Hating Her, While Still Having to Address Her as Mother - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Introduction: All Roads Lead to Rome

I am 25 years old. I’m just an ordinary office worker leading a life that is as monotonous as it is bland.

My greatest daily pleasure is opening Sina Weibo. The “ding” sound the app makes when it launches makes me ten thousand times happier than hearing “Clock-in Successful” at work.

Aside from being a corporate drone, almost all my remaining time is dedicated to my “Oshi” (my favorite idol).

The first thing I do upon waking up is open my idol’s Super Topic, check in, and post: “Morning, Yu-bao! Your little Taro Root will love you just as much today!”

After a quick browse through the Super Topic, I get out of bed and power up three electronic devices to boost my idol’s data. All three screens are looping a TV drama my idol starred in four years ago.

Then, I start brushing my teeth and washing my face, getting ready for work.

Normally, this is my fixed morning routine.

However, just as I was about to order takeout on my phone, I caught a glimpse of my idol’s name trending on the Hot Search list.

Overjoyed, I spun around in circles and clicked the hashtag with wild excitement. I never expected that a suffocating piece of news would ambush my brain without warning: “Jiang Shenwei and Jian Yu Officially Announced for Double-Female Lead Drama.”

I fainted on the spot. I was so angry that my vision went black, and I collapsed.

Why?! Why?! Why is my idol’s arch-nemesis collaborating with her?!!!

…

When I woke up, I was already lying in a hospital bed. My best friend was bored out of her mind, peeling an apple for me.

I watched as she meticulously peeled the last bit of skin, sliced the apple, and then popped a piece into her own cherry-red mouth.

I reached out a trembling hand. “Phone… where is my phone…”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

“Quick! Give me my phone!”

My friend looked at me with an emotionless gaze. She picked up my phone, entered the passcode (1111), opened Weibo, and cruelly read the top headlines aloud for me:

“Hot Search #1: Jiang Shenwei and Jian Yu officially announced for a double-female lead drama.” “Hot Search #2: ‘The Story of Me and My Stepmother’ production crew official announcement.”

I pressed my fingers against my philtrum (acupressure point), nearly fainting again from rage.

“Isn’t it good to collaborate with Best Actress Jiang Shenwei?”

“Good? Good foot! You know damn well that Jiang Shenwei is Jian Yu’s biggest rival in this lifetime! Period!”

“It’s not that bad. That’s just the media catching shadows and exaggerating facts.”

“It is NOT!” Ignoring the restraint of the IV drip, I stood up and began gesticulating wildly, recounting the years of grievances between the two.

“My idol is a woman! The essence of femininity!”

“She was born in Yanjing. She’s studied calligraphy, dance, and singing since she was a child, and graduated from the Acting Department of the Yanjing Film Academy. In 2019, she won Best Film and Best Actress at the Yingshuangxue International Film Festival for her work ‘The Beginning’. That’s how she entered the public eye!”

That year, amidst the misty rain and blooming begonias, Jian Yu was handpicked by Director Jiang Yuan. The director loved her purity and uniqueness, choosing the 22-year-old Jian Yu—who had no representative works at the time—to play the lead despite the skepticism of others.

Jian Yu did not disappoint. With her refreshing and refined acting, she became famous overnight.

She should have exploded in popularity and had a wide path ahead of her.

But Jian Yu happened to be in the same company as Jiang Shenwei. Jiang Shenwei had a powerful background and massive capital backing her. The company only wanted to promote Jiang Shenwei, so they gave all the premium resources to her.

In the same projects, if Jiang Shenwei played the lead, Jian Yu was relegated to supporting roles.

Jiang Shenwei used those roles to go viral repeatedly, sweeping various domestic and international film awards, eventually becoming the Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival at the age of 27.

“My idol! Her career was strangled in its cradle! She is a thousand-mile horse who never met her Bo Le (mentor)!”

“Her hard work goes unseen! Unknown!”

“Meanwhile, Jiang Shenwei has relied on that vixen-like face of hers to get where she is today.”

“If you ask me, she used the back door! She’s all about the ‘hidden rules’! Waaaaah, my idol is so miserable!”

Beside me, my friend raised her hand as if wanting to speak. “But… wasn’t that only at the beginning of her career? Her resources don’t seem that bad now.”

I didn’t hear her. I was immersed in my own “performance,” crying while grabbing my phone to start a digital war on Weibo.

…

In a place unknown to the fangirl, the star she loves and adores…

Is currently immersed in a decadent, enchanting revelry.

