Three months ago, I was the notorious gold-digger girl at Nanda.

Three months later—

Turns out I’m the vicious supporting female lead.

Today was Emerson Hale’s birthday party, the rich second-gen boyfriend of Natalie Ashford.

And right now, she was being stopped at the door.

"Miss Ashford. The young master is in the chess room playing with Miss Sinclair," Butler Lin said politely, but the distance in his tone was obvious.

One sentence, and Natalie Ashford got it.

No need to come in. You can leave now.

There was no grievance or anger on her face. Even that tiny flicker of disappointment was tucked away in an instant, leaving only a faint, gentle smile.

She carefully handed over the cake box. "It’s okay. Please give this to him later for me, and wish him a happy birthday."

Her voice was soft, like the lazy breeze drifting through the afternoon.

When she turned to leave, she didn’t look back.

Separated by only one wall, the villa garden on the other side was full of perfume, designer clothes, and noisy laughter.

For Emerson Hale’s birthday party, basically all the younger generation of Nancheng had shown up.

A few girls in custom gowns stood beside the champagne tower, glancing toward the gate with mocking smiles tugging at their lips.

"See? At least she has some self-awareness."

"A girl like that managing to latch onto Young Master Hale is already her ancestors burning premium incense. How would she dare actually throw a fit?"

"Acting sensible, playing pitiful—honestly, not a bad move. Too bad the real one is right here."

"Showing up with some cheap cake like Young Master Hale would care. Be serious."

Those sharp little comments mixed into the laughter like fine needles, one after another.

In the lounge area at the corner of the party, Arabella Sinclair lightly stirred the juice in her glass, wearing the perfect amount of apology on her face.

"Jin’an, I’m really sorry. It’s all my fault. I lost at truth or dare, and they insisted I come up with a reason so you ‘couldn’t see visitors.’ I had no idea the next person to show up would be Natalie."

She frowned slightly, looking worried. "She’s your girlfriend. If she gets stopped outside like this, won’t she be upset? Tomorrow you have to explain it to her properly, okay? Don’t let her misunderstand."

The boy she called Jin’an lounged back in a white rattan chair, lazy and relaxed, mottled sunlight falling over him.

He was absurdly good-looking—clean-cut and striking, with deep-set eyes and a straight, elegant nose. His plain white shirt was crisp to the point of spotless perfection, sleeves rolled casually to reveal cool pale wrists, lean and refined. Everything about him carried that natural, untouchable air of privilege and distance.

Emerson Hale didn’t even lift his eyelids. He just looked at the iced soda water by his hand and said flatly, "It’s fine."

After a pause, he added in that cool, indifferent voice, "She won’t be angry."

On the electronic screen by one side of the garden, the live gate surveillance was playing in real time.

No arguing. No clinging. No drama.

That figure in white handed over the cake, then turned and started walking down the mountain road step by step.

The sunlight stretched her shadow long across the cold concrete.

She walked slowly, never once turning around.

Her thin back on that empty road looked so small, like a flower petal that might get blown away by the wind at any second.

Halfway down the mountain, her phone screen lit up in the dimmest glow.

An unknown number had sent her a video.

In the video, Emerson Hale—the one supposedly busy playing chess—was leaning against a long table, smiling and chatting with Nanda’s campus belle, Arabella Sinclair. The sunlight spilled over both of them, and the whole scene was so pretty it was almost blinding.

Right below it came a text message:

【Saw that? So what if you’re Young Master Hale’s girlfriend? You can’t even get through the villa gates. Face reality. You’re not even worth a single strand of Arabella’s hair!】

A very faint smile tugged at her lips.

Yeah. Of course she knew.

One was the treasured heiress of the Sinclair family in Nancheng, adored like the moon surrounded by stars.

The other was the so-called "gold-digging trash girl" everyone sneered at.

Even this face of hers had been called "Little Arabella Sinclair."

As if she wasn’t Natalie Ashford at all, just some cheap knockoff of somebody else.

But the truth was, she didn’t look anything like Arabella Sinclair.

Natalie Ashford had vivid features, slightly lifted eyes, and a kind of natural allure. Arabella Sinclair was soft, pure, gentle, the harmless type.

But nobody cared.

Just like nobody cared how hard she had once tried to tear that label off herself.

In her previous life, after awakening, she finally realized she was nothing more than the vicious female side character in a "universal darling" novel.

The perfect foil to the heroine.

Back then, she chose to stay away from the main cast and just tried to live a quiet life.

But her father still lost his job. She still got hit by a car on her way home from school—that was just a "small lesson" from one of Arabella Sinclair’s admirers.

She was gravely injured and hospitalized, hanging by a thread.

Her father, desperate to pay the medical bills, went to carry cement at a construction site and fell from the scaffolding, steel bars piercing straight through his chest.

Her mother clutched the last of their money and walked into the freezing river on a rainy night.

