The silence in the Great Auditorium of Wolven High was absolute, a heavy blanket that smothered the breathing of two thousand students. All eyes were glued to the massive LED screen hanging above the stage, where the judges' final scores were being tabulated.
The judges, a panel of stern-faced foreign language experts and senior teachers, were whispering amongst themselves. They looked shell-shocked. They had come expecting broken grammar and memorized essays, but **Ren** had just delivered a performance that belonged on a West End stage in London, not a high school gymnasium in Moon City.
Finally, the numbers flashed onto the screen.
**Class 1 - Faye: 9.65**
**Class 9 - Ren: 9.90**
For a heartbeat, no one moved. A score of 9.90 was unheard of. It was essentially perfect, a statistical anomaly in the history of the school.
Then, the back of the auditorium exploded.
"YEAH!!!"
**Joey** leaped onto his chair, pumping his fist in the air like he had just won the lottery. "Did you see that?! Class 9 owns this school! Ren is the queen!"
**Lily** screamed, grabbing the arm of the student next to her. "We won! We actually won! Look at that score! It's a slaughter!"
The Class 9 section turned into a riot of cheers and whistles. The teachers tried to maintain order, but it was useless. The underdogs had bitten back, and they had bitten hard.
In the front row, the students of Class 1 sat in stunned silence. They looked at the screen, then at the empty stage where Ren had stood, then at **Faye**.
Faye was frozen. She stared at the numbers, her face draining of all color until she looked like a wax statue.
9.65 was a brilliant score. In any other year, it would have been a landslide victory. But against 9.90? It was a humiliation. It was a declaration that her best effort, her sleepless nights, her expensive tutors, and her carefully crafted persona were nothing compared to Ren's casual, lazy talent.
Ren, the victor, was currently sitting in the corner of the backstage area, putting her headphones back on.
"Ren! You won!" Lily came running backstage, breathless and flushed. "Did you see the score? You got a 9.90! You beat Faye!"
Ren looked up, her expression mild. She adjusted her windbreaker. "Is it over? Can I go now?"
Lily blinked, her excitement hitting a wall of indifference. "Ren... do you not realize what you just did? You destroyed them. You're a legend."
"I'm hungry," Ren said, standing up. "And I have to take my medicine."
She walked past the celebrating students, past the shocked teachers, and headed for the exit. To her, the applause meant nothing. The score meant nothing. It was just a task completed, a transaction of five points for a few minutes of her time.
***
Outside the auditorium, the sun was beginning to set, casting long, golden shadows across the campus.
Faye walked out, surrounded by her friends, but she felt completely alone. The whispers followed her.
*"I can't believe Faye lost."*
*"Ren's accent was insane. Did you hear it? It sounded like the Queen."*
*"Maybe Faye isn't the genius we thought she was."*
Tears stung Faye's eyes. She bit her lip until it tasted of iron.
"Faye!"
**Vera** rushed over, pushing through the crowd of students. Her face was flushed, but not with the pride Faye had expected. It was flushed with anxiety.
"Mom," Faye whispered, her voice trembling. "I lost."
Vera immediately pulled Faye into a hug, shielding her from the prying eyes of the other students.
"It's okay, honey, it's okay," Vera soothed, stroking Faye's hair. "You didn't lose. You were magnificent. Everyone knows you worked the hardest."
"But the score..." Faye sobbed into Vera's shoulder. "Ren got a 9.90."
Vera stiffened. She looked over Faye's shoulder and saw Ren walking towards the school gate, alone, her hands in her pockets.
"Don't worry about her," Vera whispered, her voice hardening. "Ren... she just got lucky. Those foreign judges probably just liked her strange accent. It's a trick, Faye. It's not real talent. You have the grades, the violin, the discipline. Ren has nothing but smoke and mirrors."
Ren, who was passing by a few meters away, didn't stop. But her steps faltered for a fraction of a second.
She had excellent hearing. She heard every word.
