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"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...

Chapter 1: The Debt and the Sale (Part 1) Emma Craven discovered that her life was over at exactly 2:37 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday, while trying to untie an impossible knot in her shoelace. The kitchen p...

Chapter 4: The Debt and the Sale (Part 4) Emma adjusted her posture, squared her shoulders, and took her first real step down the ground-floor corridor. The black-and-white marble beneath her sneakers...

Chapter 15: The Kitchen and the Blood (Part 3) “Right. Okay. I… I can deal with this. I think. As long as you keep not eating me. Metaphorically and literally.” This time, the corner of Nicco’s mouth ...

She'd braced for a long wait before catching Qin Zheng. Instead, the moment Li Funing went to bed, the ghost delivered himself. Ling Wu went on high alert, yellow talisman clutched in her hand. What w...

The alarm went off at 6:12 a.m. Not 6:15, as Fábio had intended, because he’d set it incorrectly the night before—too nervous to get anything right, including his own fingers. He sat up in bed and sta...

Chapter 3: The Debt and the Sale (Part 3) His voice was exactly what she had imagined the voice of someone who read five-year contracts for fun would sound like: controlled, slightly ironic, and dange...

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...

Qin Zheng glanced at the rabbit lantern, then at Shen Ci's fleeing back, and shook his head, laughing. He'd likely provoked some young miss again. Setting the lantern aside, he took up his brush and w...

Marina Lopes had known Alexander Monteiro for nine years. Nine years of meetings, crises, launches, late nights, terrible machine coffee, and excellent coffee from actual cafés. Nine years of watching...

Zhu Wenxing braced himself on the entryway shoe cabinet, legs like water. The bandage on his right hand had been freshly rewrapped. Shoes changed, he ducked straight into the bathroom to wash up. As i...

The timing was perfect. Zhu Wenxing waited half an hour in the parking lot across from the Verian before Wen Tingxuan finally appeared. On his arm was the girl from last time, in a striking red dress ...

Zhu Wenxing kicked Li Feiyang out of the car and drove home at a hundred and twenty. He lay in the bathtub, smoking, the bandage on his right hand long since dried and soaked through again, past the p...

Zhu Wenxing dragged his exhausted, aching body back to the wreck of a "home." Two days without food, he swayed as he poured himself a glass of water and washed the pills down his throat. Bitter. He wo...

The storm clouds hung ink-black and terribly low. The instant lightning tore the sky open, the rain came down in sheets, slapping against Zhu Wenxing's face. His white shirt clung to him, cold and sti...

Ling Wu had meant to reform this Qin Zheng. As it turned out, the man took neither the carrot nor the stick. Looked the picture of a well-read gentleman, yet petty to the bone. No wonder he died young...

In Room 404 of Huaqing University. Jiang Muyao lay sprawled in her chair, staring at the freshly refreshed [Satisfaction: 99.8] on her phone's backend, on the verge of a cardiac event. "Damn it!" The ...

"I saw it all..." Gu Qing sniffled, shoving her glowing phone screen in Jiang Muyao's face. Pinned at the top of Huaqing University's anonymous forum sat a red-hot thread, its views outpacing the numb...

Since Yunshu had only meant to help the scholar, and no real harm had come of it, Ling Wu was prepared to let her go. But Yunshu refused to leave. She wanted to tag along to the Li residence and see t...

Victor had barely stepped through his own front door when his mother’s call came in. He stared at the caller ID, brow knitting, and only answered after a few seconds. Mida’s voice came through. “Victo...

Never had Ling Wu imagined that one day she'd get to see those storybook illustrations performed live, right before her eyes. It all started at noon, right after the two of them had finished enjoying ...

I didn't tell anyone the whole truth for most of my life, mostly because there was no one to tell it to. My first memory is a dormitory in St. Agnes's Orphanage: forty beds, one radiator, and the soun...

"Push it in deeper... no good, it's too tight, it won't go in!" "Stop wiggling, hold it steady! I'm about to burst over here!" "Ow, ow, ow... gently! Not so fast—my lower back really can't take it!" "...

The two stopped at first contact and fought to no decision, to the deep disappointment of everyone watching. Military academy students, young and hot-blooded—competitive to the bone was only natural. ...

To say Xu Yan was devastated at seeing Shen Li walk out of Shi Wei's room would be an understatement. What was this? Yesterday they were "just childhood friends," and now they're sleeping together? Th...

I peeled myself off the floor and called the one person who'd never graded me. "Blaire here. Talk fast, I'm mid-sketch." "Blaire. Hugo and I are done." There was a beat of silence, then a thwack of a ...

When she reached Qingchen's room, he was sitting on the couch fully robed, eyes clear—looking for all the world like he'd been awake for quite a while. Ling Wu carried in a plate piled with almond cri...

At dusk, Qingchen led Ling Wu back and reached out to tear the notice from the board. A swarm of servants materialized on the spot, hoisted up a sedan chair, and bore the two of them off to the Shen r...

Chapter 2: The Debt and the Sale (Part 2) That night, the family home was filled with a heavy silence. Her mother cried in the bathroom with the faucet running. Her brother pretended to study, but Emm...

The café was called Grão Verso. Fábio discovered it on his second day as an intern, when he got off the subway ten minutes early and decided to walk around the block instead of heading straight to the...

They had played too long and nearly forgotten the actual business at hand. With the Shen-Li wedding drawing near, Yunshu asked Ling Wu when they would go to the Li residence. She wanted to see the sch...

On the first morning after the "little prince" made his landing, the mist over Chang'an had not yet lifted, and the air carried a piercing cool. In the side hall of Shangqing Temple, the smell of medi...

Day had barely broken when the black sedan Fu Jingchen sent was already blocking the gate of the side courtyard. Lawyer Chen stood by the car door in a neatly pressed gray suit, holding last night's u...

"Let's just see how big your appetite really is." When Fu Jingchen said this, I expected him to throw his chair over and storm out, the way the novel wrote it. Instead he tossed his lighter onto the c...

The next day, Liang Zhecheng was woken by Lu Nan. It was Saturday; he didn't have much on, and he'd slept clear to noon. Lu Nan had already tried waking him several times in the morning, but the man's...

Lu Nan had arrived in such a rush and so unexpectedly that there was no cat bed or nest anywhere in the house. Liang Zhecheng, naturally, was more than happy to have Lu Nan sleep with him—he'd been dy...

Elara's Pov The night everything changed started like any other Tuesday in hell. I was standing in my kitchen—my father’s kitchen, really, though he’d been dead six months and the ghost of him still l...

The rain started at 6:42 p.m. Fábio knew the exact time because he had been looking at his phone when the first raindrop struck the window on the twelfth floor, and in less than a minute, the sky over...

The maid finished the palace tour and took her leave, leaving the fairies to their own devices. The fairies huddled up again—some to chat, some to wander off. Ling Wu was firmly in the second camp. Sh...

"To my mind, no one compares to Kunlun's Divine Sovereign. I caught one distant glimpse of him at the banquet and was struck speechless—that figure, that face, a feast for the eyes!" The fairy who spo...