In the sweltering heat, a petite girl got out of the dull, old, yellow taxi and stood before the heavy and gigantic iron gates of the school. Even from outside, one could guess the amount of money put into building and maintaining this fancy place.

Lush green gardens all around, a big gray marble fountain at the entrance and historical architecture of the school, equipped with the most modern facilities boasted the wealth of the owners as well as the people who attended this private school. It looked like a city in itself.

*A huge campus worthy of its fame indeed!*

This girl stood at the gate in awe for about thirty seconds to take everything in.

Since the new academic year was yet to start and it was so hot to begin with, no one was to be seen on campus grounds. She glanced at her watch and realized that she was late. She turned her head to look around and found a small post just beside the gate.

The post had a sliding window where a guard was sitting. She had already spotted him looking at her curiously from the corner of her eye. But as soon as she turned around, the man pretended to be busy in some work. She knocked on the window to ask him for directions.

The guard opened the window.

"Hello, my name is Mei Qingyang and I…"

Before she could utter anything else, the guard gave her a look of disdain. He then pointed to a small luxurious gray building inside the campus and said in a slightly high tone, "You! You are finally here? Madam has been waiting for your arrival."

He pressed a button and the small side gate opened up for her. He then looked at the clock adorning the wall at his side and imparted some more knowledge to her, "Five minutes more and I wouldn't have let you in. Since you're new, I am telling you beforehand. The school honors punctuality and discipline more than anything. If poor pests like you start disrupting madam's schedule like this, she won't have peace of mind ever. Do you have any idea how busy she is?"

Mei Qingyang bit her lip and scanned the guard from top to bottom with her big marble like green eyes that exuded coldness and apathy.

To her, this was not unexpected to be honest. She had long heard about this school at her home. And seeing that even the guard of the school was wearing clothes made of better material than the dress she was wearing now, she could tell that the guard was looking down upon her. And this green skater dress she was wearing was even one of the best she owned!

Because she was always told by everyone around her that she looked too cold and aloof, despite her best efforts to be more amiable, she had decided upon this green dress today to make a favorable impression on everyone.

Sure it was too hot right now, but the color and pattern definitely provided a contrast against all the yellow and orange trees whose leaves had started changing their color due to approaching fall season. She had thought that it would be a relief to anyone saturated with all the fall colors and perhaps put on a good first impression?

"What are you looking at? You still have time to linger around here? Why don't you just go inside?", the guard was getting a bit impatient with this lowly girl who was wasting his and his master's time without any purpose.

He also freaked out a bit after he got a frosty glare from this girl. *I need to report it to madam for sure.*

She thanked the guard politely for his help and headed towards the small building that the guard had pointed to earlier. Looking around, this office building was just on the right side of the big fountain. From outside, only shining glass walls were visible, guess it was easier to keep an eye on everything at front from here.

Although it seemed quite small compared to the tall buildings behind it, it had two floors and was the exclusive office of the owner of the school and her new boss, Yu Rong.

Yu Rong was the younger sister of Yu Ming, the third richest businessman in the M nation. They had established this school for the rich people to send their spoilt kids to have their way.

However, what this school was famous for was their charity. They had established a system where they provided free education from elementary to high school to the children at the other end of the spectrum; the poor kids.

These children were either orphaned or their parents could not afford raising them and thus, 'sold' them to this school in hopes for them to get some skills and get a job after graduation.

Everything was provided for these children including lodging and boarding. It was advertised as 'real life simulation of the society' for the kids. It showed everyone equal before education and how rich and poor mingled harmoniously.

The reality though, was far from the rosy picture portrayed. The poor children were basically recruited as servants to the rich kids. The admissions were taken till middle school to mold younger children easily into the servant mentality. They did all the menial work for the rich kids and thus, the gap between the skills was wide.

Furthermore, the campus also housed a college with degrees offered in humanities, sciences, management and engineering. But since, it was not free, only wealthy people could afford it.

The servants also did not retaliate because if they actually curried the favor of their masters, they would end up being permanently employed by their rich counterparts in their businesses, either as personal servants or some small employee in one of the businesses of their parents.

Getting admitted to this school was considered as the ticket to a stable job for the poor. Thus, everyone would bear the discrimination and humiliation quietly for a happier future.

This system obviously served the Yu family well since they were swimming in money. Large donations poured in from the wealthy parents when their children were happy. Of course those parents were aware of what was going on behind the scenes. They actually wanted their children to learn how to trample on insignificant lives and get their way in the world.

