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A voice demanding my doom dragged me awake. “Miss Su. Mr. Fu says you must sign this agreement today.” The words poured down from above, ice-cold and professionally patient. I forced open my heavy eye...

The thumping started at eight a.m. on the last morning of my leave. Furniture legs on hallway marble. The elevator chiming over and over. A voice — Trask's, unmistakably, in full evangelical flow — sa...

Victor made his exit with the sunrise and the professionalism of a man who has smuggled himself out of hostile airspace before — folded blanket, empty water bottle carried out under his coat, a squeez...

My mother looked from me, to Victor, to my bag in Victor's hand, and back to me. For a long moment her mouth worked without sound. Then she cleared her throat, and the smile she'd been restraining esc...

Summer vacation tasted as though it had been soaked in honey. Between the milky fragrance drifting through the dessert shop and the warm, sugary breath of its ovens, every day felt full and light. Che...

By ten-fifty the restaurant had thinned out. Joey and the others drifted off with waves and goodbyes, and our table was down to five people and too many empty glasses, all of us pleasantly loose aroun...

Gong Zheng connected the miniature data cloner. The advanced device didn't require the laptop to be switched on: connected directly to the drive, it could copy everything at a touch, silently and with...

The man from the corner table had been working up his courage through two rounds of drinks, and he finally spent it on me. "Lovely lady — would you care to dance?" Every head turned toward me, includi...

To grow up, to become a calm person, requires shedding many tears. "Chairwoman Su arranged for me to pick you up and take you home." "Why do you call Mom 'Chairwoman Su'?" "Because I don't want to be ...

The question, asked so abruptly, made Guan Zhiyan freeze for a beat. She shook her head at once. "Of course not. We're not police—we're here strictly for the money. When someone won't come out to meet...

Guan Zhiyan asked, "So? What is it you know?" The woman felt Guan Zhiyan was pressing rather hard and eyed her with open suspicion—an attitude about as close to a real interrogation as it got. "You tw...

Wednesday was the day Shen Miaomiao hit the worst writer's block of her life. She had spent the entire morning staring at the document for Chapter Ten of her novel. Her two leads had progressed from t...

On Monday morning, the Moxiang Literature editorial office was bustling. After Saturday's team outing and Sunday's rest, everyone was in fairly good spirits. Shen Miaomiao sat at her workstation, fran...

Mo Ruxuan watched his little maneuver, caught his hand, and said, "That sort of thing can't hurt me." Lin Zijing flushed red with anger. "What's that supposed to mean? You look down on me." To think h...

At the opening ceremony, Qin Ting stood behind Zou Songpu, silently staring at him. That silhouette looked more and more familiar, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't place it. Absorbed as she w...

Lu Nan was being held in a strange man's arms. He opened his mouth, but not a word came out. All he could do was marvel inwardly: a hero could still make a dazzling entrance without a thunderclap over...

The shoot this time took them to U City, a small city in the south. It was the height of summer, hot and humid; Qin Ting had never been anywhere this damp. She felt as if every pore on her body was sw...

By the time the car stopped outside the villa, Sheng Linyou was half-conscious. Yin Xigui helped him up to the bedroom on the second floor and used a warm towel to wipe the cuts on his face and wrists...

Perhaps it was his imagination, but Shi Wei's room-change request seemed to be approved unusually quickly. They'd barely finished lunch before its status changed to Accepted. Xu Yan eagerly volunteere...

The theme park was Charlotte's victory lap, and she ran it like a generals' daughter. Merry-go-round first — "the talking horses, Mommy, the TALKING ones" — where she selected the fattest white horse ...

For three full minutes after my car pulled away, I said nothing at all. Neither did he. Then I told him. I won't repeat what I said. Some of it was cruel, and I meant every word, and I'd say it again ...

We touched down at Heathrow at two in the morning, and the whole crew had the pale, silvery quiet of wolves coming off a night flight. One night in London, then back to New York, then seventy-two hour...

The following afternoon, Shen Miaomiao came into the company late, sporting a pair of dark circles. She'd worked past midnight the night before, then tossed and turned at home over Lu Chen's jacket. A...

My life ended with Yu Shen saying, “Ruan Ying, if you found out, I'd never be able to show my face again.” The rooftop railing was digging into my waist. Far below, a loudspeaker's announcement blurre...

After Lu Chen rescued Chapter Four with his red pen, Shen Miaomiao finally learned her lesson about writing. She stopped chasing exaggerated domineering-CEO formulas and began concentrating on details...

Outside the cockpit door, Daisy was interrogating Keane like a she-wolf on a mission, and Keane — my mate's Beta, my ex-husband's best friend, a man physically incapable of keeping a secret when a pre...

"Aria? She's nothing but a bit of fun." The words stopped me cold in the hallway, two chilled bottles of champagne in my arms and a bag of ice pressed against my ribs. Three years. Three years of comi...

Once he was in the car, Gong Zheng's craving for a cigarette returned. He silently cursed Zhao Zhouming. The bastard had lit one for him, then taken it away after barely a few drags and forced himself...

New York in summer smells like hot asphalt and cheap perfume. To everyone else, anyway. To me, it smells like nothing at all. Three years of practice taught an Omega how to flatten her scent into some...

Back on Mount Kunlun, Ling Wu slept for three days and three nights straight. Perhaps she had truly worn herself out; she did not dream at all. When she woke, she felt refreshed and clear-headed. As i...

“Forgive my bluntness, but without the cover, I would have assumed I was reviewing a general's revenge saga set in an imaginary dynasty.” Cold air seeped through the spacious, brightly lit editor-in-c...

On Friday afternoon, Shen Miaomiao arrived outside the editor-in-chief's office with her latest printed manuscript in her arms. These were Chapters Six through Eight, which she'd spent an entire week ...

When the white light faded, I found myself standing in front of a workstation. Sticky notes covered the partition. Three monitors were stacked at the edge of the desk, a packet of spicy snacks was wed...

The Trial Assembly lasted three days. Qingchen had meant to take Ling Wu back to Mount Kunlun first and return the next day. But a heap of Immortal Lords had invited him around; he truly could not sli...

The steady sound of a jump rope echoed through the hall. Li Ce had reached two hundred and ninety jumps. His inner robe was soaked through, and his long hair clung in disarray to the side of his neck....

11:59 p.m. Shen Miaomiao sat cross-legged on her sofa in oversized pajamas. A single floor lamp cast a warm yellow glow through the living room. On the table sat an unsweetened Americano that had long...

Just when I thought my senior year would march to its end on schedule—tense but steady—fate bared its ugliest fangs. Life's hammer falls hardest when you are least guarded, closest to happiness, and i...

Senior year began earlier than any other grade. The chill of the first lunar month still lingered; the snow on campus had been swept to the roadside and piled into gray-black mounds. Bare branches poi...

Ling Yu rose anxiously, stepped close to the man, and finally stopped in front of him, looking down: “I've said that if I only wanted information, I wouldn't have come looking for a person at all. And...