Chapter 1: That Night

The curtains were thin, with a distinctly local flavor. The sun was already high in the sky, its light streaming through the hotel suite — the standard layout of a common African guesthouse. A breeze stirred the curtains, and sunlight danced across the floor, eventually creeping to the edge of the bed.

A woman lay sprawled on the bed, completely naked, with only a thin blanket draped over the curve of her upturned bottom. The blanket was positioned with deliberate sexiness, leaving the cleft of her rear exposed. Her skin was a rich wheat tone, her figure fit and athletic — clearly someone who worked out regularly.

Her phone sat face-down on the table, vibrating repeatedly.

The woman lifted her head from the pillow, then flopped it back down.

Tired. Sleepy. Both.

Without opening her eyes, she stretched a long arm across the table. She killed the alarm with one hand and burrowed her face back into the pillow.

The pillow still held a lingering trace of perfume. She’d been half-awake already — the scent snapped her fully to consciousness. The perfume certainly wasn’t hers. It was from last night…

She reached out and touched the space beside her. Empty. The sheets had long gone cold. The other woman must have slipped out quite a while ago.

Ding Sishu sat up in a daze and looked down at the bite marks on her chest.

Brutal. She barely had any chest to speak of, and it had been mauled like this. Just how desperate had that woman been?

Rubbing her chest, Ding Sishu threw back the covers. There were bite marks on her inner thighs, too.

Hiss…

As she pulled on her shirt, Ding Sishu winced again and again. The fabric tugged against tender spots. Those pants were a lost cause. She picked up whatever it was from the floor and tossed it onto the table. This was the culprit — the thing that woman had used last night. Where she’d even gotten it from was anyone’s guess, but she’d certainly known how to use it.

Thinking back on last night… it was true. A former special forces soldier like her, and she’d been pinned to the bed by force.

The table was a bit of a mess, but Ding Sishu didn’t examine it more closely. Bare-legged, she padded into the bathroom. She was halfway through washing up when something felt off.

She walked back out, still naked.

Fuck!

Ding Sishu counted out a stack of red hundred-yuan bills from the table.

God-fucking-dammit!

There was even loose change. Tucked between the red bills was a twenty and a fifty.

It was painfully obvious: Ding Sishu, a woman known across the African savanna as the “Grassland Wild Wolf,” had been mistaken for someone in the “special services” line of work.

By the time she left the room, it was already afternoon. As the elevator descended, Ding Sishu caught several people stealing glances at her. Probably because she couldn’t stop squirming. It hurt down there, and the underwear rubbed uncomfortably. If they weren’t out in public, she’d have reached right in and yanked the damn thing.

Stuck in that not-quite-itching, not-quite-painful limbo, she heard a ding as the elevator reached the ground floor. The other passengers hurried out in twos and threes, not once looking back — terrified of encountering some kind of “weird pervert.”

When she reached the front desk, the staffer perked up the moment he saw her room number. In thick, perfectly bizarre Chinglish, he started recommending various “bedding products.”

So that’s where that woman had gotten all her equipment. The “source” had been right here.

Under Ding Sishu’s flat stare, the staffer shrank back a little and asked if she still wanted anything. Ding Sishu plastered on a “friendly” smile and replied in English that no, thank you. And as an afterthought: “You can speak Chinese.”

The moment she said that, the staffer’s cowering demeanor vanished.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier.” The staffer mumbled, lowering his eyes — Ding Sishu was fairly certain he’d just rolled them. “Lubricant, fifteen dollars. Egg vibrator, sixty dollars. Wand massager, a hundred dollars…”

As the front desk rattled off prices, Ding Sishu stepped forward, about to hiss “keep your goddamn voice down,” when the price tag hit her ears and the words flew out on their own. “Holy shit, why don’t you just rob me?”

At that exact moment, several burly men stepped up behind Ding Sishu… and indeed, they were here to rob her.

With a thousand grudges, Ding Sishu slowly pulled out her wallet. The staffer’s sharp eyes caught sight of it, and he brightened. “RMB is fine too.”

Ding Sishu was cleaned out. As she walked out the door, the bellhop at the entrance flashed her a wide, toothy grin.

Everything the staffer had just quoted her — those were exactly the items that woman had used on her last night. If she’d known how expensive they were, she’d have washed them and kept them for herself.

Her wallet was empty. The one thousand seven hundred and seventy yuan that woman had left her — gone — and she’d lost an extra eighty of her own on top.

That woman. She’d been pretty good-looking, hadn’t she? At the bar last night, Ding Sishu hadn’t gotten a good look at her, mainly because the woman had been caked in heavy makeup. But how could she be so cheap?

The stuff she’d pulled last night — in the “industry,” that would have been worth way more than a one-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-yuan “quote.” Ding Sishu figured she must have been properly drunk out of her mind. She’d had a one-night stand with a complete stranger.

At the bar, the woman had seemed so soft. Not that kind of soft, exactly — just that unique temperament that belonged to an Eastern woman. The moment Ding Sishu walked into the bar, her eyes had landed on that woman.

And then they’d gotten to the room, and the woman had transformed into a completely different person.

