Every Male Lead love Me

Chapter 2

According to the memories provided to Xia Tian by the system, there were six children in Mrs. Smith’s foster household—two girls and four boys. The eldest, Frank Johnson, had already turned fourteen. He was a habitual truant, thief, and brawler, notorious not only for bullying others at home but also for tormenting classmates at school with practiced cruelty.

At this moment, Frank was in a pitiful state: tears and mucus streaming down his face, his once-bright eyes bloodshot, his entire visage swollen into a purplish red that made him look downright terrifying.

But Xia Tian was not afraid of him.

“Go on. Hit me,” she said calmly.

She even turned her right cheek toward him, offering it outright. “Why don’t you give me another slap? But let me warn you first, Frank—I have a community event tomorrow afternoon. You know how Mrs. Pete on the street just loves to meddle, and she likes me most of all. Take a guess—if you lay a finger on me today, how much noise do you think she’ll make tomorrow? And how fast do you think Mrs. Smith will hear about it?”

This was exactly the kind of person Xia Tian had been in the original story: sweet-tongued and obedient on the surface, academically gifted, and socially adept. From elders to classmates, everyone adored her. Even the aloof Mrs. Smith softened her tone when speaking to Xia Tian. Yet toward the “siblings” in the foster home, she wore a completely different face. At only nine years old, she was already shamelessly snobbish, regarding the other orphans—who could offer her no benefit and only knew how to fight and cause trouble—as nothing more than walking trash.

Frank had never gotten along with Xia Tian, but he was still, like her, a child living under someone else’s roof.

If another complaint reached the welfare agency, he would be forced to move to yet another foster home. Gritting his teeth, Frank clenched his fists and spat out, “You fake little bitch.”

Xia Tian laughed lightly. “You say that like you have parents to keep you in line. Everyone in this house is the same, aren’t they?”

“Now you want to play the righteous hero?” Frank sneered. “Where were you before? Don’t think that freak will be grateful to you.”

“That’s none of your business.” Xia Tian shot him a sideways glance and took Matthew’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Children who knew how to curry favor with adults always had an advantage. Frank cursed furiously, yet he truly didn’t dare touch Xia Tian. All he could do was watch helplessly as she led Matthew downstairs, bold and unhurried.

Once they were away from the noise, Xia Tian finally had the chance to properly observe Matthew Dennish.

“Ice helps reduce swelling,” she said, leading him into the kitchen and taking an ice pack from the refrigerator. “It’s cold, but try to bear with it.”

Matthew said nothing.

From the moment Xia Tian had pulled him behind her, his gaze had never left her. To be honest, the sensation of being locked onto by a pair of blue eyes was deeply uncomfortable—especially when he neither spoke nor reacted, giving her the eerie impression of being watched by a predator.

Except this predator was only six years old.

When Xia Tian pressed the ice pack against his face, Matthew finally flinched and shut his eyes for a brief moment.

It was the first time he had shown anything resembling a human expression in front of her.

To be frank, it was unsettling.

He looked like an ordinary child, yet there was not the slightest trace of humanity in him—made all the more disturbing by the fact that Matthew Dennish was extraordinarily beautiful. The contrast alone was enough to send a chill down Xia Tian’s spine.

That was why Frank and the others bullied Matthew: he simply did not seem human. When Matthew first arrived at Mrs. Smith’s house, they had assumed he couldn’t speak, or that he was autistic, because aside from Mrs. Smith, he showed no response to anyone’s words or actions.

Until one day, when Mrs. Smith was away, Frank shoved him at the dinner table while cursing, calling him a block of wood.

Delicate as a porcelain doll, Matthew Dennish instantly picked up a table knife. If Frank hadn’t reacted in time, he would have lost an eye.

That was how the grudge began. Yet Frank was also afraid of Matthew. Usually, he would rope in the other two boys to bully the youngest child together, and like the pepper incident earlier, it often ended with everyone hurt.

“Pretty exciting, isn’t it?” Xia Tian chuckled.

Having grown accustomed to the cold, Matthew looked at her again.

The instant their eyes met, a familiar mechanical voice echoed in Xia Tian’s mind.

“The value system has been unlocked.”

What system?

Before she could react, images that had no place in reality appeared within her field of vision. Two lines of floating text hovered above Matthew Dennish’s head.

“Corruption Value: 19. Favorability: 0. The road is long—please continue your efforts, Player.”

Xia Tian fell silent.

Seriously? Saving him didn’t even raise his favorability—not even by a point? And what was with that initial corruption value of nineteen? What would happen if it reached the maximum?

“There exists the possibility of triggering a Bad Ending. Outcomes vary depending on the world and the target. Friendly reminder: this system does not support save files. Please explore with caution.”

So just like real life, she only had one chance. And yet they wanted branching endings? If the corruption value maxed out, something terrible was bound to happen no matter what.

Xia Tian was speechless. The story claimed that Matthew Dennish became a serial killer due to childhood trauma—but with a starting corruption value this high, was he rotten straight out of the womb?

