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The garden was quiet when Yunjinna sat down.Too quiet.The kind of quiet that happened right before something.
Yun Jiao didn't look at her.
Just dragged her stick slowly through the pond water. Tangerine followed it faithfully.
"Nice night," Yunjinna said.
"Mm."
"The garden looks good."
"Mm."
A pause.
"The koi are—"
"Yunjinna." Yun Jiao pulled the stick out of the water. Set it down. Turned to look at her sister with wide, sweet, patient eyes. "You texted me at nine PM asking to talk alone." A small tilt of her head. "I don't think you came out here to discuss the koi."
Yunjinna looked at her.
Something shifted behind her eyes.
And just like that — the mask came off.
Not slowly. Not dramatically. Just — off. Like she had decided it was no longer worth the electricity. The warm sister, Gone.The gracious smile, Gone.
What was left was Yunjinna. The actual one. Cold eyes, set jaw, the face of a girl who had been a princess her whole life and had decided somewhere along the way that princesses didn't negotiate. They eliminated.
"Finally," Yun Jiao said pleasantly. "I was wondering when she'd show up."
Yunjinna's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"The real you." Yun Jiao smiled at her. Sweet as ever. Deadly as always. "The one behind all the sisterly warmth and the helpful smiles."
She tilted her head. "Honestly? Much prettier. The performance was getting a little tiring."
A muscle jumped in Yunjinna's jaw.
"You think this is funny," she said.
"I think," Yun Jiao said, picking up her lollipop and putting it in her mouth, "that you came out here with something to say. So say it." She looked at the pond. "I have koi to get back to."
Yunjinna stared at her. This girl. Three days. She had been in this house THREE days and she was sitting here in the moonlight talking about koi with the energy of someone who found the whole situation mildly amusing.
Her jaw tightened.
"You're drawing attention," she said flatly. "Si Xi. Feng Zichen. The whole school. Three days and everyone is talking about you."
"People talk," Yun Jiao said.
"Not about girls like you."
Yun Jiao turned to look at her.
"Girls like me," she repeated softly.
Yunjinna held her gaze.
"Orphanage girls," she said. Clean. Precise. Like a knife finding its mark. "Who show up with nothing and act like they own the room."
Yun Jiao looked at her for a long moment.Then she smiled.
"Sister," she said, "I've owned every room I've walked into since I learned how to walk." The smile stayed perfectly in place. "The orphanage part is just an origin story."
Yunjinna's eye twitched. "You think you're untouchable," she said.
"I think," Yun Jiao said, "that you didn't come out here to tell me I'm drawing attention. You already know I know that." She pulled the lollipop out of her mouth. Examined it. Put it back. "So what did you actually come to say?"
Silence.
The city hummed beyond the wall.
Tangerine surfaced. Looked at the situation and Sank back down with the wisdom of a fish who knew when to stay out of things.
Yunjinna looked at the pond.
"There's someone," she said. "Behind all of this. Behind mother. Behind Liang Boshen."
A pause. "Someone you don't know about."
Yun Jiao said nothing.
"Someone who has known about you for a very long time," Yunjinna continued. "Who wanted you found. Who wanted you here. And who wants something from you that has nothing to do with Liang Boshen." Her voice dropped slightly.
"Something connected to your mother."
The garden was very still.
"This person," she said, "does not play gently. And right now you are standing in a spotlight that makes you very. Very. Easy. To find." She let that land with gritted teeth Then looked at Yun Jiao directly.
"Stay away from Si Xi. Stop making yourself visible. Stop winning people over." Her voice was cold now. Certain. The voice of someone delivering a sentence. "Or I tell everyone what I know about what you really are. And I don't mean the orphanage."
She smiled, The real smile...The cold one.
"I know about the box, Jiao Jiao. The fingerprint locks. The cameras you set up on your first day." She leaned slightly forward.
"The men on the east road." A pause. "Both nights."
The moonlight sat on the water between them.
Yun Jiao looked at her.
Held the gaze.
