(Note: This novel follows a controllable gender transformation system, meaning the protagonist can freely switch between male and female forms at will—similar to "Blood Princess" or "Dragon Princess," but unlike "Elf and Fox." However, this feature is only present in the early stages; later on, it may or may not become permanent. If this bothers you, feel free to skip this novel. Thank you~)

    (Also, the female form plays a major role in this story, and the romance primarily revolves around it, meaning there will be a lot of yuri elements.)

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    The carefully prepared blue rose, along with the long-treasured affections, were ruthlessly thrown onto the red carpet of the banquet, shattering the young man''s adoration-woven fantasies, along with all his aspirations, like a mirage dissipating into bubbles.

    In the splendid golden palace, a gorgeously dressed blonde girl stood out like a noble and elegant white swan, contrasting starkly with the boy in his old-fashioned suit, looking disheartened and despondent.

    The girl''s stunning beauty showed no trace of emotion; her eyes, like deep sea gems, obscurely fixed on the boy who maintained his confessing posture, though his face and gestures had already stiffened.

    "Winnie, your confession only makes your love seem cheap and frivolous, an insult both to the object of your affection and to yourself. Please, respect your own love first, or rather, learn how to truly love someone," said the noble princess, dropping these words before pulling away the silver-haired girl beside her who was splashed with red wine, and left with her head held high.

    As they left, the polite yet disdainful silver-haired girl revealed a schadenfreude and playful smile, visible only from an angle he could see.

    Named Winnie, the boy stared vacantly as the princess he had adored for over a decade walked away without a hint of hesitation, his accumulated courage over the years utterly depleted at the moment of rejection.

    Darkness blurred his vision, slowly consuming his consciousness.

    A burning pain in his chest made him stagger back two steps, unclear what was clouding his sight; he could no longer see clearly nor hear properly, unaware even of the mocking and ridicule from other nobles surrounding him.

    "Good heavens, that good-for-nothing actually confessed to Princess Mirecia? Ha, does he not realize his own worth?"

    "Common toads dreaming of swan meat are rare, cherish this sight as they dwindle."

    "Strange, did someone invite a circus today? How come the clown has appeared but not the show?"

    "If it wasn''t for the king''s mercy, inspired by the goddess to grant his family a title, this brat wouldn''t be any better off than a beggar on the streets."

    "Still dreaming of grandeur despite being dirt poor? Ha, he should focus on maintaining his precarious dignity."

    "Has the pretender of a goddess'' descendant no shame? Proposing to the princess is beyond his station."

    The banquet hall was filled with mocking jeers, and Winnie''s mind clouded over; he couldn''t hear anymore, moving like a puppet, lifeless, feeling as if his life was a joke.

    Somebody purposefully tripped him, and the boy tumbled under everyone''s gaze, landing face-first.

    "Ha ha ha ha......!" No one reached out to help him up, nor did they care who had tripped him; they simply enjoyed the spectacle like it was a comedic performance after a meal, their harsh laughter drowning him like icy tides.

    The constant foot traffic crushed the blue rose that hid his tender feelings of love. Perhaps due to the shock or his head hitting the ground, Winnie''s consciousness faded, and he collapsed in front of everyone.

    In that moment of unconsciousness, a strange yet familiar memory flooded into his mind.

    《Kareliman Citrus》? Citrus game? Villainous cannon fodder? A sword through the heart? Winnie?......

    What is all this??

    Ah!......

    Waking up again, Winnie was drenched in cold sweat, gasping for air, the chandelier''s soft light above him now unbearably harsh.

    "Me? Winnie?......" Looking through the floor mirror, the boy observed himself in the reflection, his skin jaundiced and splotched with freckles, his blue hair matching the portrait in his memory.

    "Winnie Fasulis, Mirecia Peano??" Lying on the banquet couch, the boy murmured to himself, his thoughts gradually clearing.

    That familiar name almost instantly made him realize.

    If he remembered correctly, he had been hit by a truck when he left home, and had transmigrated.

    Or rather, he had awakened the memories of his past life.

    And now, he was in the world of a game called 《Kareliman Citrus》 that he had played in his previous life.

    The good news was, although the character he transmigrated into wasn''t the protagonist, he was a crucial plot-driving character in the game.

    Alright, perhaps it''s a plot about being a supporting character stealing the protagonist''s spotlight.

    Unfortunately, that''s not the case.

    He transmigrated into a character with the highest evil rating, universally despised, irredeemable, and inevitably doomed to an untimely end as a villainous cannon fodder.

    His name now was Winnie Fasulis, and as far as he knew, this character in 《Kareliman Citrus》 held several roles: a taunting face of evil, a catalyst for the heroines'' emotions, a victim of humiliation, a plot driver, and an experience bag for the protagonist. It''s fair to say, without Winnie, the story couldn''t move forward.

