The lecture hall was a mausoleum.
Xiao Yan knelt in the dust of her own shattered crown, surrounded by twenty gold bars no one dared touch.
Phones recorded everything in 4K.
Within minutes the clip would have a hundred million views and the title:
"Ice Goddess begs broke classmate for forgiveness after he drops half a billion in gold."
She didn't care.
She saw only the empty doorway Lin Feng had walked through.
Lin Feng didn't look back.
He slid into the back row of Advanced Capital Theory exactly on time, legs crossed, expression bored.
Professor Zhang was mid-lecture, smug as ever.
"…and that, class, is why real-time liquidity prediction is mathematically impossible. Any questions before I humiliate you with the mid-term?"
Lin Feng raised one finger.
Every head turned like he'd pulled a trigger.
Professor Zhang smirked. "Yes, new transfer student?"
Lin Feng stood. Walked to the front. Took the marker without asking.
Ten seconds later the old equation was gone.
In its place, a single line of perfect, murderous elegance:
Mₚ = Σ (Hᵢ × Ω) / (Eₛₛₛ × τ⁻¹)
He capped the marker.
"Translation: markets aren't math. Markets are fear and greed wearing a suit.
Hᵢ = human decisions.
Ω = observer weight (i.e., what I decide to do with a few trillion).
Eₛₛₛ = existential override constant (me).
τ = time, which bends when I get impatient.
Your model failed because it forgot one variable: a god just walked into the room."
He dropped the marker. It bounced once.
Dead silence.
Professor Zhang stared at the board, face cycling through red, white, and finally grey.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Sat down hard.
Xiao Yan chose that exact moment to burst through the side door, eyes wild, mascara tracks like war paint.
She didn't walk.
She ran.
Dropped to her knees in front of the entire auditorium and wrapped both arms around his leg like a drowning woman clutching driftwood.
"Lin Feng, please! I was wrong! I'll do anything; be anything; slave, mistress, pet; just don't leave me outside your world!"
Five hundred phones angled for the money shot.
Lin Feng looked down at her the way a surgeon looks at a tumour he's already decided to remove.
"Three years ago you told me to 'stop wasting your time, poor trash.'
Remember?"
She nodded frantically, tears splashing on his shoes.
"I remember every syllable," he said softly. "Stand up. You're embarrassing the floor."
She obeyed instantly, trembling.
Before she could speak again, a voice cut through from the front row.
Wang Chao.
Student Body President. Heir to Wang Construction Group. Campus Alpha since freshman year.
He stood, laughing the laugh of someone who'd never lost.
"Touching performance, really. But buying gold and scribbling nonsense doesn't make you king, transfer student. Some of us built our names. Others just rent them."
He flicked his wrist; the Rolex glinted.
Lin Feng smiled for the first time all day.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Wang Construction Group. Current market cap 4.7 billion RMB. Give me eight seconds."
He didn't take out his phone.
He didn't need to.
DING! (audible only to him)
Omnipresent Digital Dominion + Infinite Wallet → hostile takeover protocol.
The live stock ticker on every phone in the room went berserk.
WCG ▲ 18 % … ▲ 47 % … ▲ 89 % … LIMIT UP
BREAKING: Phoenix Legacy Investment acquires 51.3 % controlling stake
Chairman Wang Lei was removed effective immediately
Board dissolved
New chairman: Lin Feng
Wang Chao's phone slipped from his hand and shattered on the marble.
His legs followed a second later.
Lin Feng crouched, eye-level with the former prince.
"Eight seconds. New personal record."
He patted Wang Chao's cheek; gentle, almost affectionate.
"Tomorrow you start as my driver. The Rolls needs someone who understands what it feels like to fall. Uniform will be provided. Don't be late."
Then he straightened and looked at Xiao Yan.
Her pupils were blown wide; fear, lust, worship; impossible to separate.
Lin Feng brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve.
"You want in? Fine.
Position available: personal secretary and campus liaison.
Salary: whatever I feel like paying you.
Contract term: until I get bored or you disappoint me; whichever comes first.
First assignment; clean up your mascara and spread the word.
This university has a new owner.
Kneel again and the offer disappears forever."
Xiao Yan dropped to her knees so fast her kneecaps cracked against the floor.
"Yes, Master."
The word echoed.
Five hundred students heard it.
None of them laughed.
Lin Feng walked out.
Behind him, the former Ice Goddess crawled after him on all fours, gold bars forgotten, pride cremated, already rehearsing how to please the man who had just ended two dynasties before lunch.
DING!
[Volume 1 – Campus Arc] Complete
Rewards:
- Title "Campus Sovereign" (all students below Hidden Clan level instinctively submit)
- Xiao Yan loyalty locked at 100 (broken → devout)
- Wang Chao enmity → enslaved
- Malice absorbed: +0.8 % toward Devil Evolution
Remaining rental time:
99 years, 364 days, 12 hours, 03 minutes…
Lin Feng stepped into the sunlight.
Next stop: the Hidden Clans who thought "ancient martial arts" made them special.
He was going to enjoy disappointing them.