, doted-on life as a privileged girl, that was entirely her choice. Mu Yue would never overstep and interfere too much—she only hoped that the girl wouldn't end up being manipulated and deceived without even realising it.
This flight was rather long, and with nothing much to do on the plane, Mu Yue was a little bored, so she could only pass the time by binging more of the short drama centered around the male lead.
These past two days had been absolute torture for Wang Jian.
Quite a few members of the Tang family had been arrested, but not all of them ended up behind bars. Unlike Wang Jian, who had no family or connections to fall back on, the moment the Tangs were brought to the police station, their lawyers showed up right away, along with the other key heads of the Tang family.
To the Tang family, the whole incident was not complicated, but no matter what story they tried to spin about what had happened at the scene, there was no easy way out. All they could do was minimize their losses and wipe out all traces of their past dealings as quickly as possible. But this process was extremely risky. Now that members of the Tang family had been taken into custody, the authorities were definitely keeping a close eye on them. If their secret actions were discovered, the Tang family would be completely finished.
Amidst all their frantic busyness, the Tang family did not forget to figure out what had gone wrong with this particular deal. They had pulled off transactions like this plenty of times before, but something had gone wrong this one time. Very soon, the Tang family's attention landed on the only outsider involved in the operation.
Naturally, Wang Jian became the first person they suspected.
Mu Yue thought their efficiency was far too low, and the plot was not nearly exciting enough, so she decided to give the Tang family a little helpful nudge. She directly sent a copy of the chat history between Wang Jian and Spade to the Tang family, and casually sent another copy to the police station too.
And just like that, things started to get interesting.
When the Tang family patriarch learned the truth, he was so furious that his eyes rolled back and he fainted. When he woke up, he found himself still under police guard. The family members who came to visit him could only look at him from a distance, and the looks in their eyes were not full of concern—they were full of resentment. If it hadn't been for his insistence on bringing someone like Wang Jian into their inner circle, how could all this have happened?
The Tang family patriarch was so angry that his liver ached, but he knew full well that this mess was his own fault. He was kicking himself, wondering how he had grown so careless in his old age. That reckless kid Wang Jian, whom he had only known for such a short time, he had actually let the boy take part in such a high-stakes deal, and now this greedy bastard had ruined everything for him.
But a stubborn old coot like the Tang family patriarch would never apologize to his family or admit he was wrong. Instead, he directed all his rage straight at the source of the trouble. That damned Wang Jian—he would never let him get away with this. He would make sure Wang Jian suffered a fate worse than death.
Surprises kept piling up one after another. As the Tang family dug deeper into Spade, they soon uncovered even more damning material. This time, Mu Yue didn't even need to step in to help. The Tang family easily got their hands on Spade's private collection: videos of her and Wang Jian having sex in the wilderness, plus footage of Wang Jian with two other men.
Now every single member of the Tang family felt utterly disgusted. The Tang family's youngest granddaughter was so revolted that she threw up several times. She ran to the Tang family patriarch in tears, blaming him for bringing such a filthy man into their family, and even letting her get close to him. Was she really his most beloved granddaughter?
The old man was so infuriated that he was numb, unable to say a single word. In his heart, he wanted nothing more than to flay Wang Jian alive.
Perhaps it was because he had been pushed so far past the point of rage that the old man suddenly calmed down. It wasn't just their family that had been caught in this mess—the sellers were in the same boat. The sellers had far more power and influence. Even though this batch of goods was a total loss, it wasn't something that would hurt them badly. But Wang Jian, that troublemaker, had dared to cross them and go after their money, and they would never let him get away with it either.
Right before the plane landed, Mu Yue had already caught up to the latest episodes of this drama arc focused on the male lead. The people from the seller's side had arrived.
The person the sellers had sent was the Witch. Back then, Mu Yue had once bid on a gem at an underground casino, where the real and fake gems had been swapped, and the Witch, who had led the male lead into the casino's inner core area, had been punished. She had lost one of her eyes. Besides her lost eye, it was obvious she had lost something else too: her power.
According to the original plot, her career path was supposed to be on the rise. But now, she had been sent to handle such a trivial errand. In a movie, this kind of dirty, grunt work was only ever assigned to low-level lieutenants. In the original text, the Witch was supposed to become one of the top leaders of that underground casino.
Mu Yue couldn't help but wonder what her reaction would be if she ever saw Wang Jian again.
When she added it all up, there were so many people lining up to take revenge on Wang Jian, their names practically forming a queue. If they all came for him at once, Mu Yue was worried that Wang Jian wouldn't even survive it.
