"Jiang Ze! How dare you hurt A Yun! Trash like you could strip naked in front of me and I wouldn't spare you a glance. Get out of the Meng family home!"
Jiang Ze dimly heard a man shouting in disgust beside him. His whole body felt cold.
His wet clothes clung to his skin. Irritated, he tugged at the hem, heavy with water, only to realize he seemed to be sitting in water.
Water? Wait, I jumped off a ship into the sea to save a child. What happened to the child? Am I still alive?!
His eyes snapped open, but all he saw was a man's disgusted face.
"Jiang Ze, stop playing dead. Get up, take your junk, and get out of the Meng family home!"
Jiang Ze stared blankly at the scene before him. A quick glance revealed a ring of spectators pointing and gossiping about him.
"Jiang Ze really has no shame when it comes to throwing himself at the Meng family's eldest young master. Everyone knows Shen Yun is the one he treasures!"
"Exactly. His darling only just came back from overseas for Young Master Meng's birthday party, and Jiang Ze couldn't wait to come over and cause a jealous scene. He even slapped him, then lost his footing and fell into the pool himself. How utterly humiliating!"
"How did the Jiang family end up with such a disgrace of a son?"
The people around Jiang Ze made no attempt to lower their voices. As though afraid he might not hear, they spoke louder, mocking him without restraint.
The man before him glared viciously at him, holding a delicate young man in his arms.
The young man had refined features and tear-filled eyes, looking so aggrieved and bullied that anyone would feel sorry for him.
Jiang Ze still hadn't figured out what was happening. He had clearly been vacationing on a cruise ship and jumped into the sea to save a child who had fallen overboard.
Yet the moment he opened his eyes, instead of being thanked, he was being relentlessly insulted by some man.
His temper flared. He was just about to put his silver tongue to work and show the man what a truly sharp mouth could do.
Then a ding sounded beside his ear.
"Beep, beep, beep. Please control your emotions, host. Don't get too worked up~"
The grating mechanical voice rang out without warning. Jiang Ze's body, already numb from the cold, stiffened even further. He forgot all about the asshole in front of him.
What the hell is talking?!
"Please stay calm, host! This system's designation is Simp 001. I'm your special advantage for transmigrating here~"
Jiang Ze frowned. Before he could say anything, the man before him apparently grew impatient with his silence and called over two nearby security guards to throw him out.
The mechanical voice seemed to realize this wasn't a good time for a chat. It began speaking at a startling speed, though Jiang Ze could still understand every word.
"This is a simp system. Your death after jumping into the sea to save someone has been confirmed. In recognition of your good deeds, this system selected you and transported you into the novel My White Moonlight. You must choose one of its principal characters and become his simp to earn points! Once you earn 99,999,999 points, you'll get a new life!!"
"Please select your final Target Character now: the bottom, Shen Yun; the top, Meng Zimu; or the villain, Meng Zhiyuan. Please note that you may only select your Target Character once, and it cannot be changed for the rest of your life! Countdown: 10, 9, 8..."
As Jiang Ze watched the guards approach, the increasingly urgent mechanical countdown echoed in his head. In a flash, he finally remembered why the title sounded so familiar.
Just a few minutes before jumping into the sea, he had been reading a novel about a scumbag top and a doormat bottom. Its title was My White Moonlight.
With nothing better to do, he had spent several days reading it and finally reached the ending. The scumbag top and doormat bottom made him physically uncomfortable, and he couldn't resist complaining about them.
Right after he finished complaining, the child had fallen into the water, leading to everything that followed.
Did karma really work this fast?!
"I choose Meng Zhiyuan!"
He hadn't noticed that the mechanical voice was speaking inside his head. In his panic, he shouted his answer aloud-and very loudly at that.
The noisy hall suddenly fell so silent that a pin dropping would have been audible. The disgusted man before him froze as well.
"Jiang Ze, are you sick in the head? Why are you suddenly shouting my second uncle's name?! If you want to go crazy, don't do it in my family's home!"
Seeing that the guards on either side hadn't moved, Jiang Ze rapidly recalled the plot of the novel he had read.
He guessed this must be the beginning of the story.
The cherished first love, the bottom, had just returned from overseas and been framed by cannon fodder. The top came to his rescue, threw the cannon fodder out of the Meng family home, and gave him a vicious beating for good measure.
And Jiang Ze himself was that unlucky cannon fodder.
Even while reading, he had thought it was bad luck that this cannon fodder shared his name. The man was cowardly and pathetic, not only throwing himself at the scumbag top but also picking a fight with the bottom out of jealousy.
Who would have thought the cherished first love was no pushover at all, but an expert at playing the innocent victim?
With barely any effort, he had turned everyone against Jiang Ze.
Jiang Ze had never liked the way these two leads behaved in the book. Faced with this situation, he suddenly had an idea.
He stopped caring about staying in character and picked up right where Meng Zimu had left off.
"Meng Zimu, don't think I don't know why you kept me around these past two years. You just wanted a stand-in for that cherished first love of yours!"
Meng Zimu's expression changed. He hastily glanced at Shen Yun in his arms and, seeing no change in his expression, secretly breathed a sigh of relief. His disgust for Jiang Ze deepened.
