Chapter 1.

I transmigrated into a novel and became the daughter of the male lead, Pei Shu.

Pei Shu is stunning. Fair skin, long legs, and a face that leaves a permanent impression after a single glance. He has this effortlessly clean, lazy charm, like early summer sunlight. Just standing still, he makes people’s hearts skip a beat. Unfortunately… pretty faces don’t pay the bills.

When he was nineteen, he impulsively had a baby, me. By the time the original girl turned five, her birth mother couldn’t take the poverty anymore and ran off with some rich guy. Since then, Pei Shu has been a single dad raising me all on his own.

He delivered food during the day and took odd jobs at night. Late deliveries meant fines, wrong orders meant getting chewed out, and running a red light wiped out his entire earnings for the day. Money was so tight that a simple cold could throw our whole lives into chaos. But the scariest part? According to the original plot, after two years of working as a delivery driver, Pei Shu dies in a traffic accident.

Yep. The male lead kicks the bucket right in the middle of the book!

To make matters worse, the author completely abandoned the story after that, leaving it on permanent hiatus. As for his daughter, me, she wasn’t even mentioned again.

The exact moment I transmigrated happened to be right before that fatal crash. I took off running toward the scene like a crazy person. He could not die! If he died, I’d be an eight-year-old orphan with nothing to my name.

I sprinted for an entire hour before I finally spotted his familiar back. Right on cue, a heavy-duty truck was hurtling straight toward him!

“Dad! Watch out!”

My heart practically stopped. I lunged forward, throwing all my weight into pulling the delivery crate on the back of his moped. The massive truck missed Pei Shu by a hair. A single second later, and he would’ve been crushed to a pulp.

But with my tiny, fragile body, the momentum knocked me off my feet. The moped collapsed right on top of me. Pain flared through me all at once, and I coughed up a mouthful of blood before everything went black. In my fading consciousness, the last thing I saw was Pei Shu frantically pulling me into his arms, his eyes bloodshot, his voice trembling violently.

…

When I woke up in the hospital, my dad’s eyes were swollen like two ripe peaches. Seeing me open my eyes, he grabbed my hand, choking back tears. “Sweetheart… you’re finally awake…”

“It’s okay, Dad. Stop crying. I’m not dead yet,” I rasped out weakly.

Hearing that only made him sob harder. He scolded me for sneaking out instead of staying in school, completely unaware that if I hadn’t run out, he’d already be six feet under.

I ended up bedridden in the hospital for two whole months. After that scare, Pei Shu was too traumatized to ever drive a delivery bike again.

“So, Dad, what are you gonna do now?” I asked, munching on a mandarin orange he’d just peeled for me.

“My cousin just opened a car wash,” he said, looking up. “He asked if I wanted to help out. What do you think?”

I nodded, thinking washing cars was at least a lot safer than weaving through traffic.

Turns out, life loves to play jokes on you. One afternoon, I went to the shop to find him, only to catch a woman slamming her handbag right into his head.

Smack!

Blood trickled down from his forehead, tracing his porcelain-white cheek before dripping onto the soapy concrete floor. It turned out she was an old customer from his delivery days. Just because he’d once refused to fix her plumbing on the spot, since he was in a rush to complete an order, she’d held a grudge all this time, and was now forcing the shop owner to fire him.

Watching my dad walk away with his head hung low, I clenched my fists tight. At this rate, the two of us were going to starve to death. I had to find him a proper benefactor. Someone with real power.

Recalling the phone call that woman had taken right before she stormed out of the car wash, my lips curled into a faint smirk. She wanted to ruin my dad’s livelihood? Fine. Don’t blame me for tearing her reputation to shreds.

The next day, following the address I’d overheard, I made my way to a high-end restaurant in the heart of downtown. Tailgating an elegant older lady, I easily slipped past security and inside.

Through the frosted glass of a private dining room, I saw the woman sitting across from a man. She had her head bowed in a shy, demure pose, acting like a teenager experiencing her first crush. This had to be the blind date she’d been raving about.

I stole a glance at the guy… and damn. He was ridiculously handsome.

