The afternoon sun over the city of Jiangnan was a pale, watery gold, struggling to pierce through the thick humidity of the monsoon season. In the heart of the bustling commercial district, the "Emerald Plaza" stood as a temple of glass and steel, a place where the air-conditioning was so cold it felt like a physical weight against the skin.
Lin Xia adjusted the strap of her frayed backpack, her fingers tightening on the canvas. To any passerby, she was merely a scholarship student at Shengli University—someone who spent too many hours in the library, evidenced by her thick-rimmed glasses and the oversized hoodie that seemed to swallow her slight frame. But behind those lenses, her eyes were far from studious. They were predatory.
She was tracking a digital pulse in the room, her mind mapping wireless signals like a blueprint. As Nebula, she had detected a leak in the plaza's main server, but to the world, she was just a girl looking for a discount bookstore.
"Xia-Xia, slow down! My legs aren't as young as yours," her mother, Ye Wen, called out with a breathless laugh.
Ye Wen was carrying a small box of almond crisps from their neighborhood bakery. Her face was etched with the gentle fatigue of twenty years of labor—kneading dough, facing the heat of ovens, and keeping a roof over their heads. She looked remarkably out of place among the luxury boutiques, her simple cotton blouse a stark contrast to the designer silk surrounding them.
"Sorry, Mom. I'm just... thinking about a project," Xia replied, slowing her pace.
At that exact moment, the VIP entrance of the plaza hissed open. A woman stepped out, draped in a cashmere shawl that cost more than Xia's entire college tuition. This was Qin Lan. She moved with the diamond-hard brilliance of the elite, flanked by several bodyguards.
As Qin Lan walked toward the elevators, her designer heel caught on a slick patch of marble. She stumbled, her expensive leather handbag sliding across the floor—straight to the feet of Ye Wen.
Ye Wen instinctively reached down, picking up the bag and handing it back with a warm smile. "Careful, Madam. The floors are quite slippery when it rains."
Qin Lan took the bag, her "thank you" dying in her throat as her eyes met Ye Wen's. The bustling sounds of the mall faded into a dull hum. Two decades of silence crashed into the present.
"Wen... Ye Wen?" Qin Lan's voice was a fragile whisper.
Ye Wen's eyes widened, her breath hitching. "Lan? Is it... is it really you?"
The two women stood frozen, a bridge of forgotten memories forming between them. Lin Xia felt a sudden, sharp spike of intuition. Her gaze shifted to the young man who had just stepped out of the car behind Qin Lan.
He moved with a lethal, quiet grace. He wasn't wearing the gold-braided blazer of the elite; he wore a simple, charcoal-grey suit. His face was a study in cold, sharp angles—straight brows, a high bridge to his nose, and eyes that looked like frozen obsidian.
This was Gu Yanchen. To the university administration, he was a middle-class student who barely scraped by with a 50% passing mark—a "mediocre" ghost who stayed under the radar. But behind that mask of average grades was The Architect. He deliberately capped his own scores to the bare minimum to avoid being noticed by the powerful families who controlled the university's top tier.
"Mother?" Yanchen's voice was a deep, resonant baritone. He stepped beside Qin Lan, his gaze sweeping over Ye Wen and Lin Xia. It was analytical, cold, and entirely unreadable.
"Yanchen, look," Qin Lan cried. "This is her. This is the friend I told you about... the one I lost. And this... this must be Xia?"
Ye Wen nodded, pulling Lin Xia forward. "This is Xia. She's starting her second semester at Shengli".
Qin Lan gasped. "Shengli? Yanchen is there too! Oh, Wen, it's destiny. Do you remember the contract? The promise we made when they were still in their cradles?".
Lin Xia felt a cold chill. Contract? She looked at Gu Yanchen. He looked back, his expression one of bored indifference. To her, he looked like a failing student who didn't care about anything. To him, she looked like a typical, hardworking scholarship girl with no secrets.
"We can't talk here," Qin Lan insisted. "We are going to the Blue Lotus for dinner. Right now."
The Blue Lotus Restaurant - 8:00 PM
The private suite of the Blue Lotus smelled of sandalwood and aged matcha. Lin Xia sat stiffly in an off-white dress her mother had practically forced her into. Across from her sat Gu Yanchen. He hadn't said a word, sitting with his arms crossed, staring out the window as if he'd rather be anywhere else.
"The marriage contract," Yanchen finally spoke, his voice cutting through the mothers' chatter. "Mother, you're talking about an agreement made when the world was a different place. It's an archaic relic. Besides..." He glanced at Xia with a flicker of disdain. "Miss Lin is a top-tier student. Why would she want anything to do with a 'barely-passing' student like me?".
Lin Xia felt a spark of irritation. He's so unapologetic about being mediocre. "He's right, Auntie Qin," she said. "Marriage isn't something that can be decided by a piece of paper from twenty years ago. We are strangers".
Yanchen's eyes darkened for a split second, but the mask of the "lazy student" returned quickly. He leaned back, the intimidating scene coming not from his status, but from the sheer weight of his hidden intensity.
While the mothers were distracted, reminiscing about the "cruel man" (Xia's father) who had supposedly abandoned them, Xia felt a strange vibration in the air—a digital frequency she recognized. She looked at Yanchen's phone sitting on the table. It was an old model, nothing special.
She slipped her hand into her pocket, her fingers dancing across her own phone.
Command: Execute 'Shadow-Pulse'.
Under the table, a tiny, invisible signal went out to scan for hidden devices.
Gu Yanchen's fingers twitched on the table. He didn't look at her, but a slow, predatory smirk began to form in the corners of his mouth. He felt the ping. Someone is scanning the room, he thought. He looked at the "innocent" girl across from him, who was busy sipping her tea.
Impossible, he told himself. She's just a scholarship student. It must be the security in this building.
The Lin Villa - Midnight
Miles away, in a cold, marble-floored villa, another girl who looked remarkably like Lin Xia—though her eyes were hollowed by exhaustion—was being shoved into a dark storage room.
"Finish the hardware prototype, you brat!" Jiang Meili shrieked, her silk robe rustling. "My daughter Ruyu needs to present it tomorrow. If you fail, you'll see how cold this cellar can truly get."
The girl, Lin Yu, curled into a ball on the floor, clutching a circuit board to her chest. She looked at a faded photo hidden in her palm—a photo of a woman who looked like a baker.
The pulse of the city was beating. The Architect was hiding at the bottom of the class. Nebula was hiding at the top. And the Shadow Twin was waiting for the frequency to find her.