Sunday afternoon at Wolven High was usually a time of quiet abandonment. Most students had returned home to their families, leaving the dormitory halls echoing with silence.
In Room 402, the curtains were drawn against the harsh afternoon sun.
Ren sat at her desk, her legs crossed comfortably on the chair. To her left lay a stack of high-level physics textbooks that Juan had forced upon her. To her right sat her laptop, a matte black machine that hummed with the quiet power of a jet engine.
On the screen, a green waveform spiked and dipped, visualizing an encrypted voice connection that was currently bouncing through servers in three different continents.
Ren adjusted her headset, her fingers tapping a rhythm on the desk. She pressed a key to activate her voice modulator.
"Boss," a male voice crackled through the earpiece. It was a voice filled with a mix of reverence and frustration. "You finally decided to come online?"
It was **Charlie**, the founder of **Agency 129**—the world's premier intelligence network. To the outside world, Agency 129 was a myth, a ghost story told among spies and politicians. But to Ren, it was just another part of her past.
"Speak," Ren said. The voice modulator deepened her tone, making her sound like a cold, middle-aged man. It was the voice of the **"Lone Wolf"**, the legendary investigator who had never failed a mission.
"I'm just checking if you've retired," Charlie complained. "Do you know how long you've been gone? One year and four months. The international intelligence market is going crazy. Yesterday, an oil tycoon from the Middle East offered a blank check just to get you to trace a missing shipment."
Ren picked up a pen and idly doodled a pig on the cover of her physics book. "I took a ten-million commission last week. I haven't retired."
"That was a one-off!" Charlie argued. "Are you back for good? When are you coming to the Capital? The Elders of the Alliance are getting restless."
Ren paused. She looked at the physics problem in front of her—a complex equation regarding Spirit Power particle collision.
"Not yet," Ren said slowly. "Next year."
"Next year?!" Charlie's voice rose an octave. "Why? Are you injured? Are you being hunted? I can send a extraction team—"
"No," Ren sighed, the sound distorted by the modulator. "I have to take an exam."
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line.
"An... exam?" Charlie sounded like he was choking. "What kind of exam? The Alpha Qualification Trial? The Grandmaster Duel?"
" The College Entrance Exam," Ren said flatly.
Dead silence.
If Charlie had been drinking water, he would have spat it out. The idea of the Lone Wolf—a figure who could destabilize governments and track down ghosts—sitting in a high school classroom, worrying about multiple-choice questions, was so absurd it broke his brain.
"You... you're joking," Charlie wheezed. "Please tell me you're joking."
"I need a legitimate identity," Ren said, her voice bored. "And I need money. Send the remaining payment from the last job to my secure account. Today."
"Fine," Charlie grumbled, still in shock. "But seriously... high school? You're a monster."
Ren cut the connection. The green waveform vanished, replaced by her desktop wallpaper.
She took off the headset and looked at the old, brick-like phone sitting on her desk. It buzzed with notifications from the underground world, but she ignored them. She picked up her pen and looked back at the physics book.
"Question 4: Calculate the velocity of a Beta wolf in freefall..."
Ren rolled her eyes. "Boring."
***
Meanwhile, the atmosphere outside the school gate was suffocating.
A sleek silver Porsche was parked under the shade of a large oak tree. It was a car that screamed old money and high status.
**Luna** (Pan Mingyue) stood by the car door, her head bowed. She was wearing her school uniform, which looked clean but worn around the cuffs. Her short hair hid her face, but her trembling hands gave away her fear.
The window rolled down, revealing a woman with perfectly coiffed hair and cold, sharp eyes.
It was **Madam Feng**, the wife of Luna's guardian and the matriarch of one of the city's most powerful families.
"Get in," Madam Feng said, her voice clipped.
Luna opened the door and slid into the back seat. The air conditioning inside was freezing, chilling the sweat on her back.
Madam Feng looked at Luna through the rearview mirror. Her gaze was dissecting, stripping away Luna's dignity layer by layer.
"I heard your teacher called," Madam Feng said. "She wanted your guardian to come for a meeting because your grades are fluctuating."
Luna gripped the fabric of her skirt. "I... I'm sorry, Auntie. I told her Uncle was busy."
"Don't call me Auntie," Madam Feng snapped. "Your uncle isn't here, so you can drop the act. We took you in because your parents died, not because we wanted a daughter."
Luna bit her lip, tasting blood. She stared at her shoes, unable to meet the woman's eyes.
"I'm warning you, Pan Mingyue," Madam Feng continued, her voice dripping with disdain. "Don't think that by acting pitiful at school, you can gain sympathy. And stay away from my son."
She was talking about **Feng Ci**, the heir to the Feng family. He had always been kind to Luna, treating her like a little sister, which only fueled Madam Feng's hatred.