When the woman straddled her, pulling out strange, bizarre props, Ding Sishu swallowed hard.

Fuck. She’d run into someone who knew what she was doing.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A ding sounded — her phone. Ding Sishu pulled it out and saw a new message.

Her distant cousin. The cousin had found her a job back in China and booked her a discounted flight home.

The eleven-plus hours of flying gave Ding Sishu plenty of time to sleep. After deplaning, she called her cousin — straight to voicemail, again and again.

“Sis, where are you? I’m in Beijing.” Ding Sishu exited the airport and boarded the airport shuttle.

It took her cousin over ten minutes to text back. “Come straight to the film studio. I’ll introduce you to the boss.”

“OK.” In Beijing, the subway was the way to go. It wasn’t rush hour, so the train wasn’t too crowded. After two transfers, Ding Sishu arrived at the film studio.

Ding Sishu’s grades had never been good. Her family had raised her as a sports student. Later, at her teacher’s recommendation, she’d skipped the college entrance exam entirely and enlisted instead. Within two months of joining, she’d been deployed to Africa. She’d served a solid five years there.

Now she was out, and the organization hadn’t arranged her reassignment. A relative mentioned they were short-staffed, and her family had called in a favor — telling Ding Sishu to go work for her cousin.

It was the busiest time of year. Two film crews were working outside the studio. Ding Sishu dialed her cousin, and spotted the phone glowing at the chest of a big-breasted woman hurrying over. The chest bounced and swayed with each step.

Nice rack!

“You must be Shushu, right? You’ve grown so tall!” The big-chested woman had a voice so sweet it could coat candy.

Ding Sishu had been staring at the chest. She dragged her eyes up to the face — there was some resemblance to her cousin’s.

Counting from a distant branch of the family tree, this cousin was so far removed there was no blood relation left whatsoever. “Sis.”

Ding Sishu grinned back.

When they shook hands, the cousin caught Ding Sishu’s expression and a knowing look crossed her own face. Clearly, this cousin was no sweet-and-silly bimbo with big boobs.

“Who’s the Grassland Wild Wolf?”

The area was noisy — Ding Sishu hadn’t quite caught it the first time. But when the delivery guy shouted it a second time, the tongue in Ding Sishu’s grinning mouth nearly cramped.

Huh?

“Who’s the Grassland Wild Wolf?” A third time.

The cousin looked at Ding Sishu. Ding Sishu looked at the cousin.

“Who is…”

“Me.” Under public execution, Ding Sishu turned around and raised her hand — desperately hoping the delivery guy wouldn’t come up with any more creative variations. Luckily, the delivery guy seemed totally unfazed, clearly accustomed to these chuunibyou-style names.

“Sign here. That’s right.” The guy wiped his sweat, unloaded the packages with practiced efficiency, and drove off on his little three-wheeled cart with a whirr, weaving through the crowd with surprising agility. A true master hiding in plain sight, indeed.

The packages were from her military unit — forwarded by her foreign colleague. The shipping label had a crooked scrawl: “Grassland Wild Wolf.” This colleague had always admired her. She’d once asked Ding Sishu to teach her how to write the characters, and on the African savanna, everyone had proudly used that nickname for her.

But here in China…

“Cousin, you lived pretty wild in Africa, huh?” The cousin said.

Ding Sishu nearly died on the spot — on her very first day back in China.

“Sis, didn’t you say to send it to your place?” After stashing the packages at the security desk, Ding Sishu wore a mournful face.

“Grassland Wild Wolf” — the nickname repeated three full times, now finally receiving the attention it deserved. When Ding Sishu went to collect the packages, quite a few people sized up this “big wild wolf.”

The cousin slung an arm over Ding Sishu’s shoulder. “Oh, I just moved recently, that’s all.”

“I’ve been tied up with the film crew all this time.” The cousin said. “So I figured, just have the courier send it here.”

“Once we get there, behave well. Chin up, chest out. Push that chest out.” The cousin said.

“Sis.” Ding Sishu hesitated. “My parents said this job you’re introducing me to is legitimate.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” The cousin laughed. “With a body like yours, what are you going to do — work an illegitimate job?”

The cousin’s tone sounded like she was pimping people out — and maybe she was, on the side. But her real job was a manager. Yes, an artist manager.

These days, the entertainment industry was thriving. A few years back, her family had called her “that Little He girl.” Now she was affectionately known as “your Sister He.” When the family started going on about “your Sister He” all the time, Ding Sishu had been confused. “Wait, two years ago weren’t you all saying Cousin was a useless freeloader?”

“You child, how dare you talk about your Sister He like that!” Her family had scolded her instead.

“The boss liked your file, so you don’t need to bring your luggage to my place. Pick it up and go straight to where the boss has arranged for you.” The cousin said.

Room and board included. Ding Sishu couldn’t help puffing out her chest — the one padded to a barely-passable 36B.

“You, uh…” The cousin glanced at her chest. “Nice pecs.”

“…” It was a 36B.

“That one up ahead is the female star who’s hiring.” Once they entered the film studio, the cousin led Ding Sishu to a film set.

Following her cousin’s pointed finger, Ding Sishu looked over.