Chapter 3

The exhaust fumes from the Bugatti lingered in the damp evening air, smelling of high-octane fuel and scorched rubber. Xia stood under the flickering amber glow of a streetlamp, her fists still clenched so tightly inside her pockets that her short fingernails bit into her palms.

The roar of Sicheng’s engine faded, swallowed completely by the relentless, multi-toned thrum of Shanghai’s rush hour traffic.

She stood there until the vibration in her chest stopped, replaced by a cold, hollow ache. The black VIP pass he had flaunted stayed burned behind her eyelids—a little plastic rectangle that represented a world where people's livelihoods, dreams, and careers were just small chips to be traded across a mahjong table when a billionaire grew restless.

"He's just an eighteen-year-old boy," she whispered to herself, her voice sounding small, thin, and entirely unconvincing against the backdrop of towering glass skyscrapers.

But he wasn't just a boy. That was the lie she had tried to tell herself in Madame Vance’s classroom. He was a system. A gilded, heavy weight designed to keep people like her exactly where they belonged: at the bottom, quiet, and grateful for the crumbs.

A sudden chill went through her as a gust of wind swept down the avenue, rattling the leaves of the plane trees overhead. Her uniform skirt, still damp from the morning's encounter and the rushed bathroom scrubbing, clung icily to her thighs. She shivered, pulling her blazer tighter around herself, and finally forced her feet to move toward the metro station.

The descent into the underground was a relief. The Line 2 station was a chaotic hive of normal people—office workers with their ties loosened, street food vendors carrying plastic crates, and university students hunched over their phones. Here, amidst the smell of fried scallion pancakes and cheap floor disinfectant, Xia could breathe again. Nobody looked at her size. Nobody cared about the slight smudge on her backpack or the fact that her shoes squeaked with every step. To the thousands of commuters rushing past, she was just another face, invisible and safe.

She found an empty metal seat on the platform, dropping heavily onto it. She pulled out her phone, her thumb automatically hovering over her chat app.

There was a notification from Mei.

Cloud_Nine_99: Did you make it to the station? Let me know when you're on the train! Also, look at this clip from Ren’s studio—his hair is dark blue for the comeback!! I’m losing my mind.

Xia stared at the text. A small, bittersweet smile tugged at the corner of her lips, but it vanished just as quickly. Sicheng’s threat echoed back in her ears: “I could have his contract cancelled by tomorrow morning. It just depends on how much you bore me.”

Was it an empty boast? Probably. Sicheng was a bully, and bullies loved to inflate their own shadows. But the terrifying part was that it could be true. Lu Holdings owned major stakes in almost every domestic entertainment conglomerate. To Sicheng, Ren was just a corporate asset, a line item on a balance sheet. To Xia, Ren was the only window that let any light into her small, suffocating room.

She typed a quick reply, her fingers moving slower than usual.

Summer_Day_Rain: Just got to the platform. Safe. The blue hair looks nice. I think I’m going to sleep early tonight, Mei. Pretty tired from the first day.

She didn't mention Sicheng. She couldn't bring herself to taint the one clean friendship she had just found with his toxic shadow.

The train arrived with a heavy gust of hot wind and a mechanical screech. Xia boarded, squeezing her way into a corner near the doors, letting the rhythmic rocking of the carriage numb her thoughts as the city slipped away beneath the dark earth.

The neighborhood where Xia lived didn't make it into any Shanghai tourism brochures.

Located deep in the older, residential pockets of the Putuo district, it was a maze of narrow, interlocking alleyways lined with low-rise concrete buildings from the late eighties. The air here didn't smell like Sicheng’s expensive cedarwood or the academy’s high-end wax; it smelled of damp concrete, drain water, roasting sweet potatoes, and the pungent, comforting steam of her mother’s dumpling stall.

Xia turned the corner into their alley, her boots treading over cracked asphalt. Up ahead, beneath a crude plastic awning held together with green tape, a single bare yellow bulb illuminated a massive steel steamer.