    Indeed, a perfect script for a villainous cannon fodder, later tainted with dark magic, gradually losing his sanity, harassing the destined maidens of the game, getting kicked around like a football by the heroines, taking turns beating him mercilessly.

    The list of those who beat him includes, but is not limited to, the reborn Phoenix Arrogant Sky, the Genius Dragon Princess, the Golden Elf Queen, the Demon Fox Overlord, and his former fiance?e, the Grand Imperial Princess, with whom he has an almost void marriage contract.

    Each one of them is a heavyweight, yet they form such a luxurious all-star lineup to beat up a villainous cannon fodder man who has no magical talents and only grew stronger by taking the evil path. It really makes one wonder how much they actually respect him to come together like this??

    In the original story, Winnie''s defeat is not unjust; his luck is indeed too terrible.

    If he were just a villainous cannon fodder, perhaps he could get a sip of soup in some other game, but unfortunately, 《Kareliman Citrus》 is a game purely of the citrus genre.

    In such a game, do men even dream of wooing women? Wrong gender, no luck at all!

    Since the inception of this game, it has been established that Winnie’s character is doomed to be constantly humiliated by the heroines, ending up joyfully and prosperously receiving his own cold lunchbox at the end.

    The ending is just like that; he didn’t save anyone, not even his first love, Princess Mirecia, whom he has unrequitedly loved for years.

    He still remembers the CG where he met his demise, where the villainous Winnie, acting as the main antagonist, had a sword stabbed through his chest, kneeling on the ground vomiting blood, watching helplessly as the heroines and Mirecia’s relationship elevated, the two stunningly beautiful girls embracing and kissing in front of his dying self.

    They even blatantly played a letter game right in front of him.

    Who is the real villain here, huh?

    So, am I just a part of your play too?!

    However, even with all this, it can''t really be said that the heroines overshadowed Winnie, because overshadowing implies mutual affection, and as Mirecia just mentioned, she never had those kinds of feelings for Winnie, her childhood friend. It’s always been one-sided from Winnie, so how can it be considered overshadowing?

    In essence, Winnie is at most a lovelorn Tengu, not even worth mentioning in terms of being overshadowed.

    Thinking back to everything Winnie did in the past, he completely understands why Mirecia would drop his flower at the banquet without any sentimentality.

    In the original story, Winnie was a person with strong possessiveness and extreme behaviors. He unilaterally saw Mirecia as his possession, and any male interaction with her would provoke Winnie’s targeted hostility, often executed quite clumsily.

    As a noble, acting like a clown in public by baselessly insulting other nobles and openly displaying his possessiveness towards the princess was simply nonsensical. Add to that the fact that Winnie''s family had long been destitute, with only him remaining, poor as a church mouse, while his beloved was revered as ‘the brightest jewel in the Camellia Kingdom’s crown’—Princess Mirecia.

    Remember, Mirecia is the only child of the king of Camellia Kingdom, the first in line to the throne.

    Even setting aside moral issues, just the countless suitors within and outside the capital for Mirecia alone were enough to give Winnie a hard time.

    Due to Winnie''s extremely twisted character, he frequently brought significant trouble to Mirecia. Imagine, during a tea party meant to foster relations between the princess, an heir to the royal throne, and other high-ranking nobles’ offspring, suddenly a nonsensical childhood friend pops up claiming she can only belong to him and shamelessly insulting the nobles she was engaging.

    Just thinking about such a scenario is both embarrassing and blood-pressure raising.

    Winnie also constantly gifted Mirecia with bizarre items according to his own tastes, proving Mirecia’s point that ''people who are too self-centered cannot see others'' and ''should first learn how to love someone.''

    Truthfully, Mirecia had great restraint. Considering she had negative feelings for Winnie yet still remembered their childhood friendship, if the roles were reversed and Winnie faced this kind of golden deity, he would probably have torn off his mask long ago.

    In the original story, Mirecia still remembered their childhood friendship; while being constantly bothered by Winnie, she had to clean up his messes. But everything Winnie did was simply depleting this friendship.

    As the plot progressed to Winnie’s rejected banquet confession, everyone looked at him as if he were a clown. From there, this extremely unloved guy never recovered, ultimately turning to the dark path, never looking back, until the heroines pierced his heart with a sword and decapitated him.

    Winnie touched his neck, feeling a chill there.

    This was simply flooring the gas pedal on the road to doom.

    Is it still possible to hit the brakes now?

    Thinking it over, there seemed to be some hints in this plot segment.

    When he played as the protagonist, it seemed unremarkable, but now, finding himself in Winnie''s shoes and having accessed his memories, some plot points felt increasingly off.

    Remembering carefully, this infamous villainous man, known as a street rat, hadn’t actually committed any heinous acts before being publicly rejected by Mirecia in his confession.

