The next thing he knew, he was sitting on a small rickety bed that had one moth eaten blanket laid across it. Will was still reeling from the sudden departure when information began flooding into his head. It was the world trajectory or 'plot', that was sent over from Jenny.
This world was a Cinderella romance story, nothing too complicated he should be able to handle it. The world pillar, or female lead, was named Ning Huan. She came from a very poor and rural village in the countryside, but with her unwavering persistence and optimism she succeeded in maintaining top level grades and acquiring scholarships to carry her all the way through her schooling and into University.
Her appearance matched her personality, sunny and pure, she attracted many suitors during her school life. Perhaps her life had been too smooth up until this point that she never grew out of the naivete unique to young girls, that led her an additional loveliness. However, this naivete was soon to be crushed when she fell in love for the first time.
He was a suave young man who was clearly a master at the game, though she was in too deep to realize his true intentions. He wooed her passionately for several weeks before she bashfully agreed to his courtship. It was like a magical dream, her fairytale prince swept her off her feet and they would live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, from all dreams must we wake, and hers was a rather rude one. After feeling nauseous for a week straight, she plucked up the courage to take a small test. The answer was jarring, she was pregnant. Scared and shocked she went to her lover, hoping for reassurance and strength. She was met with her prince kissing another woman and harshly telling her to get rid of it. The sky seemed to be falling for little Ning Huan, her fairytale crumbling with it.
After washing her face with tears and sorrow for several days she finally went to the hospital. She was soon told that her physical condition was prone to being infertile if she chose to continue with the operation.
However, she was not a 'protagonist' for nothing. She decided to keep the baby, and while hiding her pregnancy maintained her GPA until summer break when she gave birth to a boy and dropped him with her mother.
After her experience, she shed her youthful naivete and grew into a more mature woman. She was no longer so pure, and knew that in this world nothing will fall into your lap, you need to seize it.
After graduating with honors, she entered the Xia group and clawed her way up to becoming the personal assistant of the recently widowed CEO Xia MingWen. After several years of entering the real world she was familiar with what men wanted.
She played the soft and adorable yet very capable PA and succeeded in seducing him one day after a dinner party. Her luck seemed to stay with her as she was pregnant again after this single night. She was determined that this time would be different.
She didn't directly confront Xia MingWen about her pregnancy. She carefully dropped subtle hints to lead him to discover that she was pregnant planning to abort. Struck by a sense of paternal responsibility and care of the woman whom had slept with while she was intoxicated, he rushed to confront her.
She burst into tears and confessed her history of being deceived by that scum in her school days, and her regret at not being able to be a mother to her son. She said that she couldn't bear to bring another child into this world that wouldn't have a whole family.
Xia MingWen immediately proposed to her and swore that he would take care of her and her children. Satisfied at his appropriate response she wept in his arms like a fragile bird before agreeing. After a hasty yet grand wedding Ning Huan now sat in the position of Madam Xia, wealth and power at her fingertips.
Yet, like all those obsessed with attaining wealth and power, it was not enough for her. Xia MingWen already had a son from his first wife, Xia JianYu, who was his heir. This wouldn't do at all, what about her and her child? This in mind she came up with a despicable plot.
After reclaiming her forgotten son from the countryside Ning An, she carefully influenced the child to hate Xia JianYu and to compete with him at everything. School, extracurriculars, and eventually business matters. Xia MingWen was very kind and wholly accepted this child who was not his and opened all the doors to him including the family business.
Despite this, Ning Huan never counted on him to win her the family as she bore great resentment towards him for his birth and she felt that only her legitimate child was worthy of inheritance. She murdered Ning An, taking advantage of his near pathological dependence on her and framed Xia JianYu for the murder.
The Xia family's power kept the event hushed up, but Xia MingWen disowned Xia JianYu to bring some semblance of solace to his wife who washed her face with tears every day. Will was in shock, how could a mother do such a thing!? Then he remembered his own life and felt deeply sad, it seemed like he was doomed to never experience family love. As he was sighing he heard Jenny's bubbly voice ring in his mind.
