The Rise of the Imperial Female Supporting Character (GL) - Chapter 2

As the daughter of the Huaxia Imperial family—one of the three great powers in the galaxy—Rong Siling was born into the highest echelons of society. Unfortunately, her luck hadn’t quite kept pace with her lineage.

In the original pages of The Interstellar Chronicles, Siling was the quintessential sacrificial lamb. She only appeared in the opening chapters, serving as little more than a stepping stone for the leads. After a brief period of being systematically mistreated, the author had unceremoniously handed her a “death bento.”

Taking a literal blade for the heroine had been bad enough, but even after that bloody lesson, the original Siling had remained incorrigible. She eventually assigned her entire personal security detail to protect the female lead, leaving herself completely defenseless. Her end was gruesome: she was devoured by the Zerg, leaving behind nothing but bones and dust.

Thinking of this, the new Siling couldn’t suppress a shudder. The original Rong Siling was already gone; she was the one inhabiting this “cannon fodder” body now, and she had absolutely no intention of being turned into a Zerg snack.

However, the timing of her transmigration was catastrophic. She was currently aboard a starship bound for the Imperial Home Planet. According to the plot, this very ship would be swarmed by the Zerg—humanity’s sworn enemies—in exactly twenty hours. Many would perish; only the “essential characters” were destined to survive.

In fact, this attack was the very event where the novel’s male and female leads were supposed to meet.

Siling racked her brain, recalling the opening chapters. Thanks to her photographic memory, she could practically rewrite the book from scratch if she had to. As she focused, fragments of the original body’s memories began to drift through her mind.

The images were a chaotic jumble—childhood memories mixed with teenage daydreams—but it was enough to work with. At the very least, she wouldn’t have to rely on the tired “amnesia” trope to hide her identity from the people around her.

She also finally understood why this body was currently so frail and broken.

Predictably, it all traced back to the “heroic” meddling of the female lead, Gu Yitong.

Siling wasn’t actually the highest-ranking person on this ship. There was another princess on board: the one Gu Yitong had mentioned earlier, Princess Zhaoyang—also known as Rong Suhui.

The difference between them was stark. Unlike Siling, who was a “pitiful little thing” in the eyes of the court, Zhaoyang was a truly pampered daughter of the Empire. Her mother held a high consort rank and came from a powerful family; even the Emperor had to give her a certain amount of face.

And according to the laws of web-novel tropes, a spoiled princess is almost always an insufferable bully. Zhaoyang lived up to the archetype, possessing an arrogance that matched her title.

Earlier, Zhaoyang had been making a scene on the deck, slapping guards she didn’t like. When she spotted her half-sister, Siling, she naturally turned her venomous tongue on her. The original Siling was cautious—or, to put it bluntly, a coward. No matter how much Zhaoyang insulted her, she hadn’t dared to let even a flicker of resentment show on her face.

Bullying a sister who wouldn’t fight back eventually became boring. Just as Zhaoyang was about to lose interest and stop, Gu Yitong had decided to play the hero.

The female lead had stepped forward and declared boldly: “Are kings and nobles born to their status? Just because you are a princess, how can you act so recklessly and use your power to crush others?”

At the time, the original Siling had been moved to tears, viewing Gu Yitong as a true sister.

But as the new Siling recalled this scene, she felt like banging her head against the wall. Was this girl actually serious? Gu Yitong’s timing was atrocious. When Siling was actually being insulted, the girl hadn’t said a word. She waited until Zhaoyang was finished and walking away before jumping out to humiliate the Princess in front of a crowd. That wasn’t “standing up for justice”; it was poking a hornet’s nest.

Furthermore, Gu Yitong’s rhetoric was dangerously naive. She was the daughter of a merchant so wealthy he could rival the state. She had never known a day of hardship and, as a rare and high-quality Omega, had been selected as Siling’s “study partner”—essentially a royal playmate.

In the Empire, most study partners lived in constant fear of their princess’s whims. If a princess was in a bad mood, her partners became punching bags. Beatings were common; if one was killed, it was simply dismissed as bad luck.

But Gu Yitong had charmed the original Siling into treating her like a soulmate. She lived more comfortably than the Princess herself, and even Siling’s servants took orders from her. Having been raised in a jar of honey, Gu Yitong had zero concept of imperial authority or social hierarchy.

To say those words in this setting was more than just rude—it was high treason.

Of the three major interstellar powers, only the Huaxia Empire still maintained a monarchy. The other two were Federations. For over a thousand years, those Federations had looked down on the Empire’s “primitive” system, constantly trying to incite the Imperial citizens to overthrow the throne.

Because of this, the Emperor and his officials were incredibly sensitive to “equality” talk. Anyone else saying such things would have been lucky to be killed quietly; more likely, they would have been publicly executed as a warning to others.

But Gu Yitong had the ultimate shield: she was the Heroine.

Instead of making her look brainless, her speech made her seem “fearless” and “pure-hearted.” Every man in the vicinity—including the high-status Male Lead and several prince-tier sub-leads—had immediately taken notice of this “refreshingly honest” woman. Thus, the romance plot was kicked into gear.

However, Princess Zhaoyang didn’t care about plot armor. Following the script of a villainess, she flew into a rage and ordered her personal guard—an Alpha with S-rank psionic power—to execute Gu Yitong on the spot.

The guard hadn’t wanted to kill a defenseless girl, but he couldn’t defy a direct royal order. He closed his eyes and unleashed a burst of spiritual pressure at Gu Yitong.

That was when the original Siling’s body moved faster than her brain. She had lunged forward to shield the girl.

Luckily, the guard hadn’t used his full power, or the original Siling would have been vaporized instantly. As it stood, the blast had merely killed her slowly, allowing her to linger just long enough to “contribute” to the plot one last time before dying.

The original Siling had blacked out immediately. The transmigrated Siling knew from the book that this incident hadn’t actually made Zhaoyang hate the female lead. On the contrary, Zhaoyang gained a twisted sort of respect for Gu Yitong’s “spirit,” while focusing all her genuine hatred on Siling for interfering.

Siling wanted to scream. She had literally taken a bullet—or rather, a psionic blast—only to end up as the primary target of the story’s most petty villainess.

And now, she was running out of time. In three hours, the Zerg would arrive.

She was currently so weak she could barely sit up, making her even more useless than the version of the character in the novel. She was starting to feel true despair over this “fragile Omega” biology. If she were an Alpha, a psionic injury like this would have healed in thirty minutes. For her, who knew how long recovery would take?

She didn’t have the luxury of “recovery time.” She had to find a way to survive the slaughter that was coming in three hours.

Just as Siling was deep in thought, a rhythmic, steady knocking sounded against the quiet of the room.

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