The Saturday morning sun filtered through the windows of Class 9, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Today was the parent-teacher conference, a day of judgment that every high school student dreaded.
The classroom was filled with chatter as parents squeezed into the small wooden desks their children usually occupied. Most were ordinary working-class Betas or Deltas, dressed in their Sunday best, looking anxious about their children's grades.
But in the back row, at the desk usually occupied by the class sleeper, sat a figure that seemed to suck the air out of the room.
**Alpha Juan** sat with his long legs cramped under the small desk. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt, the top button undone to reveal the sharp lines of his collarbones. He leaned back in the chair, spinning a black pen between his long, elegant fingers. His expression was one of bored detachment, a stark contrast to the nervous energy of the other parents.
"Is that Ren's brother?" a parent whispered to another.
"He looks like a movie star. Or a Warlord."
Next to him, **Lily's** father, a jovial man with a round face, leaned over. "Hey there! You must be Ren's brother? Or maybe her uncle?"
Juan stopped spinning the pen. He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes cool and unreadable. "Neither."
"Oh? Then you are..."
"I am not her relative," Juan said calmly. His voice was low, but it carried a natural authority that made Lily's father instantly sit up straighter and stop asking questions.
Just then, the mother of the student sitting in front of Ren stood up abruptly to greet the teacher. Her heavy purse swung backward, hitting the edge of Ren's desk hard.
*Crash.*
The desk tilted.
From the open compartment under the desk, a cascade of envelopes spilled out onto the floor.
They weren't homework assignments. They were letters. Pink letters, blue letters, white letters sealed with red heart stickers. Dozens of them. They spread across the floor like colorful confetti.
The classroom went silent.
Lily's father's eyes widened. "Wow! Ren is certainly... popular."
Juan stared at the mess on the floor. His eyes narrowed slightly.
He bent down, his movements graceful and fluid. He picked up a pink envelope. Then a blue one.
*To Ren, you are the goddess of my heart...*
*To the beautiful transfer student...*
Juan's expression didn't change, but the temperature around him seemed to drop ten degrees. He gathered the letters, one by one, into a neat stack.
Thirty-two letters.
Thirty-two boys who had a death wish.
He didn't put them back in the desk. Instead, he calmly opened his coat pocket and slid the entire stack inside.
Confiscated.
***
Outside in the hallway, **Vera** (Ren's mother) was passing by. She had just finished attending Faye's conference in the elite Class 1, where she had been showered with praise. She had intended to walk past Class 9 quickly, afraid of being associated with her "failure" of a daughter.
But as she glanced through the window, she froze.
She saw the man in the back row. Even through the glass, his aura was overwhelming. He sat there like a king on a throne, surrounded by commoners.
"Who is that?" Vera whispered, clutching her designer bag.
Beside her, a wealthy mother she knew gasped. "That... isn't that the young master from the Capital? The one who drives the modified military sedan?"
Vera's heart skipped a beat. She looked closer.
Then she saw **Joey**, the heir to the massive Qiao Corporation, walking into the classroom. Joey, who was usually arrogant and untouchable, walked up to Ren's desk with a bottle of water. He placed it down respectfully, saying something to the man with a grin.
Vera felt a wave of dizziness.
Why was the Qiao heir acting like a servant? And who was that man sitting in Ren's seat?
Ren had told her she had no one to come to the meeting. Vera had assumed Ren would be alone, humiliated. She never imagined Ren would have a backer who looked more powerful than anyone in the entire school.
***
An hour later, the conference ended.
Ren was waiting at the school gate. She wore her uniform hoodie, her hands in her pockets, looking bored as she kicked a pebble.
A black car pulled up. The window rolled down.
"Get in," Juan said.
Ren climbed into the passenger seat. The car smelled of winter cedar and faint tobacco.
"Where are we going?" Ren asked, buckling her seatbelt.
"Hospital," Juan replied. "You wanted to see your grandmother."
He drove smoothly, one hand on the steering wheel. Ren noticed a stack of colorful envelopes in the center console. She recognized them immediately.
"You stole my mail," Ren said, raising an eyebrow.
"I cleaned up trash," Juan corrected, not looking at her. "High school students should focus on studying. Romance is a distraction."
Ren snorted. "You sound like an old man."
Juan glanced at her. His eyes lingered on her profile—the stubborn jaw, the long eyelashes, and the way the sunlight hit her pale skin.
"I prepared something for you," Juan said, reaching into the back seat.
He handed her a heavy stack of books.
Ren took them. They were heavy. She looked at the titles.
*Advanced Quantum Mechanics.*
*The Theory of Spirit Resonance: A Mathematical Approach.*
*Global History of Alpha Tactics.*
These weren't high school textbooks. These were university-level academic journals and restricted military treatises.
"Mr. Gordon said you need to study," Juan said lazily. "But regular textbooks are too boring for you. Try these."
