[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-116821-en":3,"doc-seo-116821-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},116821,7971461741311,"Ophelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000253aff267980c6?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779345379180704826",1,"Story & Novel","Yellow face - OceanofPDF.comYellow_face_-_R_F_Kuang","A first-person narrative introduces Athena Liu, a wildly successful young novelist with an exclusive career trajectory marked by prestigious credentials and an expansive publishing history, yet she seems socially isolated and difficult to befriend. Set in a late-night rooftop conversation between Athena and the narrator, the story establishes how their paths crossed at Yale and how their writing careers diverged sharply after graduation. The narrator’s early success with a debut novel is later undermined by industry setbacks, leaving the relationship and ambitions under tension.","Dedication  \nTo Eric and Janette  \nContents  \nCover  \nTitle Page  \nDedication  \nOne  \nTwo  \nThree  \nFour  \nFive  \nSix  \nSeven  \nEight  \nNine  \nTen  \nEleven  \nTwelve  \nThirteen  \nFourteen  \nFifteen  \nSixteen  \nSeventeen  \nEighteen  \nNineteen  \nTwenty  \nTwenty-One  \nTwenty-Two  \nTwenty-Three  \nTwenty-Four  \nAcknowledgments About the Author Also by R. F. Kuang Copyright  \nAbout the Publisher  \nOne  \nTHE NIGHT I WATCH ATHENA LIU DIE, WE’RE CELEBRATING HER TV deal with Netflix.  \nOff the bat, for this story to make sense, you should know two things about Athena:  \nFirst, she has everything: a multibook deal straight out of college at a major publishing house, an MFA from the one writing workshop everyone’s heard of, a résumé of prestigious artist residencies, and a history of awards nominations longer than my grocery list. At twenty-seven, she’s published three novels, each one a successively bigger hit. For Athena, the Netflix deal was not a life-changing event, just another feather in her cap, one of the side perks ofthe road to literary stardom she’s been hurtling down since graduation.  \nSecond, perhaps as a consequence of the first, she has almost no friends. Writers our age—young, ambitious up-and-comers just this side of thirty—tend to run in packs. You’ll find evidence of cliques all over social media—writers gushing over excerpts of one another ’s unpublished manuscripts ( LOSING MY HEAD OVER THIS WIP!), squealing over cover reveals (THIS IS SO GORGEOUS I WILL DIE!!!), and posting selfies of group hangs at literary meetups across the globe. But Athena’s Instagram photos feature no one else. She regularly tweets career updates and quirky jokes to her seventy thousand followers, but she rarely @s other people. She doesn’t name-drop, doesn’t blurb or recommend her colleagues’ books, and doesn’t publicly rub shoulders in that ostentatious, desperate way early career writers do. In the entire time I’ve known her, I’ve never heard her reference any close friends but me.  \nI used to think that she was simply aloof. Athena is so stupidly, ridiculously successful that it makes sense she wouldn’t want to mingle with mere mortals. Athena, presumably, chats exclusively with blue check holders and fellow bestselling authors who can entertain her with their rarefied observations on modern society. Athena doesn’t have time to make friends with proletarians.  \nBut in recent years, I’ve developed another theory, which is that everyone else finds her as unbearable as I do. It’s hard, after all, to befriends with someone who outshines you at every turn. Probably no one else can stand Athena because they can’t stand constantly failing to measure up to her. Probably I’m here because I’m just that pathetic.  \nSo that night it’s only Athena and me at a loud, overpriced rooftop bar in Georgetown. She’s flinging back cocktails like she has a duty to prove she’s having a good time, and I’m drinking to dull the bitch in me that wishes she were dead.  \nATHENA AND I ONLY BECAME FRIENDS BY CIRCUMSTANCE. WE LIVED on the same floor at Yale our freshman year, and because we’ve both known we wanted to be writers since we were sentient, we ended up in all the same undergraduate writing seminars. We both published short stories in the same literary magazines early on in our careers and, a few years after graduation, moved to the same city—Athena for a prestigious fellowship at Georgetown, whose faculty, according to rumor, were so impressed by a guest lecture she gave at American University that its English department inaugurated a creative writing post just for her, and I because my mother ’s cousin owned a condo in Rosslyn that she would rent to me for the cost of utilities if I remembered to water her plants. We’d never experienced anything like kindred spirit recognition, or some deep, bonding trauma—we were just always in the same place, doing the same things, so it was convenient to be friendly.  \nBut although we started out in the same place—Professor","cbCaik64qULOhZVi","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaik64qULOhZVi","pdf",20767627,4787,"English","en",105,"# One\n# Two\n# Three\n# Four\n# Five\n# Six\n# Seven\n# Eight\n# Nine\n# Ten\n# Eleven\n# Twelve\n# Thirteen\n# Fourteen\n# Fifteen\n# Sixteen\n# Seventeen\n# Eighteen\n# Nineteen\n# Twenty\n# Twenty-One\n# Twenty-Two\n# Twenty-Three\n# Twenty-Four\n# Acknowledgments\n# About the Author","[{\"question\":\"Who is Athena Liu and what makes her career notable?\",\"answer\":\"Athena is a 27-year-old author with multiple successful novels, prestigious education, major publishing deals, and numerous awards nominations. She also secures a Netflix deal soon after her early literary stardom begins.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the narrator say Athena has almost no friends?\",\"answer\":\"The narrator observes that Athena’s social presence lacks close peers, she rarely engages with other writers publicly, and she largely avoids name-drops, recommendations, or visible group connections.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the narrator and Athena become friends?\",\"answer\":\"They lived on the same floor at Yale, took overlapping writing seminars, and both published early short stories. Their friendship was maintained largely because their careers and schedules kept putting them in the same place.\"}]","Yellow face - OceanofPDF.comYellow_face_-_R_F_Kuang | PDF",1785671700,7372,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":23,"language":22,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":85,"head_meta":87,"extra_data":89,"updated_unix":27},"yellow-face-oceanofpdfcomyellow_face_-_r_f_kuang","",{"@graph":35,"@context":84},[36,53,67],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/yellow-face-oceanofpdfcomyellow_face_-_r_f_kuang/116821/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":22,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":61,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":62,"interactionStatistic":63},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-02",true,{"@type":64,"interactionType":65,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":66},"ViewAction",{"@type":68,"mainEntity":69},"FAQPage",[70,76,80],{"name":71,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":73},"Who is Athena Liu and what makes her career notable?","Question",{"text":74,"@type":75},"Athena is a 27-year-old author with multiple successful novels, prestigious education, major publishing deals, and numerous awards nominations. She also secures a Netflix deal soon after her early literary stardom begins.","Answer",{"name":77,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":78},"Why does the narrator say Athena has almost no friends?",{"text":79,"@type":75},"The narrator observes that Athena’s social presence lacks close peers, she rarely engages with other writers publicly, and she largely avoids name-drops, recommendations, or visible group connections.",{"name":81,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":82},"How did the narrator and Athena become friends?",{"text":83,"@type":75},"They lived on the same floor at Yale, took overlapping writing seminars, and both published early short stories. Their friendship was maintained largely because their careers and schedules kept putting them in the same place.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":86,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":88,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":23},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":91},[92,95,99,103,108,113,118,123,128,131,135],{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":104,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]