A Scumbag's Acting Manual

Let me recommend another main-character-focused anthology story in my column, Is This Really Something to Brag About? It's already got plenty of chapters, so come and binge it!

Updates at midnight. If I need to skip an update, I'll post a notice. 40% anti-piracy, 48-hour delay. The characters are very different in each world.

[Main story complete. Bonus chapters are being released gradually.]

[Main-character-focused anthology]

The protagonists in some worlds go through events that change their outlook on life or leave them with deep scars. These things are usually called backstory. In their worlds, they are often mentioned in only a few passing words, but in some people's lives, they are pains too deep to put into words.

[The frail omega who was unloved by her husband] Completed

He was a frail omega raised by his family to be beautiful, gentle, and the very image of a suitable wife. But Lu Ze didn't like frail omegas. He liked extreme sports and excitement, and had friends everywhere. Naturally, he didn't like his own wife.

The omega tries to win her husband's favor, but they only grow further apart, until she can do nothing but cry in secret.

"What happened next?" Lu Ze asks, looking at the beautiful omega.

[He died.] The System's emotionless voice rings out. [You felt a little guilty, but mostly relieved.]

Host, take Lu Ze's place and indirectly bring about Song Zhixu's death.

[The pedantic scholar who quotes the classics at every turn] Completed

A stuffy scholar traveling to the capital for the imperial examinations takes shelter at an inn and meets an astonishingly beautiful person.

The beauty seems to exude a very youthful... eagerness to please?

The old-fashioned man turns into a fox spirit and glares at the System over and over, while the System babbles on, humbly trying to please him.

[Charm him, steal his heart, and then let the protagonist become a demon hunter, driven by grief and rage!]

[Heaven-given beauty becomes a disaster in this moment]

The merfolk do not know that their kindness will bring catastrophe upon their entire race. The person they rescue is not only a beast in human clothing, but also spreads word far and wide about where the merfolk live.

Their people are captured and sold, while he is trapped day after day in the bed of that beast in human clothing.

Xie Wenyun stands by the sea, pinching his nose. "Merfolk? Their tails are covered in slime and smell fishy. They take care of meals and bodily functions in the sea, spending all day soaking in a mixture of urine and seawater."

The System: (rude gesture)

Content warnings:

1. Main-character-focused anthology.

2. A scumbag role-playing game, but the gong is very doting. The couple is sweet, so I'm at ease.

3. In every world, the shou spends the early part of the story twisting, screaming, and crawling around in the darkness. Only after meeting his gong does he become a normal person.

4. Please don't conflate the characters' values with reality. Everyone has their own triggers, and the author is pretty strange... It's best to check the warnings for yourself.

5. Screenshot taken on 2025.6.2.

[Check out my main-character-focused anthology in my column: Is This Really Something to Brag About?]

[World One]

The wardrobe opens, finally letting in a little light. Ji Wei looks at Zhao Sinian, buried in the clothes and showing no intention of coming out. The vein at his temple throbs. "Get out!"

Zhao Sinian shakes his head. "I'm not coming out."

Ji Wei: "…"

"Then sleep with the clothes!"

Only then does he scramble out of the wardrobe, wrap his arms around Ji Wei from behind, and speak in a sugary, affected voice. "Geigei~ The one who isn't loved is the third party, right?"

"Keep your voice down! Do you think this is something to brag about?"

[World Two]

Zhi Wei stares at the handsome face just inches away. The man wears an exceptionally affectionate smile, dazzling him. The smile on the face before him seems to twist little by little, turning into an expression full of malice, one he has never seen on Zhi Xinglan before.

He hears Zhi Xinglan say:

"Your mom's a whore. You're the bastard child of an adulterous old man, so you're a little whore too."

Zhi Xinglan seems to worry that Zhi Wei might not hear him, so he enunciates every word with deliberate clarity.

[Content warnings]

1. Please don't attribute the characters' values to the author's own.

2. In World One, the shou is already divorced when they meet.

3. They are not registered in the same household.

Theme: Kindness