Furthermore, since the course was supposedly rigorous both during school and college, it was not unusual for kids who could not cope up with the stress to end up in hospitals or commit suicides. Any deaths or injuries related to bullying of poor by rich could easily be disguised as stress induced.

Most interestingly, the pairing of master-servant was almost always done with opposite gender, a guy would almost always have a girl servant and vice-versa, but largely depended on the master's preference.

The servants also had small rooms attached to their master's suite room. These suite rooms were equipped with 5-star hotel type of facilities. And the servants needed to stand-by in service of their owners 24*7.

Unfortunately, it took money to raise the poor kids for free, so one master usually had only one school sponsored servant. The ones who could afford multiple servants sponsored by their parents, had more.

There was a strict rule of bringing outsiders to the school when taking admissions, and so, if some wealthy kid took admission to the school later in life, they were only allowed to get servants from the school. They could not bring their trusted aides from their respective families.

Children of both the groups were taught since an early age to keep their mouths shut. The rich students who would take pity on the poor ones and try to stand up for them would be bullied as well.

"Hmph! Dad was right, everything on the outside looks impeccable!" Mei Qingyang muttered to herself as she looked around for any obvious signs of bullying.

The Ministry of Education of M nation had tried to investigate the school for they did not believe Yus' claims of happy and just society that they showed to everyone, but everything was in vain. Not only had they failed to reveal this school's true colors, they had even lost most of the people they had sent for investigations to various weird accidents.

The circumstances of those people's deaths were very suspicious, but police could never find out the culprits. Of course, the police force was all in cahoots with these people who basically ran the whole country.

This had frustrated the Ministry of Education a lot. Not that the ministers here were not sending their own kids to this school or that they did not side with these guys to begin with. But the current Education Minister of M country, Mr. Jiang Nuo was an honest man. He really wanted to open everyone's eyes about this much coveted school and their heinous system.

There were many spies of the school in the Ministry as well, because the employees also happened to be parents of kids studying there. They did not want their children's future to be affected by unnecessary meddling of their minister.

Mr. Jiang had tried very hard to keep his operations secret, going as far as sending his only son to the death door. But he did not know who to trust anymore. Even his closest friends in the Ministry ended up sabotaging all the work he had done. In the process, he ended up losing his son as well.

What was more frustrating was that the school was very good at producing prodigies. Despite all the shortcomings, the wealthy kids were very competitive and did pour their all into learning and getting ahead.

And thus, the school was not only famous at the home country, but internationally as well. It was another thing that they did not admit international students to keep their dirt within the country itself.

"I wonder if I will be able to see brother's room," she surmised by herself again.

While this frail looking Mei Qingyang with a small suitcase was walking towards the gray building, she was trying to spot any obvious signs of some kind of bullying. Though she could be content about this just being the beginning of her assignment, she only had one year for now. If she did not show any results, she would be called back. And another mission would result in failure. If she did not die before the end of the year that is..

Chapter 2

The Boss

Mei Qingyang walked towards the building, still exuding her heartless demeanor. She had not liked how that guard had behaved her just now.

She also knew the outcome of her meeting with Yu Rong beforehand. So she decided to not worry and be confident about it.

Five minutes late for that boss of hers did mean grounds for being expelled. But Yu Rong knew her background, so there were high chanced that her boss would want to keep her here longer. There was no way she would be expelled so soon.

But Qingyang could not fathom what was in store for her today. She had already been scolded by the guard from the get-go anyway, so she wasn't expecting this to be a good meeting either. So many thoughts ran through her mind in the five-minute walk from the gate to the building that it seemed like an eternity.

"Aaaah, why did there need to be so much traffic today?" she ruffled her hair in frustration.

As soon as she entered the building, she was greeted by a welcome sight, a very handsome and charming receptionist, Wang Hao. Of course, this is Yu Rong we are talking about. There is no way she wouldn't have given preference to the looks of the receptionist she had hired. Was he also a poor student back in his day, who came here to make a fortune?

Wang Hao was as visibly upset with her entrance as was the guard just now. He frowned at her and called his master right away.

"She is really busy and the time she had set aside for you just got over. You will have to wait for half an hour now to meet her." After talking to Yu Rong, he put down the phone and gave her a look which seemed to say serves you right.