Ren looked at him, surprised. She had spent weeks pretending to be a poor student. She failed exams on purpose. She slept in class.
But Juan... he saw right through it. He didn't give her "Basic Math for Dummies." He gave her books that only a genius could understand.
"I don't need these," Ren muttered, trying to maintain her cover.
Juan leaned in closer. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached over to adjust the stack of books on her lap. His face was inches from hers.
Ren froze. She could see the individual lashes of his eyes. She could feel the warmth radiating from his chest.
"Ren," Juan whispered, his voice husky. "You have a mole right here."
He raised a finger, lightly tapping the corner of her eye.
"It's charming," he murmured. "But don't use it to charm boys at school. Use it to read these books."
He pulled back, a faint smirk playing on his lips.
Ren sat there, clutching the books, her heart beating a little faster than she liked.
"Tyrant," she whispered.
***
That evening, back in the empty dormitory.
Ren sat at her desk, the stack of advanced books pushed to the side. Her laptop was open, the screen glowing with lines of complex code.
She wasn't studying physics. She was logging into the Dark Web.
A secure voice channel opened.
"Boss! You're finally online!" A male voice crackled through her earpiece. It was **Charlie**, the head of the **129 Detective Agency**—the world's most elusive intelligence network.
"I need money," Ren said bluntly, her voice disguised by a digital filter.
"Money?" Charlie laughed. " The legendary **'Lone Wolf'** needs money? You haven't taken a commission in sixteen months. The international intelligence market is going crazy waiting for you. Are you finally coming back to the Capital?"
Ren spun a pen in her hand. "Not yet. I have things to do here."
"What things?" Charlie asked. "What could possibly be more important than a ten-million-dollar bounty?"
Ren looked at the physics textbook lying open on her bed.
"Exams," Ren said deadpan. "I have to take the College Entrance Exam."
There was a long silence on the other end.
"You... you're joking, right?" Charlie sputtered. "You? Taking a high school exam? That's like using a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito!"
"I need a legitimate identity," Ren said calmly. "Just find me a high-paying job that can be done remotely. And don't tell anyone I'm back."
"Fine, fine," Charlie sighed. "But seriously... high school? You're a monster."
Ren hung up. She looked at her laptop screen, then at the pile of love letters Juan had confiscated (which she had stolen back when he wasn't looking).
She tossed them into the trash can without opening a single one.
"Boring," she muttered.
***
Monday morning arrived with a vengeance.
The results of the city-wide mock Physics exam were released. It had been a brutal test. The final question was a complex problem involving fluid dynamics and Spirit Power calculations—something usually reserved for university entrance interviews.
In Class 9, the atmosphere was gloomy. Most students had left the last page completely blank.
**Xavier**, the Physics Representative, walked down the aisle handing out papers. His face was grim. Even he, the top student in the school, had only managed to solve half of the final question.
He stopped at **Lily's** desk.
Lily was Ren's deskmate—a timid, hardworking girl who usually scored average grades.
Xavier placed her paper on the desk. He didn't let go of it. He stared at her with intense, burning eyes.
"Lily," Xavier said, his voice serious. "This last question."
Lily looked up, terrified. "Did... did I get a zero?"
"No," Xavier said. "You got full marks. You used a formula derived from the third law of thermodynamics. It's not in our textbook. It's the only correct solution in the entire grade."
Lily blinked. She looked at the paper.
In the answer box for the final question, there was a scrawl of handwriting that was distinctly different from her own neat script. It was wild, sharp, and arrogant.
"Oh," Lily whispered, her face turning red. "That... I didn't do that."
"Who did?" Xavier demanded.
Lily pointed a shaking finger to her right.
Ren was sleeping on the desk, her head buried in her arms.
"I... I was crying because I couldn't solve it," Lily confessed. "Ren got annoyed by my sniffling. She grabbed my pen, scribbled something, and told me to shut up."
Xavier turned his gaze to Ren.
The class sleeper. The girl who got a 12 on the last test. The girl everyone thought was a delinquent.
She had solved the hardest physics problem of the year in ten seconds, just to make her deskmate stop crying?
Ren shifted in her sleep, sensing the stares. She sat up slowly, her hair messy, looking annoyed.
"What?" Ren snapped, looking at Xavier.
Xavier held up the paper. "This formula. Where did you learn it?"
Ren glanced at it with bored eyes.
"It's a free point question," she yawned, resting her chin on her hand. "Basic logic. Why are you making a fuss?"
Xavier felt like he had been punched in the gut. Basic logic? He had spent thirty minutes sweating over that problem.
He looked at Ren—really looked at her—and realized that the girl sitting in front of him wasn't a failure. She was a titan disguised as an ant. And she didn't care if anyone knew.
**[Chapter 20 End]**