SAHBQT 01

Chapter – 01

The Beloved Missy and the Luck-Bringer

On a steep cliff, dark clouds churned, the wind howled mournfully, and violet lightning tore through the night with thunderous force. In the fleeting flash of daylight, it illuminated the ashen faces of all the cultivators present.

Most of these cultivators took their lead from a handsome young man in red robes, who gripped his long sword and stared with great wariness at the demonic cultivator opposite him—a figure whose entire face was hidden beneath a black cloak.

“Ye Wuheng, you have already betrayed our sect. Are you determined to keep making the same mistake?”

“Cease this at once, and we may spare your life!”

“What are you trying to do to Junior Sister? Let her go! If you have a problem, take it up with me!”

The demonic cultivator paid these words no heed—

Amid the crowd’s fury and despair, he swept an indifferent glance at the red-robed youth, then looked toward the two women bound by vines and suspended over the cliff’s edge—their expressions starkly different from one another. Licking his lips, he smirked and said, “Have you made your choice? Only one of them gets to live.”

“Will you choose your fiancée? Or—”

Purple lightning danced in his palm, echoing the thunderbolts in the clouds above, whipping a gale toward the precipice that made the already precarious vines sway even more dangerously.

This sudden turn of events made the white-robed girl, who had been feigning bravery, begin to tremble with fear. She called out tearfully, “Master, I’m scared!”

The other woman, bound beside her and dressed in wedding finery, kept her head lowered in silence.

Her phoenix crown had been blown off by the wind, and her jet-black hair cascaded loose, hiding most of her face. Only when the fierce gusts swept her locks aside could one catch a glimpse of her strikingly radiant and bewitching features—and the vermilion mark between her brows.

Such a person, even if only slightly wounded, would move any onlooker to pity.

But the red-robed youth said nothing and made no choice. After a long silence, urged on by the crowd and the demonic cultivator’s jeering laughter, he finally turned his gaze toward his fiancée, a flicker of conflict in his eyes.

His hesitation made the white-robed girl’s eyes fill with tears, and a faint spark of hope rekindled in her long-dead heart.

Almost everyone—including the demonic cultivator—believed that the red-robed youth would abandon his fiancée and save the young disciple who had joined the mountain less than six months ago.

Only the woman in red knew for certain that the youth would definitely choose her.

Because she had the script.

In the script, as the villainess, even if she survived this moment, she was still destined to die horribly here—skinned and dismembered—as a tool to mend the rift between the male and female leads.

But none of that mattered anymore.

Hearing the countdown chime from her system, You Mingming lifted her head and glanced at her fellow senior and junior disciples, a faint smile curling at the corners of her lips.

She did not spare the red-robed youth a single look. Today was supposed to be their wedding day. For the sake of a mere handyman cultivator who had arrived on the mountain less than a year ago, he had publicly abandoned her and brought her to this desperate plight.

At this point, there was nothing left to say.

“No need to choose,” You Mingming declared, lifting her chin. Her brows still carried their usual arrogance and wild defiance. “Even if my spiritual foundation is completely destroyed, I would never entrust my life to someone else’s fleeting words.”

“Senior and junior brothers, you need not avenge me. My fate is sealed anyway—I have less than a year to live.” She paused, then turned her gaze to Ye Wuheng, a hint of mockery tugging at her lips. “I once taught you that one must do what one ought and refrain from what one ought not; that one must assess the times and decide what to sacrifice. And this is how you use that lesson?”

Ye Wuheng’s expression shifted dramatically, clearly bewildered as to how his own master’s teachings could come from the mouth of this woman he had never met before.

In that momentary daze of his mind, before he could react, the woman in red used the last wisp of her spiritual power to sever the vines and flung herself off the thousand-zhang cliff.

Below, the eternal flames that never died surged up hungrily to swallow her figure. For an instant, they blazed skyward, staining half the heavens crimson—then quickly faded into nothingness.

And so the vibrant, brilliant young woman who had lived freely and joyfully on Mount Tianqi for barely twenty years, in full view of everyone, resolutely threw herself off the cliff—leaving not even a trace of bone or ash behind.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of Ye Wuheng’s distraction, the white-robed girl quietly freed herself from her bonds. Terrified beyond words, she sobbed and was about to throw herself into the red-robed youth’s arms—only to see the ever-indulgent young man stare blankly at the cliff’s bottom, as two trails of bloody tears slowly slid down from the corners of his eyes.

According to legend, when the phoenix weeps blood, it is mourning its lost mate and seeking to end its own life.

But the system had said she was the female lead—that everyone would fall in love with her, hadn’t it?

The white-robed girl was stunned.

*

You Mingming fell from the cliff and landed straight onto a memory foam mattress.

