Chapter Text
In the universe where God, Demon, and Human existed in the same plane. In the universe where transmigration, world traveling, and world-hopping existed. Then, there's little to nothing of facts that could be considered surprising.
Where transmigration did exist, where one Transmigrator did exist, where one System Administrator did exist, just like what happened to Shen Yuan and Airplane Bro, then it was the solid proof that other Transmigrators, other World-hoppers, other Systems were also existing.
That's right.
Even if later the facts that in many worlds, such as the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way (PIDW), it turned out all of the supporting characters were actors playing on a fixed-script...It should not be a surprising thing anymore, no?
1 Year Before Luo Binghe Was Born
The first time a large group of the supporting characters of PIDW met each other was in Cang Qiong Sect's banquet. It was attended by the whole cultivation world, even the Big Bosses from the Demon's world were also attending...after all, they were also important supporting characters, especially Actor Tian, who played the Protagonist's father.
This banquet was also a farewell banquet for Actor Tianlang, since 1 month later he would finally face the end of his script...a.k.a, finally pat his butt to leave this world, being dead!
In this banquet, Shen Qingqiu was not really interested to mingle around.
Based on his script he still needed to live for a few decades later until the end of the script where he got killed by the protagonist.
Thinking about it, Shen Qingqiu felt his heart was a bit painful. This was the drawback of acting in a XianXia world...their lifetime was so Goddamn long, it was so tiring. Compared with a short time he played as Ye Qiu in the last world, The King's Avatar, this kind of world was really...too tiring. There wasn't even a phone or computer to spend time with...
Though...the payment for it was justified, so, Shen Qingqiu swallowed down his complaints.
At some point, a serious-looking guy wearing a silver-rimmed glass politely greeted Shen Qingqiu,
"Hello, there. I'm Actor Liu, I've heard a lot about you, Senior Shen."
Smiling in response, Shen Qingqiu greeted him back with the same politeness, "I've also heard a lot about your career, Actor Liu. It's nice to meet some people I know."
"Oh? Do you have a lot of acquaintances here?" Looking around the banquet where the other supporting characters were introducing one after another, Liu Qingge wondered which Actor was Senior Shen's acquaintance.
"No, not really."
Gesturing towards the center of attention, Yue Qingyuan, the guy who's currently flirting with a group of ladies, Shen Qingqiu shrugged. "I've been in the same world twice with Actor Yue, and with Actress Qi."
Following Shen Qingqiu's direction to the place where Yue Qingyuan was located, Liu Qingge fell into silence.
"That..." The corner of his lip twitched. "Does Actor Yue have always been...that way?"
"What? Do you mean if he's always a big flirt?" Shen Qingqiu smirked playfully. "Yeah, totally. Though, the strange thing is, he always inexplicably got the role of characters with a mild and gentle temperament. To be honest, he has always been bitching about it, just like how he kept muttering in my ears in the last world I played with him."
"Haha." Liu Qingge laughed wryly.
He didn't expect that the infamous Actor Yue who played the kindest and most gentle character of Run Yu in the parallel world of "Ashes of Love", actually was a big bad wolf!
What a bummer...
If Shen Qingqiu were to hear Liu Qingge's thought, he'd definitely retorted,
"Young Man, you must have been brainwashed by the fangirls who pity the Second Male Lead, Run Yu, right??"
Regardless of Liu Qingge's real impression, Shen Qingqiu chuckled in amusement when looking at his cracked smile. He knew that most people would be shocked once they meet the real Actor Yue.
Turning his body slightly to stand face to face with his fellow actor in this new world, PIDW, Shen Qingqiu lifted his eyebrow with interest, "Forget about that man. Actor Liu, aren't you also a surprise yourself?"
Liu Qingge blinked, "Huh? How so?"
"Well," Shen Qingqiu tilted his head, scrutinizing the guy in front of him. "Based on the character sets I read, aren't you the type of brash and musclehead character as BaiZhan Peak's Lord here? But look at you now," Sniffling a burst of laughter, Shen Qingqiu continued, "The real you, are more like a reserved gentleman rather than a ruffian. It's incompatible!"