A woman with silver-streaked hair tied back in a messy bun stood over the pot, her face completely obscured by a thick cloud of white, dough-scented steam. She was waving a small cardboard fan, her shoulders hunched with a deep, permanent fatigue that she wore like a second skin.

"Ma," Xia called out, her voice softening instantly.

Her mother, Lin Sulan, turned around. When she saw Xia, the tense, exhausted lines around her eyes relaxed into a warm smile. She wiped her flour-dusted hands on her stained blue apron, reaching out to touch Xia’s arm.

"Xia-Xia! You're late. The school... it's very far, isn't it? Did the bus take a long time?"

"The metro was just crowded," Xia lied smoothly, dropping her bag onto the small wooden stool behind the counter. She looked at her mother’s face, noticing the deep purple shadows under her eyes, the way her fingers trembled slightly from the hours of pinching dough. "How was business today?"

"Good, good," Sulan said, though her voice lacked conviction. She turned back to the steamer, lifting the heavy wooden lid to reveal rows of plump, translucent pork dumplings. "Old Chen bought three dozen for his grandson's birthday. And the lady from the pharmacy took the rest of the vegetable buns. Here, eat. You look pale. Did they give you lunch at that fancy school?"

"They did," Xia lied again. The thought of the academy’s sprawling cafeteria, where girls used platinum cards to pay for small bowls of organic salad, made her stomach turn. "But I'm still hungry. I'll help you close up first."

"No, no, sit down," Sulan scolded gently, shoving a small porcelain bowl filled with steaming broth and three large dumplings into Xia’s hands. "You study hard. That's your only job. Leave the stall to me."

Xia sat on the low stool, the heat from the bowl warming her cold fingers. She took a bite, the savory, familiar taste filling her mouth. It was perfect. It tasted like home, like safety, like everything Lu Sicheng could never understand or buy with his banking legacy.

But as she chewed, her eyes fell on her mother’s shoes—a pair of cheap, worn-out plastic loafers with a split along the side, held together by a neat, desperate line of black electrical tape.

A sharp, physical pain bloomed behind Xia’s ribs.

This was the reality of her life. Her mother spent fourteen hours a day on her feet, breathing in hot grease and flour dust, just so Xia could wear a tailored blazer and sit in a classroom with five boys who treated the world like their personal playground. If Xia lost her scholarship—if she fought back too hard against Sicheng and he decided to use his family’s influence to pull her funding—this stall was all they had left.

“True strength is making yourself so unshakeable that their power doesn't matter at all.”

The words she had spoken so confidently to Madame Vance felt incredibly hollow now. It was easy to be philosophical when you were analyzing a fictional Frenchman from a nineteenth-century novel. It was a completely different thing when your mother’s livelihood was tied to the whims of a spoiled heir.

"Xia-Xia?" Sulan asked, noticing her daughter’s frozen stance. "Is something wrong with the filling? Is it too salty?"

Xia quickly shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat along with the food. "No, Ma. It’s perfect. It’s the best thing I’ve eaten all day."

Their apartment was a two-room unit on the fourth floor of a walk-up building where the concrete stairs were chipped and the handrails were sticky with layers of old green paint.

By midnight, the alley below had finally gone quiet, save for the occasional rumble of a delivery scooter or the distant, lonely wail of a stray cat.

Xia sat at her small, laminate desk in the corner of the main room. The only light came from a cheap desk lamp with a cracked plastic base, casting a stark, circular glow over her open geography textbook. The pages were still slightly buckled from the hazelnut coffee, the edges dried into stiff, wavy brown ridges that crinkled loudly whenever she turned them.

She couldn't focus on the tectonic plates. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the dark, heavy-lidded gaze of Sicheng looking down at her from his low-slung car, his voice a gravelly, careless whisper that cut deeper than any physical blow.

“Because you look at me like you think you're better than me. And nobody looks at me like that.”

