Xia Yuanyuan’s words inexplicably gave Xing Wen the vibe of a bandit crashing a wedding to steal the bride.
But the other woman’s eyes were utterly sincere, brimming with desperate earnestness and that awkward embarrassment of dealing with her own star throwing a tantrum.
Xing Wen couldn’t shake the feeling that someone of Qiu Chao’s stature had no reason to be this polite.
After all, Qiu Chao coming back to the country and re-signing with her old label, Whale Entertainment, wasn’t like the other artists. Whale had actually come out ahead in the deal.
Her own Young Boss Yan really ought to show Qiu Chao a little courtesy.
So why the hell was Yan Muyu acting like this?
Sure, Qiu Chao had been her sister-in-law once, but that was over ten years ago. Yan Kai had gotten married, divorced, and had a kid since then. Qiu Chao was just one of who knew how many flings in her romantic history—you’d have to count back ages to place her.
For that act of timely kindness alone, like sending charcoal in the snowy winter, Yan Muyu should at least exchange a few polite words, right?
Xia Yuanyuan hadn’t spoken too loudly, so Yan Muyu inside the room didn’t hear a thing.
She had just drawn the curtains when Qiu Chao’s “Little Yan” started echoing in stereo through her brain.
Was there no justice in the world? She was older than Qiu Chao by half a year, and just because the woman had been her sister-in-law for four years, she thought she could call her that?
Qiu Chao’s voice was one of the most distinctive Yan Muyu had ever heard—impossible to forget.
Right now, it felt like a tightening curse straight out of folklore, her lingering drowsiness churning with a pounding headache until she suddenly wanted to hurl.
Xing Wen called out, “Young Boss Yan, Miss Qiu Chao invites you for some late-night snacks. She says it’s to cover the meal…”
Yan Muyu had already bolted into the bathroom to throw up.
Xing Wen: “…”
How old are you, exactly? At dinner, you told Miss Yan Tianxing that kids shouldn’t eat too many sweets, then scarfed down six out of the eight fried ice creams yourself—like a total grown-up bully.
Xing Wen gave Xia Yuanyuan a dry laugh. “Sorry about that. I’ll go check on Young Boss Yan.”
Xia Yuanyuan peered inside and asked, “Is Young Boss Yan sick?”
Xing Wen: “I don’t know…”
But Yan Muyu’s retching was loud and unmistakable—she was seriously getting sick.
It came with bouts of hacking coughs that echoed like thunder. Xing Wen had just reached for the frosted glass door of the bathroom when another hand shot out ahead of her.
Xing Wen jumped, nearly screaming.
She whipped around to face a visage as fresh and dewy as a summer lotus.
Up close, Qiu Chao’s face had a mesmerizing quality that could leave anyone speechless. And she didn’t even photograph all that well— in person, she was even more stunning than her promo shots.
Qiu Chao pressed a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Her slender fingers, tipped with translucent jelly-like nail polish that matched her lip color perfectly, gleamed under the lights. It was the kind of sight that sparked an urge to lean in for a taste.
Xing Wen instinctively stepped back.
Then the assistant watched, wide-eyed, as Qiu Chao slid the door open, her silhouette visible through the frosted glass as she slipped inside and headed to the inner room.
Yan Muyu’s retching mixed with the rush of running water, followed by an explosive “What the fuck!”
Only then did Xing Wen snap out of it.
Damn it! Why was Qiu Chao even here? And why the hell had she let her in?!
Too late now.
Yan Muyu had been bent over the sink, hands braced, still vomiting when someone hugged her waist from behind. Cool fingers slipped under the hem of her loose shirt, unerringly finding the clasp of her tank top underneath.
The touch alone made Yan Muyu shudder—never mind that from her angle in the mirror, she could only see a cascade of dark hair and not the intruder’s face.
Yan Muyu didn’t believe in ghosts or ghouls, but her study abroad days had been haunted by Shen Tianqing, that neurotic mess acting like she’d lost her husband.
It was no less creepy than playing with Ouija boards or summoning spirit kids back in foreign dorms.
Back in her junior year, Yan Muyu had messed with a pen fairy game and been dogged by bad luck for half a month straight.
