Yan Muyu was jolted awake by her alarm clock.
The ringtone sounded like a grim reaper’s toll, and without even opening her eyes, she instinctively reached toward the source of the noise.
She was currently the producer for a variety show, and in this line of work, there was no such thing as a normal workday. Sleepless nights were par for the course. The alarm blared before dawn every day, or she pulled all-nighters on shoots, snatching just two hours of sleep before rushing off again.
Wasn’t yesterday supposed to be a rest day?
Shen Tianqing had run into some trouble, so they needed to find a new mentor…
Her phone’s alarm kept up its relentless frog croaks.
Yan Muyu felt like she was lying in a pond. She fumbled across the bed for what felt like forever without finding the phone. Instead, her hand brushed a smooth, lotus-root-like segment.
What lotus root…
It was clearly a person’s arm.
Yan Muyu snapped fully awake. She opened her eyes and found a stunning face inches from her own.
And the other woman’s phone, fished out from the neckline of her pajamas.
More frog croaks.
Yan Muyu let out a horrified “Holy shit!” that mingled with the sound. She bolted upright and scrambled to the far side of the bed.
The bed was enormous, big enough for someone to roll across it several times. Mirrors covered the ceiling and every wall. The woman lounging on the bed watched Yan Muyu’s frantic retreat with leisurely amusement.
Propping her cheek on one hand, she didn’t seem to mind that Yan Muyu had yanked the covers away. With a smile, she said, “Little Yan, is that really necessary?”
The woman on the bed had hair as black and long as could be, her skin smooth as cream.
Yan Muyu muttered a curse under her breath. She really didn’t want to remember what she’d done.
Not only had she gotten blackout drunk, but she’d also ended up sleeping with the wrong person.
Clutching the blanket around her, Yan Muyu snatched her bathrobe from where it hung and threw it on haphazardly.
She was clearly determined not to let the other woman catch a full glimpse of her changing.
Her voice came out muffled from under the blanket, laced with irritable frustration. “Why are you here?”
Qiu Chao rolled over on the bed and propped herself up to eye the pale lump on the other side.
“Yesterday, you were calling me ‘baby.'”
“And now you’re pretending you don’t know me?”
This woman’s voice was nothing like Yan Muyu’s clear tone. It had a sticky-sweet quality to it.
Qiu Chao’s online fans loved to gush that her voice was like the soft patter of autumn rain over Jiangnan rivers.
Yan Muyu thought it was all nonsense. It was more like the endless pull of molten sugar syrup from candied sweet potato—sticky enough to give her a heart attack out of nowhere.
For a split second, she felt like she’d been thrown back to age eighteen.
At eighteen, Qiu Chao hadn’t yet been Yan Muyu’s legitimate sister-in-law, but everyone knew about her relationship with Yan Muyu’s older brother, Yan Kai.
Yan Muyu had been buried in language studies for studying abroad back then. Rumors of her brother keeping a budding movie starlet as a mistress didn’t faze her in the slightest.
She dismissed them all as tabloid trash and even tore into the paparazzi for it. Her sharpest line? “Can’t you guys come up with something less fake?”
Everyone knew Yan Kai only went for older women. Even though Sister Zhen Shu was married, he was still waiting for her.
If he ever gave up hope entirely, it’d at least be some power-matched business marriage.
Marrying a fresh-faced little starlet? No way.
But the scandal no one in the family believed turned out to be true.
Yan Kai, president of Yan Corporation, had gotten serious with an actress who’d shot to fame overnight in an indie film.
She was just eighteen, supposedly a former teen model— the kind of fresh, dewy type you could squeeze water from.
Yan Muyu, introduced to her by Lin Chi and meeting Shen Tianqing as fellow prospective exchange students, couldn’t stomach it. Midway through coffee shop chatter, she pulled up search results for Qiu Chao’s photos on her laptop to show Shen Tianqing.
Yan Muyu furrowed her brow, zooming the image bigger and bigger, but she couldn’t spot a single flaw.
With a huff, she said, “She looks about our age.”
That year’s Shen Tianqing had already given up on acting. She looked like she’d settled into spinsterhood right after turning legal, her practice books’ covers scribbled over with that one name.
It made Yan Muyu feel like the whole city was adrift with catkins—proof of Shen Tianqing’s heartbroken despair everywhere.
Shen Tianqing snorted. “Older than us? Her bio says she’s a winter solstice baby—half a year younger than you.”
The Shen family was no pauper, and Shen Tianqing had all the earmarks of a pampered miss. But she was no demure lady.
She rolled her eyes, a far cry from the poised girl Lin Chi remembered from childhood. Hints of her later wild-widow persona were already peeking through, and she didn’t miss a chance to jab at Yan Muyu.
“You were just saying your brother was so devoted. Devoted means marrying his first love, then rushing out to wed some teen model?”
Yan Muyu was speechless.
She shouldn’t have bragged about her brother in front of this woman.
Men were all the same.
And what was with Shen Tianqing’s cheek? Yan Muyu had gone abroad a year earlier—she was her senior study-abroad senpai. Couldn’t she show a little respect?
Who did she think she was, acting all high and mighty?
The Yan family was vast and powerful, their wealth dwarfing the Shens’. Unfortunately, the men loved playing around—loyal at home, flings everywhere.
Yan Muyu was only eighteen then, not counting Yan Kai, with four half-siblings from her father’s various dalliances.
This was the new millennium, yet the family felt like a feudal relic that had missed the memo on the revolution. And there were even inheritance battles that left Shen Tianqing speechless.
