Chapter 4

Every eye in Class 12-A pinned itself to the floorboards as Lu Sicheng moved.

The air conditioning vents rattled overhead, a thin, metallic wheeze that only highlighted how violently quiet the room had become. Sicheng didn't stop until his knees brushed the edge of Xia’s desk. He didn't drop his blazer. He just stood there, towering over her, casting a thick, suffocating shadow that wiped out the morning sun bleeding through the window.

Xia didn't look up immediately. She kept her gaze anchored to her open notebook, her fingers tightly locking around the plastic casing of her mechanical pencil. But she could feel him. She could smell the cold, sharp tang of winter air and expensive tobacco smoke clinging to his clothes—a stark contrast to the humid, dumpling-steam scent that usually defined her mornings.

"Get up," Sicheng said.

His voice wasn't loud. It wasn't the arrogant, booming drawl he’d used the day before. It was low, flat, and raspy from a lack of sleep, vibrating with a quiet, dangerous weight that made the hairs on the back of Xia’s neck stand up.

Xia forced her shoulders back, her spine straightening against the hard plastic of her chair.

She finally lifted her chin, meeting his bloodshot, furious gaze. "Class is starting, Sicheng. Go to your seat."

A collective, silent gasp rippled through the front rows. Nobody used his first name without permission, and certainly nobody told him where to go.

Sicheng’s jaw clenched, a tiny muscle twitching beneath his porcelain skin. He leaned down, placing his free hand flat on her desk, right over her geography notes. His fingers were long, his knuckles pale, and his presence was so immense that Xia felt herself shrinking back an inch despite her best efforts.

"I said," he murmured, his face inches from hers, "get up. We’re going to the administration office. Now."

"Why?" Xia’s voice shook slightly, but she bit her inner cheek to steady it. "Because of a forum post? Because some anonymous kids on the internet laughed at you? I didn't write that post, Sicheng."

"I don't care who wrote it," he hissed, his dark eyes boring into hers with a raw, unadulterated venom.

"Your name is in the title. Your face is the reason my phone has been buzzing since four in the morning with texts from my father’s PR team. You brought this garbage into my space. You clean it up."

Before Xia could reply, Mr. Gao, the homeroom teacher, cleared his throat weakly from the podium. He looked terrified, his hands trembling as he adjusted his glasses, looking everywhere but at Sicheng.

"Uh, Monsieur Lu... Mademoiselle Lin... please, the morning bell has already rung. We need to take attendance—"

"Shut up, Gao," Sicheng snapped without even turning his head.

The teacher instantly dropped his eyes to his ledger, his mouth snapping shut like a clam. The absolute authority Sicheng held over the adults in this building was terrifying. It wasn't just money; it was the fact that one word from Sicheng’s father could end Mr. Gao’s career, pull his pension, and blackball him from every educational institution in the country.

Xia felt a sickening wave of heat rise to her face. The injustice of it was a physical weight, pressing down on her chest until her lungs burned. She looked at Mei, who was staring at Sicheng with a mixture of terror and pure disgust, her hand subtly reaching over to touch the hem of Xia’s sweater in a silent show of support.

Then, from the desk next to them, a quiet, smooth voice broke the tension.

"Leave her alone, Sicheng. You're making a scene."

Han didn't look up from his tablet. He was calmly scrolling through a page of medical diagrams, his face an unreadable mask of clinical indifference. But his words were distinct, cutting through the heavy silence of the room like a scalpel.

Sicheng’s head snapped toward him, his eyes narrowing into slits. "What did you say, Han?"

"I said you're making a scene," Han repeated, his tone entirely devoid of fear or urgency. He finally paused his scrolling, turning his grey eyes toward Sicheng. "The forum post was made from an IP address inside the senior residential lounge. It wasn't her. If your father's PR team is incompetent, take it out on them, not the scholarship student. It makes you look weak."

Weak. The word hung in the air like a live wire. Jin and Yan, who had been grinning from the back row, instantly stopped smiling. Jin’s fingers froze over his laptop keyboard, his posture straightening. To call a member of the Heimeng weak—especially the most powerful one—was a boundary no one crossed. Except another member of the Heimeng.

Sicheng let out a short, dangerous laugh. He straightened up, turning his full attention to Han. "Since when do you care about scholarship dregs, Han? Did her little speech yesterday touch your bleeding heart? Or are you just looking for an excuse to annoy me?"

"I don't care about her," Han said smoothly, closing his tablet and placing it neatly in his leather bag. "I care about the noise. Your voice is annoying, and I have an entrance exam review to finish. Go outside if you want to throw a tantrum."

