Marked by My Childhood Friend, a Top-Tier Star [Showbiz]

[The author is terrible at writing blurbs... Come take a look... The actual story is definitely good, I promise! orz orz]

1.

After moving away from Lankou Lane at twelve, Lu Ling vowed to turn over a new leaf in her new city: study hard, read the news, and leave her steadfastly antisocial childhood friend Lin Que far, far behind.

Later, the distance between her and Lin Que did indeed become enormous.

She looked at the trending topics on her phone.

Nine out of ten headlines were about Lin Que.

The world never goes offline, and Lin Que is always in the news.

2.

On the eve of starting her job as Lin Que's personal assistant, Lu Ling was dozing in her half-basement apartment when the door to her rental came crashing pathetically to the floor.

The queen of trending topics had appeared in her home without warning.

Amid pounding rain and thunder, Lu Ling was forced to look up into those distinctly inhuman eyes, their fingers intertwined.

Lin Que gripped her chin. Her icy fingertips slid up beneath the hem of Lu Ling's clothes and closed around a soft spot. Her eyes seemed veiled in mist, their breaths mingling as she murmured feverishly in Lu Ling's ear, like a spell:

“...I like you so much. I like you so much. I want to... eat you...”

“Can I kiss you?”

Lin Que straightened up, blood bright on her lips like a blooming red rose.

“With me.”

3.

Lin Que is a vampire.

A vampire who dies, then comes back to life, over and over.

She cannot tell how long she has been trapped in this cycle of life and death. Time is a frozen number to her. She has witnessed the turning of the ages and carries a thousand-year-old soul.

Until someone entered her life

[“She is innocently foolish and enthusiastically loud, always asking me childish, pointless questions. Even the simplest task seems to go wrong in her hands. In her, I see just how much room life allows for mistakes. She is like a snail crawling at a leisurely pace, while her time is a living verb. She walked into my life, and from then on, my second hand began to move.”]

* Childhood friends, living together, lighthearted and goofy, showbiz

* Lots of original worldbuilding. I wrote this just for fun, so it's a sweet story

* Same-sex marriage is legal (though I may not write a wedding for the protagonists). Whether they marry doesn't really matter: they are made for each other, and will love each other even unto death

* Single-sex reproduction (women can conceive on their own, and women and men can also have children together, but two men cannot). The story will not involve the protagonists having children or any BL couples, but one of the protagonists was conceived by her mother alone, so I thought I'd mention it.

* Any character whose gender is not specified is female by default.

* Next book: Bad Apples and Rotten Oranges. If you're interested, please add it to your collection~

Blurb for Bad Apples and Rotten Oranges follows

1.

At five, after her mother died, Ye Fei was brought back to the country from overseas by her mother's friend, Lin Jingyao. There, she met Lin Youqing.

Four-year-old Lin Youqing was tiny, sitting on a swing with a rabbit plush in her arms. Her pale blue dress made her already fair skin seem even colder.

She looked like a beautiful doll.

Lin Jingyao said Lin Youqing had been frail since birth.

“They were twins at first, but in the end, only she was born.”

Five-year-old Ye Fei thought Lin Youqing was so pitiful.

She told Lin Youqing that from then on, she would be her big sister.

Back then, she truly wanted to be a good sister to Lin Youqing, to care for and protect her.

And she did, in the end. Only her care moved from under the bed to on top of it.

2.

Years later, Lin Youqing happened upon Ye Fei's notebook. Its elegant handwriting revealed the darkest, most shameful thoughts Ye Fei had put down at eighteen:

[Why do you have to be so beautiful? Why does everyone like you? Why do you smile at them? Don't smile at them. I'm going crazy. No, I've already gone crazy.]

[You did something bad. I know you did it on purpose, but that's great. Now I have something to help you with again.]

Lin Youqing closed the notebook. Ye Fei was asleep beside her, breathing evenly.

Sis, I've only ever loved you. You never knew, and it makes me so sad.

But I'm so happy.

When I schemed to seduce you, you were willing to go to hell with me.

3.

When I was four, Mom brought Ye Fei home.

When I was eighteen, I kissed Ye Fei on the lips and guided her hand toward a soft place. “Do you want to keep going?”

Ye Fei's eyes were hazy, her face turned to one side as wind and rain howled outside the window.

I kissed her again.

She didn't pull away.

She likes wearing a mask of false propriety. I like that even behind her mask, she makes excuses for my wickedness.

Ye Fei is the big sister.

The big sister is the wife.

[“I am a thoroughly rotten apple, and she is an orange still wrapped in gold and jade. We are a perfect match, made for each other.”]

Reader's guide:

* Third-person narration

* Foster-care trope | switch couple | the two female leads aren't in the same household register; Ye Fei calls Lin Jingyao Auntie

* Frail, sweet-looking-on-the-outside-but-dark-within yandere younger sister x seemingly perfect, refined, and bright but actually deranged, gloomy, and ghostlike older sister | flawed characters, very flawed, but not because of their families

* More or less a healthy, uplifting story about two born bad seeds who, thanks to their mother Lin Jingyao's careful guidance, don't become a danger to society and get a happy ending

* The world follows the single-sex reproduction setting from Living with My Vampire Childhood Friend.

Theme: Live well.