One second.
Two.
Then she pulled the lollipop out of her mouth.
"Wow," she said.
Yunjinna blinked.
"Sister did her homework." Yun Jiao nodded slowly, with the expression of someone genuinely impressed by a child who had learned a new skill. "Very thorough. Really."
She tilted her head. "One question though."
"What," Yunjinna said.
"If you expose me—" she gestured between them, "—doesn't that expose you too?" A small smile. "Because the cameras you mentioned? Also recorded a certain someone planting a certain jade necklace in a certain wardrobe."
She put the lollipop back in her mouth. "And the men on the east road? Sent by a certain mother and daughter and who received some paybacks i.e your ugly nudes who are recorded on a certain encrypted server."
She blinked. "Four of them actually."
Yunjinna's smile stiffened.
"So," Yun Jiao continued pleasantly, "Sister wants to play the exposure game. Okay."
She spread her hands. "Ladies first."
The garden was absolutely silent.
Yunjinna looked at her.
Her chest was rising and falling slightly faster than before.
Her hands in her lap—Still. Forcibly still.
"You—" she started.
"The mysterious person," Yun Jiao said, cutting her off so smoothly it took Yunjinna a full second to register it had happened.
"The one behind everything." She looked at Yunjinna with clear, direct eyes. "Tell me their name."
"Why would I—"
"Because," Yun Jiao said softly, "you didn't come out here to warn me." She smiled. "You came out here to point me in a direction." She tilted her head. "So point."
Yunjinna stared at her.
Something moved through her expression.
Something complicated and quick and gone before it fully formed.
She had underestimated her. Again. Twice in one week.
Her jaw set. She said the name. Quietly. Into the dark garden. Into the space between them. One name.
Xue Lian.
And Yun Jiao—Smiled. Warmly. Sweetly.
The full performance back in place like it had never left.
"Thank you, Sister," she said. "Get some rest."
She turned back to the pond.
Picked up her stick.Tangerine surfaced immediately. Faithful as ever.
Behind her Yunjinna stood.
Smoothed her dress.
Looked at the back of Yun Jiao's head. Something in her eyes that wasn't quite satisfaction. Not quite uncertainty either. Something in between. She had planted the seed. Now she just had to watch it grow. Into a grave. She walked back to the house.
—The moment the door closed—Yun Jiao's stick stopped moving.
She sat very still. The pond in front of her. Moonlight on the water. Seventeen koi going about their peaceful lives completely unaware.
Xue Lian.
She knew that name.
She knew it the way you knew something that lived in the oldest, deepest, most locked-away part of your memory.
The part you didn't visit.
The part that visited you."Hawk," she said.
Very quiet.
"Here." He had been silent the whole time. Listening. Waiting.
"Xue Lian," she said.
A pause.
Longer than it should have been.
Much longer.
"Hawk"
"I heard you"
"Run it."
Another pause.
"Master." His voice was different. Careful in a way that made something in her chest go cold. "I already know that name."
She turned the stick in her fingers. Once."Tell me," she said.
"Xue Lian," Hawk said quietly, "was the head of the most dangerous intelligence network in the country fifteen years ago." A pause.
"She disappeared. Her organisation collapsed. Every record of her existence was wiped." Another pause. The longest one. "She was declared dead twelve years ago."
The garden, The moonlight. The water.
"Hawk,"
Yun Jiao said.
"Yes."
"My mother's name."
Silence. Complete. Devastating.
"Was Xue Lian," she finished.
Hawk said nothing. For the first time in her entire life—Hawk had nothing to say.
She sat by the pond. Tangerine surfaced near her feet. Looked at her. She looked back.
Her mother. Declared dead twelve years ago. Pulling strings from the shadows.The woman who was supposed to have died bringing her into the world—Was alive. Had been alive. And had been watching. This whole time.
She put the lollipop back in her mouth. Looked at the city lights beyond the estate walls.
"Find her," she said.
Her voice didn't shake. It never did.
"Already looking," Hawk whispered.