Her whole family was destroyed.

All she had wanted was to avoid them.

Since backing off couldn’t buy her a way to live, at the very end of that life, with bloodshot eyes, she went insane and started targeting Arabella Sinclair with everything she had.

She was so close. Just a little more, and she could have dragged them all down with her.

But in the end, she was tied to stones and sunk into the pitch-black deep sea.

No body. No bones.

A ridiculous, miserable life.

She didn’t even have the right to live peacefully as an ordinary person.

And this time, when she awakened again, a voice suddenly rang out deep inside her mind—cold, mechanical, stripped of any emotion.

It called itself the "Gold-Digger System."

It told her that no matter how many times she was reborn, as long as the "laws of the plot" still existed, she would forever only be Arabella Sinclair’s foil, destined for her family to be ruined and for herself to sink dead into the sea.

Want to defy fate?

The only way out actually rested with the very people who had shoved her into the abyss—the five powerful men around Arabella Sinclair.

【Steal their fortune and gather it onto yourself.】

【When they willingly spend money on you, the flow of money will take away their original fortune.】

【Once your fortune is strong enough, you can break free from the plot and take back your own destiny.】

The method was so simple it felt absurd.

Make them spend money on her.

The more they spent, and the more willingly they did it, the stronger the fortune she would gain.

Faced with a dead-end ending, it no longer mattered whether this system was salvation or just another trap.

Natalie Ashford tugged lightly at the corner of her mouth.

Anyway, she already had nothing left. Just one ruined life.

If she won the gamble, she’d break free from fate.

If she lost, then fine.

She’d just die one more time.

——————

Warning guide: If you’re here for a brain-off wish-fulfillment power fantasy, babe, you can switch to another book now. I’m not good at writing the kind of story where a nobody from the bottom, still trapped under plot control and still just a side character, immediately stomps all over the chosen elites blessed with heaven-defying luck right from chapter one.

There is no male lead in this story who "just mindlessly falls for the heroine." The elite men here all have sharp edges and brains. If they fall for the heroine, it’ll be because she wins them over with real ability and real intelligence, not because the author forcefully dumbs everyone down.

What I wrote is a heroine who claws her way out of despair through brains and grit.

There is no heroine here who just slaps people in the face with a Mary Sue halo.

Yeah, I know that kind of thing is super satisfying to read. Crazy satisfying. But I don’t want to write female characters that "shallow." You can’t see the core of a woman that way.

So yes, the weak heroine in the early stage is definitely going to suffer a little. But those humiliations? Most of them become her weapons. That’s where her intelligence shows. If some readers absolutely need me to write the kind of plot where the heroine tosses away her brain and wins only through protagonist halo... I don’t get it, but I respect it.

What this book is about is how the heroine rises from weakness and makes five untouchable men willingly fall.

If you can’t stand the heroine suffering even the tiniest bit, please exit now! o

*￣︶￣*

o

Lastly, hope all the like-minded readers enjoy the book!

-

One more thing: the heroine and female supporting characters in this story will compete for all kinds of resources—status, honor, connections, and more. If you want to read about people acting detached and above worldly struggle, never fighting for anything, then don’t come in.

Whether male or female, anyone who stands high up does it by fighting for resources.

I seriously don’t know who invented the word "female competition," but how is that any different from telling ancient women to obey three virtues and four morals?

It’s like that other saying too—supposedly if it’s a "great female lead," then she can’t rely on anyone. And I’m like, why not? Why can’t a woman use family resources to climb higher? Why can’t she use men as leverage to move up? Why does a woman only count as a "great female lead" if she relies on herself and only herself?

Same with this whole "female competition" thing. Why should women be lectured not to fight, not to compete, not to grab what they want—just so they can sit there and wait for someone else to hand them affection and favor? Why should women wait for charity from others instead of fighting for things themselves and taking them?

The heroine and female supporting characters in my book are not fighting over some shallow romance. They are fighting for connections, resources, status, and money. They are all trying to climb upward. That’s the nature of society—competition over resources. So if you can’t stand what people call "female competition," stop here.

And on this point, the further you read, the more clearly you’ll understand the real core ideas behind the female characters in this story.

These days, writing has gotten so tense that even when the heroine cleverly uses a loophole in the system, I have to be extra careful, scared someone will attack her for it. I even have to warn people in advance so readers who hate that kind of thing can leave early. I genuinely do not understand why women always have to be forced into all these rules and boxes.

Not this, not that, this isn’t allowed, that isn’t okay... why exactly do women, and female leads especially, have to be flawless?

I hate the term "female competition." I really do. That word is vicious. On the surface it looks like it’s for women, like it’s about unity, but if you really sit down and think about it, you’ll see just how poisonous it is.

If you disagree and think I sound too harsh, you can go read another book that suits your taste better.

Sorry, got a little worked up there!

Left on April 28, 2026.