Her misfortunes rivaled a laptop frying the night before a paper was due, a flowerpot nearly cracking her skull on the sidewalk, or getting dumped publicly—mistaken for an ex—followed by an almost-beating from a mob.
Those old shadows lingered, so her scream now was piercingly loud. Qiu Chao’s ears rang like they might burst.
Under the shower spray, Yan Muyu’s face was drenched. When she spun around and saw who it was, fury finally ignited.
—”Qiu Chao??!! Are you out of your mind?!”
Xing Wen had been about to rush in, but this was the first time she’d heard Young Boss Yan yell. It gave her pause, a chill running down her spine.
After all, someone who grinned and joked all day turning angry was the scariest kind.
And Young Boss Yan yelling? Terrifying.
Yan Muyu’s hair was soaked too. Her stomach cramped, sapping her strength, twitching nerves pulling at her face.
She couldn’t muster that usual squinty-eyed smile.
The lighting in this top-suite bathroom was designer-soft, far from harsh white—warm and soothing.
Right now, Yan Muyu’s blonde hair clung wetly, droplets tracing down her cheeks.
Layered amber glows overlapped from several sources, pearl-like light strips curling around the mirror’s edge.
Yan Muyu’s eyes blazed with anger, nothing like the easygoing, always-smiling Young Boss Yan the crew knew.
Yet to Qiu Chao, she looked just like the seventeen-year-old she’d first met.
The beautiful woman smiled. “Mad at me?”
Qiu Chao let Yan Muyu yank one hand away, but her other stayed slipped under the shirt.
Warm palm against the tank top, fingertips brushing Yan Muyu’s bare stomach, the shirt’s silky chiffon against her knuckles.
Qiu Chao rubbed harder, smiling as she said, “I told you—I want meal compensation.”
Yan Muyu’s lashes were soaked.
The bathroom’s lily-of-the-valley diffuser relaxed the mind effortlessly.
If not for Yan Muyu’s pallid face, Qiu Chao never would have imagined her getting sick.
In her memory, whether the lonely seventeen-year-old at the KTV or the vibrant eighteen-year-old at the Yan Family Old Mansion, she’d never seemed frail.
Yan Muyu gripped Qiu Chao’s wrist hard enough to hurt, but Qiu Chao— who thrived on pain—kept smiling. Her free hand pressed to Yan Muyu’s stomach over the fabric.
The heat seeped through, warming Yan Muyu despite herself.
Yan Muyu: “Are you crazy?”
Her bangs dripped, a drop hitting her eye. She blinked rapidly, shook her head—splashing Qiu Chao without a care.
“Can’t you find someone else if you’re hungry?”
Yan Muyu looked utterly exasperated, eyes fixed on Qiu Chao as she yanked the hand away and shoved her back.
“With all your admirers, Miss Qiu Chao, one call and you’d have a horde lining up.”
Yan Muyu still felt off, exhaling shakily as she grabbed a tissue to wipe her mouth.
Her hands were stunning—bare, yet captivating.
Qiu Chao stared, riveted.
In the intimate space, her voice seemed amplified, tingling.
Qiu Chao: “Not in the mood for others right now. I’m very loyal, you know.”
No subtlety there. Yan Muyu wiped her face, tossed the tissue, and let out a laugh.
She grabbed a minty mouthwash sachet; the anger that had captivated Qiu Chao faded from her features.
Like a hidden soul bobbing in shadows—master of disguise, never caught.
Yan Muyu rinsed, checked the mirror. “You think I’m not picky?”
Qiu Chao stepped closer, arms looping around Yan Muyu’s neck.
She wasn’t the tallest actress, but her face gave an illusion of height.
Still, she had to tiptoe with Yan Muyu, leaning in close to her lips with a grin. “Am I like those others?”
Her confidence bordered on arrogance as she guided Yan Muyu’s hand to her waist.
Qiu Chao’s figure was enviably exaggerated— so perfect some whispered implants up top, padding below. Old student photos proved otherwise.
At fifteen, she looked anything but childish—mature beyond her years, face, body, even soul.
Brows and eyes carried an unusual melancholy, far from her current radiant glamour.
Yan Muyu looked down into Qiu Chao’s blatant, seductive gaze.
