_
Eleven forty-five PM.
Everyone was asleep, TheHouse quiet. City doing its city things outside the window.
Yun Jiao was cross legged on her bed with chips eating and chomping happily like a squirrel with the Liang Boshen file on her laps and a satisfied feeling in her chest.
"His third account got frozen an hour ago," Hawk reported.
"The investigators found the communication records connecting him to the Jiangnan case. He's not coming back from this one."
"Good." She turned a page.
"Also." A small pause. "Master. The messages."
She looked up from the file.
"You've been putting them off for three days," Hawk said. "Senior Sister Xuanxuan has now sent fourteen messages. Lu Jingxi sent nine. Scorpion sent four. Spotless Cheetah sent two very long ones that I think contain entire novels. And Viper sent one that is just—" another pause "—one that is just the word 'alive?' with a question mark."
Yun Jiao looked at the ceiling.
Her people.
Her ridiculous, terrifying, completely irreplaceable people.
"Play them," she said softly.
"Starting with Senior Sister?"
"Start with Dummy Head."
A beat.
"He'll be so pleased you asked for him first," Hawk said dryly.
"Don't tell him that."
The voice note played.
Lu Jingxi's voice — deep, slightly rough, the voice of a man who expressed care exclusively through complaints:
"Yun Jiao. It's been five years. FIVE YEARS. Do you know what that's like? I thought you were dead. I told Xuanxuan you were dead. She hit me. I had a bruise for a week. If you're alive you better explain yourself and if you're not alive then—" a pause "—then I don't know, rest well I guess. But you better be alive. Don't be dead. I'm serious."
Yun Jiao pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
"Next one," she managed.
The second message from Lu Jingxi:
"It's me again. Hawk responded and said you're fine. I don't believe Hawk. Hawk is loyal to you and will say whatever you tell him to say. Tell me yourself. Also Scorpion keeps asking about you and pretending he's not asking about you and it's exhausting. Just check in. One message. That's all I want."
"He sent nine of these," Hawk confirmed.
"Play Scorpion's."
Scorpion's voice was quiet and precise and had the quality of someone who measured every word before releasing it:
"Little Jiao. Five years is a long time. We assumed the worst. I'm glad the worst was wrong." A pause. "The organization is stable. We kept it running the way you built it. Whenever you're ready—" another pause, shorter, "—we're here. All of us. That doesn't change."
She sat still for a moment.The organisation she'd built from nothing at 13 years old. Her people. Still there. Still running. Still waiting.
"Xuanxuan," she said.
Hawk played it.
Ghost Empress Xuanxuan's voice came through like a small contained hurricane:
"YUN JIAO. I have sent thirteen messages. THIRTEEN. Hawk keeps telling me you're fine and I keep telling Hawk that fine is not good enough I need DETAILS. Where are you. What are you doing. Why did you disappear for five years without a word and then suddenly activate Hawk again out of nowhere like nothing happened—" a breath, "—are you eating. You never ate enough. Whatever you're doing right now I hope you're eating. Also if anyone has hurt you I will find them. That's not a threat, it's a scheduling notice. I will find them and I will clear my calendar to deal with it personally." A pause.Then, quieter:"Come back when you can. We miss you. I miss you. Don't tell the others I said that."
Yun Jiao sat very still and smiled.
Something moved through her chest.
Warm and aching and very full.
She hadn't let herself think about them too much since she came back. There hadn't been room. Too much to plan, too much to do, too much ground to cover before she could afford to feel anything that wasn't useful.
But hearing their voices—She exhaled slowly.
"Hawk," she said.
"Yes?"
"Send them all a voice note from me." She thought for a second. "Tell them I'm alive. I'm in Imperial Capital. I'm working on something and I can't explain yet but I will. Tell Dummy Head I heard he thought I was dead and that I'm disappointed in his faith. Tell Scorpion thank you for keeping things running. Tell Cheetah I'll read both novels later. Tell Viper yes, alive, question mark resolved." She paused. "And tell Senior Sister—"She stopped.
Thought about it."Tell her I'm eating," she said finally. "Tell her the chef here is incredible and I'm eating very well."
