Qingran realized she had transmigrated into a book when she was already unclearly living as a 17-year-old, and she had just saved the female protagonist together with the male lead of the book.
As the female lead in a Mary Sue novel, even her accent had to be the soft Jiangnan drawl. With reddened eyes and a tear lingering on the edge of her lashes, she looked at Qingran, "I'm really thankful for today. My name is Wen Shiyi; I just arrived in F City yesterday, and somehow I ended up being targeted by villains?"
While speaking, she started crying, her words edged with a hint of despair.
Qingran felt overwhelmed and took a slight step back, thinking: If the female lead isn't targeted by villains, how would the male lead save her? How would the Mary Sue plot unfold?
The female lead continued to sob softly. Qingran glanced at Bamboo Dog Xie Ying'an standing beside her, who was still maintaining his handsome stoic face, showing no reaction to the female lead's crying.
Oh, this isn't a love-at-first-sight type of story. As the male lead, Xie Ying'an's reaction wasn't far off from the original plot.
Originally, the scene goes—Xie Ying'an frowned fiercely and gruffly snapped at the gentle and weak female lead, "Annoying, shut up!"
The female lead looked at him with pitiful red eyes and cried even louder.
Qingran sighed; she had always been uncomfortable with girls crying. She took out a tissue from her bag and gently offered it to Wen Shiyi, persuading softly, "Don't cry."
At that moment, Xie Ying'an cast a displeased glance her way.
The female lead, with sobbing hiccups, accepted the tissue, dried her tears, and asked while doing so, "Sister, could you tell me your name?"
Qingran hesitated between her own name and Lei Feng's (a symbol of altruism in Chinese culture), not daring to tell the female lead her name because in the book her method of disclosing her name was quite domineering. She was afraid of disrupting the plot further, although its course had already been altered somewhat by her presence.
She unconsciously glanced at Xie Ying'an again. Seeing his unfriendly expression looking at the female lead, he walked forward two steps, grabbed Qingran's arm and said, "Let's go."
Qingran didn't even have time to bid farewell to Wen Shiyi as she was pulled away by him.
Later that evening, while revising at her desk, Qingran unintentionally thought of the book's plot. She had been transmigrated from birth, faintly remembering a car accident before entering the book.
The book was titled "School Grass's Eleventh Girl." The school grass being her Bamboo Dog, Xie Ying'an, and the Eleventh Girl being today's Wen Shiyi—Shiyi sounding like 'eleven'.
The author's writing was passable, yet Qingran, while reading, always felt the male lead's affection for the female lead was consistently indifferent. Even after they got together and the male lead accidentally heard a romantic confession from another man to the female lead, he only arched an eyebrow and didn't even show any displeasure in the text.
In the book reviews, however, a horde of little fairies defended the female lead: "Wuwuwu, School Grass, you're going to lose Eleven like this."
"Feels like the author has never been in love before. Under such circumstances, any normal man would be very upset, right??"
"If it were a controlling plot, the female lead would at least be bedridden for three days…"
"Agree with the comment above, but has the commenter above started driving?"
"Driving? Isn't that car headed to the kindergarten?"
"The commenter above should be content, lately, it's all bland stories, and I can only find some crumbs in the comments section."
"Confirmed and stamped, the commenter above is a fujoshi (female fan of romantic male relationships)."
...
Because of Xie Ying'an's expressionless, stiff demeanor, which hasn't changed much since he was young, the author, as his metaphorical mother, endowed him with many halos: a top class family background, brilliant intellect, and handsome appearance...
To push the plot forward, there certainly wouldn't be a lack of a villainous female rival, which Qingran played as the third villainous rival. As the male lead's childhood friend, she grew up with the male lead, and Xie Ying'an's mother would occasionally say when they were children, "Wouldn't it be nice if Qingran could become my daughter-in-law?"
The shy little Qingran always responded favorably, though as they grew up, Mrs. Xie no longer made those jokes. However, those words spoken were like a seed that took root and sprouted in Qingran's heart—she felt that she was definitely going to marry Xie Ying'an when she grew up.
At the time when Xie Ying'an started to feel slightly affectionate towards the female lead, the Qingran in the book and the second female lead turned red with jealousy, and they sabotaged the female lead in their craziness to drive the plot forward.
Later on, the ruthlessness of the second female lead went to extremes as she intended to find someone to tarnish the female lead's purity. The former rival came seeking Qingran, attempting to join forces to target the female lead, and the Qingran in the book, foolish as she was, agreed without hesitation.
