The Spare Daughter Broke the Plot

My bigshot adoptive father was all set to hand over his own money and connections to the male lead for the female lead's sake, and then follow the plot straight into bankruptcy.

But on the day the female lead made her plea, I came roaring up on my dirt bike with a full head of blue hair, kicked the front door open, and shouted. "Oi! Old geezer, I'm broke!

Drop some gold!" As the control group adopted alongside the female lead, I was supposed to be raised useless, good for nothing but making her look better.

Instead, Ward stared at me for a long, silent moment, then turned and told the system he'd changed his mind. [No bankruptcy!] [If I die, is she even going to survive?!] Chapter 1 I'd been picking trash for as long as I could remember.

The year I turned seven, a beautiful man fished me out of a scrap pile at the waste transfer station. His cold eyes swept over me, and that was when I heard the system. [Host!

That's the female lead's control group. Take her home and raise her useless. Pearl only shines if there's something to measure her against!!] [Don't go soft.

If it weren't for Pearl we wouldn't be taking her at all.

Being an accessory beats picking trash.] Ward raised an eyebrow at me, then let out a short laugh. "This snotnosed thing hasn't even come into her wits yet. Sallow, halfstarved.

You can't tell how old she is by looking." Blah blah blah blah. Couldn't understand a word. The only part I caught was the words take her home.

And what I'd wanted my whole life was a warm home. Opportunity goes to whoever grabs it!

So I grabbed a fistful of the man's sleeve and said, soft and sweet, "Daddy, are we going home now?" Ward's careless smile stalled.

The system sucked in a breath. [A villainessintraining, all right! Look at all those little schemes!

Host, whatever you do, don't fall for it!!] Ward watched me suck a half inch of snot back up my nose for the third time, and his mouth twitched.

He pulled out a tissue and pressed it over my nose, brows knit tight. "Blow, you little scrap." To make a good impression I gave it everything I had, and my face went red from the effort.

Two sheets of tissue, it turned out, could not hold several days' worth of snot. Ward looked at the mess in his palm, went black in the face, and hauled me into the car.

We drove home fast. It was my first fancy dinner and I was too excited to feel full, so I also completely ignored the girl my own age sitting across from me.

By the time Ward came out of his third shower, my stomach was a round little ball. Seeing me still shoveling food in, he hooked me under the arms and moved me to the couch.

Then he stared down at me with distaste and said, mostly to himself, "Pearl needs a control group like this?

Doesn't say much for her as a female lead." The system leapt to the defense of its fatefavored girl. [What — what are you saying! The side character has to be dumb and nasty.

That's the only way the female lead's goodness shows!] I rubbed my belly and let out a burp loud enough to rattle the windows. Ward opened his mouth on reflex to correct me.

The system cut him off. [If you want to raise her useless, step one is you give in to her on everything!

Turn her into a freeloader who won't lift a finger for anything!] Ward ground his teeth.

Then, in a warm voice and with a smile that never got near his eyes, he encouraged me. "Wonderful! That's exactly how a girl should be.

Never sweat the small stuff!" I caught the girl still sitting timidly at the table, throwing an envious look our way. Because I ate too much in one sitting.

The next day, a hurricane made landfall in my own personal south. I was living a life I hadn't even dreamed of. Which also meant I spent all day scared out of my mind.

Scared of going back to the days when I was never warm and never full. Chapter 2 So I started grabbing chores before anybody else could get to them.

In practice that meant getting up at five thirty sharp every morning to make Ward a suckup breakfast.

I'd just wobbled my way into the kitchen hauling a stool with a goofy monster face on it. Standing on it, I could barely reach the pan.

Then the housekeeper came charging in behind me. She scooped me down to the floor and begged me with snot and tears running down her face. "Miss Beryl, did I do something wrong?

I've got my parents to look after and kids at home. I really need this job. It pays ten thousand dollars a month!" I'd never seen anything like it.

I waved my hands and backed right out of there. Then I went to Ward's room. He was out on his morning run, so this was my chance to shine!

I huffed and puffed my way through making the bed, and a housekeeper came through the door, eyes straight ahead, stripped the duvet cover off, and carried it away to wash.

Burning with shame, I darted my eyes around the room until they locked onto the trash can. Right! Picking the recyclables out is the thing I'm best at!

I carried the trash bag outside, and partway across the yard my legs stopped moving. My hands itched. I really wanted to dig through something.

In a corner of the estate, I counted under my breath. "One, two, three… thirty!!" Thirty bottles to pick up in a single day! Glass ones too.

Rich people's houses really do have more opportunity. Way more of a future than picking trash at the transfer station!

I was happily loading cans and bottles into the front of my shirt when a voice came from behind me, low and grim. "Beryl." Barrel? Who's a barrel? Not me.

I kept stuffing bottles in, working out where the nearest bottle return machine might be.

I'd looked on the drive back, and this whole area had exactly one big house, with the next one a long way off.

Finding a place to cash bottles in wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Better to hide them in my room for now.

I kept going, the same motion over and over, and only then did it catch up with me that the voice had sounded familiar.