Whatever. She was already here—there was no running away now.

Besides, the system was at least being somewhat merciful. She comforted herself: Matthew was only six. If she had been dropped into the timeline where he escaped from a psychiatric hospital, she truly wouldn’t have known what to do.

As things stood now—

“Still not talking?”

Xia Tian sighed, her frustration genuine. She reached out and patted his head; his soft blond hair felt surprisingly nice.

“You’re so pretty. If you smiled more, people would like you easily,” she muttered. “For your own sake—even if you don’t mean it, just pretend a little. You might find a good family willing to adopt you. Wouldn’t that be better than putting up with Frank’s stupidity every day?”

Sigh. Saying more was pointless.

Xia Tian stood up again. “Avoiding Frank completely isn’t realistic—I can tell he gets on your nerves. But you could choose a smarter way to deal with it… at least don’t let yourself get hurt, okay?”

Based on all the movies she’d seen, a boy as beautiful as Matthew Dennish—who would grow into a devastatingly handsome man—should have been the type to become a popular, bullying football captain. Yet the glaring corruption value of nineteen above his head told a very different story.

Were some people truly born criminals?

Back in her bedroom, sitting cross-legged on a battered secondhand bed, Xia Tian sank into thought.

Even scientists hadn’t figured this out, so she decided not to dwell on it. What worried her most was that Matthew Dennish’s favorability toward her was still zero.

To play this role, she had to move him somehow. Yet even after stopping Frank’s bullying, Matthew’s favorability hadn’t budged at all.

He felt no gratitude toward her.

Remembering his expressionless, almost mechanical face, Xia Tian felt uneasy.

Winning over a person—or even a creature—was easy enough. But when the other party lacked all humanity, how was that any different from trying to move a stone?

“Let me ask…” Xia Tian questioned the system. “If his corruption value drops, but his favorability never increases, what happens?”

“There are many ways to clear the game. Players are encouraged to explore freely.”

What a load of nonsense. It was the system that warned her to explore cautiously in the first place. Who would risk their life just to test different possibilities?

Still, Xia Tian understood what it meant.

Corruption at zero and favorability at one hundred was a success. Corruption at one hundred and favorability at one hundred was also a success. The system had already said it: even if Xia Tian imprisoned Matthew Dennish and still maxed out his favorability, the level would count as cleared.

At most, the corruption value would affect which ending she got—and very likely threaten her life in the process.

“And if I never meet the requirements in my lifetime?” she asked again.

“The level will be judged a failure upon the player’s natural death.”

So there were only two endings: the player died, or the player succeeded.

“What if Matthew Dennish’s corruption reaches the maximum, but my actions differ from those in the original story?”

“The system does not possess the authority to evaluate character behavior. Please exercise your own judgment.”

That was… dangerous.

In the original story, Matthew Dennish wasn’t an indiscriminate killer. Xia Tian had initially assumed that as long as she didn’t stand by and enable bullying, she wouldn’t end up targeted by the adult Matthew.

But now, with the system’s vague response, it meant that if Matthew’s corruption reached one hundred percent, whether she lived or died would depend entirely on his mood.

No. She couldn’t ignore the corruption value. To protect her own life, she had to make Matthew Dennish a good person.

First things first—she had to deal with Frank, that massive nuisance. If Matthew stopped being bullied at home, his corruption value wouldn’t keep rising.

The rest she could handle as it came.

With a plan in mind, Xia Tian flopped back onto the bed.

As she fell backward, the rickety frame let out a piercing screech, painfully loud in the quiet night. As expected, the girl in the next room—eleven-year-old Layla—began pounding angrily on the wall in protest.

“Damn you, Xia Tian! Why don’t you just die!” Layla’s shrill curse pierced through the thin wall.

Right.

Growing up in an environment like this, it was honestly impressive if someone didn’t become twisted.

Fortunately, Xia Tian wasn’t really a child. She couldn’t be bothered to respond. Hugging the blanket, she rolled over and buried her head in the pillow.

A nine-year-old body tired easily. The moment she closed her eyes, drowsiness washed over her.

She drifted into a hazy sleep, her dreams filled with the day’s events: Frank’s flushed face, the sudden slap, and Matthew Dennish’s emotionless eyes that seemed intent on piercing through her back.

Even in her dream, Matthew’s gaze made her skin crawl. His fixed stare felt almost tangible, so real that it jolted Xia Tian awake.

The house was finally silent in the dead of night.

Staring blankly at the ceiling, Xia Tian felt as though Matthew’s eyes from her dream were still upon her.

Just a nightmare, she thought, yawning and shaking her head. She was already awake—how could—

Wait.

The attic bedroom had only a single small window. Pale moonlight spilled through it, leaving the room dim but not dark. In that murky light, Xia Tian’s peripheral vision distinctly caught a small figure standing at the foot of her bed.

It was Matthew Dennish.

At some unknown moment, he had slipped quietly into her bedroom. He stood there without a word, staring at her, his sea-clear pale blue eyes locked firmly onto her—still devoid of any emotion that could be called human.