"I know my place," Luna whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Good," Madam Feng said. "I will tell your uncle that you are doing fine and that the teacher was just overreacting. I don't want him wasting time on your problems. Now get out."
Luna scrambled out of the car.
The Porsche didn't wait for her to step onto the curb. It sped away, the tires kicking up a cloud of dust that coated Luna's shoes.
She stood there in the hot sun, feeling colder than she ever had in the winter.
***
Thirty minutes later, in a quiet alley behind the school cafeteria.
**Dr. Luke** was wandering aimlessly. He had escaped the infirmary while Juan was busy reading medical journals. The afternoon sun was hot, and he was looking for a vending machine.
As he turned a corner, he stopped.
In the shadow of a brick wall, a small figure was crouching on the ground.
It was a girl. She had her arms wrapped around her knees, her head buried in her arms. Her shoulders were shaking violently, but she wasn't making a sound. It was a silent, suffocating kind of crying that hurt just to watch.
Luke recognized the short hair. It was Ren's deskmate. The quiet one. The one who always looked like she was trying to disappear.
He hesitated. He was a wealthy playboy from the Capital; he wasn't good at dealing with crying girls. Usually, he just bought them bags until they stopped.
But this was Ren's friend.
Luke sighed, scratching the back of his head. He turned around and jogged to the milk tea shop across the street.
A few minutes later, he returned.
He walked up to the crouching girl and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey," Luke said softly.
Luna jumped. She looked up, her face wet with tears, her eyes red and swollen behind her thick glasses. When she saw Luke—the handsome, flashy doctor with the diamond earring—she panicked. She tried to stand up, but her legs were numb, and she stumbled.
Luke caught her arm, steadying her.
"Easy there," Luke said, his voice gentle. "I'm not going to eat you."
He held out a plastic cup. The condensation was cool against his hand.
"Here," Luke said. "It's full-sugar milk tea. Ren's favorite. I heard it cures sadness."
Luna stared at the cup. She looked at Luke's grinning face.
In the cutthroat world of Moon City, where status was everything, no one had ever bought her a drink. No one had ever looked at her with simple, unadulterated kindness.
She reached out with shaking hands and took the cup. The warmth of the tapioca pearls at the bottom seeped into her palms.
"Thank you," Luna whispered, her voice cracking.
Luke smiled. His gaze drifted down. He noticed that her school trousers were too short, exposing her ankles. The fabric was frayed at the hem.
*She's poor,* Luke realized. *Really poor.*
He felt a pang of sympathy. He reached out and ruffled her hair, messing up her bangs.
"Don't cry," Luke said. "If Ren finds out I saw you crying and didn't fix it, she'll beat me up. And she hits hard."
Luna managed a weak, watery smile. "She does."
"Go on," Luke nudged her towards the dorms. "Drink it before the ice melts."
Luna nodded. She turned and walked away, clutching the milk tea like it was a lifeline.
Luke watched her go, his smile fading. He lit a cigarette, leaning against the brick wall.
"This school," he muttered to himself, exhaling smoke. "It's full of hidden monsters and broken kids."
***
Back in Class 9, the afternoon physics class had just ended.
The room was empty except for a few students packing their bags.
**Xavier** (Xu Yaoguang) stood at Lily's desk, holding a test paper. His brow was furrowed so deeply it looked painful.
Lily was packing her bag, looking nervous. "Xavier? Can I have my paper back?"
Xavier didn't move. He pointed to the last question on the page—the one that no one else in the grade had solved.
"This solution," Xavier said, his voice intense. "You said Ren wrote it?"
"Yes," Lily squeaked. "I was crying because I couldn't do it, and she got annoyed. She grabbed my pen and scribbled it down in like, ten seconds. She said it was 'basic logic'."
Xavier stared at the handwriting. It was messy, sharp, and aggressive.
It used a theorem involving Spirit Power thermodynamics—something that wasn't taught until the second year of university. And she had applied it perfectly, skipping three steps of calculation because the answer was obvious to her.
He looked over at Ren's empty desk.
There was a piece of scratch paper left behind. He picked it up.
On it, amidst doodles of pigs and knives, was a single line of calculation.
*$E = mc^2 + \int...$*
It was the derivation for the formula used on the test.
Xavier felt a chill run down his spine.
He had always looked down on Ren. He thought she was a delinquent, a burden, a waste of space. But looking at this paper, he realized he had been wrong.
She wasn't stupid. She was terrifying.
"Faye," Xavier said to the girl waiting for him by the door.
Faye walked over, looking at the paper. "What is it? Did she cheat?"
"No," Xavier said quietly, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket. "She didn't cheat. She just... plays a different game than the rest of us."
Faye frowned, not understanding. But Xavier looked out the window, his mind racing.
Ren. The fighter. The artist. And now, the physicist.
Who exactly was she? And why was she hiding in the shadows of the Delta Stream?
**[Chapter 21 End]**