Dusk was settling in, and the streetlights had just flickered on.

At the mouth of a dark, out-of-the-way alley, a girl stood there in a gorgeous new dress.

Her features were delicate and striking, and there was a soft, pampered innocence in her expression, the kind you only got from being raised on pure luxury.

A rich girl like that, even the white leather shoes on her feet looked completely out of place here.

And yet, tucked in her arms was a huge bag of cheap potato chips. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Her cheeks puffed out like a little hamster as she ate.

"System, how much longer do I have to wait?"

"There are seriously so many mosquitoes here."

The system replied, 【About ten more minutes.】

Once the future villain got into a fight with those thugs and started getting jumped, that would be her cue to rush in, save him, and farm some favorability.

Hearing that the alley was still dead silent, Fiona casually slapped a mosquito that had tried to drink her blood. She pouted, looking deeply wronged.

"Can’t I just go in now and wipe them all out?"

The sooner she finished, the sooner she could clock out, okay?

【...I strongly advise you not to entertain such dangerous thoughts.】

The system’s voice turned cold as it reminded her,

【Your main mission is to reduce the villain’s corruption level, guide him back onto the right path, change his death ending, and keep his favorability toward you above eighty.】

Fiona: "..."

The little girl lowered her long lashes in mild disappointment and bit down on the chip in her hand with a sharp crack.

What a shame. Killing people was obviously what she was best at~

—

At the same time, deep inside the alley,

five thugs holding clubs blocked the way.

The yellow-haired guy in front yanked the boy by the collar and slammed him against the freezing wall, snarling,

“You’ve got some nerve, huh? You actually dared turn down my little sister’s confession?”

The boy looked completely blank-faced. Strands of hair fell over his forehead, the black tips brushing lightly across lashes dark as raven feathers.

They covered most of those bright peach-blossom eyes of his—the kind that seemed to carry a natural hint of a smile even when he wasn’t smiling at all.

And they also hid the sudden darkness gathering in those ink-black eyes after being grabbed by the collar and rammed into the wall.

Lucien Northvale’s hoarse voice carried obvious impatience. “If you want to fight, then fight. Cut the crap.”

“Who the hell are you acting tough with?!” Yellow Hair roared and threw a punch.

Lucien turned his head fast and dodged it cleanly, then caught the guy’s hand before he could pull it back—the same hand that had just smashed hard into the wall and was already throbbing like crazy.

Then, right in front of Yellow Hair’s shocked and furious stare,

the boy curled his lips a little and snapped the man’s fingers one by one.

“Ahhh!!!”

All five fingers bent at ugly, unnatural angles. The pain hit so hard Yellow Hair’s whole arm shook, and he looked about one second away from passing out.

“Boss!” The punks rushed in all at once.

The smile vanished from Lucien’s face. He kicked Yellow Hair aside like he was tossing out trash.

The second he turned around, his fist smashed straight into another thug’s cheekbone.

And just like that, the brawl fully exploded.

Lucien got into fights a lot, sure, but he’d never had any real training. What he relied on was pure savage grit—hit me once, I’ll hit back harder; make me bleed, I’ll make you bleed too.

But two fists couldn’t beat four hands forever, especially when the other side had weapons. Little by little, Lucien started to struggle, and his stamina dropped fast.

A few heavy blows landed on him in no time. Blood was already seeping through his white shirt.

But he seemed to feel none of it. Like a young wolf that would never loosen its bite once it caught prey, he seized the opening, tackled Yellow Hair to the ground, pinned him down, and drove his fist down hard.

In barely a few breaths, Yellow Hair’s face was already wrecked beyond recognition, and a few teeth had been knocked clean out.

The punks around them saw their boss getting beaten and instantly swarmed over, kicking and punching Lucien Northvale without holding back.

But no matter what they did, Lucien just would not let go. If anything, he hit Yellow Hair even harder.

Blood sprayed everywhere, so much that no one could tell whose it even was anymore.

The night pressed down heavily, and on Lucien’s porcelain-pale face, a few streaks of blood stood out in a way that was almost shocking.

His eyes were completely muddled, like a bottomless abyss with no light in it at all. Only the savage, almost terrifying movement of his hands kept going, one blow after another, like he was stuck on some brutal autopilot.

Die...

Just die, all of you...

Die here in this filthy alley, the kind of place even moonlight couldn’t be bothered to touch.

Just like his life.

Dark. Filthy.

Then, right at that moment, the sound of a siren suddenly ripped through the air. "Woo-wa, woo-wa—"

At some point, a girl had appeared behind them.

She stood a short distance away, looking harmless and neat, her clear, deer-like eyes passing over the crowd before landing on Lucien.

Then she looked at the others and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

"I think there are police over there. Looks like they’re here to catch you guys. Aren’t you gonna run?"

The punks panicked on the spot. They wanted to drag Yellow Hair away with them, but they couldn’t pry Lucien off him at all.

The boy looked completely gone, like he’d lost it for real, as if he wouldn’t stop until he strangled the man under him to death.

Seeing there was no way to deal with it, the punks could only ditch Yellow Hair and bolt first.

Fiona turned off her phone screen. The page was still sitting on a siren audio clip.

She’d just been bluffing to scare them off, that was all:

"Hey, classmate, aren’t you gonna run?"

Lucien Northvale looked like he hadn’t heard a word. His hand was still locked tight around Yellow Hair’s throat, fingers clamped down like iron.

