"What are you still sitting there for? The daughter of the Shao family is waiting at the door. Go and greet her."
The shout came out of nowhere. He blinked at the man in front of him, understanding nothing at all.
"Are you deaf?"
Before he could answer, a smack landed on the top of his head.
"Get up," the old man ordered angrily. "Go and greet her properly."
His name was Linghu Chang, and he was the chief executive of the Linghu Corporation. At that exact moment the system popped up in front of his eyes and explained the situation to him. The old man who had just hit him was his grandfather. He was inside a novel called The Mad Consort of the Four Seas Dragon King. His identity here was the villain, Linghu — and there were only five chapters left before his death.
Linghu turned pale. Five chapters. Only five chapters this time.
Before he could process it, another smack landed on his head. His grandfather told him to stop mumbling and to hurry up and greet the girl. Left with no choice, he stood up and reluctantly agreed to go.
As he walked through the hallway, everyone he passed greeted him respectfully, and while they bowed, his thoughts ran on ahead of him. How long had he been trapped inside these stories? He could not even remember when it had all started.
It had begun with a disaster. A billboard had collapsed on him and crushed his body completely. At that moment, a strange voice had announced the activation of the Counterattack Villain System.
Since then he had been jumping from one story into another, always taking the role of a villain who was destined to die. Each time, survival depended on going against the protagonist. The problem was that every protagonist was broken and overpowered. Missiles were useless against them; they deflected attacks casually, as if the attacks were nothing. Explosions backfired and harmed him instead. Once he had tried to face a sword immortal, and had been killed with a single strike.
Now the same situation was repeating itself, with the system telling him to do his best.
A car arrived outside soon after, which made it clear enough what kind of story this was. It was one of those stories where the protagonist steals the villain's fiancée.
The car door opened and a girl stepped out, dressed neatly, surrounded by a strong aura. She was striking, and she was obviously the main target. Standing nearby was Beichuan, and beside him was Churong, the eldest daughter of the Shao family. Beichuan gave off an overwhelming heroic presence, almost glowing, like a main character wearing plot armour. Linghu could not help feeling annoyed at how obvious it was.
Approaching the young miss, he politely offered to carry her bags.
"Don't touch me," she said coldly.
Because of that, he remembered his identity in this world. He was the eldest son of the Linghu family, and he had always acted like her loyal follower. After years of devotion with nothing in return, he now had to compete with Beichuan, who had the advantage of being her bodyguard and staying by her side at all times. In this story Beichuan was extremely powerful and impossible to defeat. And on top of that, the man clearly disliked him.
Churong then asked Beichuan warmly to carry her purse, treating him far better.
Seeing this, Linghu thought that the original version of himself had been a fool for wasting so much effort and so many family resources on someone like her. None of it made any sense. And with only five chapters left separating the main protagonist from the female lead, the situation felt hopeless.
This was a harem-type novel, he noted. Naturally the main protagonist would get all the girls, and for the villain the whole arrangement existed to screw him over. Instead of struggling, he decided it was better to simply endure everything until it ended.
So he called out to Churong and added that he had something important to tell her.
"I don't care what you want to say," she answered immediately. "I have something to say instead."
He calmly let her continue, since the outcome was already obvious.
She declared that he should give up any hope, because she would never marry him, no matter how much his family helped hers financially.
Before she could continue any further, he interrupted and agreed with her, saying that he wanted to cancel the engagement too.
What he had said did not register at first. When it did, she was left in utter shock.
Churong was still reeling when Beichuan became suspicious, certain that Linghu must be plotting something. Churong assumed the same thing and told him to stop pretending and reveal whatever scheme he was planning. No matter what he said, she insisted, she would not believe him.
Linghu called for a timeout. There was no plan at all, he said. It was a simple decision.
She refused to believe it and claimed she had already seen through this kind of trick before.
As she came closer, he wondered whether she still believed he was the same fool. If she wanted to be part of the main protagonist's harem, she shouldn't bother him about it, because he had reached enlightenment. Stupid girl.
Churong suddenly froze. She looked around in confusion, wondering who had just called her stupid.
He assured her that she was overthinking it, and that he would take responsibility for explaining to the elders that the engagement could not proceed. Once that was done, everything would be settled. Meanwhile, Beichuan sighed in frustration.
Something was wrong.
The system appeared in a panic, having realised that Linghu's thoughts were leaking out loud for everyone in the story to hear. If this bug were reported, the system itself could be deleted. To prevent that, it quickly made an adjustment, so that only certain thoughts and insults would slip out and the rest would remain under his control.
As he kept walking, Linghu thought about the storyline. Originally, Beichuan would get angry because the villain tried to take Churong, and that was what led to the villain being beaten up. That actually worked in his favour. If he did not pursue Churong at all, then the main protagonist would have no reason to attack him.
When they arrived at the door, the atmosphere became quiet.
Churong was still unsettled, thinking about the strange voice she had heard earlier. Linghu noticed something unusual as well. For the first time, she told Beichuan to stay outside before entering the room, and, surprisingly, the man did not seem as angry about it as expected.
Inside, Linghu greeted the patriarch and announced that he had brought Miss Shao.
His grandfather corrected him. Her name was simply Churong, and he ought to know that well, since he was supposed to be close to her. Then he ordered him to be more proactive.
On the surface Linghu agreed. In his mind he had already given up. There was no way someone like him could end up with the city's number one beauty. It was better to let her be with Beichuan and simply focus on cancelling the engagement, getting it over with, and moving on from this novel.