Chapter 2

The biology lab hallway was colder than the rest of the school, smelling faintly of formaldehyde and old floor wax. Xia found the girls' bathroom at the very end of the corridor, past a row of locked glass cabinets displaying taxidermy birds with dust on their feathers.

The heavy oak door swung shut behind her, cutting off the low, distant hum of the academy.

Silence. Finally.

Xia dropped her dripping backpack onto the cold tile floor. The sound it made—a heavy, wet thud—sent a fresh pang of misery straight to her gut. She leaned against the marble sink basin, her hands gripping the edges so hard the cold stone bit into her palms. She didn't look in the mirror yet. She couldn't. She knew exactly what was waiting for her there: a red, puffy face, hair plastered to her skull by the Shanghai humidity, and a uniform that looked like a crime scene.

Instead, she unzipped the bag.

The smell of sweet, synthetic hazelnut coffee wafted out, thick and nauseating. It had pooled at the bottom, a muddy sludge that had completely soaked through her geography text and her assignment planner. But Xia didn't care about the books. Her fingers, still trembling, reached past the soggy pages into the small front pocket where she’d tucked the photocard sleeve.

She pulled it out. The wet cardboard bent limply in her hand.

Slowly, carefully, as if she were handling a fragile piece of ancient porcelain, she slid the card out of the sticky plastic. The damage was total. The bottom half of Ren’s face was gone, the crisp ink dissolved into an ugly, greyish-brown smudge. The pristine white background where his signature was printed had turned the color of ditch water.

A hot, heavy tear slipped from her chin, landing right on the ruined card. It didn't even matter anymore. It was already broken.

"Stupid," she whispered, her voice cracking in the empty room. "You're so stupid, Xia."

It wasn't just about the card. It was the fact that she had let Lu Sicheng see how much it mattered. In a place like Shengli, showing a vulnerability was like bleeding in a tank full of sharks. They didn't even need a reason to tear you apart; they just did it because they had the teeth for it.

She remembered her mother’s hands that morning, rough and calloused from decades of scrubbing stoves, gently smoothing down the collar of this very blazer. “You’re representing our family, Xia-Xia. Show them that people from the lower districts have pride too.”

Pride. What a joke. You couldn't eat pride, and it certainly didn't stop a billionaire’s sports car from splashing mud all over you.

Xia threw the ruined card into the metal trash bin beside the sink. The hollow clang echoed off the tiles, sounding devastatingly permanent. She turned on the tap, letting the icy water run over her sticky, coffee-stained fingers. She grabbed a handful of cheap brown paper towels and began to scrub at her shirt, but the friction only made the fabric fuzz, spreading the brown stain into a wider, uglier circle across her chest.

The door behind her creaked open.

Xia stiffened, her shoulders hunching instinctively as she prepared for another onslaught, another laugh, another snide comment from a girl with a five-figure allowance.

But when she looked up into the mirror, she saw Zhou Mei standing there, her thick glasses slightly fogged up from the humidity, holding a large paper bag from the school convenience store.

Mei didn't say anything at first. She just walked over, set the bag on the counter, and leaned against the sink next to Xia. Her dark braids were a little messy now, and she looked genuinely pissed off.

"I went back to the room and saw the coffee on the floor," Mei said, her voice dropping into that familiar, sharp whisper. "Han told me what happened. Well, he didn't tell me, he just pointed at the trash can and said Sicheng’s hand 'slipped' again. That absolute piece of human garbage."

Xia kept her eyes on the running water. "It's fine."

"It's not fine, Xia," Mei said softly, her tone shifting from angry to surprisingly gentle. She reached into the paper bag and pulled out a fresh, crisp white school blouse, still wrapped in its original plastic packaging, along with a container of wet wipes.

"Here. I guessed your size. The school store sells replacements for the kids who get dirt on themselves during equestrian practice. Take it."

Xia looked at the shirt, then at Mei. The kindness felt weird. It felt heavy in a different way, making her throat tighten even more than Sicheng’s cruelty had. "I can't pay you back for this right now. My mom... we don't have the budget for extra uniforms."

"Who said anything about paying me back?" Mei rolled her eyes, shoving the shirt into Xia’s hands.

"We're Cloud_Nine_99 and Summer_Day_Rain, remember? We translate five-page interviews about Ren’s favorite color at three in the morning. We're practically family. Now go change before the bell rings. Literature class with Madame Vance is brutal, and she’ll give you a detention if you look like a slob."

A small, shaky breath escaped Xia’s lips. She looked down at the plastic wrapper. "Thank you."

"Don't sweat it. Just... leave the bag here. I’ll dump the coffee water out of it and wipe down your books while you change in the stall."