He discreetly signaled the two guards beside him, telling them to hurry up and drag Jiang Ze out before he said anything else he shouldn't.
Before the guards could act, however, the young man's next words stunned everyone present.
"Don't think you're the only one who has a stand-in. You thought I followed you around because I liked you?! Take a good look at yourself! You were nothing but a stand-in for Meng Zhiyuan, the man I actually like. You aren't even one ten-thousandth of the man he is! Would I have chased after you if you didn't look a little like him? You really think you're somebody, huh?!"
In truth, he had no idea what Meng Zhiyuan looked like, but that hardly mattered.
Jiang Ze rattled off his verbal barrage, feeling some of his pent-up anger dissipate with every word. He had wanted to do this back when he was reading the novel.
In the book, the top had relentlessly pursued the bottom after his return, yet neither of them ever made their feelings explicit. Nearly two-thirds of the novel consisted of their ambiguous flirtation.
The villain, Meng Zhiyuan, was the top's second uncle. He wielded immense power in the novel and single-handedly controlled the entire Meng Family in B City. He was on an entirely different level from the top.
Yet even a man like him had fallen at the bottom's denim-clad feet. Perhaps it was because of the Protagonist Aura: the bottom flirted with the top while stringing the villain along, never making anything clear but thoroughly enjoying the uncle and nephew fighting over him.
In the end, the second male lead snapped and became a full-blown villain, resorting to imprisonment and rape. Even then, he couldn't escape the Protagonist Aura. The top and bottom joined forces, leaving Meng Zhiyuan bankrupt and dead in a horrific car crash.
After reading Meng Zhiyuan's ending, Jiang Ze had cursed for half an hour before he finally calmed down.
Meng Zimu's expression turned thunderous, his eyes filled with shock. He seemed completely stunned by Jiang Ze's outrageous declaration.
He couldn't understand how the formerly meek Jiang Ze had changed so drastically.
He didn't even manage an immediate rebuttal.
But Jiang Ze wasn't done yet. He turned toward Shen Yun, still nestled in Meng Zimu's arms like a little white goose, and gave a derisive laugh before speaking again.
"And you, Shen Yun. When did I ever hit you? You slapped yourself, pushed me into the water, and had a grand old time directing and starring in your own little show, didn't you? There are cameras all over this house. How about I have someone pull up the footage so we can see that White Lotus face of yours?"
Shen Yun paled, a flicker of malice flashing through his eyes. Yet he only shrank weakly into the man's arms, his tears flowing harder as he whimpered:
"Zimu, I didn't. I'm scared..."
Still reeling, Meng Zimu abruptly snapped out of it when he heard his beloved being attacked.
"Jiang Ze, you're not only shameless, you're turning around and slandering someone else! Is this what the Jiang family taught you? You uncultured piece of trash!"
Jiang Ze's expression chilled at those words. This piece of shit dares lecture me about manners?!
"Slander? All I see is you blindly believing that little lover in your arms without bothering to find out what happened. What's wrong? Afraid to check? Looks like the Meng family's eldest young master is nothing but a coward! Hugging and cuddling a man in public-you're the shameless one!"
His mouth seemed to have gone dry from talking, and he licked his lips. He looked disdainfully at the man's grim face, then delivered an even more shocking line.
"I'm telling you, a guy like you isn't worth even one of my Zhiyuan's fingers!"
Watching Meng Zimu's face darken as far as it possibly could, Jiang Ze secretly reveled in his satisfaction.
He knew that Meng Zimu had grown up in the shadow of his second uncle, Meng Zhiyuan. Though outwardly respectful, he was deeply jealous and resentful, and he couldn't bear being compared to him. This was like twisting a knife.
Who knew when the villain would show up anyway? Why not use him to piss off this scumbag top first?
What he hadn't considered was that, although only a few of Meng Zimu's usual friends had been invited to the eldest young master's birthday party, plenty of Meng family members were also present.
Jiang Ze tugged at his nearly half-dry clothes and hunched his neck uncomfortably.
He didn't want to keep tangling with the two protagonists here. He knew all about their Protagonist Aura, and having only just arrived, he couldn't afford a head-on clash. After satisfying his urge to mouth off, he intended to slip away.
But the moment he turned around, he understood why no one had dared say a word throughout his entire tirade.
A tall man stood a short distance behind him, dressed in a bespoke suit. His features were sharply defined and cold, and his dark eyes regarded Jiang Ze without a ripple of emotion.
Jiang Ze's smug smile froze on his face. Seeing those features, which bore a slight resemblance to Meng Zimu's, how could he fail to guess who the man was?
Wasn't this the very man he had just declared his love for, and the target he would have to pursue from now on?
The head of the Meng Family, Meng Zhiyuan.
Just then, the mechanical voice in his head returned with impeccable timing.
"Beep, beep, beep! Target Character Meng Zhiyuan has appeared. Please fulfill your duties as a simp and show your true simp colors! Simp, simp, simp away, and end up with nothing... ah, no, host! With this system, simp to the end and you'll have everything!!"
Listening to the noisy mechanical voice in his head, Jiang Ze wore a wooden expression, his body somewhat stiff.
How hard was the floor in the Meng family home? Was there still time to dig a hole and crawl out of here?
Before you continue