Liu Qingge touched his nose while averting his gaze somewhere, embarrassed at being seen that his real character was the total opposite of his Role.
"I will take that as a compliment, Actor Shen. Actually, I picked the wrong scripts the first time I started this World-Hopping career."
Remembering his first time acting as a ruffian, as Prince Zuko in the world of "Avatar, The Last Air Bender", Liu Qingge fell into silence for a while, before continuing with a helpless sigh,
"After that wrong script, I have always gotten the same character setting, to be that one musclehead."
Patting the poor guy in the shoulder, Shen Qingqiu comforted him, "It's alright."
This kind of incident was not rare.
The first time those Actors stepped their foot into the World-Hopping career, they were all still a greenhorn who didn't know East from North, it's inevitable for an Actor to pick the wrong script and latch onto their career for a long time.
Liu Qingge smiled, accepting Shen Qingqiu's comfort words.
"I heard Senior Shen's first work is a Marvel Universe, right? That's really one big Parallel Worlds. It's impressive." The polite guy, Actor Liu didn't forget to blow some praise to his predecessor in the World-Hopping industry.
"Though, I don't know if I can know which character whom Senior Shen has played in that universe?" He eventually asked something that most Actors were also wondering about this BigShot Actor Shen.
Shen Qingqiu, "...."
"It's Hella."
Liu Qingge, "???"
"Wait! We can still change our gender!?"
"That's why I said, Actor Liu, it's normal that we chose the wrong script as our first work."
Liu Qingge, "...."
"Just like you, after choosing the wrong script as my first work, I have always been given Villain roles from that day onwards. What can I do? I can only accept the roles given if I want to earn money." Shen Qingqiu sighed, with the face of -Grandpa is full of the vicissitudes of life.jpg-
As expected of the most popular Villainous Actor, Big Brother-Shen...
Though, the problem there shouldn't be about the Villainous role, I suppose?
How can you still look so calm after acting in the wrong sex, Actor Shen!?
That's really...cool of you.
After calming down his surprise, Liu Qingge eventually said what he wanted to talk about initially,
"Speaking about the role, it's a surprise that one of the supporting characters is a Transmigrator." He caressed his chin while looking at the group of actors who played Cang Qiong Sect cultivators, getting to know each other on the other corner of the banquet.
"Mm, it's quite surprising." Shen Qingqiu hummed, thinking back to the events a few years ago.
"When that character entered Cang Qiong Sect, the notification from the main system got me surprised." Furrowing his brows, he continued, "What's more surprising is, we still do not know what kind of role that Shang Qinghua is going to be."
Nodding, Liu Qingge understood what Shen Qingqiu had implied.
"Do you mean, whether he will become a constant supporting character as Transmigrator, or will he actually replace the original protagonist and become the new one, right?"
"Mnn. Moreover, that guy is apparently the writer of a book about this world on another plane? I won't be surprised if he replaced the protagonist here." Shen Qingqiu shrugged.
Liu Qingge took a sip of the liquor in his cup.
Tasting the sweet taste of plum liquor, he felt like he was missing the taste of dry Martini in the modern world.
Still plastering a frown on his forehead from the liquor he didn't quite like, he finally spilled his own conjecture,
"Actually, his identity as the author has intrigued me. It's also the reason I approached you today, Senior Shen."
Shen Qingqiu raised his brow, getting interested in this new topic. "Oh?"
Huffing a laugh, Liu Qingge said afterward, "Do you know that the relationship between Author and their protagonist is like Parent and Child? Then, the reader and protagonist are like Fan and Idol. Meanwhile, the Author and his Supporting Characters are more like, comradery."
"Is it because most Authors are just ordinary people, unlike the protagonist of a play? Hence, the reason why they are more likely feeling the resonance with the supporting characters?" Shen Qingqiu smiled at the end of his speech.
He once had played a character of an Author in his previous world, thus knowing the inner thought of most Authors.
"Exactly." Liu Qingge flashed his gentle smile, acknowledging Shen Qingqiu's conjectures.
"Then, if that Transmigrator-Shang somehow ended up as a Protagonist of this world instead, it's likely he will take the route of rehabilitating the Villain. After all, the kind of works where the protagonist is already Stallion-like, yet still getting the buff from his Author who accidentally got transmigrated, would be hated by the readers instead."
