You All Want the Poor Lead, I'll Take This Handsome Rich Villain

1: 1

I woke up and found myself inside a book, wearing the body of the supporting female character who happened to share my name.

Like every other woman in that book, she was insanely devoted to the male lead.

She used every trick she had to win his favor.

The male lead wanted to travel, so she stayed up night after night mapping out the itinerary, only to find out he was taking the trip to accompany the female lead.

The male lead wanted to start a business, so she poured out her whole fortune, only to find out he was doing all of it so he could marry the female lead.

She fought the female lead in secret, again and again, and finally drove her away.

She thought she'd won. But the male lead lost his mind when the female lead left. He drove a chain through her shoulder blade and chained her up in a lightless basement.

As her consciousness slipped away, she cried and asked him, "All these years, I gave you everything I had. Do you really not feel a single thing for me?"

The male lead answered with hatred, "The only person I've ever loved, from beginning to end, is Tilda Simmons. Every minute I spent with you felt like wasting my life."

Once I'd digested everything from the book, I opened my eyes.

You cold-blooded male lead, you and your female lead can keep loving each other for all I care.

But this handsome, rich, devoted, adorable male antagonist you all threw away? I'm going after him.

Your phone balance is below ten dollars.

Your Vidly membership expires in three days. Renew now?

Your meal card balance is below ten dollars.

Bank card balance: 0-02.20.

Staring at all these "insufficient balance" alerts.

I nearly lost it.

"What is this? I transmigrated into a book and I'm still this broke?"

Only when I calmed down did I remember.

Dawn Henson's family wasn't actually poor. Her monthly college allowance ran to ten thousand dollars.

The reason she was flat broke right now?

Because the original owner had given every cent of it to Stanley Dickerson, the male lead of the book.

To please Stanley, she'd wrung herself dry to the last drop.

That kind of near-obsessive, unhinged love left me speechless.

Especially when I thought about how it all ended for her in the book.

That nearly made me snap altogether.

But luckily, I was here now.

None of that would ever happen again.

The male lead and the female lead could go be in love. Not my problem.

I knew every page of that book, and right now the only thing that mattered was making money and living well.

With that in mind, I ran straight to the street stall outside campus.

Ten minutes of haggling later.

I bought a red-string bracelet for two dollars.

Cradling my treasure, I went to the path Louis Gilbert, the book's biggest male antagonist, walked every single day.

After half an hour of waiting, sure enough, he showed up.

Except Stanley Dickerson happened to be on the same path, the two of them a few steps apart.

Seeing me standing there, clearly waiting, with a little gift box in my hands.

Stanley instantly assumed I was there to fawn over him again.

His face full of irritation, he snapped at me.

"How many times have I told you? Stop giving me gifts every day."

"You know I'm short on cash right now. If you really want to be good to me, just give me the money directly. Why waste it on these pointless gifts?"

I shot Stanley a look that said you're out of your mind.

He wasn't ready for that look at all.

Before he could recover.

I stepped right past him with my gift.

I went straight up to Louis Gilbert, who had just come up behind him, and dropped the bomb.

"Louis, I've actually liked you for a long time. This is a gift for you. Please, you have to take it."

2: 2

I stopped Louis Gilbert, and the first thing out of my mouth was a full-blown confession.

Stanley Dickerson's face went blank with disbelief.

Louis looked caught off guard too.

For a moment the whole thing was painfully awkward.

But I wasn't the one feeling awkward.

Because I happened to know that Louis Gilbert wasn't nearly as awful as the male and female leads made him out to be.

If anything, he wanted friends more than anyone.

He wanted to be recognized.

He wanted to prove himself.

So he was generous to the people around him, and loyal too.

There was that one scene in the book especially, where a girl had confessed to him and given him a gift.

He turned her down, but he still sent money for the gift.

The gift was worth eighty-eight dollars. He transferred her a full thousand.

And said he never took advantage of anyone.

In the original book, Stanley twisted this into Louis flaunting his money and power, using cash to humiliate people's dignity.

But the way I saw it,

that wasn't humiliation at all.

That was Louis's principle, and a principle that fine deserves a thumbs-up.

A friend that lavish, if they didn't like him, fine, I did.

Which was exactly why, the first thing I did after landing in this book was come here to exploit the bug and farm gifts.

As long as Louis stuck to his principle, I could keep buying him gifts and printing money forever. Hehehe.

Just thinking about it, I couldn't stop a sly little grin from creeping onto my face.

Louis watched me curiously, one moment lost in some fantasy, the next wearing that shady little smirk.

He asked, puzzled:

"Hey, I don't think I know you."

I said quickly:

"Does that matter?"

What matters is that you see my gift, stick to your principle, and give me the money!