Unlike my dad’s soft, sweet look, this man radiated a sharp, icy authority, the textbook definition of a cold CEO straight out of a drama. But the way he looked at her was pure, unadulterated impatience.

I took a deep breath, shoved the door open, and looked the woman dead in the eye. “Auntie! Weren’t you supposed to be on a date with my dad today? Why are you out meeting another man?!”

Her face drained of all color, and she instantly flew into a rage. “You little brat! What kind of nonsense are you spewing?! I don’t even know your father!”

I blinked, my eyes welling up with tears on command. “I’m sorry, Auntie… I just overheard you making plans with him yesterday. I must’ve misheard. Please don’t be mad…”

I lowered my head and turned to leave, deliberately muttering loud enough for the room to hear, “I could’ve sworn you came to the car wash looking for him yesterday… Everyone saw you… I guess I really got the wrong person…”

Sure enough, the cold CEO snapped to his feet, his voice dropping to absolute zero. “If Ms. Li already has someone else in her heart, we can end this meeting right here. I’ll be sure to update my grandfather.”

“No! Please don’t misunderstand! I genuinely don’t know anyone!” She panicked, lunging forward to grab my arm. She squeezed so hard my skin stung. “You little brat! Tell Mr. Lu the truth right now! You’re making this up, aren’t you?!”

The pain actually brought tears to my eyes this time, but before I could react, a strong force yanked me backward. The man stepped in, roughly knocking her hand away from me. His deep voice carried an immense pressure. “Why are you taking your frustration out on a child?”

He crouched down to look at me, his tone softening noticeably. “Are you hurt?”

“Thank you, mister…” I whispered softly. “I’m okay. But I really wasn’t lying. She came to see my dad yesterday. If you don’t believe me, I can show you the picture.”

I went to pull up the photo I’d taken of her hitting my dad, but she lunged forward, snatched my phone, and slammed it onto the floor.

*Crack!*

The cheap, second-hand phone I had begged my dad to buy me shattered into pieces. This time, genuine frustration hit me, making my nose sting.

Mr. Lu stepped firmly between us, glaring at her with utter disgust. “She’s just a child. And even without her input, there was never going to be a future between us.”

Without another word, he took my hand and led me out of the private room, ignoring her frantic shrieks behind us.

As we walked, a small leather wallet slipped out of his suit pocket. Instinctively, I bent down and picked it up.

Who even uses wallets nowadays? I was about to hand it back when my eyes caught an old photo tucked into the outer slot: two young boys standing side by side. One was clearly a younger version of the CEO. And the other…

If that wasn’t my dad, who else could it be?!

I froze in my tracks. “Mister… why do you have a picture of my dad?”

The man’s steps halted abruptly. His eyes trembled as he turned to me. “What did you just say? This is… your father?”

“Yes! If you don’t believe me, come to our place! We look just alike!”

On the drive to my house, the mighty CEO was visibly on edge. Though he tried to keep a calm composure, his hands were tightly clenched over his knees.

“Are you my dad’s old friend?” I probed gently.

“Your father… is his name really Pei Shu?” he asked instead, his voice raspy. “Are you his biological daughter?”

I nodded enthusiastically, taking the opportunity to play the pity card. “Yes! My mom left a long time ago, so my dad raised me all by himself. It’s been really hard on him. He lost his job recently, so we’re barely scraping by…”

The moment he heard that, his eyes lit up. “So… your father is currently single? No girlfriend… or boyfriend?”

I almost burst out laughing. Hearing that my dad was single brought an undeniable wave of relief to his face, a faint curve tugging at his lips.

“People tried to set him up before,” I sighed dramatically, “but they all thought I was a burden and walked away.”

The man went silent for a moment. Then, he reached over and gently patted my head, his voice surprisingly tender. “Don’t think like that. You are not a burden. They were just blind.”

A soft, rare smile touched his lips, his gaze softening completely. “They weren’t good enough for him anyway.”

I put on my best innocent face and nodded, but inside, I was throwing a full-blown parade. Looks like my plan to secure a solid backer for my dad was a massive success.

Guess I’d better start getting used to calling him… my new stepmom!