"But I was just five minutes late because of…"

"See lady, my master is a busy person and perhaps, she only had a few instructions. That's why she took aside only five minutes for you. You have come from Ministry of Education, we would assume you are an intelligent person. Or do we need to provide you instructions from beginning to the end?", Wang Hao was now in the lecturing mode.

A glib tongue. If you want to say I am not important enough for her ten minutes even, just say so. Why beat around the bush?

But Wang Hao didn't seem to want to stop, "She had another appointment right after your meeting and now you will be eating up time from her resting time of the day. Her giving you that much importance that she is giving you another meeting slot should show you that you are in the position of responsibility here and should uphold your promises."

Okay, I take back my earlier conclusion. This guy is too straightforward.

"Okay, I will wait here then.", Mei Qingyang resigned to her fate. She decided to observe Wang Hao in the meantime, since her first target for any of the information on Yu Rong should be this guy. He seemed to be a meticulous personality, borderline OCD perhaps. In the half hour, he had received multiple documents from outside as well as from Yu Rong's office. He was processing them quite efficiently too. There were no visitors to Yu Rong's office though, it seemed like she was stalling her on purpose.

Ringing of telephone on Wang Hao's desk snapped Mei Qingyang from her thoughts. The moment of truth was near. As expected, it was a call for her.

"Ma'am wants to see you. I will take you to her office.", Wang Hao rushed her to Yu Rong's office. The whole building looked like a maze and it took passing through three different corridors, a small pond with kois in it, and a well-maintained bonsai garden before they reached her office.

Okay, this building did not look that big from the outside. I wonder what else is in here. But no matter what, Yu Rong's taste seems good.

They entered the office. The yellow lighting in her office was low on purpose. The lady's back was facing Mei Qingyang as she was looking outside her window. The aura around her was powerful, as a person who deals with biggest names on earth, but it was also very bone chilling. Mei Qingyang still could not tell how Yu Rong was going to react to her presence.

There was silence for first few seconds. When Qingyang saw that no one was initiating any conversation, she decided to introduce herself first. "Hi mam, my name is Mei Qingyang, your new superintendent. I am so sorry I was late, but the traffic was…."

Crash!! A flower vase flew just past Mei Qingyang's left ear before she completed her sentence and crashed into the wall behind her. Mei Qingyang did not flinch or react on this as she had heard about this lady's temper before. Her heart chilled to the core. Any respect she had for this lady evaporated in an instant.

It was a no-brainer that Yu Rong had acute acumen for running businesses. She was given charge of this school at the tender age of thirteen by her father as her older brother was mourning loss of his wife. From what Qingyang had heard, Yu Ming had drowned himself in alcohol after his wife of one year died after a mysterious illness that no doctor could understand. It took that guy full two years to recover from the loss.

On the other hand, Yu Rong took over half of the Yu business in those two years, that too, very adeptly. To have won such a faith from their father, despite being so young and a girl on the top of that, Yu Rong was a role model to many girls in the country as well as abroad. Qingyang never saw any of these top businessmen and women in good light but she still had immense respect for this particular lady, till now that is. Her eyes became frosty.

"You b*tch, just shut up. My head is already aching that some poor lass has come here to disrupt the peace we have had till now. On the first day itself you are tardy. What was that old man thinking? Just because he won the favor of our country's President , does he think he can do anything now, that he is invincible? He did not need to target our school first. Was he not satisfied with our performance for the past three years without any outsider to take this role?" She yelled at her in one breath without stopping while slowly turning her chair towards Mei Qingyang. The look in Qingyang's eyes sent down shiver Yu Rong's spine. She instantly lowered her gaze with thousands of thoughts in her mind..

Mei Qingyang was at a loss of words. Why would this lady take out her anger of my old man on me? If you have problems with that guy, why not talk to him directly, okay?

Yu Rong's facial features were still not very visible but her round spectacles were reflecting the light. One could also see how seductively she had dressed, a bright red shirt with top buttons open to show her cleavage and a tight black skirt. Bright red lipstick adorned her plump lips and a layer of heavy make-up was present on her face. If not for her voice and fame in the country, she could easily pass as someone in her mid-20s with an affinity for heavy make-up, of course.

"I am very sorry to make you worried about me." Mei Qingyang bowed down politely. It was not that she wanted to apologize. But she wanted to take advantage of the people influencing skills she had been developing for the past six years to make this person let her guard down. And perhaps deal with it with a little diplomacy. However, the sharp and cold look in her eyes betrayed her words.

