I Played A Mean Wife But Cried In Secret Chapter 08

I Played A Mean Wife But Cried In Secret Chapter 08

From that day on, Elias threw himself into work even more relentlessly.

[And we’re off! The male lead’s finally fighting underground. Told you those odd jobs were dead ends. Hauling boxes day in, day out? He’d never get anywhere like that.]

The System was overjoyed, and even praised me for once.

I knelt down beside Elias’s bed right then, tending to his wounds yet again.

He hid his injuries from me on purpose, never said a word. But I knew. Now that he was

fighting underground, the wounds would only keep coming.

[Lucky you half stuck to the plot last time. That coat really humiliated him good. Spending another man’s money to buy him a gift… few people could hold back like that.]

I counted his wounds one by one, one, three, five…

“I’ve already given Kian back that five thousand dollars. I didn’t spend his money on

your gift.”

The System fell stunned for a moment, then shrieked immediately,

[What? Then where on earth did you get the cash?]

That was exactly what I wondered too.

I had no savings, no job, not even a single credit card.

Where could I have gotten that much money?

I brushed my fingers over the brim of my hat and stayed silent.

[I’ve wanted to ask this for ages. Why are you always acting so strange around him? Just play your part as the vicious side character like you’re supposed to. Instead you sneak to pick up discarded flowers, dress his wounds, buy him gifts-why keep doing all these pointless things?]

The System finally burst out. I propped my chin in my hand and looked out the window.

Our new apartment overlooked a tall, lush tree standing in the neighborhood.

My eyelashes fluttered at the System’s question.

“This isn’t actually our first meeting.”

The System found me a month after I was taken back to my birth family.

As their long-lost biological daughter, I never received the special favor I’d hoped for.

When Elias’s family fell from wealth, my family couldn’t break the engagement

without ruining their reputation.

So they sent me to marry him, taking the place of their spoiled adopted daughter.

The System appeared out of the blue and told me Elias was the male lead of a

rags-to-riches urban novel.

I was written as his vain, cruel wife, destined to be divorced by him before he built a

successful career and rose to great fortune.

[Stick to your persona and finish the storyline, and I’ll reward you with a huge sum of

money.]

That was what the System said, yet the reward never tempted me in the slightest.

What I cared about was another thing I’d asked,

“You mean if I keep up this persona, his fate won’t change? He’ll turn his life around and escape this life of poverty for good?”

That was why I agreed to the System’s deal.

It never knew I’d met Elias long before all of this.

In my eighteenth year-after a childhood lost to a baby swap-my family tore up my college acceptance letter and forced me into an arranged marriage.

I stole

my ID and ran away, lingering outside the university gates,

then took a job at a diner just to scrape by.

I burned my arm in an accident, and the shop fired me right away.

I had nowhere to stay, nowhere to turn.

Vulnerable from the pain, I stood on a bridge letting the wind blow over me—and that

was when I met Elias.

At twenty, Elias already carried a quiet, steady maturity.

He took the scruffy, homeless me out for my very first McDonald’s meal.

When we left, he packed up the leftovers and walked me to the university gates. Under the paper bag with the golden arches, he’d quietly tucked a thick stack of cash.

“That was the first time I realized you could still attend college without an official

admission letter,”

“I learned there was government aid for anyone who couldn’t afford tuition fees.”

But the remote mountain village I came from was poor, backward, and trapped in old rigid customs.

[No wonder you grew up with such a soft heart beneath it all.]

The System fell silent for a long while before saying this.

I pressed my lips together and smiled shyly.

I should have grown vain and bitter in that twisted environment,

but meeting Elias completely changed the path of my life.

Elias had probably long forgotten.

But I’d held onto that quiet kindness in my heart all these years.