For a second, Xia thought Sicheng was going to swing at him. The tension between the two boys was electric, a silent clash of two massive dynasties that could crush the entire school if they collided. But before the fuse could blow, the heavy oak doors of the classroom swung open.

Madame Vance stepped inside, her sharp heels clicking against the floor like gunfire. Her cold, French gaze swept over the room, instantly locking onto Sicheng standing over Xia’s desk.

"Monsieur Lu," she said, her voice a dangerous,

quiet purr. "Unless you have suddenly decided to retake the twelfth-grade curriculum from a different seating arrangement, I suggest you return to your corner. Now."

Sicheng didn't move for three long seconds. He kept his eyes locked on Han, then slowly shifted them back to Xia. The fury in his gaze hadn't dimmed, but it had hardened into something cold, calculated, and infinitely more terrifying.

"This isn't over," he whispered to Xia, his voice so low it was meant only for her.

He turned on his heel, his blazer swirling around him like a dark cloud, and walked back to his desk in the corner.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of anxiety that made Xia’s stomach churn. She couldn't focus on a single lecture. Every time a floorboard creaked or someone shifted in their seat behind her, she flinched, expecting Sicheng to move.

When the lunch bell finally rang at noon, the classroom emptied out with its usual frantic speed.

Mei immediately grabbed Xia’s arm, her face pale.

"Xia, we need to go to the old greenhouse during lunch," Mei whispered, pulling her toward the exit. "Nobody goes there anymore because the glass is cracked, but it’s the only place where the Heimeng’s lackeys won't be watching you. We need to talk."

Xia followed her down the winding corridors of the west wing, past the massive indoor swimming complex and the fencing salon, until they reached a forgotten courtyard at the very back of the campus.

The greenhouse was a beautiful, decaying structure of rusted iron and clouded glass panels, half-overgrown with wild ivy and dead ferns. Inside, the air was warm, smelling of damp earth and rotting leaves—a smell that felt incredibly honest compared to the sterile luxury of the main building.

Mei dropped her bag onto a broken wooden bench, turning to face Xia with an expression of pure panic. "You have no idea how bad that forum post is, Xia. Someone put a poll at the bottom of the thread. People are betting on how many days it will take for you to get expelled or drop out."

Xia sat down on the edge of a brick planter, her heavy legs feeling like lead. She looked down at her hands, her skin looking grey in the dull light filtering through the dirty glass. "I don't care about their bets, Mei. I just want to know if he can actually do it. Can he really cancel Ren’s contract? Can he really take away my scholarship?"

Mei sighed, a heavy, defeated sound that seemed to age her by ten years. She sat down next to Xia, her knees touching Xia’s soft thighs. "The scholarship? Yes. Lu Holdings provides forty percent of the school’s endowment fund. If Sicheng’s father makes one phone call to the principal, they’ll find a bureaucratic reason to revoke your merit status by tomorrow. They’ll say your application had a clerical error, or that your family’s income statement was inconsistent. They’ve done it before, Xia. Two years ago, a boy from the sports team talked back to Jin. He was gone within a week."

Xia felt a cold, numbing sensation creep into her fingertips. Her mother’s face from the morning—the flour on her apron, the tape on her shoes—flashed vividly in her mind. If the scholarship vanished, the shame would kill her mother. The financial ruin would be absolute.

"And Ren?" Xia asked, her voice dropping into a raw, hollow whisper.

Mei hesitated, her fingers twisting her pink idol pin.

"That’s... harder. Ren’s agency, Star-Light Entertainment, is a subsidiary of a massive conglomerate, but Lu Holdings owns the primary distribution rights for all their stadium tours and digital media in China. If Sicheng really wanted to be malicious, he couldn't cancel Ren’s contract directly, but he could block his promotions. He could make sure Ren’s music videos aren't pushed on the main streaming platforms. He could kill his career before it even starts."

Xia leaned her head back against the rusted iron frame of the greenhouse, closing her eyes. A single, hot tear escaped her lid, tracking slowly down her cheek.

It was so unfair. She had spent her entire life trying to be invisible, trying to take up less space, trying to survive the constant slights and the laughter about her weight and her clothes. She had worked until her eyes bled to get the highest score in the district, thinking that intelligence was a shield. But in this world, her brain was nothing compared to their gold.

"He's a monster," Xia whispered into the damp silence of the greenhouse. "He has everything. Why does he need to take the one little thing I have?"

"Because people like him don't see us as real people, Xia," Mei said softly, her voice heavy with a shared, quiet grief. "To them, we’re just... background characters. Props in their movie. When a prop starts talking back, they don't get angry because their feelings are hurt; they get angry because the prop is broken."

They sat there for the rest of the hour, not saying a word, just listening to the distant, lonely drip of water from a leaky valve somewhere in the foliage.

