Saving the Pitiful Villain (GL) - Chapter 1
Sunlight poured in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, creating a bright arc as it refracted along the smooth edges of the furniture.
Jiang Shangxue stood before the mirror, taking out a handkerchief to wipe the dampness from her palm. Then, she meticulously fastened the frog buttons to the highest one. For several nights in a row, she had been woken by the same nightmare.
After washing up, Jiang Shangxue, as usual, went downstairs to eat breakfast while reading the business newspaper.
At exactly nine o’clock, she appeared at the company entrance. New employees on the road stared in awe. Jiang Shangxue’s curly hair was neatly pinned up, revealing a mature and intellectual face, adorned with just the right amount of light makeup, clean and elegant. A few wisps of hair cascaded onto her neck, and her every movement exuded a gentle grace, like ripples on water.
Yet, her eyes, dark as ink, inadvertently appeared extremely cold, instantly extinguishing any illicit thoughts.
Gentle yet resolute.
Absolutely stunning!
An employee secretly snapped a picture of Jiang Shangxue’s back in a qipao and uploaded it to an anonymous business forum in Rongcheng.
The caption read: “I ask you, among the business titans of Rongcheng, who can be more beautiful and gentle than President Jiang?”
To the right of the photo was the very conspicuous logo of Mingchuang Group. A few seconds later, replies started to flood in.
[So beautiful, a woman whose background and looks I can’t even dream of matching.]
[Oh please, I’ll admit she’s beautiful, but gentle? No way. The title of “fake gentle, true femme fatale” goes to President Jiang.]
[Agree with the above. The Greenland project fully showcased President Jiang’s tactics. This beautiful businesswoman’s underhanded methods are no less than ours, men.]
[Greenland? The Greenland project jointly developed by Hongyuan and Mingchuang?]
What started as a casual post quickly shifted the atmosphere in the thread to something subtle when Greenland was mentioned.
Who in the Rongcheng business world didn’t know that the Greenland project was personally spearheaded by the Presidents of Hongyuan and Mingchuang? If one were to talk about the shady tactics involved in the project, only the executives had the right to speak.
Several replies quickly topped the thread.
[May I ask if the gentleman above is Lin Yuan, President Lin of Hongyuan?]
[Shocked! doge.jpg. A big shot is here with me in the same thread, gossiping!]
[Quite sudden, turns out even big bosses are on the front lines of gossip.]
Lin Yuan looked at the screen, smiling without a word, then clicked the ‘x’ in the top right corner, exiting the forum.
Even now, thinking back to the Greenland project he collaborated on with Jiang Shangxue, Lin Yuan still felt a lingering fear. This woman appeared beautiful and gentle on the surface, easy to manipulate. Yet, he was completely deceived by her facade. The moment he tried to pull some strings to gain more profit for Hongyuan, he was severely taught a lesson.
Through one in-depth collaboration, Lin Yuan had completely figured out Jiang Shangxue’s modus operandi. If you played by the rules, she would naturally play by the rules, ensuring a win-win. But if you had ulterior motives, she would openly snatch people, seize resources, trip you up, and wage commercial warfare, stopping at nothing. In her own words, as long as it wasn’t illegal or universally condemned, anything was fair game.
Kind to the kind, vicious to the vicious.
In short, she was a cunning “werewolf.”
Within a single morning, the thread had been pushed to “hot.” Meanwhile, Jiang Shangxue, the center of the discussion, was in her office flipping through the script of “Falling for You.”
“Falling for You” was a top-tier, popular IP that Mingchuang Group had invested in this year. Filming was scheduled to start at the end of the month, and the villainous stepmother in it happened to share Jiang Shangxue’s name.
Normally, such minor details wouldn’t require Jiang Shangxue’s specific approval. However, Su Yue, wanting a vacation and a bonus, intentionally used the script as an excuse to see Jiang Shangxue, subtly hinting at her desires.
Jiang Shangxue glanced at the plot, and that very night, the nightmares began, recurring for several nights.
