Chapter 1

“Finished talking?”

The handsome man across from her finally opened his mouth. He casually wiped a drop of coffee from his chin with his slender, elegant fingers and looked coldly at Jiang Mi.
“Are those words from your mother-in-law?”

Jiang Mi’s thoughts were yanked back to the present.
Her mind went blank. Mother-in-law? Who’s that? And where the hell even am I??

She tried to put down her coffee cup and ask what was going on, but then she realized—
Her body… wasn’t under her control.
She couldn’t move her hand!

Worse, her mouth was moving on its own.

What the hell is happening?!

Jiang Mi was internally screaming. She desperately tried to shut herself up.

No! Don’t say it! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!

But her damn mouth had a mind of its own and was already speaking:

“Of course it’s my mom’s idea. You didn’t really think that just because I call you ‘Third Uncle’, you’re actually the heir to the Qi family, did you? Qi Huaizhou, you’re just a bastard. My dad is the eldest son of the Qi family. Who do you think you are, trying to take the whole inheritance for yourself? If you know what’s good for you, pack up and leave now. Otherwise, when we kick you out, it won’t be so pretty.”

Jiang Mi was losing it.

WHAT did her mouth just say?!

Bastard heir? Inheritance battle??

Wait… Qi Huaizhou… that name sounds familiar.

While struggling to regain control of her body, Jiang Mi racked her brain.

Qi Huaizhou flicked the drop of coffee from his fingertip and sneered:
“Qi Zhuyan, you’ve got guts.”

Wait a second.
Qi Zhuyan—that name sounded even more familiar.

Ding!

Suddenly, Jiang Mi remembered!

Qi Huaizhou and Qi Zhuyan—they were characters in a novel she once skimmed called
《Isn’t It Reasonable That a Bastard Son Like Me Dominates the Business World?》

Qi Huaizhou was the main character, the unstoppable underdog.
Qi Zhuyan? She was the long-lost daughter of the male lead’s older brother.

Jiang Mi had only read this male-oriented web novel because a bunch of guys at a class reunion were talking about it, and she opened it out of boredom.
The story opened with the powerful Qi patriarch on his deathbed, and a vicious inheritance battle igniting within the family.
Qi Huaizhou, the illegitimate son, faced attacks from all sides.

Among his most persistent enemies? His late brother’s widow, Su Rongbing—who faked the return of the Qi family’s missing daughter, Qi Zhuyan, in order to fight Qi Huaizhou for the heir’s position.

But that “Qi Zhuyan” was actually a fraud—played by a minor villainess named Xia Mi.

Xia Mi had agreed to the role to cover her younger brother’s expensive medical bills. It was just supposed to be a job. But somewhere along the way, she got too deep into character—strutting around the Qi family like she really belonged, even trying to stomp on Qi Huaizhou, her “uncle”, and openly insulting him.

She completely pissed off the male lead.

When Qi Huaizhou finally gained control of the family, he had her arrested for fraud.
She died in prison not long after.

Jiang Mi had actually dropped the book around that point—she couldn’t stand how dumb the villainess was. She only learned Xia Mi’s tragic ending by searching online.

But now…

Why the hell had she become Qi Zhuyan?!

Was it because of a car accident? Did she transmigrate into the book?

Wait—wasn’t the rule that you only transmigrated if you had the same name as the character?

Her name was Jiang Mi, not Xia Mi!

Now you could transmigrate even with different surnames??
What the hell, no one told her that!

Her hand trembled—CLANG—the coffee cup hit the table.

At that moment, Jiang Mi realized—her body was finally back under her control!

Even her mouth was hers again!

She instinctively looked at the man who was just getting up to leave and blurted out a rapid-fire series of questions:

“Your father’s name is Qi Zhenting, right? Your older brother is Qi Huaimin, and your second sister is Qi Huairou—isn’t that right?”

Qi Huaizhou paused mid-stand, his eyes turning cold as he looked at her.

Two seconds passed.
No reply.

Crap. Crap crap crap. He recognized those names.

That meant… she really had transmigrated into that male-protagonist novel,
《Isn’t It Reasonable That a Bastard Son Like Me Dominates the Business World?》

And she was the cannon-fodder villainess who didn’t survive three chapters!

Jiang Mi had no time to wonder how she ended up here.
Her mind was screaming:

“I don’t want to go to jail!”
“I don’t want to die!”
“I just want to survive to the end!”

Damn it! If she had transmigrated even 30 seconds earlier, she could’ve stopped her body from saying all that insane stuff that totally pissed off the male lead!

But now… those words were out.
Like spilled coffee—no way to take them back.

Qi Huaizhou, still silent, stood up fully.
As he did, his slender fingers casually hooked around the coffee cup on the table.

According to the plot, Jiang Mi knew what was coming next.

This was the moment when he’d pour that full cup of coffee—right over her head.

She could dodge it. She knew it was coming.

But then—

Just as Qi Huaizhou reached for the cup with a cold expression—
Jiang Mi lunged forward and snatched it right out from under his hand.

Qi Huaizhou’s pupils shrank.
He instinctively stepped back, thinking she was going to splash the coffee on him.

But the next second—
She flipped the cup and dumped the entire thing over her own head.

Dark brown coffee soaked her hair, ruining her perfectly done makeup as it streamed down her face.

Jiang Mi held the porcelain cup tightly, doing everything she could to hide her inner panic.
Knowing the future made her terrified—but she forced herself to smile and said:

“Now wouldn’t it be more believable if I said I spilled the coffee on you by accident earlier?”

Qi Huaizhou: “…”