Oh No! The Difficult Stepmom Is Caught in a Battle for the Father's Affection

[Transmigrating into a book + reverse redemption + lighthearted healing + marriage first, love later]

[Both leads are devoted to each other! The stepson isn't her husband's biological child!]

Shi Youning transmigrated into an old-fashioned romance novel, a melodramatic mess stuffed with every trope under the sun.

Bad news: She was the villain's short-lived stepmother, who'd brought about her own death early in the original story.

Good news: She hadn't married the villain's father yet, the original plot hadn't begun, and there was still time to change everything.

But Shi Youning, who'd been pampered and sheltered in her previous life, had this to say:

She had to marry him!

After all, the villain's father was a walking ATM!

Her bargain-bin husband was never home, so a life with no emotional or physical entanglements, but plenty of money to spend, was fantastic!

As for the future villain… for now, he was just a sensitive, love-starved, proud little brat. She supposed she could take him in as her bag-carrying lackey.

*

But later…

The old-fashioned workaholic, who used to glue himself to the office, started coming home on time every day.

He not only stopped being so stern and rigid, but began indulging her every whim.

He even turned clingy and started going out of his way to please her.

Shi Youning: …I thought of you as an ATM, and you want to hit on me?

*

At the senior-year coming-of-age ceremony, the gloom in the boy's eyes had long since vanished, replaced by a pair of eyes bright as the stars.

When he went up to speak as the outstanding student representative, someone asked how he'd gone from near the bottom of his class to number one in such a short time.

He said:

“My mother likes drawing little pictures with numbers, but zero is too limiting. So I started getting a few more digits in every subject, just to give her more room to enjoy herself.”

Everyone: Right, right, right. “A few more digits” means nearly perfect scores in every subject, doesn't it? What kind of drawing do you do on an exam paper?!