The moment she opened her eyes, the system’s notification chimed alongside her: “Your bank card ending in 29X3 has received a credit of two million yuan.”

Two hundred thousand in half a year—that was actually quite good.

You Mingming glanced at the balance in her account, squinted her eyes in satisfaction, and said to the system, “If there’s any more fill-in work like this in the future, keep me in mind.”

“Money doesn’t really matter—it’s just that I truly love working.”

The system snorted coldly: “We are a legitimate company. There is no such thing as exploiting labor here.”

You Mingming thought to herself, If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have said that.

Who actually loves work if not for the money?

If your company ever goes bankrupt, I’ll be the first one to run.

Whether the system heard her thoughts or not, it snorted again and, with great aloofness, tossed a piece of paper onto the bed.

The paper outlined the situation of this world, with a lily printed at the bottom.

Out of habit, You Mingming first scanned the flower emblem at the end, confirming that this time she would be playing a pure, delicate, white-flower-type supporting female character, before roughly skimming through the plot.

To put it simply, this was a hyper-industrialized world gone awry. First, forests were cleared to make way for industry; then, nuclear-contaminated wastewater polluted the scant remaining freshwater resources. Add to that the frequent incidents of ocean reclamation and nuclear radiation leaks, and many places had become restricted zones.

Humans were confined to concrete and mechanized cities, completely severed from nature, and their mental states were deteriorating by the day.

Under these circumstances, perfume became the only bridge connecting humanity to the natural world, and the status of perfumers skyrocketed accordingly.

You Mingming’s role this time was that of a perfumer.

She asked, “What are the tasks?”

“There are two tasks this time,” the system replied, sounding somewhat reluctant. “First—as an outstanding perfumer, defeat the female lead, Wen Suyue. Second… make Pei Jingzhi fall in love with you.”

“Wow, seriously?” You Mingming clicked her tongue, her eyes gleaming with a strangely excited glint. “This supporting female character sure is bold—isn’t Pei Jingzhi her brother?”

“Only a stepbrother. Pei Qingqing lost both parents at a young age and has been living with the Pei family,” the system replied. “We do not take on illegal tasks.”

“Oh.” You Mingming lost interest, her enthusiasm for gossip fizzling out.

The system: “…”

The system: “If you don’t want to complete the second task, I can apply to have it withdrawn from the mission parameters.”

You Mingming quickly recovered, saying, “As a parental figure, how could I stand in the way of my child’s freedom to love?”

The system: “I love you.”

You Mingming knew the system’s profanity had been censored again. She replied, “I love you too.”

Speaking of which, she wondered what Pei Jingzhi actually looked like. She sat up from the bed, pushed aside the gauze curtains on both sides, and walked over to the dressing table.

On the dressing table sat a photograph. The girl in the picture, smiling shyly with her lips pursed, was presumably Pei Qingqing. As for the young man standing slightly behind her on the right… You Mingming gave a two-word verdict—exceptional.

Going by the timeline, this photo was taken about seven or eight years ago. She wondered what Pei Jingzhi looked like now.

With that thought, You Mingming pushed open the door.

Her room was on the second floor; a turn down the hall led to a railing overlooking the living room below. A man was sitting on the sofa in the living room—long-legged and tall, his perfectly proportioned body wrapped in a military uniform, medals pinned to his shoulder, a silver chain dangling down and catching the cold gleam of the overhead lights.

Sensing You Mingming’s presence, he looked up and cast her a glance, a flicker of mockery passing through his eyes before he quickly looked away.

You Mingming was taken aback. “Did Pei Jingzhi get plastic surgery?”

“…” The system said, “That’s your fiancé, Bai Qiyao. He’s here today to clean up your mess.”

You Mingming was full of question marks. The system explained, “The female lead, Wen Suyue, is reborn. Her cheat ability is theft. Right now, she has preemptively released Pei Qingqing’s signature work and claimed it as her own.”

“As a result, Pei Qingqing—that is, you—has been stained with the disgrace of plagiarism, and is about to be thrown out by her adoptive mother.”

“See that woman across from Bai Qiyao?” the system added. “That’s the reborn black-hearted lotus female lead—Wen Suyue.”

Wen Suyue also noticed Pei Qingqing upstairs. She stood up and called out, somewhat flustered, “Qingqing…”

Then, as if realizing she had overstepped, she corrected herself, “Miss.”

Sigh. These days, people get reborn, and ghosts get reborn too.

Having seen it all, You Mingming was long accustomed to grand storms and dramatic turns. Someone like Wen Suyue was, in her eyes, nothing more than a two-million-yuan luck-bringer.

She acknowledged the greeting, came downstairs, and sat down on the sofa.