She Is Charming and Bewitching

Blurb: My dear Qichi, I can't be your aunt, life mentor, artistic muse, most hated enemy, and sexiest lover all at once, even though I already am. -- Qu Lingyun

1. Huo Qichi was six, bullied relentlessly at the orphanage, until she was lucky enough to be adopted by the Huo family, a family of directors. She became a much-admired third-generation star.

But the one who raised her wasn't her adoptive mother. It was her adoptive mother's unattainable first love: Qu Lingyun, the queen of pop and a legend of the silver screen.

At eighteen, Huo Qichi was dazzlingly famous, with a bright future ahead.

No one knew that every night she knelt beneath the skirt of the goddess no one in the entertainment industry dared to covet, teasing and tempting her, her pale eyes filled with an almost pathological willingness.

That moon, hanging alone in the heavens, so far beyond reach, was being scorched by her burning body until it grew hot, melting into liquid moonlight that streamed across her palms.

"Aunt Yun, do you really love me?"

The woman's body was as passionate as a blooming white rose, but her eyes held the thin-ice smile of someone utterly unconcerned.

"No. I love your mother."

Huo Qichi smiled and kissed her more deeply. "Liar. If you really loved her, you would have accepted her proposal long ago."

But she never imagined that Qu Lingyun meant not her adoptive mother, but her birth mother, who had died long ago.

At nineteen, Huo Qichi was mired in scandal and abandoned by everyone.

News of her infatuation with Qu Lingyun broke, and countless people cursed her for being depraved and coveting an elder. To quell the public backlash, she was sent to Los Angeles, supposedly to study abroad, but really in exile. Meanwhile, Qu Lingyun, the woman she loved most, wore an engagement ring meant for someone else.

In hellish Los Angeles, she met the red rose of Sharon: Weida, a professor in the directing department.

Weida had a face uncannily like Qu Lingyun's, but her manner was completely different. Gossips said Huo Qichi was playing "Wanwan, a dead ringer for the empress" in LA. Huo Qichi scoffed. She would never look for a replacement the way Qu Lingyun had.

Weida taught her filmmaking and how to conduct herself, and staked her entire fortune on Huo Qichi when she was at her lowest.

Weida was like Los Angeles itself: prosperous, lively, and captivating. Though notorious for her beauty and affairs, she was truly someone Huo Qichi could entrust her life to, a confidante, a partner in her career, and a soulmate.

At twenty-two, with Weida's help, Huo Qichi won the first directing award of her life.

That night, she confessed to Weida: "You're the woman who's been better to me than anyone else in the world, a thousand times better than Qu Lingyun."

The woman who was always so good at flirting and playing with people's hearts was in her hands, her body melting into a pool of water.

As her clothes fell open, Huo Qichi stared at the cinnabar mole on the woman's chest, stunned.

"Why do you have a cinnabar mole on your chest, exactly like Qu Lingyun's?"

2. Qu Lingyun told a colossal lie.

Defying all convention, she made countless trips to Los Angeles in disguise as Weida, a professor in the directing department, all for the girl she loved.

Now she faced the greatest crisis of her life: How could she endure Qichi's advances as Weida, while Qichi despised Qu Lingyun?

She could fake everything else, but how could she fake her body's reactions? The moment Qichi touched her, she'd lose control and give herself away.

On the surface: proud, narcissistic, and self-obsessed; underneath: grounded and fiercely ambitious. Younger woman.

On the surface: cool, elegant, a moon in the heavens; underneath: seductive, dazzling, and capable of beguiling the world. Older woman.

Please note:

1. The age gap is 14 years. The younger one is an adult.

2. Fictional setting, same-sex marriage is legal, happy ending.

--- Other upcoming story of a similar type ---

After the Chaste, Motherly Beauty Took Me Home

1. To Que'er, who hates me most in the world:

I am the strictest mother in your studies, the worst mentor in love, and the most deceptive wife in marriage. If the only way to earn your forgiveness is to pay with my life, then please take it with your own hands. -- Rong Jiuci

2. In the first year after Rong Jiuci took her home, Xiu Qianque was a dazed little fool, and Rong Jiuci was the strictest mother in her studies.

She made her get up at five and go to bed at midnight, taught her to write essays, practiced English with her, and cared more about her exam scores than the company's profit margins.