Xia leaned back in her plastic chair, the metal legs groaning softly under her weight. She reached for her phone, opening her hidden gallery application.

She scrolled past her few photos of Shanghai parks and family dinners until she reached her saved folder for Ren. It was filled with official promotional shots, concept art, and high-resolution clips from his music videos. In one particular photo, he was looking directly at the camera, wearing a soft, oversized white sweater, his eyes wide, warm, and completely kind.

She stared at the image for a long time. It was a pathetic coping mechanism, and she knew it. She was a nineteen-year-old girl finding solace in a heavily manufactured celebrity image created by a massive entertainment engine.

But right now, she needed to believe that somewhere in the world, there was a boy who looked like that—someone who didn't use his appearance or his position to crush people into the dirt.

Her phone buzzed in her palm, making her jump.

It was an unknown number.

Xia’s brow furrowed. She rarely got calls or texts from anyone outside her mother and Mei. She tapped the notification with a hesitant thumb.

Unknown: The biology lab handkerchief is still on my desk. You forgot it.

Xia sat up straight, her heart doing a strange, irregular thud against her ribs. She stared at the message, her brain scrambling to process the words. The biology lab. It was Han.

The quiet one. The heir to the pharmaceutical legacy who had offered her the wipes and the linen cloth after Sicheng had ruined her bag.

How did he get her number? Then she remembered—the school database. Every student's contact profile was accessible through the internal student council roster, and as the top academic tier, the Heimeng basically had unrestricted access to the administration’s files.

She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the glass screen. She didn't want to reply. Engaging with any of them felt like stepping onto a minefield. But Han hadn't been cruel. He hadn't laughed. He had looked at Sicheng’s behavior with the same detached, weary disgust that she felt.

Slowly, she typed back.

Xia: You can throw it away. I don't need it.

She waited, expecting him to drop it or not reply at all. But three minutes later, the ellipsis appeared, dancing on the screen before solidifying into a new block of text.

Unknown: It’s an expensive linen. My mother has an obsession with specific thread counts. If I throw it away, she’ll notice. Bring it back tomorrow.

Xia : let out a dry, incredulous breath. These people were insane. They lived in an entirely different dimension of reality.

Xia: I didn't take it, Han. Look at your desk again. I left it there.

Unknown: I know. But I put it in your side pocket when you weren't looking before you left the classroom. Check your bag.

Xia’s head snapped toward her backpack, which was hanging from the back of her chair. She reached over, her hand diving into the small mesh pouch on the side where she usually kept her water bottle.

Her fingers brushed against something soft, smooth, and dry.

She pulled it out. It was a perfectly folded, square piece of high-grade white linen with a small, elegant monogram—'H'—embroidered in pale grey thread in the corner. It smelled faintly of clean eucalyptus and sterile lavender, completely different from the sticky vanilla scent she had used to mask the coffee.

He was telling the truth. He had slipped it into her bag while she was packing up her ruined things, completely undetected.

Xia stared at the cloth in her hand, a strange mix of confusion and irritation rising in her chest. Why would he do that? Was it some kind of joke? A setup for tomorrow’s amusement? Maybe Sicheng was sitting next to him right now, watching him type these messages, waiting for her to show some sign of weakness or gratitude so they could use it against her.

Xia: I'll return it tomorrow morning. Don't text this number again.

She didn't wait for a response. She blocked the number immediately, threw the phone onto her bed, and stared at the white linen handkerchief sitting on her scarred desk like an alien artifact.

The next morning, the Shanghai sky was a brilliant, unblemished blue, the previous day’s rain completely forgotten by the city.

Xia stood outside the gates of Shengli Academy, her uniform perfectly pressed, her hair pulled back into a neat, tight ponytail. She had spent an extra ten minutes in front of her mirror that morning, making sure her posture was straight, her shoulders square. She had to look like the girl who believed her own words about being unshakeable, even if her stomach was a knot of pure anxiety.

