After waking up, Gu Jiaojiao stared at the old wooden roof for what felt like an eternity, still unable to snap out of her daze.
She'd only had a couple of extra drinks at the family banquet and had gone upstairs to rest for a bit. 'How did I end up transmigrating into a book?'
'And the man I slept with.'
'I thought he was the fiancé my parents had picked out for me!'
'But instead...!'
Like all soul transmigrators, Gu Jiaojiao received all of the original host's memories.
From those memories, she knew she had transmigrated into a book.
It was a novel about a doted-on heroine set in a historical era. The author was her cousin, who had based the heroine on herself and the villainess on Jiaojiao.
The reason she knew all this so clearly was because she had read the book.
And her cousin's motive for writing it? Pure jealousy.
In real life, her cousin was plain-looking, and their family circumstances were worlds apart. Their fathers were blood brothers, but one was rolling in money while the other was a hopeless case who could never get his act together.
The two cousins were the same age. One had been pampered like a princess since birth. The other lived in an ordinary family that favored sons over daughters; not only that, but her mother planned to use her bride price to pay for her brother's wedding.
Consumed by resentment, her cousin had secretly based the story's ultimate villainess on her.
When Jiaojiao found out, not only did she not mind, she'd read the book with great relish. She enjoyed seeing her cousin's frustration—the girl couldn't stand her but was powerless to do anything about it.
But she never, ever imagined she would actually transmigrate into the book.
In the book, the character named Gu Jiaojiao looked identical to her but was portrayed as both stupid and malicious. In the end, she drank poison and died, her body lying undiscovered for days.
The story was set in the 1970s in Xia Country.
In the book, the original host was an educated youth sent to the countryside, assigned to the Qingshan Team. Seven or eight others accompanied her, including one young man. He had a refined, scholarly air, fair and clean-cut, always in a white shirt. The original host was smitten after a single glance.
This man was the novel's male lead, Yun Hao.
To win him over, she slaved away for him, washing his clothes and cooking his meals. She even willingly paid for his dates with the female lead, and what's more, she did it all gladly...
But the male lead wasn't the least bit moved. In fact, he grew to despise the original host.
In his heart, there was only room for his one true love, the heroine.
He was in love with the heroine; naturally, he wouldn't spare a second glance for a villainess like the original host.
But the original host was completely delusional, convinced that the male lead did have feelings for her—he just hadn't realized it yet.
To provoke Yun Hao and make him realize his "true feelings," she decided to seduce another man—one even more handsome and capable than the male lead—all to make Yun Hao jealous.
This man was the most outstanding young man in the entire surrounding area. He had a job, knew how to hunt, was educated, and came from a once-prominent family. Most importantly, he was incredibly handsome.
And this was the man she had slept with just last night: Leng Yuan.
Gu Jiaojiao searched the original host's memories and found the man's name and background information.
Leng Yuan had been intelligent since he was a child, and with his good family background, he naturally had high standards. His parents had passed away one after another when he was sixteen, but his paternal aunt was the wife of a city official. Having no sons of her own, she doted on Leng Yuan as if he were her own flesh and blood, even offering to have him come live with her in the city.
But Leng Yuan had refused.
Instead of moving to the city, he had asked the team leader to allot him a plot of wasteland, which he then cleared. He built his own house and moved to the foot of the mountain to live alone.
It was precisely because the Leng Family home was so isolated that no one would know if anything happened. This was why the original host had dared to secretly drug his water.
But who would have thought that Leng Yuan would rather spend the entire night soaking in the cold river than lay a single finger on her? His actions thoroughly infuriated the villainess.
She then went around the village, spreading the story that Leng Yuan was desperately in love with her but couldn't have her, completely ruining his reputation.
At first, the villagers didn't believe her. But the villainess was a heavenly beauty, and all the men in the village were infatuated with her. That, combined with her constant repetition of the lie and Leng Yuan's complete silence on the matter, eventually led everyone to believe it.
And just like that, Leng Yuan's reputation was destroyed.
The villainess was lazy, gluttonous, and malicious. She was blind to reason, stupid beyond belief, and her awful schemes were never-ending.
After ruining Leng Yuan's name, she went right back to pestering Yun Hao.
Yun Hao didn't like her and had gotten together with the heroine. So, the villainess did everything she could to sabotage the heroine. Finally, the male lead, unable to tolerate it any longer, decided to deal with the villainess once and for all.
He destroyed any chance she had of returning to the city, leaving her to toil in the fields for the rest of her life.
She was forced to watch as he and the heroine both tested into top universities, achieving success in both their careers and their love lives.
When the original host heard the news, she nearly died of rage.
Later, when the village finally got a television, the original host saw the couple on a program, sharing the story of their romance. At that moment, she completely gave up.
She went home, drank poison, and died. By the time she was discovered, her body was already stiff with rigor mortis.
The villainess in the book had met a miserable end, but Gu Jiaojiao felt no sympathy for her. Other than sharing a name and a face, the original host was nothing like her, and she had never identified with the character while reading.
But now that she really *was* the original host, she had to change the plot. 'I have to save my own skin.'