Now it came from right behind my ear, grinding through clenched teeth. "Beryl Ashby! Do you have any idea what that shirt cost?

You could pick up a few hundred thousand bottles and still not afford it!" Oh. Beryl was the name Ward gave me. I watched the ground drop away beneath me.

Ward had me up by the back of my shirt, and he shook me a few times. Clang, clatter, crash. That was the bottles hitting the ground.

The system spoke up, anxious. [Let it go, don't yell at her. How do you think she stayed alive this long, if not on bottles? You know she's never had parents…] Ward went still.

His breathing, heavy with temper, stopped short. Then he set me down. Feet on the ground meant safe. I knew I'd done something wrong.

Back when I was picking trash, people on the street used to pinch their noses and swing wide around me. Nobody likes a filthy kid.

I put my dirty hands behind my back and said, guilty, "I only wanted to help, so you wouldn't send me away. Are you going to send me away? Daddy…" Ward's pupils contracted.

Nothing on his face moved. But I heard him sigh at the system, guilty. "I forgot this isn't the old world with its ranks and its rules anymore.

I could kill myself!!" The system chimed right in. [Right, right. You've been alive a few hundred years. What's an old geezer doing squaring off with a little kid?] Dodged that one.

But my selfworth plan had fallen through again. A whole morning of hustling and I had nothing to show for it. Pearl was only just getting up.

She finished her breakfast like a good girl, poured Ward a glass of water, and then spoke. "Daddy, may I go to school?" The next day, I got thrown into private school right along with her.

Chapter 3 Before we left the house, I turned to Ward and said, "I'll get you next time, Smurfs!" His eyelid twitched. "Stop watching those Smurfs." It was like recognizing a longlost member of my own species in a sea of strangers.

I walked out with my heart pounding. So Ward had watched the Smurfs too. From the front, Ward's got bangs. From above, he's got a crop circle.

Maybe that's why he's always in a mood. He's just jealous that I'm young. Pearl turned into a different person the second we were out the door.

She gave me a cold look. "Do your stupid things on your own time. Drag me into them and I won't let you stay in this house." I nodded at her, blank.

Ward and that system had said something about it before: without Pearl, I didn't get to come home. So I couldn't afford to make her angry.

In the classroom, my true obnoxious nature came out in full. I'd been waiting a long time for this.

When the teacher asked me to introduce myself, I let it rip at top volume. "My name is Beryl Ashby. My dad's name is Ward Ashby.

We have a big house and he's the biggest donor at this school…" "Ahem, ahem.

All right, Beryl, why don't you sit down over there." She cut me off before I was finished and pointed me toward a desk in a hurry. I gave her a wounded look.

I wasn't done introducing my dad. But I am a firm believer in respect for one's teachers, so I trotted over and sat down.

The fat kid at the desk in front turned around and laughed at me. "Your dad's really Ward Ashby? Liar. My dad says he's in his thirties and won't let a woman near him.

Probably something wrong with him down there." I understood that one. He was questioning whether I had a dad.

Back when I was picking trash, I let it go when people said I had no mom and no dad. Circumstances forced my hand. I wasn't letting it go now.

This is what having somebody big at your back does for you. Total impunity! I sank a fist into the fat kid's fleshy face with a smack.

A second later his howling filled the whole classroom. "Waaah, you hit me, I'm telling my dad! It huuurts…" Less than an hour after we'd said goodbye, I was looking at Ward again.

He walked into the principal's office with a face like a storm. The principal and my teacher both bent at the waist and called him sir.

The fat kid's dad hurried in and handed over a business card before he'd even looked at his son. "Mr. Ashby, I've been trying to meet you for ages.

Ah, this is just kids roughhousing. Please don't give it another thought." The fat kid kept bawling. "Dad! My face is caved in!" Ward didn't make a sound.

His face twitched for a long moment before he lifted his chin. "That's my Beryl for you. Woman enough to throw a punch. Good hit!

Everyone ought to treat my Beryl like she hung the moon." I froze. My fingers stopped picking at each other.

Then I straightened my back and yelled at the fat kid, "That's what you get for being fat.

The prize hog from the county fair came back as you." After that there was no reining me in. The teachers called Ward every few days.

One day's call went like this: "Beryl stuck her finger down Jayden Pruitt's throat today.

She said his selfintroduction was too funny and it was interfering with her class time…" Ward had done this enough times to have a script. "Throats are filthy.

He can apologize to my Beryl's finger." And so a pintsized Damien walked the earth. And so began Ward's long hard years of being both mom and dad.

On the day we started ninth grade at the new school, I was listening in on the system chatting with Ward, same as always. And I heard words that had never come up before.

The system said to Ward: [High school at last!

Once the two of them graduate, you hand the male lead your money and connections, and then it's the bankruptandfakeyourdeath exit and the mission's closed out!] Chapter 4 Ward carried my backpack and Pearl's and didn't say a word.

The system stayed quiet for a while too, then asked in a small voice. [You're not getting attached, are you?] My hands paused on my shoes.

I heard Ward answer in a tone I couldn't read. "…Of course not. You know how professional I am." For Pearl, high school was four years of grinding