Ten minutes later, Xia emerged. The new shirt fitted better—it was a size larger, giving her breathing room—and she had managed to wash the dried mud off her skirt, even if the fabric was still damp. Mei had done a minor miracle with her backpack, using half a pack of wet wipes to clean the canvas until it just smelled faintly of artificial vanilla instead of hazelnut sludge.

As they walked down the hallway toward the literature wing, the afternoon sun finally broke through the heavy Shanghai clouds, casting long, dramatic shadows through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"The thing you have to understand about the Heimeng," Mei said as they navigated the crowded stairs, "is that they aren't just rich. Rich is normal here. The girl who sits in front of us, her dad owns a major supermarket chain, and she’s nobody. The Heimeng are different. They're dynasties."

"I don't care what they are," Xia muttered, keeping her eyes fixed on the back of Mei’s head. "I just want them to leave me alone."

"Sicheng won't," Mei warned, her voice dropping as they passed a group of senior girls wearing identical designer bracelets. "He’s the worst of them because he’s bored. His dad is the chairman of Lu Holdings—they basically own the land this school is built on, plus half the financial district. Sicheng has never had anyone say 'no' to him in his entire life. When you called him pathetic today? You basically handed him a challenge."

Xia’s jaw set. "He is pathetic."

They reached Class 12-A just as the second bell rang. The classroom was full now, the heavy scent of expensive perfumes and expensive colognes mingling with the air conditioning.

As Xia stepped through the door, she felt the immediate shift in temperature. Not the physical air, but the atmosphere.

In the back corner, the five boys were in their usual formation. Jin was leaning back in his chair, his laptop open to what looked like a luxury yacht broker website. Yan and Rui were talking in low tones about a weekend party in Macau. Han was still reading, his glasses sliding slightly down his nose.

And Sicheng was watching the door.

When his eyes found Xia, they flicked down to her clean, white shirt. His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, a slow, lazy grin creeping back onto his face.

He didn't look angry that she had insulted him; he looked amused that she had managed to fix herself up so quickly. He leaned over, whispered something to Jin, and Jin let out a loud, barking laugh that made several students turn around.

Xia didn't look away this time. She held his gaze as she walked down the aisle, her heart thumping a steady, angry rhythm against her ribs. She sat down at her desk, pulled out her slightly damp literature notebook, and set her pencil down with a sharp click.

I'm not leaving, she thought, staring straight ahead at the blackboard. You can ruin my clothes and you can ruin my things, but you're not going to chase me out of here.

Madame Vance was a sharp-featured woman from Toulouse who had lived in Shanghai for twenty years and possessed an absolute intolerance for teenage apathy. She spent the first forty minutes of the class dissecting a passage from The Count of Monte Cristo, her voice slicing through the room like a scalpel.

"The theme of vengeance," Madame Vance said, pacing between the rows of desks, her high heels clicking rhythmically against the floor. "It is not merely about anger. It is about a calculated, mathematical rebalancing of scales. Edmond Dantès does not simply strike his enemies; he studies them. He learns what they love, and he uses it to dismantle them."

She stopped right next to Xia’s desk. Xia kept her eyes on her notes, writing down every word.

"Monsieur Lu," Madame Vance called out suddenly, not even turning around to face the back row. "Since you've spent the last ten minutes staring out the window, perhaps you can enlighten us. Is Dantès justified in his obsession, or is he simply becoming the very monsters he seeks to destroy?"

A low silence settled over the room.

Xia could hear the faint rustle of fabric as Sicheng shifted in his seat behind her.

"He's justified," Sicheng said, his voice a casual, deeper drawl that carried effortlessly across the room. "The people who took everything from him thought they were untouchable because of their titles and their gold. If you don't break them completely, they just wait until your back is turned to do it again. Mercy is just a weakness people use when they're too afraid to finish the job."

The words felt personal. The air in the room grew tight, vibrating with an unspoken tension that Madame Vance seemed to observe with a small, clinical nod.

"An absolute perspective, Monsieur Lu," the teacher said, her sharp eyes flicking from Sicheng to Xia, then back again. "But what about the cost to one's own soul? Mademoiselle Lin. You are our new addition. What is your perspective on Dantès' journey?"

Xia’s hand froze over her notebook. She felt thirty pairs of eyes slide toward her, heavy and judging.

She swallowed the dryness in her throat and turned slightly in her seat, just enough to catch Sicheng’s reflection in the dark glass of the window beside her. He was leaning forward now, his chin resting on his hand, his dark eyes fixed on her with a mocking, expectant look. He wanted her to stutter. He wanted her to look like the poor, terrified scholarship girl who didn't belong in his world.

"I think Sicheng is wrong," Xia said clearly, her voice steady.

A collective intake of breath rustled through the classroom. Even Han looked up from his textbook, his quiet, grey eyes focusing on her with a sudden spark of interest.

