Imagining Obsession

Originally titled: After My Obsessive Sister Set Her Sights on Me

Complete! Please leave comments and add it to your reading lists~

My next book, The Midnight Convenience Store Doesn't Serve Humans, is coming soon. Its full blurb is after this book's description. Please add it to your reading lists!

[About This Book]

· Reader's guide:

Fated cycles of reincarnation | White moonlight | Fake replacement | Events from the first nine lifetimes

Sweet and angsty | Cutting-edge technology | Digital simulacra (fantasy setting)

· Couple:

Sharp-tongued but soft-hearted, sensitive, socially anxious working girl x lovesick, thousand-year-old, obsessive, powerful, beautiful, strong woman

· Blurb:

Ruan Chu was desperately broke! Her bank balance was 8.4 yuan, she had no money for food, and her tuition was an astronomical sum. To survive, she gritted her teeth and applied for a bizarre "high-paying personal assistant wanted" job. To her surprise, someone actually replied.

"Personal assistant, 800 yuan per day, room and board included. Duties confidential. Applicants must be women, presentable, gentle, and adaptable."

Ruan Chu: ??? That's all they want?

But she was so hungry she could barely think straight. If she didn't give it a try, she might actually die.

But on her first day at work, something felt off.

Her employer, Lu Zhi, was a woman of almost unnerving beauty.

Long hair falling over her shoulders, cool, clear features, and an air of nobility, like a moon goddess who had descended to the mortal world.

But the woman's words sent a chill down Ruan Chu's spine:

"I'll hire only you, no one else. All you have to do is keep me company."

Ruan Chu: ...Um, Miss, you sound a little suspicious~

But the strangest things were yet to come.

Ruan Chu had only wanted to do some work, earn enough to eat, and leave once she had money. But her only daily duty was to stand there, or, to be precise, pose for someone to admire. More absurdly, her beautiful employer spent every day painting her.

"You're the white moonlight I've painted in my dreams for a thousand years. But you die whenever you fall in love, so I've decided not to fall in love this lifetime. I'll just keep you here first."

"I've made a digital simulacrum of you. After ten thousand realistic tests, I'm missing just a little more data... So, Miss Ruan, please cooperate, and I'll double your daily pay."

Ruan Chu: ??? I think I might have met a lunatic.

Who could have guessed that taking a personal assistant job would turn her into an art model, then into a digital simulacrum database, and then, eventually, leave her pinned against a corner wall of her employer's studio...

"Do you like me?"

"Don't like me. You'll die."

"Don't be afraid. I'll keep loving you, as long as you stay alive."

Ruan Chu clutched her chest.

Sister, your madness is so convincing that I have nothing to say.

Well, if I can't escape, then let's date! Let's stay together until the seas run dry and the rocks crumble~

Lu Zhi is the founder of the country's top company for developing "custom digital simulacra." Using big-data systems to recreate emotional data, she has created countless ideal partners to meet the emotional needs of all kinds of clients.

But Lu Zhi herself kept drawing the same girl over and over.

Ruan Chu accidentally stumbled into Lu Zhi's underground studio and found walls covered with photos, sketches, and modeling data... Every single one of them was of her! Everything had been captured from every angle, from her expressions and voice to her mannerisms and preferences.

Only then did Ruan Chu understand:

Lu Zhi hadn't suddenly fallen for her. She had "known" her for a long time!

Ruan Chu was the original model Lu Zhi had been unable to recreate, no matter how many times she tried, and the one piece of reality Lu Zhi had painstakingly assembled from all her desperate longing.

Lu Zhi had waited a thousand years, through nine lifetimes.

Every time, Ruan Chu died by accident the moment she fell in love with her.

So this time, Lu Zhi wouldn't fall in love. She would simply keep her close.

Obsessive to the point of madness, yet tender to the very end.

[Blurb for The Midnight Convenience Store Doesn't Serve Humans]

After losing her job, Lin Wan moved from place to place until she finally settled in an old apartment complex with unbelievably cheap rent.

On the third night after moving in, she woke up hungry in the middle of the night and went downstairs to buy instant noodles, only to find a convenience store that she'd never seen during the day.

Curious, she pushed open the door. The beautiful woman behind the counter looked up at her and said, "We don't serve humans here."

Lin Wan looked down at the instant noodles in her arms. "Should I leave, then?"

"Wait." The shopkeeper's gaze fell on the shadow behind her. "Your shadow seems a little strange. Stay for now."

Only later did Lin Wan learn that the city was far livelier than she'd imagined.

A vampire might threaten to quit over being made to work overtime during the day...

A robot might show up at one in the morning to ask if its abnormal heart rate was a sign of falling in love.

A fox spirit might struggle with the authorities over its ID and date of birth~

A ghost who'd been dead for twenty years might still curse up a storm when their favorite TV series went on hiatus...

As for the beautiful shadow demon shopkeeper, who had lived for over three hundred years and wore a cold expression every day, it was her job to deal with all the trouble caused by these nonhumans.

Lin Wan: "So why can I see this place?"

Shen Wuyue: "I don't know."

"Then why is my shadow weird?"

"I don't know."

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

"..."

Shen Wuyue turned and walked away. Lin Wan pondered for a moment.

Oh... She might know the answer to that last question.

The midnight convenience store had three rules:

One: Don't hurt other customers inside the store.

Two: Ordinary humans are not allowed inside.

Three: Don't ask about the shopkeeper's past.

After Lin Wan arrived, a fourth rule was added:

Four: Employees and the shopkeeper are forbidden from dating.

Lin Wan: "Who made that rule?"

Shen Wuyue: "I did."

"What if you break it?"

"..."

"Boss Shen?"

"Shut up."

It wasn't until the city's nonhumans began disappearing one after another that Lin Wan learned the truth: Three hundred years ago, a monster had fallen in love with a human, and together they had a child who should never have existed in this world.

Three hundred years later, that nonhuman bloodline, now so diluted it had nearly vanished, flowed through Lin Wan's veins.

There was nothing wrong with Lin Wan's shadow. It had simply seen this world before she did.

Theme: Deep affection can be cloned, but love can't be faked. Between virtual and real, only you truly exist.