If that happened, she would be able to collect all the remaining plot points as points as quickly as possible in one go.
But even if this male lead was as tough as a cockroach, Mu Yue was sure that for a very long time to come, he would be subjected to endless torment. It wouldn't be like the half-hearted, trivial mental torture in so many romance novels where the male lead just sheds a couple of fake tears. This playboy male lead was going to suffer pure, unfiltered physical and mental agony. A real man deserves to take on the hardest, most intense pain there is!
Mu Yue told her System Darlings to record everything, because she definitely did not want to miss a single moment of the upcoming plot.
The city where the airport was located was a thriving tourist destination. To get to Ye Luling's private island, you had to take a boat or a private plane. Ye Luling, being the thoughtful host that she was, had already thought this through, and she came to the airport to pick Mu Yue up.
It had been a long time since they last met. Ye Luling had grown a little taller. Even though they hadn't spent that much time together, she was still very affectionate towards Mu Yue. She took Mu Yue around the city to explore and have fun, and during their time together, she complained to Mu Yue that she wanted to learn self-defense, but her dad always said she couldn't handle the hardship and the tiredness, and that it would be better to just hire more bodyguards. She also wanted to study psychology and learn how to read people, but once again, her dad insisted she wasn't capable of doing that.
Compared to the Ye Luling back on the cruise ship who had trusted her father completely, the current Ye Luling was now full of doubts and confusion. From the things she said, Mu Yue could easily tell that Ye Luling was starting to wonder: was her dad really doing all this for her own good? Did he truly love her? Why did he keep saying she was incapable every single time she tried to learn something new?
Mu Yue curled her lips into a faint smile. She didn't come right out and tell Ye Luling that her father was a total control freak. Instead, she went along with what Ye Luling was saying, telling her that arrogant, chauvinistic men were all like that. But the more they insisted you couldn't do something, the more you could prove them wrong and succeed.
The island wasn't very far from the port city, and the scenery there was absolutely stunning. Every facility and amenity you could possibly want was available on the island. Right in the center of the island stood a dreamy little town that had been specially designed and built for Ye Luling, with a whimsical, fairytale-like aesthetic. It wasn't until Mu Yue arrived and saw the decorations on the buildings that she realized this was all for Ye Luling's birthday party.
She had brought Ye Luling gifts with her, but those were just ordinary, everyday presents. She hadn't prepared a proper birthday gift yet.
Ye Luling's birthday was still four days away, so Mu Yue wasn't in a rush. The Little Princess already had more than enough pretty jewelry and clothes, so giving her something like that wouldn't mean much. It would be far better to give her something truly special and memorable.
Mu Yue opened up her system inventory. She had quite a few items she had collected from sign-ins in the system space. The negative effect items she had tossed at the male lead were only a small portion of what she owned. The items she had used the most were all luck-boosting items, and most of the other little gadgets were still sitting unused. She started browsing through them... there were still two dream-manipulation items left that she had used on Wen Yuanting and his family before, an item that let you talk to small animals, a focus-boosting item, a magical little casket with all sorts of whimsical effects, and plenty more.
Mu Yue thought it over for a moment, and decided that she would give Ye Luling a carefully designed nightmare, paired with a buff item that would grant her a resolve-boosting aura.
She didn't even need to make up the content of the nightmare. All she had to do was copy and paste the passages about Ye Luling from that stallion novel, and that alone would be nothing short of a horror flick for Ye Luling. Mu Yue was also taking precautions just in case that loser male lead didn't die and managed to escape. Even if he ran into Ye Luling again later, he would never be able to leech off her and take advantage of her the way he did in the original story.
As for Shi Yu's family background and status, the hand of the plot had already pushed things in that direction multiple times. Ye Luling's family was even wealthier than the Shi family, so there was no guarantee that she wouldn't end up being targeted next.
As for the Resolution Halo, it wasn't even that overpowered. It just made every choice Ye Luling made more aligned with her true inner self, so she would never get trapped by other people's verbal tricks that easily. Neither of these two gifts was visible to anyone else, so Mu Yue added a limited-time Forest Princess Experience Card on top of them.
Ye Luling was definitely going to like this. It let her talk to animals, and made all animals adore her, and she could even pass off the ability as hypnotic magic to others.
Right as Mu Yue was wandering around Ye Luling's private island with her, Mu Yue received another batch of points from the male lead's side. She checked the notification and saw that the Witch had already found out that Wang Jian had played a key role in that failed deal.
The real-life nightmare for that stallion male lead had officially begun.