Yan Muyu had never felt the pressure, though. Her big brother Yan Kai shouldered it all.
That year, he’d even arranged her study abroad so she could pursue what she wanted.
Shen Tianqing knew it was just the Yan family shuffling power. Yan Kai wanted Yan Muyu out of the country to dodge the storm.
In elite circles, blood ties weren’t always a prerequisite for family bonds. Yan Muyu was one of the lucky ones—no worries to speak of.
All told, Yan Muyu and Qiu Chao hadn’t crossed paths more than a handful of times.
The Yan family was huge. Only Yan Kai and Yan Muyu qualified to live in the main residence.
Their mother had been their father’s business marriage partner. After giving birth to Yan Muyu, her health had never recovered, so she rarely stayed home.
Now that their father was getting on in years with less appetite for affairs, and with Yan Kai holding the reins, she had been sent elsewhere to recuperate.
That year, when Yan Muyu turned eighteen, the Yan family villa gained a new mistress of dubious legitimacy.
The first time Yan Muyu met Qiu Chao was that afternoon. She’d parted ways with Shen Tianqing and come home, spotting Qiu Chao in Yan Kai’s car right at the gate.
Supposedly a teen model, but by then Qiu Chao had already broken into movies.
She’d done well too—a talented upstart from humble roots.
But once grassroots like her married into wealth, everything changed.
At eighteen, Yan Muyu already had a model’s height. Standing next to shorty Shen Tianqing brought out her bold, commanding air.
Coupled with genes perfectly inherited from her parents, she exuded an androgynous youthful vigor, distinct from Yan Kai’s refined handsomeness.
Slinging her backpack over one shoulder, she called out to Qiu Chao. “Hey, Little Sister-in-Law.”
That year, Qiu Chao had nowhere to go. School was out of reach, and her little sister Qiu Yuan lay in the hospital, scarred from a school fire.
She did whatever it took, clinging to some semblance of standards.
But the industry’s underbelly was a beast with claws out. Fresh as she was, she couldn’t fight it.
Then an offer landed in her lap.
Qiu Chao accepted.
A contractual romance with the rising head of an old-money empire. He had what he wanted; she had hers.
And for her, the deal was a steal.
Still, the role chafed.
Like right then, when the girl with the half-up ponytail grinned and called her “Little Sister-in-Law.”
Qiu Chao felt a shameful thrill.
But she was at a loss too.
What could be stranger than your savior from one encounter turning out to be your new sister-in-law?
Qiu Chao mumbled an awkward “Mm.”
Yan Muyu seemed bored by the exchange. She waved and told Yan Kai, “I’ve got plans later. You two have fun.”
Her smile flashed tiger teeth, radiating fresh youth.
A spring breeze lifted the collar of Yan Muyu’s khaki jacket. Her high-waisted jeans and belt accentuated her slim waist.
The baggy legs only emphasized her long legs and narrow waist—an adult silhouette just blooming.
Every bit of it was Qiu Chao’s type.
As Yan Kai’s car entered the grounds of Yan Family Old Mansion, he told Qiu Chao, “I’m swamped. Won’t be home much.”
“Play the part fully. Get to know my people here; the butler will fill you in.”
Qiu Chao took it all in.
She murmured agreement.
That year, she sported her purest look—every inch the innocent school beauty in a flowing white dress.
But her school days had been anything but.
Qiu Chao had dropped out before finishing high school, dirt-poor and gritty. Her stepfather tried to sell her off; her mother and he had beaten each other bloody.
She’d lost her birth father at ten, her mother at fourteen.
Relatives hemmed and hawed, refusing to take her in. Qiu Chao didn’t care. She plunged into the real world.
“Was that your sister just now?”
Qiu Chao knew exactly how to put people at ease, asking timidly.
Yan Kai stepped out of the car and grunted. “My own sister. Yan Muyu.”
Qiu Chao knew the Yan family dirt from her new agent. Royal-level succession wars, philandering heirs sowing bastards left and right.
The agent had capped it with a sigh.
The luckiest was Yan Kai’s little sister. No worries, just luxury.
With big brother paving the way to inherit the empire, she could run wild without a care.
Want something? Done. That was Yan Muyu.
Yan—Muyu.
Qiu Chao repeated the name silently several times.
Finally matching it to the girl who had helped her up that day.
Back then, she’d thought: She’s such a kind person.
At that moment, Qiu Chao nodded and, as if compelled by some strange impulse, asked, “Does your sister have a fiancé?”
The question seemed to stump Yan Kai. For some reason, he felt like laughing.
The corner of the man’s mouth curved up. “Her? She’s a real handful. If there really were someone who liked her and wanted to marry her, I’d feel a lot more at ease.”
“Though it doesn’t really matter. As long as she likes him, that’s fine.”
Qiu Chao’s mind raced at the time: I’ve already signed a contract with Yan Kai for several years.
Even if it ends, pursuing Yan Muyu afterward hardly seemed realistic.
In that instant, an utterly absurd thought bubbled up in Qiu Chao’s mind.
No chance for romance… but what if…
She immediately felt a wave of shame wash over her after entertaining the idea.
Yet this was the first time in her life that she had ever felt her heart truly flutter—love at first sight.
Even from that great distance, when Yan Muyu turned back, tapped her forehead with two fingers, and flashed a grin, it sent Qiu Chao’s heart trembling.
In that moment, she knew one thing.
She wanted Yan Muyu to remember her.