Fixing his rimmed glass, Liu Qingge smiled once again, before quoting a statement,
"As they said, too much Golden Finger will become boring."
Shen Qingqiu laughed heartily hearing Actor Liu's assumption. Pointing to his own nose, he joked, "And you think the Transmigrator may choose the Villain Shen Qingqiu here?"
Liu Qingge calmly replied, "That is, if Transmigrator-Shang will end up as a protagonist of this world."
Thinking about it, Shen Qingqiu then realized if that scenario where the Villain Shen Qingqiu got rehabilitated happened, it meant, Liu Qingge would not die, Shen Qingqiu would not die,
....it meant Working Overtime!!!
No wonder Actor Liu specifically targeted him first. After all, the key to changing this world, whether the Actors would work Overtime or not, lay in the hands of the Scum Villain, Shen Qingqiu.
Surprising, isn't it?
It's not the Protagonist who had a big role to change the world's trajectory, it's the Villain instead.
It truly made people want to wonder, if the Author of this world actually loved the Villain instead of the Protagonist...?
Setting aside if the Author loved the Protagonist or the Villain more, the implication of working Overtime was more Important!
That's right.
As the Actors here chose their role in the world, if something unexpected happened and their role got extended in the world longer than the timeline on their original script, they wouldn't get any additional payment!
Overtime, meant Working Overtime!
And working overtime in this kind of XianXia world where the timeline reached hundreds of years....you can imagine how much torture would that be~
Only a true Hero would take the role of XianXia characters indeed.
Knowing the gravity of such a scenario, Shen Qingqiu felt like he wanted to go back to a few minutes ago when Liu Qingge hadn't reminded him of such a doomed future.
Starting from that night's Banquet, Shen Qingqiu had silently declared he'd work 200% harder than he was before, trying to portray the character of Scum Villain, who's scary, scummy, and unpleasant, as best as he could!
Transmigrator-Shang, it's better if you don't have any thought to be close to this Scum Villain!
Perhaps it was thanks to Shen Qingqiu's painstaking acting as the hateful Scum Villain, or perhaps it was because of the existent of another foreign system from another Company inside Transmigrator-Shang that had given him another task, anyway, the most terrifying scenario where Shen Qingqiu had to work overtime seemed like it wouldn't come to his life anymore.
He happily acted his part as the Villain, torturing the protagonist, Luo Binghe, acting out as a bad Villain in front of the Female Lead, Ning YingYing, acting like an old enemy toward Liu Qingge in front of another Female Lead, Liu Mingyan. All in all, Shen Qingqiu dedicated his Villainous acting everywhere and anywhere.
Speaking about Acting and Actors, it should have been explained that in this kind of parallel world, aside from Protagonists, all of the other supporting characters are World-Hopper Actors.
That meant the Protagonist including the Female Leads in a BG romance, or the Male Leads in the BL romance genre, were the only people who lived their own life truthfully. In PIDW's case, Luo Binghe, along with hundreds of Female Leads he would get in the future, were not Actors.
Meanwhile, the rest of the supporting characters were fake people, they're Actors, the World-Hoppers who acted according to the prepared scripts and received a certain payment in return.
These days, Actor Liu, Liu Qingge's complexion could be seen even from as far as miles away, that he's happy.
Obviously.
He was about to finish his timeline in this world!
He was about to die and pat his butt to go to the other plane.
Shen Qingqiu himself was not really jealous of him. After all, the protagonist was already a teenager. Wait for a decade later, Shen Qingqiu would also finally die and pat his butt to go seek another job in another world.
However suddenly, the main system gave a new notification!
This kind of notification was given several decades ago when Transmigrator-Shang had entered the stage.
When Shen Qingqiu opened his status panel, he saw the content of the message,
"Good Day, Actors and Actresses of PIDW. Due to the joint project between the main system and a new company, the world that originally is based on a Stallion Novel is being remodeled into another genre."
Afterward, the BG romance tag was replaced into...BL.
Actors, "...."
Well, that's not surprising.