"Oh?" Madame Vance raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

"Dantès didn't fail because he lacked mercy," Xia said, looking directly at the teacher, refusing to look back at the boys behind her. "He failed because he let his enemies define his entire existence. By spending every second of his life trying to crush them, he let them win. He remained their prisoner even after he escaped the Chateau d'If. True strength isn't about breaking someone else just because you have the power to do it. That's just... a tantrum. True strength is making yourself so unshakeable that their power doesn't matter at all."

The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the realization that the new girl had just used a classic literature lesson to throw a direct punch at the school’s most untouchable heir.

Madame Vance let out a small, rare smile that didn't reach her eyes but showed her approval. "A very philosophical approach, Mademoiselle Lin. Focus on self-possession rather than destruction. Let us hope you can maintain that philosophy."

When the bell finally rang at 4:30 PM, signaling the end of the school day, the room cleared out with frantic speed. The wealthy students of Shengli had drivers to meet, tennis lessons to attend, and elite clubs to frequent.

Mei packed her things quickly, leaning over to Xia. "That was incredible. Did you see his face? He looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon. But seriously, be careful going home. Don't linger around the gates."

"I'll be fine," Xia said, offering a genuine smile. "Go on, I know your driver is waiting."

"Text me when you get to the metro, okay? I want to double-check the translation for Ren's new video teaser tonight anyway."

After Mei left, Xia took her time. Her uniform skirt was still slightly damp, and her books were heavy. By the time she stepped out of the main building, the grand courtyard was mostly empty. The rain had stopped, leaving the grand fountain in the center bubbling quietly beneath a sky that had turned a pale, bruised violet.

She walked through the iron gates, her old shoes squeaking slightly on the wet pavement. The metro station was a ten-minute walk down the main avenue, past luxury boutiques and high-end residential towers that looked like silver needles piercing the clouds.

She had only gone two blocks when she heard the slow, heavy purr of an engine behind her.

Xia didn't turn around. She kept her eyes on the grey sidewalk, her pace steady. But the car didn't speed past. It crawled along the curb, matching her steps exactly.

The passenger window of the black Bugatti rolled down with a smooth, mechanical hiss.

"You have a big mouth for a charity case," Sicheng’s voice drifted out from the luxurious leather interior. He was driving slowly, one hand on the steering wheel, his silver hair catching the reflection of the streetlamps that were just starting to flicker to life.

Xia stopped walking. She turned her head, her face expressionless as she looked down into the low-slung sports car. "Do you have a tracking device on me, or are you just naturally this obsessed?"

Sicheng stopped the car completely, the engine idling with a deep, vibrating rumble that she could feel through the soles of her shoes. He leaned across the passenger seat, his dark eyes narrowing as he studied her face. The lazy, mocking smile was gone, replaced by something sharper, something raw and dangerous.

"Obsessed?" He let out a short, dry laugh that sounded entirely devoid of mirth. "Don't flatter yourself, fat girl. I just wanted to see how long that 'unshakeable' philosophy of yours lasts when reality hits you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sleek black card—an ultra-exclusive VIP pass to the upcoming Shanghai Star-Light Gala, an event where China’s top entertainment figures, including Ren, were scheduled to appear. It was the kind of ticket that money couldn't buy; you had to inherit the right name to get through the door.

He held it between two fingers, letting it catch the light right in front of her.

"You like that little idol boy, right?" Sicheng murmured, his voice dropping into that low, cruel register that made her skin crawl. "My family’s company is the main sponsor for his agency. I could have him standing in front of you in five minutes.

Or... I could make sure his contract is cancelled by tomorrow morning. It just depends on how much you bore me."

Xia felt a cold drop of sweat trace down her spine. The utter unfairness of it hit her like a physical blow to the chest. This boy didn't just have money; he had the power to casually alter the lives of people he didn't even know, just to prove a point to a girl he despised.

Her breath came short and shallow, the old familiar weight of her own helplessness pressing down on her lungs. She looked at the card, then at his beautiful, cruel face.

"Why do you hate me so much?" she asked, her voice dropping into a quiet, raw whisper that she couldn't hide. "I don't even know you. I’ve done nothing to you."

Sicheng stared at her, his hand holding the card freezing in mid-air. For a fraction of a second, his expression shifted, his eyes flicking over her pale face, her trembling lower lip, and the fierce, desperate pride that she was trying so hard to hold onto despite everything.

The silence stretched between them, loud and heavy over the idling roar of the engine.

Then, he pulled his hand back, tossing the card carelessly onto the leather dashboard.

"Because you look at me like you think you're better than me," Sicheng said, his voice completely flat, devoid of any mockery now. "And nobody looks at me like that."

Before she could answer, he slammed his foot on the accelerator. The Bugatti roared to life, its tires screeching against the wet asphalt as it shot forward into the Shanghai traffic, disappearing into the sea of red taillights and bleeding neon, leaving Xia standing alone on the corner, her fingers curled tightly into fists inside her pockets.

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