"That's all?"
"She'll understand."
A pause.
"Sending," Hawk said quietly.
Yun Jiao looked at the window.
The city outside. Dark and glittering and full of things that needed doing.
Yun Xiao in the eastern district sleeping in a dormitory bed right now. Healthy. Good marks.
Her people across the city and beyond it, still there, still waiting.
And in this house — Ruan Suyin recalibrating, Yunjinna stewing, Yunting running numbers, all of them circling around a girl they still thought they understood.She ate a chip.
Picked up the Liang Boshen file again.Next problem.
—
The next morning Yunting appeared at breakfast.This was unusual.
He normally took breakfast in his study. The family saw him at dinner and occasionally in the hallways and that was the extent of his domestic presence.
He sat down. Poured his own tea. Looked at the table.
Ruan Suyin appeared thirty seconds later, composed and unsurprised in the way she was always composed and unsurprised, because Ruan Suyin had made a decision years ago to never be visibly surprised by anything.
Yunjinna came down at eight looking like someone who had slept badly and was angry about it.
Yun Jiao was already at the table.
She had been there since seven thirty. She had eaten her braised pork and her congee and was now on her second cup of tea, reading something on her phone with the peaceful energy of someone who had slept beautifully and had no feelings about it.
Yunjinna sat down across from her.
Did not look at her.
Yun Jiao glanced up briefly. "Good morning, Sister."
"Morning," Yunjinna said. To the table.
Yunting set his teacup down.
"Jinhao University," he said. To no one in particular, the way he said most things. "Your enrollment has been approved. You start Monday."
Yun Jiao looked at him. "Thank you, Father."
Yunjinna looked at her congee.
"Same cohort as Yunjinna," he continued. "Business faculty. The paperwork is done."
He stood up.
Picked up his tea.
Walked out.
Breakfast continued.
Yunjinna stared at her congee.
Same cohort, she thought. Same faculty. Same building. Every single day.
She picked up her chopstick.
Put them down.
Picked them up again.
Yun Jiao sipped her tea and looked out the garden window at the koi pond where Tangerine was doing his morning laps and thought: Jinhao.
She'd been expecting this.
New school. New battlefield. Bigger stage.More faces to slap.
She was looking forward to it.
——
Sixi's office was on the forty-second floor of a building that didn't advertise whose building it was.The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows was the entire city — from the financial district on the left to the residential sprawl on the right, all of it spread out below like a map that belonged to him.
Most of it did, actually.
He stood at the window with his coffee and looked at the city and thought about a four-word message sent from an unknown number.
He won't be back.
He'd had his people trace the number.
Untraceable. Clean. The kind of clean that required either very expensive software or very specific knowledge.
From a seventeen year old girl in an orphanage.
His people had also, at his instruction, quietly compiled a file on the Yun household's new addition.
He looked at it now opened on his desk.Yun Jiao. Seventeen. Orphanage-raised. Biological daughter of Yun Ting, recently retrieved.
Academic record: exceptional. Top of cohort every year.Languages: English, Japanese, French, Russian.
Known associates: none listed.
He looked at the photograph.The one from the orphanage records. School uniform. Hair pulled back. Looking directly at the camera with large clear eyes that gave absolutely nothing away.
He looked at it for a moment.
Then his phone buzzed.
His assistant's voice: "Sir. Jinhao has confirmed a new enrollment. Yun Jiao, Business faculty, Monday intake."
He looked back at the window.
Jinhao University. The institution he owned ninety percent of and had never once set foot in. The one that bore his family's name on three buildings and his signature on every major policy decision and his complete, total, absolute indifference to its day-to-day operations.
He had never had a reason to care about a specific enrollment before.
He picked up his coffee.
Drank.
Set it down.
"Send me the full academic schedule for the Business faculty," he said.
His assistant paused.
Just briefly."...Of course, sir."
He looked at the city.
Somewhere out there a girl had sent him a four word message and fed her koi and gone to bed and was now apparently enrolling in his university on Monday.
The corner of his mouth curled up.
Monday, he thought.
Interesting.