By 4:00 PM, the Shanghai sky had shifted from blue to an ugly, stagnant grey, the air turning heavy with the threat of another evening downpour.

Xia didn't wait for Mei after the final bell. She packed her things with frantic speed, wanting nothing more than to escape the building before Sicheng could corner her again. She practically ran down the main stairs, her old boots making a loud, heavy thud-thud against the marble that drew disgusted looks from the passing students.

She burst through the heavy iron gates, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps as she reached the main avenue. She didn't stop until she was three blocks away, past the luxury boutiques, entering a smaller, quieter side street that led toward the metro.

"Lin Xia."

The voice didn't come from behind her. It came from the shadows of a narrow alleyway between a high-end tea house and a closed gallery.

Xia froze, her heart leaping into her throat. She slowly turned her head.

Standing in the dim, grey light of the alley was Rui.

The hospitality heir. He was leaning against a concrete wall, his hands tucked into the pockets of his tailored school trousers, his eyes looking thoroughly exhausted as usual. But unlike the previous day, he wasn't yawning. His expression was sharp, cold, and entirely focused on her.

"What do you want?" Xia asked, her voice rising in defensive panic as she took a step backward toward the main sidewalk. "If Sicheng sent you—"

"Sicheng doesn't know I'm here," Rui interrupted, his voice a low, smooth monotone that sounded completely devoid of emotion. He stepped out of the shadows, his long legs crossing the distance between them until he was standing just two feet away. "And he’d probably be pissed if he found out.

But I don't like messy situations, and you're becoming a very large, very messy situation."

Xia’s jaw set, her protective walls slamming down instantly. "If you're here to make another comment about my size, you can save your breath. I’ve heard them all."

Rui blinked, a tiny flicker of something like surprise crossing his face before it vanished back into his usual boredom. "I don't care about your weight, Lin Xia. I care about the factories. My family owns three textile manufacturing plants in your mother's district. One word from me, and the local municipal board will zone that entire alleyway for redevelopment. Your mother's dumpling stall won't just be closed; it will be demolished by next Monday."

The world seemed to stop spinning. The sounds of the distant traffic, the wind in the trees, the hum of the city—everything vanished, replaced by a loud, high-pitched ringing in Xia’s ears.

Her breath left her in a sharp, agonizing gasp. She stared at Rui, her eyes wide with a pure, primal terror that she couldn't hide. "How... how do you know about the stall?"

"We know everything about the scholarship students before you're even allowed to sit in our classrooms," Rui said, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather. "We check your family’s debt, your mother's medical records, your residential history. We don't let unpredictable elements into Shengli without knowing exactly how to handle them if they cause trouble."

He stepped closer, his shadow completely enveloping her.

"Sicheng is volatile right now because his father is putting pressure on him about the succession," Rui continued, his eyes cold and unblinking. "He’s going to use you as a punching bag to vent his frustration. If you fight back like you did yesterday, you're going to escalate things until my family’s PR has to get involved. I don't want that hassle. So here is your choice, scholarship."

He reached into his pocket and dropped a small, heavy brass key onto the pavement at her feet. It landed with a dull, metallic clink against the wet stone.

"That's the key to the old archive room in the basement of the library," Rui said. "Sicheng’s private study lounge is directly above it. Every morning before class, he goes there to smoke and read the financial sheets. You are going to go there tomorrow morning at seven. You are going to apologize to him, on your knees, and you are going to let him record it so he can post it to the forum and clear his name."

Xia looked down at the brass key. It looked like an instrument of torture, dull and heavy in the grey light.

"And if I don't?" she whispered, her voice so thin it was barely a vibration in the air.

"Then tomorrow afternoon, the Putuo district enforcement team will clear out that alley," Rui said smoothly, turning around and walking back toward his waiting private towncar at the corner. "Choose wisely, Lin Xia. Your pride isn't worth your mother's house."

He got into the car, the heavy door shutting with a solid, expensive thud, leaving Xia alone in the darkening street.

The sky finally broke, and a heavy, icy downpour began to pelt the city. Xia didn't move. She stood there as the rainwater drenched her hair, soaked through her new white shirt, and pooled around her boots. She looked at the brass key on the ground, the water rushing over it, threatening to wash it down the storm drain.

Her chest heaved, a ragged, choking sob tearing its way out of her throat. She dropped to her knees in the middle of the wet sidewalk, her heavy frame shaking violently as she reached out with a trembling, muddy hand to grab the cold metal key.

She clutched it against her chest, her forehead pressing against the icy asphalt, weeping silently into the Shanghai rain while the neon lights of the skyscrapers bled across the puddles around her like open wounds.

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