Yu Rong flinched a bit seeing the dark expression on Mei Qingyang's face. It was very eerie and familiar, like evoking a past memory from somewhere. She just could not remember it but it was very heart trembling for her. Nonetheless, she masked her fear with absolute anger.

"Hmph! Who is worried about you? Are you even worth it? That old man taught you well huh? Twisting my words like anything. I am worried about getting infected with bad genes of yours. Who knows what origins you have? I, for one, am pretty sure that that old man only had one son. Now he claims that he has you as a daughter. Unless you are an illegitimate child, he cannot explain your existence. Why would he adopt someone for no reason otherwise? Perhaps, that's why he sent you here, to abandon you!", Yu Rong swirled her chair towards the window and started looking outside again as if keeping an eye on someone and to hide the fear she was feeling looking at this girl.

"Now get lost before I need to throw something else on you again. I don't want my office to be contaminated by your filth. Don't show me your face ever again." Without even swirling her chair back, she ordered her receptionist, "Wang Hao, you will deal with her from now on. Also, bring a disinfectant and air freshener here and clean up that broken vase. Take it out of her salary by the way."

Mei Qingyang bowed and left the room in a calm and composed manner. Although she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible for if she heard any more insults, especially about her dad, she would have ripped her mouth off. But, she also wanted to make sure that the lady knows that she was not affected much by her tantrums.

Wang Hao came out of the office as well. He stopped her and gave her some instructions with a stern face, "We have opened the room we have used for previous superintendents. You should be honored by the fact that you would be attending our college. This has never happened before and so, as an underprivileged student, you're getting way more than you deserve."

Wait wait wait! So, no words about what just happened inside? What if that vase had hit me? No apologies? No explanation? What does it mean? On the top of that, you are lecturing me again?

The receptionist took out a rusted key from one of the drawers that seemed to be full of old stuff and handed it to her without looking, "Here is the key to your room. Once you get out of here, turn right and keep walking straight. You will go to the tallest building there. Your room is in the basement of that building. Number is written on the key. You will have phone in your room as well. We will be in touch." After giving her some robotic instructions, he went away to Yu Rong's office without giving her even a slightest glance.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she came out of the building. She sat down on the stairs for ten minutes before strolling towards the place the receptionist had pointed her to. She was still trying to process what had happened earlier. Got scolded by two people, almost got killed by her new boss, what else was to come? She was still in a daze.

She also realized it had gotten hotter than earlier. Since she had just reached the building while lost in her thoughts, she checked her watch and realized it was already lunch time. The sun was over her head. And the building before her was humongous. It perhaps had around 30-40 floors. That many floors just for one of the hostels? She looked up to try to find the top of the building and got blinded by the blazing sun.

What she failed to notice was that a person was climbing down the stairs of this tall building and both of them bumped into each other. The collision was a bit strong and she fell down.

---------------------------------------------

"Did you see her? Did she not dodge that flower vase I threw?", Yu Rong had a glass of champagne in her hand.

"I did not see her moving from her original spot my lady.", Wang Hao did not want to tell her that her aim might have been wrong.

"What, do you want to tell me that my aim was off? I definitely directed it towards her head. Would have been great if I killed her then and there. Lucky bastard.", Yu Rong stood up from her chair and advanced towards Wang Hao slowly.

"My lady, that's not what I meant. I think you need to exercise caution with this girl. Today's move might have been a bit reckless. That old man claims she is his daughter after all."

"Hmph! I didn't spare his own son; do I need to even worry about this illegitimate girl?"

"No, my lady. I know your capabilities quite well. What I am saying is, Minister Jiang would not be so reckless to send another one of his own people if he did not have any tricks up his sleeves. We need to be cautious of this girl for now. Daughter or not, she definitely has some special identity. I have been trying to look into her but to no avail. She does not have any background at all, her history only starts four years ago for some reason." Wang Hao adjusted his spectacles while reporting all the information he had.

"Hmm… you are probably correct. I should have restrained myself, that was too direct. But I just can't stand filthy peasants.", Yu Rong fiddled with the Wang Hao's tie. "You would take care of her for me again, won't you Hao?", she whispered in his ears seductively.

"As you wish my lady.", Wang Hao embraced Yu Rong tightly and ravaged her lips like a hungry wolf..