Chapter One: Not a Single Good Person Except the Male Lead

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“You can’t even handle the simplest things! What’s the point of raising you?”
The whip lashed again and again across the sturdy back.
“I…I understand, Mother…”
A man’s subdued voice sounded by her ear.
Who?
Who’s speaking?
Lin Xiang couldn’t help but force her heavy eyelids open.
What she saw was a dim yellow brick house, an earthy floral quilt, and an old window with a green frame.
No!
How had her two-hundred-square-meter mansion turned into one of those dilapidated old homes from TV dramas set decades ago?
Her mind hadn’t caught up when a burly woman at her side, seeing her awake, fussed with concern, “Niuniu, you’re finally awake, you scared your mother half to death! It’s all your heartless brother’s fault, always helping outsiders and never his own sister!”
Who?
Who’s talking?
Lin Xiang sat bolt upright in bed, her gaze falling on the man kneeling on the floor.
He looked to be in his twenties, bare-chested, strong and solid, but his shoulders and arms were crisscrossed with angry welts.
When he looked up at her, his eyes held nothing but undisguised disdain.
Lin Xiang was stunned.
Who on earth was this man? Had she offended him somehow? Why was he glaring at her?
She was about to ask when the burly woman at her side mocked the man coldly, “So now you know to admit your fault? You’ve ruined your sister’s good prospects, do you realize that? If you have any conscience left, you’ll find a way to bring Comrade Wen here and get things settled for your sister!”
Lin Yun couldn’t help but speak up, “Comrade Wen… he doesn’t like Niuniu.”
“How do you know he doesn’t like her? Niuniu said herself that Comrade Wen is interested. And even if he isn’t, once he’s in this room, you just close the door, and we’ll barge in and accuse him of taking liberties with your sister. If he denies it, we’ll charge him with hooliganism! Such a simple thing, and you can’t even manage it? You just don’t want your sister to have a good life!”
Hooliganism? Molestation?
Lin Xiang’s scalp tingled.
Wait—why did this plot sound so much like the retro novel she’d been reading last night?
Hardly daring to believe it, Lin Xiang threw off the quilt and rushed outside.
In the yard—

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Lin Xiang stared at the mud-brick house and earthen yard before her.
She pinched herself hard.
The sharp pain confirmed it: this was no dream.
Behind her, the woman brought over a pair of cotton shoes. “Niuniu, the ground’s cold, put your shoes on.”
Lin Xiang grabbed the woman’s arm. “So… you’re Niuniu’s mother?”
The woman panicked at once. “Oh my! Niuniu, did falling in the water muddle your head? Don’t you recognize your own mother? It’s all your brother’s fault… I’ll beat him to death today!”
With that, she grabbed a broom and headed back inside. The dull thuds that followed were met with the man’s stifled forbearance.
Lin Xiang was sure now—she had really transmigrated.
Heavens!
Just last night, she’d been cursing the male lead’s ungrateful sister for half an hour, and now, after one sleep, she’d become that very oddball sister herself?
Lin Xiang had fallen into a men’s genre period novel.
The male lead, Lin Yun, was a boy the Lin family had picked up from the mountains.
Because the family had no sons, another boy meant another pair of hardworking hands, so they raised him.
But because he wasn’t their own flesh and blood, the Lins treated Lin Yun terribly.
He was made to work as soon as he could walk; if he didn’t do well, he was beaten and scolded.
So Lin Yun was always covered in bruises.
Lin Xiang, meanwhile, had always been lazy and greedy, unwilling to work. Mother Lin forced Lin Yun to make up her work points, never letting him rest a day.
The Lin Xiang in the book had known for ages her brother wasn’t really her brother, so she bossed him around without reservation.
Later, when Lin Yun went to the city to work, the mother and daughter assumed he was earning big money and went after him, seizing control of his finances and pushing him to the brink.
At twenty-two, Lin Yun accidentally found his birth parents, but, believing that a debt of gratitude was owed to those who raised him, he continued to support Mother Lin.
But the two women kept pushing their luck, using up every last ounce of family affection, and eventually paid a bitter price for their greed.
Coming back to herself, Lin Xiang saw Lin Yun’s back torn open by the beating. She rushed over and hugged him, leaving Mother Lin awkwardly frozen with her broom in midair.
“Niuniu, what are you doing? Move aside! Your brother needs to be taught a lesson today!”
Lin Xiang thought it must be karma for having cursed the original sister so thoroughly the night before.
She didn’t know if she could return to her old life, but she certainly couldn’t afford to offend the male lead now.
So she wailed, “Strike my brother and you wound my heart, Mother! Please, stop hitting him!”

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If this kept up, the male lead would surely hate her forever!
Lin Yun: …
Why did it feel like she’d meant to say, “Strike my son and you wound your mother’s heart”?
Seeing her daughter like this, Mother Lin relented, “Alright, alright, I won’t hit him. You go back to bed and rest—you haven’t recovered yet. I’ll go boil some water to warm you up.”
“Alright.”
Hearing that Mother Lin would stop, Lin Xiang quickly got up.
Her knees still hurt from kneeling—the uneven floor of this wretched house was littered with stones.
Mother Lin really did stop, though she pinched Lin Yun’s ear and warned, “Take good care of your sister. If anything happens to her, you’ll be sorry!”
With that, she went to the kitchen.
Lin Xiang breathed a sigh of relief. “You can get up now.”
But Lin Yun looked at her as if he expected another round of trouble.
She remembered how the original had always sweet-talked him into helping her, only to turn around and get him in trouble, so it was no wonder Lin Yun didn’t trust her.
Lin Xiang forced a smile and helped him up, trying to sound caring. “Brother, come on, get up. I won’t bully you anymore.”
She gave a tug, but Lin Yun didn’t budge.
“No. Mother told me to kneel.”
Lin Xiang: …
Such dedication to self-sacrifice! Get up if you want, don’t if you don’t!
Realizing she couldn’t change his mind right away, and that he’d only think she was looking for an excuse to tattle, she didn’t push it.
The male lead really was filial—he didn’t get up even when he could.
At dinner, Mother Lin cooked a bowl of bland rice porridge. Lin Xiang kindly brought it over, but Lin Yun turned his head away, refusing to drink.
Lin Xiang’s warm gesture was met with a cold shoulder, so she let it go.
Maybe, if she went to sleep, she’d wake up back in her two-hundred-square-meter mansion!