A girl in a long red dress, crying, jumped from the top floor. Her limbs shattered, bl00d splattered everywhere. Jiang Shangxue stood beside her, no matter how much she yelled or tried to stop her, it was futile. She could only watch helplessly as the girl jumped.
In the dream, someone called out the girl’s name—Yun Wu, precisely the name of the main villain in “Falling for You.”
Su Yue, who had been lazily sprawled on the sofa, watched Jiang Shangxue’s increasingly grave expression. Her heart tightened, and she sat up straight, though her words were still teasing.
“No way, President Jiang, you’re not really bothered that a cannon fodder character in the script shares your name, are you? I’ll have them change it right away.”
Jiang Shangxue didn’t look up, continuing to flip through the script in her hand, saying, “Minister Su, you seem to have a lot of free time to chat in my office. It seems you haven’t been working overtime enough.”
“No, please don’t! I’ll leave immediately.”
Su Yue’s expression momentarily twisted, her body reacting faster than her brain. As her words fell, her hand swiftly closed Jiang Shangxue’s office door.
Not enough overtime—even capitalists would weep hearing that.
Jiang Shangxue continued to read the remaining plot, her brows furrowing deeper with each page.
This drama was positioned as a sweet romance, and typically, villains were either stupid and troublesome or simply evil.
But Yun Wu, by all accounts, didn’t fit the standard villain archetype. She was simply a pitiful, tragic figure.
An orphan, abandoned by her biological mother at five months old, and raised by a mad old man who made a living by collecting trash.
A cramped, sunless room all year round, the constant smell of garbage clinging to her, and an old stairwell plastered with flyers and spit marks everywhere—these were the hallmarks of her twisted childhood.
When Yun Wu reached four or five years old, her delicate features began to take shape. Although she was excessively thin due to chronic malnutrition, she still caught the attention of some scoundrels in the stairwell.
These scoundrels tried to lure Yun Wu with a few pieces of cheap candy to do some disgusting and vulgar things. Perhaps the difficult life had made Yun Wu remarkably precocious; she escaped harm by crying and vaguely protesting.
But from then on, the gossips in the stairwell began to speculate about Yun Wu’s background with the utmost malice.
The gossips would say nasty and vicious curses to Yun Wu’s face. They said Yun Wu’s mother must have been a prostitute, which was why she abandoned her, and that Yun Wu was also a cheap little vixen from a young age, perhaps inheriting her mother’s “dirty disease.”
Malicious rumors and an extremely impoverished and tight-knit living environment made Yun Wu overly sensitive and insecure from a young age.
She lived cautiously in this world.
But even so, it did not extinguish Yun Wu’s kind nature. She would wipe or wash the trash she picked up clean before bringing it home to reduce the strange smell in the stairwell. When the community street office came to take her away, she refused, insisting on staying to take care of the mad old man.
Fortunately, the community street office eventually decided to sponsor her education, providing her with a certain amount of living expenses each month.
Although it was only two hundred yuan, for Yun Wu at that time, being able to go to school and eat until she was full was an immense luxury.
Yun Wu’s first turning point in life occurred at this time.
Jiang Shangxue’s slender, fair fingers paused at the bottom of the page. She then picked up a cup nearby and took a sip of water, then another, before continuing to turn the page.
Yun Wu was very intelligent, and this advantage became evident after she started school. Her grades were consistently among the best. Although she still had no playmates, people would still point at her behind her back and say,
“Look, that’s her. Her grandpa is a crazy old man who picks up trash.”
“No wonder she smells so bad.”
She always kept to herself, rarely speaking a word in an entire semester. She was seen as an aloof, strange student by teachers and peers, but in every exam, she could be found among the top three.
Yun Wu seemed to be close to grasping the light, but how could a villain’s life truly improve? When she was seventeen, she was sought out by her biological father.
A luxurious villa, meticulous details everywhere—she felt out of place with everything.
Her stepmother would frequently order servants to slap her, make her kneel; these were the mild punishments. When the stepmother was in a bad mood, she would even make her kneel and eat like a dog.
