——
Yunjinna was supposed to be asleep, but She was not.
She was lying in her bed in the dark staring at the ceiling and replaying the same forty-five seconds on a loop in her head.
Si Xi In that hallway.
She had heard about it from four different people before she even left school.
She had nodded and made the appropriate sounds and kept her face perfectly arranged and died a little more on the inside with every retelling.
Because she had been at Jinhao for three years.Three years.
She knew everyone. She was connected to everyone. She had built something real here — a reputation, a position, a network of people who respected her and deferred to her and looked to her when things needed to be navigated.
And Young Master Si Xi had never once—Not once—In three years—Given any indication that Jinhao University was anything more to him than a line item in a financial portfolio.
She had never seen him here.
She had never heard of him coming here.
She had never—One day.
ONE DAY.
That girl walks through the gate and he personally—Yunjinna pressed her pillow over her face.
Breathed.
Removed the pillow.
Stared at the ceiling.
She had seen photographs of Young Master Si Xi exactly twice. Both times at business events her father had attended. Both times in the background of images that were taken of other people because he did not permit himself to be photographed directly.
Even in the background.
Even at a distance.
Even in a photograph that wasn't meant to capture him—He was the kind of man that made everything else in the frame irrelevant.
Cold features. Dark eyes. The particular quality of someone who existed on a completely different level from the people around him and was completely indifferent to that fact.
The most terrifying man in the country.
By most measures the most powerful.
Rumoured to have done things that Yunjinna had heard about in pieces over the years — hushed conversations, carefully worded stories, the kind of information that passed between people who felt safer treating it like fiction.
Women didn't approach him.
Smart people didn't approach him.
Nobody approached him.
And Yun Jiao had nearly walked into him in a hallway on her first day and he had—Her jaw tightened.
She picked up her phone.
Called Chu Jintan.
He answered on the third ring, voice thick with interrupted sleep. "Jinna? It's past midnight—"
"Did you hear about what happened today," she said.
A pause. The sound of him sitting up. "The expulsion thing?"
"Yes."
"I heard." A pause. "Jinna it's fine, those girls got themselves expelled, that has nothing to do with—"
"He came himself," she said.
Silence.
"Si Xi," she said. "Young Master Si Xi came to Jinhao himself today. In person. And he walked into a bathroom on the third floor because that girl was in there and those girls were bothering her and he—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "He expelled five students. Same day. Because of her."
The silence on the other end of the phone was a different kind now.
"How?" Chu Jintan said. Carefully.
"I don't know how, I don't know why. She's been here ONE DAY, Jintan—"
"Okay." His voice was steady now, Calm. The steadiness of someone thinking fast behind a composed exterior. "Okay. That's — that's just a coincidence. He owns the school, maybe he was just—"
"He has never visited this school," Yunjinna said flatly. "Not once in three years. Not for anything. And he shows up the same day she does and personally involves himself in a minor student conflict that any administrator could have handled." She laughed. Short. Hollow. "Coincidence?"
Chu Jintan was quiet.Yunjinna looked at the ceiling.
"She did something," she said. "I don't know what. I don't know how. But she did something to get his attention and I need to know what it was."
On the other end of the phone—Chu Jintan said the right things.
Calm, Reassuring, It's probably nothing. Don't stress yourself. Get some sleep.
All the right things.
But after he hung up he sat on the edge of his bed in the dark for a long moment.
And thought about a girl he had seen for approximately four seconds in a hallway.
Small. Long dark hair. A face that had—He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.Thought about it.
Put it away.
Very deliberately.
Put it away.
He lay back down.
Closed his eyes.
It didn't help.
——
Yunjiao at Ten forty-five Pm sat near the Pond with the Moonlight and Chips in her hands and Hawk close to her.
"Okay so," she said, dragging her stick slowly through the water. "We have General Bao, Tangerine, Dumpling, Little Emperor, Sunrise, Noodle, Chopstick—"
"Master."
"—Lady Plum, Cloud, Pepper, Sesame—"
"Master."
"—Biscuit, Midnight, Snowflake, and the two new ones that I haven't named yet." She studied the pond. "I'm thinking Fortune and Joy."
A pause.
"Fortune and Joy," Hawk repeated.
"Yes."
"For fish."
"They're not just fish, Hawk. They're Tangerine's family. They deserve names with meaning."
Speechless...."Fortune and Joy are lovely names," Hawk said, in the tone of someone who had made peace with their life.
"Thank you." She dropped a chip near the edge. Tangerine appeared immediately.
"How was your day?"
"I don't have days, Master. I have operational periods."
"How was your operational period?"
"Eventful." A beat.
"Wei Xuan went home to a crying mother and a confused younger sibling. She's—" he paused, "—she's going to be a problem."
"I know."
"She's not like the others."
"I know." She watched Tangerine eat the chip with dedicated enthusiasm. "I'll handle it."
"How?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"I don't know yet," she said honestly. "But I'll figure it out."
Hawk hummed.
"Also," he said, "Ruan Suyin made a call at midnight. She's investigating your connection to Young Master Si Xi."
Yun Jiao raised an eyebrow.
"Good luck to her," she said.
"You're not worried?"
"There's nothing to find." She tilted her head. "Yet."
Yet, Hawk repeated.
She threw the last chip near the edge of the pond.
Fortune surfaced.
Then Joy.
She smiled.
"Good names," she told them.
They did not respond, being fish.
She didn't mind.
She sat by the pond in the moonlight with her empty chip bag and her stick and the soft sound of water and thought about tomorrow.
Tomorrow and the day after and all the days after that, each one a move on a board that was getting more interesting by the hour.
Wei Xuan. Ruan Suyin. Yunjinna. Chu Jintan somewhere in the background.
And somewhere across the city on a forty-second floor a man who had stood in a hallway for four seconds and was currently, she was fairly certain, not thinking about her wet eyes and puckered lips.
She looked at the moonlight on the water.
Felt something move through her chest.
Warm. Small. Quickly tucked away.
Not yet, she told herself.
One thing at a time.
She stood up.
Brushed off her knees.
"Good night, Fortune. Good night, Joy." She looked at the whole pond. "Good night everyone."
Tangerine surfaced one last time.
She took it as a response.
"Good night, Hawk," she said.
"Good night, Master." A soft pause. "You know—"
"Don't."
"I was just going to say—"
"Hawk."
"He stood still for four seconds—"
"HAWK !!!!" Sounding threatening
"I'm just saying it's statistically significant for a man who—"
"Good. Night. Hawk." With gritted teeth.
A pause.
"Good night," he said meekly.
She walked back to the house.
Behind her the pond was silver and still in the moonlight.
Seventeen koi sleeping peacefully.
Named. Dignified. Living their best lives.
She had given them that.
She smiled at nothing in particular.
Tomorrow, she thought.
Let's see what you've got.