    Yes, he was disagreeable, often offending his peers without self-awareness, but to say he was extremely harmful wouldn’t be accurate; he had the desire but not the capacity.

    Winnie indeed wasn’t a good person, but to label him as a major villain might be an exaggeration; his frequent fits and his inappropriate clinging to Mirecia were perhaps his only faults, hardly amounting to monstrous evil.

    Yet, for some reason, in the original story, Winnie’s infamy and his actual misdeeds didn’t match up. Accusations like being greedy, cowardly, despicable, and shameless were piled on his head, with the entire kingdom looking down on him, his bad reputation even spreading to other nations.

    But if asked what exactly he did to deserve such a bad reputation, it’s hard to pinpoint.

    This becomes rather comical, almost making one suspect that the scriptwriter just wanted to create a punching bag for the protagonist, writing negatively just for the sake of it, regardless of his actual deeds. It wasn’t important what he did; everyone just needed to know he was an unforgivable villain.

    After all, the players were there to see the sweet interactions between the soft and tender heroines. Winnie, this disgusting villainous cannon fodder, just made the audience sick to their stomachs, with no one really bothering to delve into his past.

    But turning around and looking closely, before he turned to the dark path, had this universally detested villain truly committed actions that matched his notoriety?

    In the original story, part of the reason for Winnie’s fall was due to a lack of love from childhood, leading to a distorted growth, and the other part was the rumors and environment surrounding him.

    What kind of worlds do others transmigrate into? They become the male leads in harem stories! At worst, they could become a side male character in a harem story and steal the protagonist''s thunder.

    What did he transmigrate into? A notoriously doomed cannon fodder in a citrus-themed game, where even being male was the wrong gender, doomed to not even have a soup left for him.

    No, soup was too luxurious; he didn’t even have a life, let alone soup. Female antagonists might get seduced by the heroine and be redeemed and taken into the Crystal Palace, but male antagonists just waited to be crushed into dust by the heroine.

    One has to wonder, sometimes being reincarnated is a skill.

    Better think about how to survive...

    According to the usual style of transmigration stories, even if he''s infamous, if the villainous character brakes in time and reforms, there''s a chance for redemption.

    He could just live as an NPC unrelated to the plot... right?

    Memories of the banquet, along with the chill of his limbs and the stiffness of his expression, extinguished the slight glimmer of hope he had seen.

    At that moment, his death knell tolled.

    He remembered.

    The banquet was not only attended by the princess and the nobles of the capital but also...

    《Kareliman Citrus》''s heroine, the only designated cheat character of this game, the dual soul art and dual divine patronage holder, Aeciphysis Gellatus.

    Yes, the silver-haired girl he had splashed with red wine during the banquet.

    Her real name was Aeciphysis Kareliman, the sole descendant of the ancient Theris Empire''s royal Kareliman family, with pure and flawless silver hair and captivating violet eyes, like a fairy untouched by worldly filth, stunningly beautiful, even slightly surpassing her Crystal Palace peers.

    Winnie remembered that what originally attracted him to the 《Kareliman Citrus》 game was Aeciphysis''s character design, breathtakingly beautiful.

    Now, he indeed had the opportunity to see her in person, but his head was also under the guillotine, ready to fall at any moment.

    Because just earlier at the banquet, he had spilled red wine all over Aeciphysis.

    In front of so many people, soaking her dress.

    "Damn! Have I already offended the protagonist??

    Winnie remembered the incident started when Aeciphysis claimed she liked Mirecia, even ambiguously and jokingly said she fell in love with the beautiful princess at first sight, asking Mirecia not to be so rigid about gender and to give her a chance.

    Indeed, Aeciphysis said it jokingly, and most people present didn’t take it seriously, just thinking that Miss Aeciphysis was finding creative ways to compliment Princess Mirecia’s beauty.

    After all, such jokes among girls can still somewhat fall within normal bounds.

    But with Winnie''s character, as those who know him would understand, whether it was true or not, saying such things in front of him was like a provocation. Could he tolerate it??

    Then trouble ensued.

    With his pure and naive childish temperament, he angrily splashed red wine on her, not even pretending, especially since Mirecia was standing right next to Aeciphysis at the time.

    And the heroine, true to her role, while Mirecia was unusually angry and demanded Winnie apologize, with Winnie turning pale and remaining silent, just smiled warmly and claimed it was fine, even trying to smooth things over by suggesting it might have been an oversight on Winnie’s part.

    Compared to her high emotional intelligence, Winnie was completely a bull in a china shop, with an emotional intelligence so low it was staggering, ungraciously stating that he did it on purpose and that it was personal.

    This made things very awkward, and it''s why Mirecia was so angrily uncompromising when she publicly threw Winnie''s flowers.

    Thinking about this, Winnie couldn’t help but facepalm.

