After Knowing the Plot, I Ended Up with the Female Supporting Character - Chapter 1

The underground parking garage was dimly lit. Ye Chuxia quietly hid in a blind spot, peering through binoculars at a silver-gray Maybach parked nearby.

She had been staking out this spot all afternoon, refusing to move even an inch or take a sip of water, or need to use the restroom fearing she might miss the crucial moment.

Having squatted in the same spot for so long, Ye Chuxia’s legs kept going numb and then recovering, only to go numb again. If the ground hadn’t been so dirty, she would have plopped down on her rear without hesitation.

She cautiously shifted her weight, just as she was about to stand up and stretch, she heard footsteps approaching in the distance. Ye Chuxia immediately crouched back down and peered through her binoculars.

The man who approached the silver-gray Maybach was tall and strikingly handsome, dressed in a custom-tailored black suit. Even when his gaze wasn’t fixed on anyone, he exuded an air of aloof arrogance, making it clear to anyone who saw him that he came from a privileged background.

Sensing he was being watched, Ming Yue frowned and instinctively glanced around, but found nothing. Dismissing it as a trick of the mind, he bent down and entered the car.

Only after hearing the car drive away did Ye Chuxia finally exhale in relief and quickly leave the crime scene.

*****

When people are down on their luck, they often can’t help but seek an outlet for their frustration. They might blame fate for its unfairness or resent friends and neighbors whose lives seem drastically different from their own.

Ye Chuxia was different. She believed that all the misfortunes she had endured were simply necessary for the plot.

It all started a week ago when Ye Chuxia had a dream. In it, she was the female lead in a clichéd CEO romance novel, even though she had never read such books or daydreamed about being a fictional heroine.

Yet, she dreamt it nonetheless.

Typically, the female lead in a CEO romance novel needs a backstory that will earn the CEO’s pity and provide ample opportunities for misunderstandings and conflicts. Ye Chuxia’s life perfectly fulfilled this requirement.

Her mother had gone into premature labor after being bumped by a rambunctious child during her pregnancy. Her health had never fully recovered after giving birth. When Ye Chuxia was in middle school, her father died in a car accident. Shortly after, her grief-stricken mother, in a daze, fell down the stairs and passed away.

On the eve of her college entrance exams, her grandmother also died despite all efforts to save her.

She used her last savings to hold a funeral for her grandmother. The emotional toll of this event caused her to fail the college entrance exam, preventing her from attending her dream university, Tsinghua or Peking University, and forcing her to settle for Yan University.

Yan University was by no means a bad school; it was a prestigious institution coveted by countless students across the country. But for someone who had originally set her sights on Tsinghua or Peking University as stepping stones to studying abroad, any other university had been completely out of the question before this tragedy struck.

Ye Chuxia didn’t dwell on it. Life is full of disappointments. She blamed herself for losing her composure during the exam. If her parents and grandmother had known how this affected her performance, they would have scolded her relentlessly, pointing fingers at her forehead in anguish.

Ye Chuxia had always believed herself to be strong, having weathered all these hardships without breaking. Yet she never imagined she would resort to making excuses, blaming everything on something as intangible as a dream.

But the dream had felt so real that she couldn’t dismiss it as mere fantasy. After careful consideration, Ye Chuxia followed the memories from her dream and came to the company where the male lead, CEO Ming Yue, worked, just to confirm whether any of it was true.

Now that she had confirmed it, Ye Chuxia found herself at a loss.

The backstory, glossed over in the novel with a few sentences to highlight the female lead’s tragic circumstances and stubborn resilience—a plot device designed to kill off characters—was, for her, a real and painful past she had lived through.

She was strong, had worked hard to survive, and had even managed to live well. But her heart remained empty, especially during family reunion holidays when she was always alone.

She longed to have parents she could dote on, to cling to her grandmother while making dumplings together. But all of that was gone. Now, she could only stare at a room full of memorial portraits, unable to sleep.

Before this, Ye Chuxia had always comforted herself by thinking that countless others in the world were worse off than she was. She told herself not to dwell on it, that her deceased family wouldn’t want to see her wallowing in the past, living a life of despair.

But now, Ye Chuxia’s composure shattered.

Who wants to be the female lead?! she thought. I just want my parents and grandmother back!

Emotional breakdowns often happen in an instant. Ye Chuxia burst into tears right there on the street.

She hadn’t cried in so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like. Yet now, she couldn’t control her tear ducts at all.

People bustled around, occasionally glancing at the sobbing woman, but no one approached. They quickly moved on.

“Hello, do you need help?”

Ye Chuxia’s sobs paused. A pair of black high-heeled leather shoes came into view. She looked up, instinctively assessing the woman’s financial status. It was clear she wasn’t a rich second-generation heir, but she was certainly well-off, likely a high-level corporate executive.

Ye Chuxia stood up, wiping her tears. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

The woman nodded slightly, said nothing more, and turned to get into a nearby car. Only then did Ye Chuxia realize she had deliberately gotten out of the vehicle to offer help.

