___
Yunjinna was in the third floor study room when they found her.
Alone. Books open. Headphones around her neck. The picture of someone who had spent the afternoon productively and peacefully and had absolutely no idea what had happened two floors below her.
She looked up when the door opened.
Saw the five of them.
Saw their faces.
Something moved in her eyes.
There. Gone.
"What happened?" she said.
Wei Xuan put the letter on the desk in front of her.
Yunjinna looked at it.
Read it.
Her expression moved through something complicated very quickly before settling back into careful concern.
"Expelled?" she said softly. "Oh no— girls, I'm so sorry, I had no idea—"
"We need you to fix it," one of the others said. Her voice was tight. "Sister Yunjinna, we were defending you. We did this because of you. You have to—"
"Of course, of course." Yunjinna stood. Came around the desk. Put a hand on the nearest girl's shoulder. "I'll talk to the Dean. I'll see what I can do. But—" she paused. Pressed her lips together. "I don't know how much influence I have with this. It came from — above the Dean."
"Young Master Si Xi," Wei Xuan said flatly.
A pause.
"I heard," Yunjinna said carefully.
"Why would he—" The crying girl wiped her face. "Why would he care? He doesn't know any of us. He doesn't know her. Why would he—"
"I don't know," Yunjinna said.
Her voice was gentle. Confused. Appropriately bewildered.
Her eyes were doing something different.
"I'll try to help," she continued. "But honestly—" she lowered her voice, like she was sharing something difficult, "—I think the problem might be that Yun Jiao reported it. Exaggerated it. You know how these things get twisted when someone wants sympathy—"
Wei Xuan looked at her.
"She didn't report anything," she said. "Young Master Si Xi walked in himself."
"Right, but before that—" Yunjinna's expression shifted. Something small. Something carefully helpless. "I'm not saying it's her fault. I'm just saying she has a way of — making things seem worse than they are. Making people feel sorry for her. You saw how she was at lunch today. How quickly she had everyone around her." A pause. "She's good at that."
The room was quiet.
Wei Xuan looked at her.
This girl.
This girl who they had defended.
Who they had gone to bathroom to confront someone on behalf of.
Who was now standing here with her carefully helpless expression and her gentle voice redirecting five expulsion letters toward a girl who had been sitting in a bathroom minding her own business.
Something cold moved through Wei Xuan's chest.
It settled there.
Permanent.
Solid.
"I see," she said quietly.
Yunjinna looked at her.
"Wei Xuan—"
"Thank you Sister Yunjinna," she said. "For your help."
She picked up the letter from the desk.
Walked out.
The others followed.
In the hallway outside Wei Xuan stopped walking.
Stood still.
The letter in her hand.
Five years of work.
Gone.
She looked at the floor.
Thought about a girl with long dark hair and wide soft eyes who had stood in a bathroom and looked at her with something that had made her step back without meaning to.
Thought about Yunjinna's carefully helpless expression.
Thought about the way the blame had been redirected so smoothly she almost hadn't caught it.
Almost.
She folded the letter.
Put it in her shoulder black bag.
Made herself a promise.
Quietly. Privately. In the particular way that promises made in hallways after everything has already fallen apart tended to be the ones that lasted.
Yun Jiao.
She didn't know what that girl was.
She didn't know why Young Master Si Xi had walked into a bathroom for her.
She didn't know any of it.
But she knew one thing.
Whatever game was being played in this school—She was going to find a way back in.
And when she did—She looked at the end of the hallway.
Yun Jiao, she thought.
You're going to regret the day you walked into Jinhao.
——
Yunjiao was in the garden at home at four forty-five, sitting by the koi pond, eating chips, telling Hawk about her day.
"And THEN," she said, "Sharp Bob actually stepped back. Did you see that? She stepped back without meaning to."
"I saw," Hawk said. "Through the bathroom camera."
"You hacked the bathroom camera."
"For security purposes."
"Hawk."
"You're welcome."
She ate a chip..
Tangerine surfaced near her feet hopefully.
She dropped a small piece of chip near the edge.
"Master," Hawk said. "The five girls were expelled."
She stopped chewing.
"Huh...Same day?" she asked.
"Same day. Effective immediately. Signed off by the Dean but—"
"Hmmm....Not the Dean's decision?"
"No."
She looked at the pond.
Thought about a man standing in a bathroom doorway.
Two words. Get out.
A voice that had come out slightly different from how it usually sounded.
She ate another chip."Hawk," she said.
"Yes?"
"Find me everything on Wei Xuan. The one in front."
"Already compiling." A pause. "She's not like the others, Master. Scholarship student. No family connections. Got here on grades alone."
Yun Jiao looked at the water.
"I know," she said quietly.
She'd seen it.
In that moment before the mask dropped — she'd seen exactly what kind of person Wei Xuan was. The kind who worked for things. The kind who felt things deeply. The kind who, once pointed in a direction, didn't stop.
Right now she was pointed at Yun Jiao.
Because Yunjinna had aimed her there.
Yun Jiao ate her last chip.
Folded the bag.
"This is going to get more complicated," she said.
"Yes," Hawk agreed.
"So troublesome" She stood up.
Brushed off her knees. Looked at the house. "Boring was never really my thing anyway."
She walked back inside.
Behind her Tangerine surfaced one more time.
Looked at the empty space where the chip had been.
Accepted his fate.
Sank back down.
—
Somewhere across the city, in an office on the forty-second floor, a man sat at his desk and read a one-line report from Lin Feng.
Five students expelled. Processed and confirmed.
He read it.
Set it aside.
Picked up his pen.
Went back to work.Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows the city sparkled.Inside, Si Xi worked.
And did not think about those wet eyes and puckered lips.
He absolutely did not.