She didn’t get it.
“Why?”
Lin Chi had asked the same.
Yan Muyu wanted to know too.
Qiu Chao: “You don’t think I like you, do you?”
She slumped laughing against Yan Muyu, arms tightening around her neck. “What are you imagining, Little Yan?”
Her breath warmed Yan Muyu’s ear, words deliberate: “Because you get the biggest reaction out of me.”
Both women, but Qiu Chao’s body was too tempting.
Even Yan Muyu, never one for that type, couldn’t deny her tastes.
True enough.
Lin Chi was right—she was into this.
Yan Muyu chuckled, but her stomach ached too much to indulge.
She gripped Qiu Chao’s waist, ignoring the sink’s pooling water from the running faucet, and plopped her onto the counter.
“Cold?”
Yan Muyu asked.
The water was lukewarm, but Qiu Chao ran hot, making it feel icy by contrast.
Qiu Chao blinked. “Not really.”
Yan Muyu’s face darkened. “Good.”
She yanked the extendable showerhead, still spraying, and aimed the stream straight at Qiu Chao.
Qiu Chao let out a sharp scream.
Now it was truly cold. Her skirt had soaked up the water and grown even heavier, dragging her down. At this moment, she fixed Yan Muyu with a fierce glare.
“You need to cool off,” Yan Muyu said.
Qiu Chao scoffed. “Little Sister-in-Law, you’ve been with my brother all those years. Now that it’s over, why go and provoke me?”
The woman with her hair still dripping wet had a face so pale it bordered on unnatural. Plenty of people online said Yan Muyu had the perfect look for playing a villain.
She didn’t quite fit the classic wicked woman mold, though—more like the chaotic neutral type of evil.
Comparing her to a fox spirit was high praise.
Of course, plenty disagreed, insisting a real fox spirit had to be glamorous, seductive, and sexy.
Yan Muyu wasn’t glamorous in the slightest. Seductive was a stretch too. But sexy? That, Qiu Chao had to concede.
Her sexiness had nothing to do with her figure.
It was in her eyes, her gestures—the innate flirtatiousness that seeped from her very soul when it came to women.
Whenever this woman gazed at her or touched her, it filled Qiu Chao with an intense satisfaction.
It was enough to make every cell in her body scream to drag Yan Muyu inside and make her utterly obsessed.
And yet, Yan Muyu could do anything except become obsessed herself.
The only defining trait of her love was its brevity: maybe a few dozen seconds in a kiss, a few hours of wild passion, four months as the perfect, tender lover.
Others had enjoyed the same, but no one could make it last forever.
That was why Qiu Chao planned to take the unorthodox path: make Yan Muyu hate her first.
After all, love and hate were polar opposites—like the sea and the sky, separated by the thinnest line. In the end, they were all too easy to confuse.
Besides, in those four years together, how could there not have been real feelings on her part?
Back then, Yan Muyu had wanted a proper sister-in-law. Now, Qiu Chao wanted to be the one she truly loved.
Qiu Chao’s skirt was utterly drenched. Water droplets trailed down from the sink, splattering across the tiles and soaking Yan Muyu’s shoes.
She grabbed Yan Muyu’s collar with a fierce yank, pulling her close.
With her other hand, she seized Yan Muyu’s and placed it squarely on her thigh.
A true wild fox was independent and hypersensitive. Even after years of taming, every caress carried an undercurrent of bewitchment.
At its core, it was an untamable beast. No matter how much heart and soul its keeper poured into it, the fox remained heartless. The flick of its tail was nothing but disdain for those foolish enough to care too deeply.
The lights bathed them both, outlining their forms like sunlight on water. It was only then that Yan Muyu noticed the pearly shimmer on Qiu Chao’s lipstick.
In that instant, her beautiful ex’s lips parted—like honey dusted with arsenic.
Incredibly poisonous, yet sweet straight to the bone.
Qiu Chao flashed Yan Muyu a wanton smile, like a willow leaf skimming across a lake’s surface in the wind. It wouldn’t land, of course—just send out ripples, circle after widening circle, sending the slightest tremor through the water.
“Of course,” she said. “You’re way more interesting than your brother.”
