A Scumbag's Survival Guide

[Jin Ye is a scumbag: greedy, lustful, and intensely jealous. As the eldest son of a powerful clan, he should have had a brilliant future, but he squandered every advantage and ended up hated by everyone, like a rat crossing the street, ]

Jin Ye finishes reading his character profile and falls silent.

He asks the System, "Didn't you say I was very important? How does this not make me the villain?"

"Don't rush." The System brings up the male protagonist's profile.

[Yan Jiufu is an orphan raised by a master who lives in seclusion in the mountains. He is strong, sincere, brave, and possesses a simple, honest heart unlike any other (ten thousand words omitted here). He was supposed to spend his entire life in the mountains, but then the wicked villain accidentally falls down the mountain and is found by him, disrupting his peaceful life and forcing him to gradually leave the mountains and become the strongest king of the martial world!]

Jin Ye: "..."

Wait, is he the wicked villain?

"Bingo~" says the System. "So your task is to play the villain properly, disrupt the male protagonist's peaceful life, and make him leave the mountains because he has no choice if he wants to survive. He'll struggle in poverty and be tempered by hardship, then eventually achieve greatness and become the strongest king in the martial world. Got it?"

Jin Ye: "Oh."

System: "Once the plot progress reaches 100%, you'll get the chance to return to reality."

Jin Ye perks up. "All right!"

The scene shifts. At just nine years old, Jin Ye lies injured in bed. Yan Jiufu, the male protagonist, two years younger than him, brings over a basin to wash him.

Don't be fooled by how impressive Yan Jiufu becomes when he grows up, with three thousand beauties in his harem and countless men and women falling for him. At this point, he's still a little round-faced child, dressed in patched-up clothes with messy hair, unable to afford even a hair ribbon. He carries the heavy basin, staggering as he walks.

Jin Ye sits up and smiles. "Thank you~"

Bzzzt

He gets shocked.

The System warns him, "Warning: don't go OOC."

Jin Ye says coldly, "Thanks."

Bzzzt

He gets shocked.

The System warns him again, "Don't go OOC."

At his wit's end, Jin Ye flips the basin over. "What the heck? That's cold water! Are you trying to freeze me to death?"

The little boy's eyes turn red. "Big brother, there's no firewood left in the kitchen."

"Then go gather some in the mountains!"

The little boy dashes away. Before long, he returns, beaming, with a lingzhi mushroom bigger than his head in his arms. "Big brother, Big brother, you're amazing! I found a lingzhi while gathering firewood. How did you know there were lingzhi mushrooms on the back mountain?"

"..." Jin Ye asks the System, "Does that count as going OOC?"

"What do you think?" the System says with a smile. "Congratulations, Host. You've made the male protagonist, who was completely destitute, rich overnight."

Jin Ye: "..."

-

Yan Jiufu knows his master doesn't have long to live. The person his master worries about most is him, afraid he won't survive alone or make it out of the mountains. He tells his master that he will survive and that he will leave the mountains.

Later, he finds an irritable little big brother. The boy has fallen off a cliff and is injured, unable to move in bed, but Yan Jiufu knows he's a good person. He leads him to find a lingzhi, helps him sell it to buy medicine for his master, and nearly loses his own life saving him.

He loves his big brother. After his master dies, his big brother is all he has.

If his big brother tells him to leave the mountains, he does. If his big brother tells him to enter the martial arts tournament, he does. If his big brother wants him to become famous, he does everything he can to establish himself in the martial world.

But...

He grows less and less happy. He can no longer feel the joy he knew as a child.

One day, seeing his big brother surrounded by beautiful people again, he suddenly realizes

He doesn't want to leave the mountains at all. He doesn't want anyone else to see his big brother.

He wants the mountains to be empty of everyone else, just as they were when he was a child, so that it feels as if only he and his big brother exist in the world.

*A martial arts good-for-nothing who collapses at the slightest touch after being poisoned (exaggeration) x a martial arts prodigy who learns an unparalleled technique in a second (exaggeration)

*A slow, steady story following them from childhood to adulthood

Theme: Success takes hard work