Fiona’s gaze dropped to Yellow Hair’s face. His eyes were rolling back, his skin had already turned an ugly purple, and he was clearly seconds away from suffocating. And Lucien Northvale... yeah, something was seriously off with him too.

She swept her eyes around the alley, then bent down, grabbed a rock, and brought it down on the back of the boy’s head with clean, brutal precision.

Bang!

Lucien Northvale’s movement froze. Slowly, stiffly, he turned his head.

The girl was smiling bright and easy. Her white dress looked like a soft little cloud drifting in from the horizon. Standing in front of his filthy, torn shirt smeared with grime, she felt impossibly far away, like the gap between sky and dirt, something you just couldn’t cross.

The only weird part was that there seemed to be a tiny bit of food stuck at the corner of her pink lips.

"You..."

Thunk!

Fiona followed up with another hit.

Twice in one bloom.

Lucien Northvale finally gave in to the pain and blacked out, toppling straight onto Yellow Hair, who had already passed out too.

Fiona’s eyes curved into happy crescents. She lifted her chin and puffed out her chest, looking absurdly proud. "System, your first task for me is done! Pretty flawless, right?"

【Who told you to hit him?!!!】

The system practically exploded on the spot. 【I told you to save the villain, remember?! And what did you do?! Hitting him once wasn’t enough, so you whacked him twice? What is this, buy one get one free?!!!】

According to the normal plotline, wasn’t Fiona supposed to go up all soft and delicate, persuade him nicely, then hand the future villain a tissue and gently wipe the blood off his face?

It truly did not get it. Seriously, not even a little.

Back when they first bonded, she’d even washed a little duck with so much care and kindness!

As if she could hear what it was thinking, Fiona gave a solemn explanation. "He’d already gone full red-eye just now. There was no way he was listening to anyone. Even if I tried to talk him down, it would’ve been useless."

"That blond guy was basically on his last breath. If he really died, then the villain would never make it back to the right path. I was helping him, okay?"

The system was only half-convinced. It had a strong feeling Fiona was bullshitting it, but annoyingly, it had zero proof.

Afraid she might pull some even crazier stunt next, it snapped, "Fine. I’m sending you the plot of this novel world right now!"

The moment it finished, a book suddenly appeared before Fiona’s eyes, visible to her and her alone—

True and Fake Heiress.

A messy, cliché, full-on melodrama.

And she was the vicious supporting girl in that book, Fiona Hargrove.

Lily Hargrove and Fiona Hargrove were born on the same day, but Fiona had a congenital heart condition and had been frail since birth.

So that Fiona could get proper treatment and grow up safely, her biological mother took a huge risk and secretly switched the babies’ beds.

Just like that, Fiona lived eighteen years in the place of the Hargrove family’s eldest daughter.

Not long ago, Fiona’s adoptive mother finally discovered the truth and brought Lily Hargrove back home. But because she couldn’t bear to cast aside the girl she had raised with her own hands, she let the two stay in the family as sisters.

But Fiona refused to accept it. She kept throwing herself into one dumb move after another, speedrunning self-destruction, and in the end she was kicked out of the Hargrove family, lost everything, and died at the hands of the future villain, Lucien Northvale.

Only then did Fiona understand why, after waking up in the hospital, her chest had felt tight and her breathing weak.

No wonder this body was so fragile. It felt like she’d slept with a man—...beep beep beep—

Grinding its metaphorical teeth, the system cut in, "Host, please stop thinking about dirty stuff!"

"Apart from the main mission I told you about earlier in the alley, as the price for using this body, you also need to fulfill the original owner’s wishes."

"First: properly be the Hargrove family’s second daughter and live out this life in peace."

"Second: repair the relationship between the original owner and the heroine, Lily Hargrove."

Fiona sorted through all the information the system had dumped on her, then seriously started counting on her fingers.

"One: drag the villain back onto the right track and make him fall for me."

"Two: be all lovey-dovey sister-sister with the heroine."

Easy.

But... after sorting through all the memories, Fiona replayed the current plot point in her head.

Today, Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove had thrown a banquet and publicly acknowledged Lily Hargrove. Worried Lily might feel awkward, they stayed by her side the entire time.

The original Fiona, bitter about being ignored, made a huge scene at the party. She got so mad she fainted on the spot, was sent to the hospital, and then straight-up died. That was how Fiona, a thousand-year lotus spirit, ended up squatting in this body.

The second she thought about her sealed demon powers and the freedom she’d lost, her face fell. With a gloomy little look, she rolled up her sleeves.

Fine. Time to work, corporate slave style.

She tried to pull Lucien Northvale off the blond thug, but this body had only just woken up and was weak as hell. The boy didn’t budge even a little. Instead, she was the one left panting, chest heaving, arms going soft.

Fiona had no choice but to call for help. She scrolled through the contact list and, after circling around for a while, picked the driver—the one with the tightest lips—and called him over. At the same time, she silently complained:

This body the original owner left behind is ridiculously fragile. If it were her real body... forget one guy, she could yeet ten men without breaking a sweat.

Not long after, the driver hurried into the alley.

What he saw was this: the young girl standing against the wall, and at her feet, two boys collapsed face-to-face.

The one underneath was covered in blood. The one on top had filthy, wrinkled clothes and looked an absolute mess.

The driver was so shocked he actually took half a step back. In his mind, one line kept flashing over and over like bullet comments:

Assault, then murder!

Second Miss really plays wild!

Still, he had worked for the Hargroves for years. He knew exactly what to ask and what to keep buried. So instead of digging deeper, he tactfully offered, very politely, "Second Miss, should we dump the bodies now?"

"???"