My Wife Is the Young Stepmother

Chapter 1

I had transmigrated into the role of the sleeping husband.

I was mild-mannered and honest, with barely enough energy to get through the day. The moment my head touched a pillow, I was out cold, which left my beautiful wife convinced I was completely useless.

Fortunately, my adopted son was young and vigorous. He had the appetite of a wolf and kept eyeing my wife—his young stepmother.

Every night, I was always the first one to fall asleep without a care in the world.

Then, one night, an accident woke me. Something hard and muscular pressed against me—my wife’s thigh.

Wait.

Why was my wife biting my lips?

And why did she have an eight-pack?

On the way home, I happened to scroll through an online post.

[How can the young stepmother in a young-stepmother romance possibly be innocent?]

The readers had unanimously liked the original poster’s opening statement:

[If the young stepmother is innocent, then what’s the point of making her the young stepmother? The dutiful passive husband only knows how to sleep, not do anything else. He’s simply useless!]

In an instant, I lowered my head.

I was in a young-stepmother romance too. My wife, Adrian Bennett, was the heroine—the young stepmother.

And I was the dutiful passive husband who only knew how to sleep.

Sigh.

After transmigrating into the story and learning what role I had been assigned, I had already told the System that I couldn’t do it.

Because I couldn’t.

But the System was stubborn. After checking the main characters, it let out a startled curse and admitted that something had gone terribly wrong—then immediately refused to back down.

[It’s not as if you can’t still play the part. You’re sexually indifferent, and your wife has some serious issues too. Just make the mistake work. What else can you do—get divorced?]

Now, I had been following the story’s plot for an entire year.

And I could say with absolute certainty that, aside from being a little too tall and a little too built, my wife had not a single problem.

No. Her height and strength were both advantages.

Otherwise, how could someone like me have managed to marry her?

Adrian was impossibly gentle and considerate.

A year ago, I had fallen in love with the beautiful heroine while making an emergency late-night plumbing repair at her home. We had rushed into marriage soon afterward.

But after the wedding, I had no energy for anything. The moment I got into bed, I fell asleep. I had never once fulfilled my duties as a husband.

I had left my wife completely unsatisfied.

Just like now.

The front door opened, and I stepped inside.

My six-foot-two wife was standing in the kitchen, wearing a white dress while preparing a meal for me. Her long black wig spilled down her back like a waterfall, shining in the sunlight.

The moment Adrian saw me, she happily tossed aside the spatula and hurried over to kiss me.

We kissed passionately. Adrian was burning with enthusiasm as she pushed me toward the couch.

And I opted out completely.

Chapter 2

I fell asleep.

“Baby, not tonight. I’m tired.”

My indifference was like a bucket of ice water dumped over my wife’s head.

In truth, I wasn’t asleep.

I was pretending.

Pretending to sleep was still better than losing what little remained of my masculine dignity in front of my wife.

That was fine, I told myself.

After all, I wasn’t the male lead of this story.

I was only the sleeping husband in a young-stepmother romance—the disposable husband who left his wife perpetually frustrated, the culprit who pushed her toward falling in love with my son, and the convenient tool that set their relationship in motion.

Compared with me, my son, Lucas Bennett, was every inch the man.

He was only twenty, young and strong, at the age when a person had energy to burn and an appetite for everything.

For example, at that very moment, he was peeking through the crack in the door.

His feverish gaze clung to me and my wife.

I knew exactly what he wanted.

He was coveting my wife.

If the young stepmother in a young-stepmother romance is chaste, readers are bound to feel cheated. But finding out that the male lead is my adopted son? That would disappoint them even more.

It was all the fault of the irresponsible System that had abandoned me and run off.

When I transmigrated into this world, I was only thirty. The laws of this world didn’t allow a thirty-year-old man to have a twenty-year-old biological son.

So the System assigned me the son of the Neighbor Next Door—the boy everyone called Lucas—to be my son instead.

I was stunned. “They just decided the male lead that casually?”

The System remained as calm as the dead. 【Once you’ve made one mistake, the second comes easily. Just make the mistake work. If you can give birth, go ahead and do it yourself. Otherwise, stop complaining.】

I stared at it. “…”

That rotten System had deliberately poked at my sore spot and forced me to admit once again that I was useless in that department.

The System wasn’t human. It didn’t understand how much family and blood ties mattered.

An adopted son could never be quite the same as a biological one.

It took me nearly six months to win Lucas over.

The Neighbor Next Door had cheated on his wife. In response, another dutiful, passive husband had set the Neighbor’s house on fire. Both men had died, leaving Lucas—their only surviving child—as the sole survivor.

After spending six months asking after him every day and making sure he was warm and fed, the lonely young wolf named Lucas finally knocked on my door.

“Ethan Bennett, I want to join your family.”

“Why?” I asked.

“For you,” he replied.

Liar.

I knew the truth. He wanted to join my family because of my wife.

I also knew why he still refused to call me “Dad.” He wanted to take my wife away from me.

“Ethan. Wake up.”

The teenager’s sweaty heat drew close, carrying the restless hormonal scent of youth.

Chapter 3

I lifted a hand and smacked away the thick skull he was practically pressing against my chest.

I was displeased.

“Don’t call me by my full name. You should call me Dad.”

There was a note of grievance in my voice. “I raised you from infancy. Can’t you call me Dad just once?”

Lucas knelt beside the sofa and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Fine. Whatever you say.”

“Dad. Call me Dad—there, I called you.”

Something about the way he said it sounded strange. The pause was especially odd.

Lucas grabbed my hand and placed it around his neck. “I’ll carry Dad back to the bedroom so you can sleep.”

Well, well. Had my son finally learned to show his father some filial respect?

I was just about to obediently lean my weight against him when a spatula came flying at Lucas.

It struck him squarely on his handsome forehead, raising an instant bump and making him look considerably less handsome.

My eyes went wide.

How could Adrian bear to hurt his little crush?

Was he actually trying to hit me?

His aim was just a little off.

Adrian turned, his cold, fierce gaze shooting toward Lucas.

“You. Come over here and chop the vegetables.”

Then he turned to me and smiled gently. “Honey, would you go back to the bedroom and rest? I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

“Okay.”

I lowered my head and dragged myself painfully back to the bedroom.

Then I buried myself under the comforter and cried.

I knew exactly why my wife was sending me away. He wanted to get me out of the way so he and my son could “deepen their relationship” in the kitchen.

The young-stepmother story had officially begun.

I wasn’t asleep.

That meant I heard every clatter and bang coming from the kitchen.

They were really going at it.

This was something I could never give Adrian.

The thought left me feeling defeated, but at the same time, I was happy for him.

Thank God I’d raised Adrian’s future husband into a man who would never let him go hungry.

Thank God I was broad-minded, too.

When you looked at the facts, I had treated both Adrian and Lucas well. I opened my hardware store early and closed it late, repaired water pipes, and supported them both. Every month, I gave them a living allowance of fifty thousand yuan. I never demanded that either of them get a job, earn certifications, or go to college.

I believed that as long as I didn’t stand in the way of their love, I could become the regretted ex-husband Adrian and Lucas would one day thank, along with the generous father who had given them his blessing.

I talked myself into feeling better.

Then I decided to help them finish their storyline as soon as possible.

When I stepped out of the bedroom, Adrian was straddling Lucas on the floor with his skirt hiked up, the two of them tangled together.

“You… came sitting?”

I was stunned.