Actors were Actors after all. They had played countless worlds, and countless genres, BG or BL, it didn't matter for them.
After all, they're just supporting characters, not the protagonist, Teehee~~~!
The notification didn't stop at that, as it continued to give new messages,
"Due to the joint project with another company, a changed scenario has also been made. The Protagonist of this world would be changed into Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan (Shen Qingqiu), Shang Qinghua (Airplane Bro), and Mobei-Jun."
"A few days later, Actor Shen can finish his script as the role will be given to the new protagonist, Shen Yuan."
"The system hopes all Actors and Actresses will adapt to the new scenarios that we have sent just now. Good Luck, and Keep Working Hard!"
Holy Molly!!!
Shen Qingqiu's heart jumped as he tremblingly swiped his hand to his status bar, and looked upon his timeline progress that suddenly skipped to 99%.
This, this, this, this scenario, is...
PERFECTO!
If Shen Qingqiu had mentioned Overtime earlier, then this scenario is called, "End of the Year Bonus"!
This kind of happenstance would only come once in hundreds of world!
Suddenly getting an early permit to go back home first, and still received a full payment!
What a wonderful ending!
With this announcement, Shen Qingqiu who was immersed in happiness suddenly noticed countless malicious stares being thrown at him.
The thickest of them all was from the guy who sat beside him, no one else but Liu Qingge!
The ever so polite and gentlemanly Actor Liu actually showed a nasty look!
Hold on, Actor Liu!
What happened with your real character setting of a Gentleman???
Turning his head around, Shen Qingqiu looked at all of the gloomy faces upon the supporting characters who played the role of Cang Qiong Cultivators,
"Uh, Is something the matter?" He asked hesitantly.
With a deadpan, Liu Qingge answered,
"Nothing. It's just, suddenly my timeline that's about to reach 100% fell into the bottom of 30%."
Shen Qingqiu, "??"
Yue Qingyuan, "What a coincidence. My timeline that was about to reach 60% has also fallen into 30%."
Shen Qingqiu, "???"
"Me too."
"Mine as well."
The other Cang Qiong Cultivators supporting characters added one after another.
Shen Qingqiu, "...."
No wonder he felt malicious stares earlier.
It turned out the changed new scripts had automatically given all of the other supporting characters an OVERTIME!
Liu Qingge who should have finished his role a few months later by dying in the cave, would still have to live and be saved by the new protagonist, Shen Yuan.
Yue Qingyuan, who should have died a decade later killed by Luo Binghe, would also have to live until who knew how many years later.
Same with the other supporting characters, because in this new script the Cang Qiong Sect was not destroyed, and they were not killed,
All of them would be alive until God only know when~
Shen Qingqiu's smirk couldn't help but be formed in his lip, the best he could do instead of the burst of manic laughter that he could barely hold on to.
The feeling of being the only one who struck a jackpot was...truly Marvelous!
Raising one of his brows, Shen Qingqiu gave his heart-felt sympathy and blessing,
"Well? Good luck, I guess?"
Perceiving the malicious intents from all of the supporting characters, Shen Qingqiu hurriedly added,
"Don't be rash! You guys can't do anything to me, cough, to this body I mean. After all, a few days later, the new protagonist will come! It's going to be the body of the protagonist! No one else, but only the privilege who can hurt this body!"
No matter how hateful it was, Shen Qingqiu was right.
They can't do anything against the protagonists~
A few days later, as Shen Qingqiu's timeline progress reached 100%, his body went soft as it finally fainted.
Later, when the body opened its eyes and uttered a question,
"Where am I?"
Yue Qingyuan, Actor Yue, regardless of thousand of curses and bottomless envy he felt toward Shen Qingqiu who gained a shortcut and finished his work earlier, he still gave his perfect gentle smiles and continued to act.
It's time to welcome a new set of stages.
Welcome to the stage of Scum Villain Self-Saving System (PIDW rewritten), protagonist-Shen Yuan.
The supporting characters here are all Veteran Actors and Actresses. We're ready with our scripts to accommodate your journey~
So Actor Yue, no, Yue Qingyuan smiled helplessly and acted on his new scripts,
"Qingqiu-Shidi..."