Under my hopeful stare,

sure enough, the next second Louis nodded:

"You're right, it doesn't matter. I'm not accepting your confession, and I never take advantage of anyone. How much was this gift? I'll transfer it to you."

Here it comes. Here it comes.

Right on cue.

Watching him pull out his phone to make the transfer, I was so thrilled I nearly lost my grip on the gift box.

"This, this, this gift is very expensive."

Louis said impatiently:

"How much?"

I steeled my nerve and slapped a sky-high price on a two-dollar red string:

"Foforty-eight thousand."

"Forty-eight thousand?" Stanley's shocked yelp came from behind me.

He ran over, his eyes full of enormous displeasure as they landed on me:

"Dawn Henson, you've never once given me a gift this expensive!"

I couldn't stand one more second of this so-called male lead:

"Who do you think you are? Why would I ever give you a gift?"

"You, how can you talk to me like that?" Stanley's face was a mask of disbelief. "How dare you? Aren't you afraid I'll never speak to you again?"

I said flatly:

"Are you sick in the head?"

Stanley's expression twisted even uglier:

"You're calling me sick? Didn't you used to like me more than anything?"

If I were still the supporting character from the book, then yes, that would've been true.

But I wasn't a person from the book anymore.

I gave Stanley a flat-out eye roll and said:

"You really are sick. Go crawl off wherever it's cool and quiet, and stop getting in the way of me confessing to a guy."

"Dawn Henson, you'll regret this!"

Stanley threw the line at me and stormed off in a fury.

Louis kept his hands in his pockets and studied me with open curiosity:

"You've got nerve. How do you dare talk to the campus heartthrob like that? Not scared of getting swarmed by Baby Stanley's White-Knight Squad?"

I gave a dismissive little laugh:

"Hmph, I couldn't care less about him!"

Louis seemed genuinely delighted and laughed out loud:

"Good, good, good. I'll transfer you the money."

He didn't even open the gift box, just sent over fifty thousand.

I said happily:

"You seem to have sent too much."

Louis said breezily:

"Whatever's extra, call it a tip."

Watching that dashing, obscenely rich figure of his walk away, I have to admit that in that moment my heart really did skip a little.

Wait, hold on, he didn't even take the gift with him.

Maybe I should just give it to him again next time?

This bug was so broken it even saved me the cost of materials?

3: 3

I looked at the fat sum swelling back up in my balance.

At noon, I treated myself to a feast in the dining hall.

The most expensive steak dinner they served.

I was right in the middle of enjoying it.

A familiar figure came and stood in front of me.

It was Stanley Dickerson, the male lead of the book.

He was cradling a glass jar in his hands, and it gave off a rotten, foul stink.

"Dawn, didn't you say you transferred all of this month's money to me?"

"Then how can you still afford steak this expensive?"

"Even the professors can't bring themselves to spend this much."

Hearing that, I had nothing to say.

The original supporting girl really was that stupid.

She gave everything to the male lead.

And in the end, what she got back wasn't a shred of gratitude, but his resentment.

A snake like this, I couldn't afford to provoke.

I looked at him coldly.

"Are you done?"

"If you're done, then get lost, and stop ruining my meal."

I thought I'd sounded plenty commanding.

The meaning was clear enough too.

But Stanley didn't leave. He just kept standing there.

I was about to shoo him off again when that two-faced tone of his came at me.

"Dawn, I know you're still angry about the time I left you behind."

"But there was nothing I could do that night. It was one in the morning, thundering and pouring rain, and Tilda's terrified of thunder. I couldn't just not go and be with her."

Every single word out of his mouth made me want to gag.

The original book did have a scene like this.

The supporting girl, to sweet-talk the male lead, took the entire month's living expenses her family had just given her and handed it all over so he could send it back home to treat his mother's illness.

She even went back to his hometown with him in person.

Worked and cooked the whole time she was there.

Kept at it until late into the night, and only then rode back to school on the back of his bike.

But even after everything she gave him.

Just because Tilda called and said she was scared of the thunder.

He dumped her right there, alone on a deserted road in the dead of night.

It poured that day too.

Lightning and thunder.

Yet even after being abandoned like that, the supporting girl stayed devoted to him.

Admired him even more, in fact.

Because she decided that meant he was loyal and true, a man who valued his bonds.

As long as she could move him, that devotion of his would one day belong to her alone.

Remembering all of that.

I just rolled my eyes.

No wonder Stanley had the nerve to act this shameless.

It was all because the supporting girl had spoiled him into it.

I said, flat out and without patience:

"Don't bother explaining any of that to me. I don't care."

But the words still didn't drive Stanley off. If anything, his eyes lit up.

He said, more certain than ever:

"Other people don't understand you, but do you think I don't?"