They thought they had executed their plan flawlessly, but after all, the female lead was still the female lead, sheltered by a protective aura. Eventually, when the plot was exposed, Xie Ying'an ruthlessly used his grandfather's influence to send the second female lead to prison.
As Xie Ying'an's childhood friend Qingran, she did not end up in prison. By that time, Wen Shiyi and Xie Ying'an had established their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, and Qingran's father, to appease the Xie Family, married Qingran off within three months, when she was still not quite twenty.
Qingran's father truly loved his daughter, enduring the business pressures from the Xie Family for three months just to observe the young man he had chosen.
That man was nine years older than Qingran, becoming a professor at F University at the age of twenty-seven. He came from a humble background, and he was a math prodigy as a child. He completed the nine-year obligatory education in five years, and finished high school and university in four years, eventually being directly admitted to the nation's top universities, B University.
Later for some unknown reasons, he chose F University, which was not a bad institution, but it was ranked after B University and Q University... He graduated from university at eighteen, and after several years of joint master's and PhD studies, he worked while conducting research and also returned to his alma mater as a professor.
The description of Qingran's married life in the book wasn't detailed, but it was quite good nonetheless. He let Qingran finish her university studies, and their two children were mentioned in a side story...
"Li Qingran, snap out of it, what were you thinking? I knocked for so long and you didn't hear?" Li Qingmo placed the milk on the desk, patted Qingran's head, and his gaze fell on the tall stack of papers beside her, his pupils slightly dilating: "Whoa... are you insane, Li Qingran, not even sparing yourself on the last day of vacation?"
Qingran took a sip of the milk, silently sighing as she looked at her somewhat unreliable twin brother: "The idleness of youth leads only to grief in old age, bro; I aim to match up to the third rank in our grade."
Li Qingmo twisted his mouth, urging Qingran: "Drink quickly, I still have to wash the dishes for our meal prep 503!"
Qingran was eyeing the third rank in his grade; he had to push harder to reach the second. He couldn't let his scores be worse than his sister's, could he?
Qingran finished the remaining milk, handed the empty cup to Li Qingmo, and smiled with a bent eye: "Thanks, big bro!"
Li Qingmo took the empty cup, raised his hand to check the watch on his wrist: "It's 9:27 now, finish this test paper and go to sleep, I don't want to see your room light on at ten o'clock."
"Okay, good night, brother."
"Good night!"
After Li Qingmo left, Qingran cleaned up the half-done test paper on the desk and put it in her bag, washed up, and lay in bed unconsciously recalling some of the plot from the book.
Aside from changing the plot point from being a poor student to a top student in the book, the rest of the main storyline remained unchanged, such as: in the book, her mother died from a car accident when searching for her after she ran out in a fit of pique at the age of thirteen. Even though she became well-behaved and fulfilled all her mother's dreams about her daughter after arriving here, her mother still died in the same year at the age of thirteen, still from a car accident, the driver being drunk…
It wasn't her fault that her mother died; Li Qingmo, unlike in the book, didn't despise her but took on the role of taking care of her instead.
For instance: Xie Ying'an's most respected grandfather also passed away from illness at the exact timing set in the book, and today, she and Li Qingmo were accompanying Xie Ying'an to alleviate his mood, when Li Qingmo was pulled away halfway by best friends to team up for gaming, she accidentally ended up helping Xie Ying'an rescue the female lead from being robbed.
With the female lead's appearance, the plot of the book officially began. Qingran couldn't be bothered to recall the various suicidal behaviors she and the second female lead committed afterwards. Luckily, she wasn't fond of Xie Ying'an like she was in the book.
Perhaps because she grew up in a big courtyard, she was used to seeing Xie Ying'an's face—handsome, sure, but not breathtakingly so. Oh, she did quite like the teardrop mole under his eye.
According to the plot, she should eventually marry Professor Lin, who was nine years older than her. This also lined up with the main storyline, with a low chance of deviation. She changed her goal from Q University to F University to better know herself and her opponent, sure to win every battle.
Let the vicious female roles be left to second and fourth female leads!
The next day, when Qingran groggily walked downstairs, Li Qingmo was having breakfast. The household's auntie only prepared the meals and left after cooking. Li Qingmo seeing Qingran come down, went to the kitchen to serve her a bowl of porridge.
As Qingran was halfway through her porridge, her drowsiness dissipated, and when she looked up, the first thing she saw was Li Qingmo's panda eyes, startling her instantly: "Bro, did you stay up all night playing games again?"
Li Qingmo who had been doing papers until four in the morning: "..."