After Becoming the Foil to the Heroine of a Period Novel, I Won the Championship

[My new novel next door, The Supporting Female Character Has a Little Scheming in Her, So What?, is now updating. Hope you'll drop by, and lots of love!]

Yan Kui had an intensely realistic nightmare. In it, she learned that she was living in a novel about a girl adored by everyone, and that her stepsister Ji Sier, whom Yan Kui's own mother doted on, was the heroine.

She was nothing but a disposable supporting character. Jealous of the heroine, she tried to claim everything that belonged to her, only to end up loathed by everyone, cursed and attacked at every turn.

Yan Kui, who had always tried hard to pass herself off as a cheerful, normal person: ?

To change her wretched fate, the first thing Yan Kui did after waking up was agree to transfer to Peili.

She would become classmates with the male lead, Qi Shu.

Sitting in her new classroom, she glanced unobtrusively at the cool, aloof boy behind and to the side of her seat. His lips, tinted a pale red, curved slightly upward, and the sunlight made the smile on his sweet, first-love face look all the more pure and lovely.

So this was the person Ji Sier liked. Yan Kui wanted to try it too, to see what it felt like to like Qi Shu.

In both family background and appearance, Qi Shu and Ji Sier were the brightest stars at Peili International Middle School. Even the teachers would secretly gossip about how perfectly they suited each other, like a golden couple.

Everyone who knew them thought it was only a matter of time before they got together.

That is, until their senior year of high school, when the principal, hoping to improve the school's college admission rates, spent a fortune poaching several top students from prestigious schools.

One of them was a girl named Yan Kui.

[Blurb]

When Ye Ran woke up, she realized that the world she lived in was just a novel, and that she was merely a villainous supporting character written into its plot. Overcome with despair, she decided to quit the story early.

Her body died, but her soul lived on.

A System claiming to be the Heavenly Dao appeared and arranged for her to start over at an affiliated organization. Her new role was merely a foil to the heroine, but she would barely be noticed and have plenty of freedom.

Ye Ran: I've suffered all my life, but I still want to live. (Though that life only lasted seventeen short years.)

So when she woke up again, it was 1987, and she was a poor little girl whose mother had just died and whose stepfather had shut her out of the house. She had two choices: go work with people from her hometown, or stay in the village and become her stepfather's family workhorse.

Working away from home was out of the question, and staying in the village was a dead end too. Ye Ran chose a third option: go to the city and find her biological father!

Ye Ran had already made her plans. As a top student who had missed the college entrance exam, she would honor her former self's ambition and make a name for herself in her studies.

But at seventeen this time around, Ye Ran still didn't get to take the college entrance exam.

Amid countless cheers, she stood atop the athletes' podium and became the first swimmer from her country to win an Olympic gold medal.

She was also admitted to a top university through a special recommendation.

A little scene with the male lead:

On childhood friend Xiao Pingbai's eighteenth birthday, Ye Ran rushed back from training out of town. After planning a surprise with their other friends, she quietly slipped into the pool and waited for Xiao Pingbai to be lured over.

Qin Jingting never expected to be dragged into a pool while attending his cousin's birthday party. As he fell into the water, his mind flashed to his business rivals and the board members who disliked him. Any of them could have been behind it.

Then he saw Ye Ran beneath the water.

From that day on, he was there in the stands at every one of Ye Ran's competitions.

As for the cousin who had once confided his adolescent feelings to him, well, no, his love rival...

[Reader's guide]

1. This is a fictionalized setting.

2. The story is mostly slice-of-life, the female lead is overpowered, and the male lead appears late.

Theme: I hope everyone can find the strength to keep moving forward.