"Did you receive the info? A real bummer right? Not all the plots will be so dark though. Maybe? I suppose it is all luck of the draw, haha. This one is your first mission so you will be farther back in the timeline than usual and your avatar will have pretty similar characteristics to you to make assimilation easier. Also, any quirks of traits of the original body may be passed on to you so don't freak out. Just always focus on who you are and what your mission is, and you should be fine. Remember, you just need to survive past the plot and we succeed. Also, anything you don't know or understand ask me. If you need any information on other members of the plot I can assist with that as well. I am not actively watching you though, to protect your privacy. If you get lonely just holler and I will be there."
Will stood up to get his bearings, the body he was using belonged to Ning An, the poor little pity used and abused by his mother. Ning An at the age of eight to be exact, right before he was brought back to the Xia mansion.
He stared at his anemic limbs and tiny hands for a moment in silence. Due to long term malnourishment he was far shorter than other children his age, his ribs and cheekbones jutted out sharply, his hair was the consistency of straw and hung limply against his neck. As he stood up he felt sharp stings from his back, a cursory glance revealed bruises littering the whole thing.
As he was about to search for a mirror to see his appearance a harsh yell from the kitchen stopped him. It was the voice of an older woman,
"Little bastard why haven't you started the dinner!? Get your ass in here and get it started before I skin you alive!"
His whole body trembled in fear and his feet carried him to the kitchen before he was aware of what was happening. That must have been what Jenny was talking about, residual traits from the original owner. Well at least that solved where the bruises came from, probably.
He didn't have much time to spend on idle thoughts however, as he realized that he had no idea how to operate this kitchen. In his previous life, all appliances were operated via mana stones, not that he had the opportunity to enter a kitchen then either. He urgently called Jenny for help and the two struggled to throw something vaguely edible together for the meal.
Predictably, the woman was disgusted with this worse than usual meal. Will watched as her face turned a scary red-purple color, anger was an understatement. She grabbed the broom and before he could react, slammed it against his already sore back. While beating him she cursed about his uselessness and warned him that if tomorrow wasn't improved that he would regret it deeply.
After she left he remained curled up on the floor sobbing. He called Jenny in his mind,
"Jenny, it hurts. I don't know what to do. Should I just run away? Then I could avoid the whole plot?"
"No, don't! Our tests have found that if you deviate too greatly from the world trajectory, the world consciousness will sense your presence and lock down the world before eradicating you. If that happens, we won't be able to pull you out and it will mean true death. The Xia family will pick you up in a few days, just hold on a little longer." Jenny replied hastily, afraid that he would run away.
"Well, okay. I will try." Will sniffled, this was the most pain he had ever felt, being a pampered magic student in his previous life.
Even his death wasn't painful, just a sort of scary and cold fatigue. He was even looking forward to the scary mom to come pick him up, that is how bad he felt. He struggled to his feet and lurched back to his room.
The next few days passed at a crawl between poorly cooked meals and severe beatings. He had only been able to escape while attending the small local school. It wasn't much better though, he was an outcast. All the students avoided him like the plague with a few shooting derisive comments about his parentage.
After that, he discovered that sadly the schoolwork was nearly impossible to accomplish. His predecessor had clearly been unable to learn much in such a difficult situation, so his recognition of written words was extremely limited. Unfortunately the language was different than his previous one and Jenny said she could not provide him a translator- they had no points.
He even felt a little admiration for the previous Ning An, he had been able to accel in school later on despite his delayed start. After a torturous day in class, he was then assaulted by bullies on the way home. Enduring that, he arrived at another form of Hell when he entered the door.
His grandmother, he now determined that is who the woman was, took out her resentment from the nasty comments in the village about her family on him. Then rinse and repeat. Finally when on the verge of collapse, the Xia family picked him up.