"Second Brother, that woman looks like she’s about to stop breathing…"
"Let her. Saves us the trouble."
…
Serena Whitmore came to with a sharp throb pounding through her skull. Something warm and sticky was sliding down her forehead, sealing her lashes together. Beside her, there was a rustling sound, like someone shifting through straw.
Suddenly, a shadow fell across her, blocking the dim light. A small face leaned closer, and a childish voice piped up right next to her ear.
"Big Brother! She's waking up!"
More footsteps hurried over. Serena dragged a hand across her eyes, smearing away the tacky mess. When she finally forced her eyes open and saw the blood covering her palm, she froze, stunned.
What…?
She squinted against the blurry light and tried to take in her surroundings. It hit her almost instantly—this wasn’t any place she knew. The place looked like a half-collapsed temple. Not far away stood a stone Maitreya statue, nearly two meters tall, its surface buried under layers of gray dust. The roof above her had a gaping hole; the walls were peeling; cobwebs crowded every corner.
She shifted slightly. Straw rustled beneath her back—she’d been laid directly on a pile of it, with another scratchy layer thrown haphazardly over her body.
Her mind churned in confusion. Just moments ago—no, it felt like moments—she had still been on her hospital bed, listening to the doctor’s voice coolly announcing brain death. The world had blurred, then gone dark. And now… this?
Before she could make sense of anything, a crushing pressure filled her head. Strange memories surged like a flood, forcing themselves into place.
Serena’s eyes widened blankly at the shattered roof overhead.
She’d fallen into a novel…
"Rise to Power"—a book told through the male lead’s perspective, all about scheming for the throne, betrayal, and bloodshed. The entire world in the story was twisted into ruin.
Five major villains. They killed the male lead, seized power, and then tore each other apart with suspicion and betrayal until everything burned with them. Cities fell, people starved, and the land was left in shambles.
And she… she had become the stepmother of those five villains. The crude, petty, selfish woman who barely appeared in the story at all—because she died right at the start.
But right now, those five future villains weren’t grown tyrants. They were… children. Small, dirty, guarded little children.
The story hadn’t even truly begun. In the novel, by the time the curtain rose, all five were already adults.
Shock rippled through Serena, but beneath it, a burst of wild, trembling excitement surged up from her chest.
She’d had a miserable run in her last life—a frail thing from birth, always in and out of hospitals. Most of her days were spent staring at white ceilings, and in the end she died on that same cold bed. And she had wanted nothing more than a healthy body of her own.
“Ding! Villain Correction System online. Would the host like to bind and begin the mission? Yes. No.”
Before Serena Whitmore could even react, a sharp, artificial buzz cut straight through her mind.
What was that?
“Please confirm binding. If the host does not respond within ten seconds, the system will take it as refusal and remove all signs of life. Ten… nine… eight…”
Serena panicked. She had barely settled into this new body—remove signs of life? That meant she’d be dead again.
“Yes! Yes, bind it!” she blurted out.
“Villain Correction System bound successfully. Mission mode initializing. The host’s task is to realign the original storyline, correct the villains, and guide them into becoming diligent, upright, honest, brave, studious… positive individuals.”
Serena: …
She knew the original plot. Before her illness got too bad, *Power Over the World* had been the last book she finished. The five villains in that story… the way they went off the rails was beyond disastrous. Pure nightmare fuel.
She was about to question the system when two small shadows suddenly blocked out the light.
“So she’s really awake? Tough luck.”
A boy no more than six or seven stood with his arms crossed, his clothes washed so many times they’d turned pale. A mocking smirk tugged at his lips, but his eyes were chillingly dark as he stared at her.
A few steps behind him, another boy of similar age frowned at Serena. After confirming it wasn’t just her dying breath returning, he lost interest and walked out.
“Tsk. Hard one to kill…”
Serena blinked, pushed herself up, and the sharp pain on her forehead brought back a flood of unpleasant memories.
The original woman had really been brainless and selfish. After being kicked out of the Ashford manor, the five boys were driven all the way south to this remote edge of nowhere. Whatever money they managed to take with them had been squandered by that useless woman.
For the past year, war between the two nations had dragged common folk down with it. Add a drought to the mix, and famine hit like a curse. The little villains lived miserably—barely any food, hardly any clothes, and no home except this broken, abandoned temple.
When hunger got unbearable, they chewed on roots and bark, or went up the mountain to dig for wild greens. And what did the original woman do? Nothing. She hovered around the boys every day, and whenever food appeared, she’d snatch it straight out of their hands.
Just like earlier—Adrian somehow brought back a few steamed buns. The moment she saw them, she rushed in to rob him. But Adrian wasn’t having it. Taking advantage of her grabbing at him, he struck her with a stone and killed her on the spot.
In the book, that was exactly how she met her end.
Serena: …
…