The day she received her university acceptance letter, she saw a gentle expression on Rong Jiuci's face for the first time.

Snow from the northern frontier drifted across the woman's face, yet rain from Jiangnan fell in the depths of her eyes as she gazed at Xiu Qianque.

In the second year after Rong Jiuci took her home, Xiu Qianque was a lovestruck fool, and Rong Jiuci was her perfect wife.

Xiu Qianque finally understood why Rong Jiuci was both strict and indulgent, gentle and distant, willing to grant her every request but never sharing her bed.

Xiu Qianxuan, Xiu Qianque's frail older sister who had died young, had once been the one Rong Jiuci loved above all others.

The notes Xiu Qianque memorized were written in Xiu Qianxuan's hand.

The university she worked so hard to get into was the one Xiu Qianxuan had entered through a recommendation.

The Rong Jiuci she wanted so badly had always belonged only to Xiu Qianxuan.

Every time Rong Jiuci looked at her, she was remembering that brilliant first love.

In the third year after Rong Jiuci took her home, Xiu Qianque decided to stop competing with the dead.

If Rong Jiuci wanted to be her wife, then she could be her wife.

If she didn't want to be her wife, she could be her sister-in-law, her aunt, or her mother. As long as she stayed by Xiu Qianque's side, that was enough.

Rong Jiuci was Xiu Qianque's only anchor in this world. Rong Jiuci was everything to her.

In the fourth year after Rong Jiuci took her home, Xiu Qianque went abroad as an exchange student representing the university's top students.

She often fainted for no apparent reason, but no one could figure out why.

When she woke up again, she saw her mother, who was supposedly unconscious after a car accident; her sister, who was supposed to be dead; and Rong Jiuci, who said nothing.

As she felt her strength fade with her blood loss, she understood: her mother's coma was fake, her sister's death was fake, her childhood diagnosis of intellectual disability was fake, and all of Rong Jiuci's kindness was fake!

From the moment she was born, she had been Xiu Qianxuan's blood bank! They had been keeping Xiu Qianxuan alive with her blood!

At twenty-two, Xiu Qianque became a madwoman, imprisoning her mother, murdering her sister, and killing her wife.

Rong Jiuci clutched the scar on her lower abdomen. From then on, the same face haunted her in both erotic dreams and nightmares.

3. Xiu Qianque, head of the Xiu family, an esteemed family of architects with a history stretching back a century, had a bold, eerie, otherworldly artistic style. The AAA game she led at twenty-five was praised as though it came from another world.

She was rebellious and disloyal to her ancestors, and surrounded by controversy. The loudest rumor was that she had forced her sister-in-law to marry her, loved her until love turned to hate, then hated her enough to kill.

The evidence: every game she developed had the same sort of ending, without exception: kill your wife for revenge, kill your wife to attain enlightenment, kill your wife to save the world...

Players couldn't understand how the once sweet, foolish little sparrow Xiu Qianque had been so thoroughly toyed with that she'd become this dark, twisted female ghost.

Xiu Qianque sneered at that.

Which one of us is the ghost, exactly?

The woman who crawled into her bed every night, stubbornly took her hand and guided it over the scar on her abdomen, then moved it lower and said she wanted to make up for all the love Xiu Qianque had missed out on in the past: that woman was the real ghost!

4. Xiu Qianque and Rong Jiuci's relationship entered a new phase.

A rebellious daughter who deliberately called her ex-wife "Sis" and "Mommy," and an unfaithful mommy who was fulfilling her parenting duties in hopes of getting remarried.

Coming home late once again, Xiu Qianque felt warmth on her lips before she could turn on the lights.

Someone kissed her with fierce passion.

Xiu Qianque remained expressionless. "I remember that when I got up this morning, I called you Mommy."

So if you weren't going to act like my mommy, but instead played the part of my wife, you'd be crossing the line.

The lights came on. Rong Jiuci's clear eyes lowered slightly. As she licked Xiu Qianque's fingers, she looked utterly innocent. "Que'er, you've called me Mommy every day for a whole month. Don't you want revenge? Don't you want... me to die by your hand?"

Formerly a rebellious, brilliant younger woman. Later, a gloomy revenge genius.

Formerly a restrained, chaste, motherly beauty. Later, a wanton, mad, and sinister female ghost.

Marriage first, love later / half raising her / love and hate / the remorseful chase

Theme: We deserve every good thing in the world