"The more you say you don't care, the more you actually do."

"All right, don't be angry."

"I'll stay and keep you company, and you treat me to steak too. Call it my apology for what I did last time, okay?"

"Oh, right."

He set the stinking jar down on the table.

"I also brought pickled radish from back home."

"My mom pickled this herself. I don't let just anyone eat it, you know."

"You're the only one I'm willing to share it with."

His fakeness and his shamelessness dropped my jaw clean off.

Treat him to a feast, and that counts as his apology?

His rotten, stinking pickles, that not just anyone gets to eat?

Then what kind of person does get to eat them?

Second class? Third? Fourth?

"Come on."

I was still reeling when someone gave my arm a little shake.

Stanley's voice again:

"I already apologized, and I even agreed to keep you company for steak. You're not still mad, are you? Hurry up and have them bring another steak dinner, I'm actually starving."

That killed whatever mood I had left.

Forget looking dignified. I swallowed the last of the steak in two or three bites.

Then, in a voice loud enough for the entire dining hall to hear, I roared at Stanley like a lion:

"You're a grown man. What are you doing playing the two-faced fake?"

"You want steak, go buy it yourself. Don't come to me putting on your poor little victim act!"

4: 4

My lung power was no joke.

For one instant the whole dining hall seemed to freeze, just a fraction of a second.

Then, all at once, every head turned toward us.

Stanley's face flushed a hot, angry red.

He glared at me with pure resentment.

"Dawn, Dawn Henson, what, what do you think you're doing?"

I said it right there, in front of everyone.

"What am I doing?"

"You're a grown man playing pitiful in front of a girl, tricking me out of my steak with a jar of stinking pickled radish. How do you even have the nerve?"

"If you want it, can't you buy it yourself?"

The chatter started up around us.

"Isn't that Stanley Dickerson, the campus heartthrob?"

"Didn't he always say he's poor but has too much backbone to ever live off a woman? So now he's turned into some kept boy?"

"Please. Big talk, and he's just a freeloader after all."

The comments kept coming, and every one of them cut deep.

Stanley looked like he wanted to shrink his head down into his neck.

Red-faced, he demanded, glaring at me with all that resentment,

"Dawn Henson, if you didn't want to treat me, fine, don't. Why humiliate me like this?"

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?"

I admitted it flat out.

"That's right. I did it on purpose."

Stanley was so wounded that tears actually spilled down his face.

"Dawn Henson, I hate you. I'll hate you for the rest of my life!"

He covered his face and ran out of the dining hall.

I hurried to remind him,

"Take your radish and pickles with you."

"Oh, and you borrow money from me every month. You owe me a hundred twenty-three thousand four hundred and five dollars now. Don't forget to pay it back."

Amid my shouting, Stanley fled as fast as he could.

The crowd around me broke up too.

But I knew perfectly well this was going to be the hottest gossip on campus for a while.

Just as I was feeling pleased with myself, thinking I'd gotten a bit of revenge for the original owner,

a few girls stepped up in front of me.

"Dawn Henson, you've really gone too far."

I looked up at the girls standing there.

Every one of them was a girl who was chasing after Stanley.

And the one in the white miniskirt was Tilda Simmons, the heroine, the love of Stanley's life.

"You know perfectly well Stanley's family is poor and he can't afford steak, that's why he came to you to treat him. How could you humiliate him in front of everyone like that?"

"Exactly. Baby Stanley is already having such a hard time, and he just wanted a bite to eat. Would it kill you to treat him? Why did you have to humiliate him?"

"How can you be so vicious to Baby Stanley?"

Faced with the whole group of them ganging up to accuse me,

I calmly asked back,

"Yeah, I did it on purpose. So what?"

The girls all froze.

None of them had expected me to answer like that.

For a moment it stuck in their throats.

It was the heroine, Tilda, who recovered fastest. She pointed at me and said,

"Dawn Henson, don't you think that's just vicious?"

"It's only one steak. Why couldn't you just treat him?"

"You know Stanley has a lot of pride. Humiliating him like this is the same as destroying him!"

I countered, perfectly calm,

"Easy for you to say. If it's so easy, why don't you treat him?"

Tilda put on her wounded look.

"I, I, I, my family doesn't give me much of an allowance. I can't afford it, or I definitely would have."

Of course she wouldn't.

All she ever did with Stanley was take. She never gave.

I looked at her and smiled. "You really feel that sorry for Stanley?"

"Funny, though. The way I remember it, for your last birthday you had him buy you a laptop."

"Oh, and last month, last month when you wanted a new bag, you had Stanley pay for it too, didn't you?"

"And last week, when you wanted to take your roommates out for karaoke, Stanley got stuck with the tab in the end, didn't he?"