As she entered the main foyer, the morning rush of students was in full swing.

"Xia! Over here!"

Mei was waving frantic arms from near the grand marble staircase, her round glasses sliding down her nose as usual. When Xia reached her, Mei immediately grabbed her arm, her eyes wide behind her lenses.

"Have you seen the forum this morning?" Mei whispered, her voice trembling with excitement. "Someone leaked a thread about yesterday afternoon. The confrontation between you and Sicheng in the literature class? It’s literally the top trending post on the anonymous school board right now."

Xia’s blood ran cold. "What?"

"Look," Mei shoved her phone into Xia’s face.

The screen displayed a hidden campus forum thread titled: 'New Scholarship Girl directly calls out the King of Heimeng. Is she suicidal or a genius?' There were already over three hundred comments, mostly from students expressing absolute disbelief that a transfer student from the lower districts had dared to speak to Lu Sicheng with anything less than absolute reverence.

“She’s going to get expelled by Friday,” one comment read.

“Honestly, someone needed to say it. Sicheng’s tantrums are getting old,” read another, anonymous one.

“Look at her size though... she really thinks she’s a main character.”

Xia’s eyes lingered on that last comment. The familiar, dull ache of body-shaming hit her, but she forced herself to blink it away. She had bigger problems than internet trolls. If this thread was trending, it meant Sicheng had definitely seen it. And a boy who couldn't handle being looked at differently certainly wouldn't handle being the laughingstock of the school's digital board.

"Don't read the comments," Mei said quickly, pulling the phone back when she saw Xia’s expression stiffen. "They're just bored rich kids with nothing better to do. But you need to be careful today, Xia. Sicheng’s car isn't in the lot yet, but Jin and Yan are already upstairs, and they look like they’re waiting for a show."

"Let them wait," Xia said, her jaw tight as she started climbing the stairs. "I have a literature review to hand in."

When they reached Class 12-A, the atmosphere was completely different from the previous morning. The idle chatter died down the second Xia’s boots crossed the threshold. Several students looked at her with a new kind of curiosity—no longer just seeing her as a heavy, out-of-place charity case, but as a dangerous anomaly.

Xia walked straight toward the back row.

Han was already in his seat. He was wearing his uniform perfectly, his dark hair neatly combed, his expression as cool and clinical as a surgeon's before a procedure. He didn't look up when she approached, his eyes steady on a medical chart template on his tablet.

Xia stopped right in front of his desk. She reached into her blazer pocket, pulled out the folded white linen handkerchief, and set it down precisely on the corner of his notebook.

"Your mother's linen," Xia said, her voice quiet but firm enough for the surrounding rows to hear. "Thanks for the loan."

Han’s eyes slowly lifted from his screen. He looked at the handkerchief, then up at her face. There was a long, suspended silence between them, the kind of quiet that made the rest of the room feel incredibly far away.

"You blocked my number," Han said softly. It wasn't an accusation; it was just a statement of fact, delivered with that same calm, even tone.

"I don't keep numbers of people who don't belong in my life," Xia replied, turning on her heel to take her own seat next to Mei.

Before she could sit down, a shadow darkened the front doorway of the classroom.

The chatter in the hall outside vanished instantly, replaced by a tense, heavy weight that rolled into the room like a fog.

Lu Sicheng stepped through the door.

He wasn't wearing his school blazer today. He had it slung carelessly over one shoulder, held by a single finger, while his black silk shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the glint of a thin platinum chain against his throat. His silver hair was slightly disheveled, and his dark eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept at all.

He didn't look at the teacher who had just entered behind him. He didn't look at his friends in the corner.

His gaze locked onto Xia, and for the first time since she had met him, his eyes didn't contain any amusement at all. They were dark, intense, and filled with a cold, quiet fury that made the breath catch in her throat. He walked down the aisle toward her, his steps slow and deliberate, the heavy thud of his designer boots echoing like a countdown against the wooden floorboards.

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