Ye Chuxia pursed her lips. The interruption had abruptly shifted her focus, allowing reason to suppress her surging emotions. Not wanting to remain there and become a spectacle, she took a step forward, only to be immediately choked by a face full of exhaust fumes from the white car as it sped away.

Ye Chuxia: “…”

Inside the car, the woman glanced at the young woman in the rearview mirror and asked, “Miss Yi, do you know her?”

Yi Nanyan thought of those tear-filled eyes, her eyelids drooping slightly as she replied calmly, “A classmate.”

Yang Shuxin thought, This is more than just a classmate, isn’t it? With her personality, she wouldn’t even spare a glance for ordinary classmates.

However, she didn’t press the matter further, quietly driving on without bringing up the tearful girl from earlier.

Ye Chuxia, unaware of the car’s earlier drama, took the bus back to school and stared blankly at the bookshelves filled with books.

Her original plans had already been shattered once. After failing to get into Tsinghua or Peking University, Ye Chuxia had set her sights on graduate school admission, followed by obtaining a teaching certificate to become a teacher. She envisioned a simple life with a loving partner.

It wasn’t that she lacked greater ambitions, but rather that she longed for a family. Professions like teaching were highly regarded by elders, even considered a bonus in arranged marriages.

But now, Ye Chuxia found it all utterly meaningless. It wasn’t that she no longer wanted a family, but after reading the novel that laid bare her entire life, she had lost all interest in romance.

In fact, the very thought of it made her feel physically nauseous.

So, Ye Chuxia immediately revised her life plan. Her top priorities for the future were to rebuild a family and to make money.

Having fallen from the pampered life of a wealthy heiress to a pitiful state where she couldn’t even afford her tuition, Ye Chuxia, who had once been oblivious to the value of money, became fiercely attached to it. Though she had accepted the harsh reality of her situation, there was no doubt that if given the chance, she would eagerly return to her former life—buying whatever she wanted without a second thought, never needing to pinch pennies for a meal, and never having her skin chafed raw by coarse clothing.

It was a frustrating irony. Perhaps due to her overly sheltered upbringing, Ye Chuxia suffered from a severe case of “princess syndrome.” Even slightly inferior fabrics would leave her skin red and irritated, and she required the finest bedding to sleep comfortably, much like the princess and the pea.

For an ordinary person, this was an exorbitant expense. During her most desperate times, Ye Chuxia bitterly resented her own body. Because of her delicate constitution, she had to allocate a significant portion of her meager funds to high-end clothing, leaving her with even less for food.

This was precisely why Ye Chuxia craved money so fiercely. Without it, her life wasn’t just about a lower standard of living; her very body couldn’t endure it.

So, having abandoned her original goals, Ye Chuxia immediately prioritized her second ambition, elevating it to her primary focus.

After pondering for a while, Ye Chuxia still couldn’t figure out how to make big money.

The novel’s plot was indeed a powerful tool, but the book focused heavily on the protagonists’ romance, with pitifully little business content, and even that was beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Many business opportunities weren’t that ordinary people couldn’t spot them, but rather that even if they did, they lacked the capital to pursue them.

Ye Chuxia found herself in exactly this situation.

She couldn’t afford to enter high-end industries, while more accessible sectors had already entered periods of rapid growth, leaving little room for significant profits for newcomers.

After racking her brain for hours without a breakthrough, Ye Chuxia decided to put everything on hold for now. After all, starting a business wasn’t something that could be done overnight. Once she had a clear direction, she would still need a detailed plan and time to accumulate startup capital. As a sophomore, there was no need to rush into a decision.

With this realization, Ye Chuxia’s anxiety gradually subsided. She applied a warm towel to her slightly swollen eyes and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, a faint, inexplicable smile tugging at her lips.

Her appearance perfectly matched the “innocent white lotus” archetype of a female lead in a CEO romance novel. Her almond-shaped eyes radiated innocence no matter who she looked at, and her delicate features hinted at a hidden fragility. No one who saw her would ever suspect she was a scheming person.

However, her undisguised poverty, juxtaposed with her surprisingly expensive clothes, led most uninformed people to label her as vain. As a result, Ye Chuxia’s popularity at school wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t good either.

Ye Chuxia didn’t mind this at all. After all, they were just a bunch of irrelevant extras; their opinions didn’t matter.

After putting down the towel, Ye Chuxia took a shower and lay down on her bed, unable to stop thinking about the kind person she’d met earlier that day.

In her excitement at the time, she hadn’t paid much attention, but now, as she recalled the encounter, Ye Chuxia realized that the car wasn’t cheap—not something an ordinary person could afford.

It must be nice to be rich, she sighed. The white car perfectly matched her aesthetic, and she imagined it must be incredibly comfortable to ride in. When she had money someday, she’d buy one just like it to experience that luxury for herself. It would be heavenly.

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