    The original Winnie thought he was standing his ground against Aeciphysis, not realizing he was actually making Mirecia lose face.

    In contrast, Aeciphysis not only showed her magnanimity and tolerance but also sharply harvested a wave of goodwill from Mirecia and other nobles.

    But these are not the main points.

    Aeciphysis is the type who pays great attention to things and people she''s interested in but completely ignores those she does not care about. You could never tell what was truly going on under her angelic, beautiful smile.

    If it were any other villain, stopping in time might work because Aeciphysis is not interested in men. But the problem is, Aeciphysis is the protagonist, possessing one of the protagonist''s essential traits: a reborn character.

    The so-called reborn character naturally has to die once to count as reborn. So, who killed the protagonist in her previous life?

    Answer: A corrupted Winnie.

    “........”

    Can this be reconciled?

    Winnie felt a profound malice from this world.

    Splashing the wine was just stepping on the accelerator; he was already speeding on the road to ruin!

    This left no room for maneuver.

    This situation is complex.

    But it''s also not complex; he could do absolutely nothing and just wait at home for death.

    Seeing the plot, Aeciphysis was just waiting for him to take the wrong path, ready to strike at any provocation.

    The worst part is Winnie knows very little about the plot of 《Kareliman Citrus》; he only played the prologue and watched some discussions and later CGs, knowing only bits of the plot and main characters.

    About Aeciphysis, the Chosen One, all he really knows is that her sexual orientation is very clearly and thoroughly non-straight, a confirmed spaghetti lover when it comes to her tastes.

    She loves beautiful, soft girls, and upon finding a pretty girl she likes, she spends a lot of time flirting. And in the original, Aeciphysis is quite the flirt, a genuine siren.

    As for why Aeciphysis has such a character design, well, it’s a citrus-themed game, isn''t that typical?

    Her exceptional flirting skills paired with her perfect beauty mean that neither men nor women can resist her charm.

    In fact, this is true; Aeciphysis has a strong personal charisma, is extremely polite to everyone, even to those she is not interested in or even dislikes. She can smile so naturally at anyone, speak in a tone and with a voice that makes everyone feel welcomed, making it impossible for anyone to dislike her.

    Well, except for the original Winnie.

    To be honest, the original Winnie is pitiable but also pretty scummy. As the only remaining member of one of humanity’s few saintly families, the 【Blessed Angel】 Fasulis family, which is now extinct and almost devoid of any magical talents, orphaned and fallen into poverty, with a terribly neurotic personality, he indeed doesn’t match up to a single hair of the ancient imperial heroine.

    Not to mention, Aeciphysis is silver-haired, Mirecia is golden-haired; one silver, one gold, they actually match quite well.

    If possible, he doesn''t want to be a part of these two calamities'' play in the future; keeping as far away as possible and wishing them a hundred years of happiness would be the wisest choice.

    But now, the issue is not about compatibility, but whether his future will involve Aeciphysis beheading him.

    The evil path is definitely not an option; that is a road to death.

    But even without taking the evil path, he can''t guarantee that in the future, for some trumped-up reason like ‘stepping in with the left foot first,’ Aeciphysis won’t behead him.

    “System? Save me!” Winnie tried to invoke the transmigrator''s essential golden finger to save himself.

    After a long silence, his last bit of luck was utterly dashed.

    Damn!

    Isn’t a system standard issue with transmigration?! How come I don’t even have a hair of it here??

    “Sir, please have pity on me, I haven’t eaten in three days,” just then, a ragged beggar passed by, begging from Winnie.

    Winnie instinctively searched his purse, only finding a single copper coin.

    This destitute noble is indeed thoroughly destitute, huh??

    He simply threw the coin to the beggar.

    “Thank you for your generosity!” Seeing this, the beggar gratefully accepted the copper coin, fearing Winnie might change his mind and hurried off, not at all like someone who hadn''t eaten in three days.

    “Ah, ah....” Winnie shook his head, murmuring to himself. “I pity a beggar, but who pities me?”

    As he spoke, he caught a glimpse of golden text appearing above the quickly departing beggar’s head.

    “Huh?” Winnie rubbed his eyes incredulously, making sure he wasn''t seeing things.

    “......Virtue +1??” he read the text, completely confused.

    What virtue? Plus one? What is this, a digital prayer wheel??

    Then, as he stood there in disbelief, a large golden-framed panel appeared before his eyes.

    The massive panel had only two options: ‘Best Technique Soul Selection Guide,’ marked as needing three virtues.

    The other was ‘Awaken Family Bloodline and Open Virtue Tree,’ marked as needing thirty virtues.

    To the side, it showed his current virtues: 1

    (Note: Unlike other books where the transformation happens right at the beginning, the transformation takes place a few chapters later in this book.)

    (The cover features the protagonist Winnie in her female form.)