After Getting a Part-Time Livestreaming Gig, the Villainous Male Side Character Gives Up on Life

Bai Shian, courtesy name Yingning.

Hard at work on his 9,999th villainous male supporting-character assignment.

From his name right down to his toes, it's obvious to everyone: he's basically the template for a gentle, scheming second male lead who turns dark when his love goes unrequited.

The third young master of the Bai family, he is handsome and gentle, with a gift for eloquence. His good name has spread throughout the capital from an early age. They say he could fill a carriage with thrown fruit, and countless young women have secretly fallen for him.

Bai Shian has played this sort of supporting male character dozens of times. He can pull off anything from gentle and considerate to gloomy and talented.

All that's left is for the heroine to transmigrate into the story, setting off an unparalleled drama: she loves him, he thinks she loves him, she thinks she loves him but actually loves her, he doesn't love her at first but later becomes deeply attracted to the transmigrated heroine, and in the end his love goes unanswered and he turns dark.

Bai Shian thinks he's seen plenty of crazy men and women, but a new world can always lower the bar further than he thought possible.

This time is even crazier: a woman who has transmigrated into a man and then into a woman, but still thinks she's a man, brings along the modern world's wild abandon, a domineering prince's tortured romance, a triplet pregnancy and an escape while pregnant. She ascends the throne, enjoys the palace's cold and delicious food, and then there's cliff-diving, amnesia, and endless romantic entanglements!

And he, Bai Shian, is nothing but a tool for advancing the male and female leads' plot.

His duties include, but aren't limited to: having heart-to-hearts with the heroine under the moon to make the male lead jealous and give him a bout of emotional torment; helping the heroine escape and raise her child, then serving as the lovesick, devoted fall guy; and occasionally being mentioned to cause minor friction between the leads. Oh, and that last one only hurts him!

They've spent three lifetimes killing each other. Can't they leave this little supporting character alone?

No matter how much he complains, the work still has to get done, and the shifts still have to be worked.

After all this time on the job, the Main System hasn't gotten any better. In fact, things have gotten worse.

Now he has to juggle male supporting-character roles in several worlds at once!

In one, it's revenge after turning dark. In another, he has to let go for love. And there's also someone who's half-dead and not quite dead!

But this time, his resignation request finally gets a response

Rejected again, aaaaaah!

I'll punch the male lead with a left hook, the heroine with a right hook, kick them both, and then spiral into the air waving my hands!

Beneath Bai Shian's gentle exterior, his mind has completely snapped.

Just then, a beep suddenly rings out from the sky.

The black sky unfurls, and a few huge words appear across it at lightning speed: Bai Shian, when will the flowers you picked finally be at peace?

Bai Shian: Is this a subway, an old man, and a phone?

Well, look at that. It's an expertly edited video from the world before last!

And that world was a cultivation novel!

You know, the kind with flying swords, immortal masters everywhere, and a dazzling array of rare treasures and exotic beasts... A cultivation novel.

And where is he now?

In an ancient-era tragic romance set in a fictional world. That's right, the kind of nonsensical wish-fulfillment story where the emperor would make the heroine a goddess over a bottle of vitamins, or the old-school female-led power fantasy where the heroine can revive the dead and restore flesh to bare bones at the drop of a hat, inevitably picking up some famous doctor along the way!

After a move like that, tell me: how is the heroine supposed to survive, and how am I supposed to survive?!

So...

Emperor: Yingning, if you have a method for cultivating immortality, offer it to Us. We will reward you handsomely with untold wealth and a position of great power!

Bai Shian: Your Majesty, I really don't...

Sky screen: Bai Shian is widely regarded as the most gifted cultivator of the Lingyue Era. He is immensely talented, and is said to have cultivated a technique he created himself...

Bai Shian: I'm not smiling because I'm simply not the sort of person who smiles.

Empress: Tell me, Shian, do you have someone in your heart? My fifth princess would make an excellent match.

Bai Shian: My knowledge is too shallow. I am unworthy of the fifth princess's heavenly beauty. The Prince of Yannan, on the other hand, would be a match made in heaven for her.

Damn it, the fifth princess is the heroine! Empress, don't get me in trouble!

Sky screen: They say that the Immortal Venerable Yingning once had someone in his heart. Alas, heaven and earth kept them apart, and they were forever separated...

Bai Shian looks at the empress, who is moved to tears: Could it be that she's the heroine I had to deal with in my previous world?

Ever since the sky screen appeared, Bai Shian's assignments have gone more and more awry.

One minute he's having tea with the crown prince, and then it says: "Mr. Yingning, a man of great honor, entered the room with a dagger and tried to assassinate the crown prince, but the attempt failed..."

Another minute he's following a scene with the heroine and delivering a domineering catchphrase, and then it says: "Bai Shian spent his entire life trapped in the schemes and calculations he hated most..."

Seeing the increasingly strange looks from the male and female leads and everyone around them, Bai Shian puts on a gentle smile and gives up completely.

It doesn't matter.

He's done!

Taking his little System and faking his death to escape is exactly the sort of thing a second male lead should do!

Theme: Every effort deserves to be rewarded