Her so-called biological father sat by and did nothing.
The girl’s already fragile self-esteem and sense of shame were completely shattered by the daily torment.
When she read the scene where Yun Wu was forced to eat like a dog, Jiang Shangxue’s beautiful fingers abruptly creased the paper. She tugged at her collar, a hint of annoyance in her eyes.
She suppressed her displeasure and continued reading.
Yun Wu, taken back by her father, was sent to a prestigious school for high school. This was the beginning of her new nightmare. Here, she met the male and female leads.
The book described Yun Wu as exceptionally beautiful, with pure, dark eyes that hooked outwards, naturally possessing a cool and distant demeanor, and an alluring stubbornness in her bones.
As soon as Yun Wu enrolled, she attracted the male lead’s attention. The female lead, feeling displeased, would always innocently stir up trouble, and she had a loyal group of supporters who would charge into battle for her.
The escalating bullying and discrimination from her peers made Yun Wu even more insecure and fragile. Even when she was forced to kneel in the bathroom and drink toilet water, the school teachers merely brushed it off lightly.
The male lead, who witnessed everything from beginning to end, would always appear after Yun Wu was bullied, feigning comfort and understanding.
Yun Wu, who had never experienced kindness from her peers, thus fell for him. She willingly allowed herself to be manipulated (PUA) by the male lead. In the later stages, with the male lead’s help, Yun Wu continuously grew, becoming the undisputed, wholly-owned controller of the Yun Group in just two years after graduating from college.
At this point, the male lead revealed his true intentions. He used Yun Wu’s trust to effortlessly merge with the Yun Group.
Throughout the entire story, Yun Wu was called a villain simply because she loved the male lead and, whenever the male and female leads argued, served as a tool for their flirtation.
Finally, Yun Wu, feeling resentful, retaliated. She wanted to burn the male and female leads to death but accidentally killed others instead. At this point, driven to a dead end, she jumped from a building in a red dress, committing suicide.
Jiang Shangxue: …???
This was the scene that repeatedly appeared in Jiang Shangxue’s dreams. Her face hardened.
Rip! A page of the script in her hand tore. Jiang Shangxue tore off the last page, crumpled it, and threw it into the trash can. After a while, she threw the entire script into the trash can.
This script was clearly problematic! The male and female leads had no moral compass. How could it even be filmed?!
Just then, Su Yue sent a message.
[Su Yue: President Jiang, name changed. Praising myself, doge/doge/doge]
[Jiang Shangxue: Starting tomorrow, the entire planning department will have a one-week vacation, and year-end bonuses will be doubled. Except for Minister Su.]
Looking at the message sent in the work group, Su Yue hadn’t even had time to rejoice before seeing the latter half. She immediately messaged Jiang Shangxue privately.
[Su Yue: President Jiang, pitiful.jpg, I know you always treat your subordinates equally and wouldn’t show favoritism.]
Jiang Shangxue raised an eyebrow slightly, not replying to Su Yue, and continued to type in the work group.
[Jiang Shangxue: Minister Su is to stay behind and discuss plot revisions with the screenwriter of “Falling for You.”]
[Su Yue: Life is meaningless, the joke’s on me, black man asking.jpg]
[Su Yue: I’m not tired, just unlucky.]
Su Yue wailed to the heavens, completely out of sync with the joyous, festive atmosphere in the planning department.
••••
That evening, before falling asleep, Jiang Shangxue inevitably thought of the same nightmare from the past few nights. She thought this interlude was about to end.
To her utter surprise, when Jiang Shangxue woke up on the twentieth day, she found herself transmigrated into the book, becoming the cruel stepmother with the same name as her.
Author’s Note:
Disclaimer: I rarely write modern novels. This is a new attempt, the writing style is a “mudslide” (chaotic/unrefined), it doesn’t prioritize logic, and the plot is purely fantastical. If anything I’ve written makes you unhappy, the author sincerely apologizes in advance: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Note: Some of the “silly” sentences in the comments were seen during casual internet Browse in some obscure corner, not original to the author.
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