One can only see the faint light filtering through the curtains, falling upon a woman’s refined yet strong waist.

Even without light, Jian Yu can feel exactly where those abdominal lines—clearer than her own life plans—are located.

She only needs to stretch out her fingers to touch that flat stomach, feeling the warmest and softest part of a human body.

She loves nights like these. Watching the woman who stands high above in the spotlight, who, after night falls and in a place where no one knows, unbuttons her clothes. The silky fabric of the Julien Fournie haute couture gown slides down, revealing skin as white as snow as she rises elegantly.

As the silk glides down her hip bones, a lingering fragrance fills the air.

People say Jiang Shenwei has the face of a seductress—a beauty that consumes one’s soul and bones. They say she is enchanting without even realizing it.

They say someone like her was born for the “hidden rules” of the industry. They imagine her crawling through the luxury of wine and neon lights, climbing up a stripper pole to get to the top.

Jian Yu reaches out her hand, as if waiting for an obedient little bird to perch on her fingertips.

But it isn’t a submissive flower-pecker that lands there; it is her Blue Jay, coming to rest beside her.

Jiang Shenwei’s chin is smooth and sharp, yet she obediently places her jaw in Jian Yu’s palm.

She waits for her master to grant her the sweetest candy.

“Kneel,” Jian Yu says in a cold, clear voice.

Jiang Shenwei obediently drops to her knees upon the soft bed.

Only then does Jian Yu willingly lower her head. With one hand tilting Jiang Shenwei’s chin up, she leans down to place a bored, lingering kiss upon her.

Yes, the world isn’t wrong. To be noticed by Jiang Shenwei, to be looked at by those noble eyes for even a moment, should be intoxicating enough to make anyone lose themselves.

How ridiculous that the owner of such a noble gaze can assume the most humble posture in bed, kneeling to beg for a kiss.

“So sweet.” Her seductive eyes half-close as she gazes at Jian Yu, saying softly, “Again, A-Yu.”

“What did you call me?”

Jian Yu brushes her hand quickly across Jiang Shenwei’s jawline—like scratching a cat’s chin—before pulling her hand away.

Jiang Shenwei submissively grasps the hand that is trying to leave. Casting aside her mature, magnetic voice, she makes her tone as gentle as a cat just waking up in winter: “Master.”

“Master, give it to me one more time.”

Only then is Jian Yu satisfied. She tugs at Jiang Shenwei’s permed, wavy hair, pulling her close to bestow a long, deep kiss.

This is Jiang Shenwei: three-time winner of the Huabiao Award for Outstanding Actress, two-time winner of the Hundred Flowers Award and the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, and winner of Best Actress at the Paris International Film Festival.

The Jiang Shenwei who stands above ten thousand people.

At this moment, even she must kneel at her lover’s feet just to beg for a kiss.

To the outside world, we are rivals fighting tooth and nail for the White Magnolia Film Award.

But only I know what roles we play when night falls.

Yet, who can tell which side of us is more real, and which is a facade?

Is it the colleagues who smile and nod as they pass each other by day? Or the relationship where we spend the nights in song, calling out each other’s names?

When the chaotic, stress-releasing “revelry” ends, Jian Yu stares blankly at the hollowed ceiling.

Every time she vents and relaxes with Jiang Shenwei, she feels every part of her soul grow even more empty and lonely.

Most bizarrely, at the moment of release, a conversation between her and Jiang Shenwei always echoes in her mind.

Like a revolving lantern, this dialogue loops through every moment Jian Yu is half-awake, eroding her thoughts and occupying her mind.

Jian Yu said: “People who have never seen the sea always feel a sense of longing and passion for it.”

And Jiang Shenwei asked her: “But what is there to see in the sea?”

Jian Yu replied: “For those who live by the shore year-round, they see this scenery every time they open their door. Naturally, they don’t find it rare. But there are always people separated from it by thousands of miles of mountains, who have never seen a single patch of that sea.”

Jian Yu turns her head, looking deeply at the sleeping Jiang Shenwei. Fluffy hair half-covers her face, but Jian Yu can still see the prominent beauty mark under her eye through the thick strands.

In many moments, Jian Yu wants to “eat” that beauty mark while Jiang Shenwei is asleep. Because that mark is like a living signpost that defines this person as Jiang Shenwei.

It feels as though, if she could just swallow that beauty mark, she could completely erase Jiang Shenwei.

Jiang Shenwei is someone born living by the sea. How could someone trapped behind the mountains, unable to even see the edge of the water, not be jealous of such an existence?

All roads lead to Rome, but some people are born in Rome.