“Host of the Villainess Quick-Transmigration System—Liuyue is entering a small world.”
“Loading plot…”
【Your name is Ji Liuyue. You are twenty-five years old and come from an ordinary family. You grew up relying on your mother, and the two of you have always depended on each other.】
【You majored in media studies at university. Thanks to your striking appearance, you became a contracted model for a fashion magazine after graduation.】
【You have appeared in several photo shoots that went viral, but you remain stuck in the awkward stage of being “pretty, but not famous.”
Your combined followers on Weibo and Xiaohongshu number fewer than one hundred thousand. Among models, your popularity is neither outstanding nor negligible—and you are also highly ambitious when it comes to your career.】
【Once, your manager suggested,
“Liuyue, why don’t you go on a dating reality show? The production team for Heartbeat Lovers happens to be looking for a ‘controversial’ female guest. Not only is the appearance fee high, but you could also gain more followers by going on the show.”】
【You agreed, thinking to yourself: After the show, I’ll be able to land endorsements with higher fees. Once I’m financially comfortable, I can move Mom to a better care facility.】
【But in this script, you were not cast as the “fragile yet hardworking little white flower.”】
Under the production team’s direction, the PD assigned you the persona of an aggressively competitive female guest—someone who stole screen time, interrupted others, and fought for the male guests’ attention.】
【At the first meeting, you deliberately interrupted a male and female guest who were having a heart-to-heart conversation, leaving the pair, who had only just begun getting to know each other, visibly awkward.】
【After moving into the house, the other female and male guests would all take the initiative to show off by offering to cook.
But you never volunteered to help. After eating, you never washed the dishes either. All you did was dress up to look calculatingly beautiful and deliberately position yourself in front of the cameras to steal screen time.】
【After three episodes aired, you were dragged onto the trending searches as a “scheming woman” and a “low-EQ idiot.” The trending topic read: #JiLiuyueGetOutOfTheDatingShow. The real-time discussion feed was filled with ridiculous screenshots and memes of you from the show.】
【Your reputation was in ruins.】
【Meanwhile, the contrasting figure was another female guest, Liu Qingye, who had both immense popularity and an excellent reputation.】
【She was one year younger than you, with a gentle, sweet appearance. She was a newly debuted actress who had played the third or fourth female lead in several web dramas.】
【When Liu Qingye first joined the show, she hit it off with the male guest Lu Nanxun at their first meeting. But because you deliberately interrupted them, you chose the room next to Lu Nanxun’s during the room selection and ruined their chance to get closer.】
【Later, when Liu Qingye went on a date with CEO Xu Jinsi, you used a follow-along card to forcibly turn their private date into a date for three.
Xu Jinsi was clearly aloof, and only smiled when he was with Liu Qingye. Yet you insisted on shamelessly inserting yourself and monopolizing his attention.
Even after Xu Jinsi politely indicated that he wanted to give Liu Qingye and himself some privacy, you still refused to take the hint.
In the end, what should have been a romantic date became an awkward trip back to the house with all three of them wearing dark expressions.】
【This later became evidence cited by netizens when they called you “shameless,” “desperate for male attention,” and “throwing yourself at men.”】
【Only you knew that everything had been dictated by the director’s assigned persona and that the production team had viciously edited the footage. But public opinion still piled onto you like a blizzard. Countless insults even began affecting your daily work.】
【Some vicious netizens went so far as to dox you, escalating their attacks from you personally to your family. Your mother, who was already in poor health at the care facility, was hospitalized because of the ordeal.】
【Your career plummeted as well. Because of the confidentiality agreement you had signed with the production team, you had no way to clarify to the public that the persona had merely been part of the dating show. All you could do was swallow your grievances in silence.】
【In the end, you were cursed into quitting social media and developed severe depression.】
【If you could start over, how would you turn the tables and make a comeback against all odds?】
…
When Liuyue entered the world, she had already signed the agreement with the production team.
The PD director smiled and said,
“The dating show will officially begin filming in Hai City tomorrow. The production team will arrange your outfit for your first appearance, but you can also bring a few of your own clothes.”
“Also, the persona we’ve assigned you is that of the most controversial female guest. So what you need to do is interact with as many of the male guests as possible and fight for as much screen time as you can.”
The smile at the corners of Ji Liuyue’s lips faded slightly. She raised her head.
A sharp glint flashed through her eyes.
“Director, won’t I get hate for doing that?”
The PD director laughed awkwardly.
“Don’t worry. It’s all for the show’s ratings. You might take some heat during the first few episodes, but the production team will help smooth things over through editing later.”
“You know how popular Heartbeat Lovers is. We’re already filming the third season. If your manager weren’t my senior and hadn’t guaranteed that you’d follow the assigned persona, you might not even have gotten this spot.”
“You have to seize this opportunity!”
Ji Liuyue’s smile did not reach her eyes.
“Understood.”
She waved goodbye as the PD director left.
Afterward, she sat alone in the café, quietly lost in thought.
Every season of these ostensibly unscripted dating shows featured many “ordinary people” who had actually signed with talent agencies in advance and were being promoted behind the scenes.
For example, in this season of Heartbeat Lovers, the female guest the investors wanted to promote was Liu Qingye.
Her persona was that of a seductive, effortlessly charming beauty.
The production team had even arranged a dramatic love triangle for her. At their first meeting, the male guest Lu Nanxun would fall in love with her at first sight, while she would spark chemistry with CEO Xu Jinsi during their second date.
Later, when a new male guest joined the show, she would also be the person he chose for his priority date.
She was practically the production team’s favored daughter.
As for Ji Liuyue, her purpose was to serve as Liu Qingye’s foil. Every time, she would interfere in Liu Qingye’s romantic storylines, steal the spotlight and the male guests, and even interact with every male guest under the production team’s orders.
After the footage was edited, she would become a “catty, low-level rival with a strong sense of vanity who was impossible to like.”
Ji Liuyue asked, “System, which male guest am I supposed to pursue?”
The system replied, “After observing the host’s exceptionally high task completion rate in the previous worlds, the host may freely choose two male guests to pursue in this dating-show world. The mission will be considered complete once their favorability toward you reaches 100%.”
“You will also receive double the luck value from this small world as a reward.”
Ji Liuyue smiled.
“All right, then. Lu Nanxun and Xu Jinsi. I’ll take all of Liu Qingye’s love interests!”