*Lucky. A trick. Smoke and mirrors.*
A small, cold smile touched Ren's lips. She didn't look back. She didn't confront them. She just kept walking. She had expected nothing from Vera, and yet, the blatant bias still managed to leave a bitter taste in her mouth. In Vera's world, Faye was the princess who needed protecting, and Ren was the wild animal that needed to be tamed or dismissed.
***
"Ren."
A voice called out, sharp and authoritative.
Ren stopped near the school gates. She looked up to see **Xavier** standing in her path. The setting sun illuminated his handsome face, highlighting the deep furrow between his brows.
Xavier was the Student Council President, the top scholar, the boy every girl in school dreamed of. But right now, he looked confused.
"Move," Ren said, her voice flat.
"Your accent," Xavier said, ignoring her command. "That was Received Pronunciation. Upper-class British English. You can't learn that from watching TV shows. The intonation, the rhythm... it requires years of immersion."
He stepped closer, his eyes searching her face.
"Faye said you grew up in the countryside," Xavier continued. "She said you never went to private schools. So tell me, Ren. Where did you learn to speak like that?"
Ren looked at him, her dark eyes bored. "Are you writing a biography? I'm not interested."
"And the physics problem," Xavier pressed on, his voice dropping lower. "The last question on the mock exam. The one involving angular momentum and variable mass systems. You solved it."
Ren sighed. She shifted her weight to her other leg. "I told you, I guessed."
"You didn't guess," Xavier said intensely. "I saw your notebook. The one you gave to Lily. The handwriting was different, but the logic... the way you broke down the equations... that wasn't a guess. That was university-level physics."
He was getting too close to the truth. Xavier wasn't like the other students; he was sharp. He noticed things.
Ren smirked, a dangerous glint entering her eyes. She took a step forward, invading his personal space, forcing him to step back.
"Student Xavier," Ren drawled, her voice dropping to a mockery of his serious tone. "Instead of obsessing over my accent or my lucky guesses, maybe you should focus on your own studies. I heard you couldn't solve that physics problem yourself?"
Xavier froze. His cheeks flushed slightly.
"It's a simple derivation," Ren whispered, leaning in. "If you can't see the solution, maybe you aren't as smart as everyone thinks."
She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, then walked past him, leaving him standing there, stunned and humiliated.
Simple?
She called that problem simple?
Xavier turned around, watching her retreating back. His mind was reeling. Who was she? A delinquent? A genius? A liar? Or something else entirely?
***
Outside the school gates, the traffic was heavy with parents picking up their children. Luxury cars and taxis jostled for space.
But one car stood out.
It was a black sedan, sleek and menacing, parked in a no-parking zone. The windows were tinted dark, but the engine purred with a restrained power that spoke of serious engineering.
Ren walked straight to it.
The passenger door opened from the inside.
Inside, **Alpha Juan** sat in the driver's seat. He was wearing a casual grey shirt, his sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. He had a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, giving him a deceivingly scholarly look.
"Get in," Juan said, not looking up from the file he was reading.
Ren slid into the seat and buckled her seatbelt. The air conditioning was cool, a relief from the humid evening.
"How was the contest?" Juan asked, closing the file and tossing it into the back seat.
"Boring," Ren said, pulling a lollipop from her pocket. "I got first place. It was a waste of time."
Juan chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. He reached over and tapped her right hand, checking the bandage. "Did you hit anyone?"
"No," Ren said. "I was a good student today. I just read a speech."
"Good," Juan started the car. "I'm taking you to dinner. **Luke** found a new place that serves medicinal soup. It's supposed to be good for bone healing."
Ren groaned. "Soup again? Can't we just have burgers?"
"No," Juan said simply, pulling the car out into traffic. "Burgers don't fix tendons."
From the sidewalk, Xavier watched the scene unfold.
He had followed Ren to the gate, his curiosity getting the better of him. He saw her get into the car. He saw the man in the driver's seat—a man who radiated an aura of danger even from a distance.
And then, he saw the license plate.
**Capital V-00001.**
Red lettering on a white background.
Xavier's breath hitched in his throat. He had lived in the Capital for a few years with his grandfather. He knew what that plate meant.
It didn't belong to a businessman. It didn't belong to a celebrity.
It belonged to the inner circle of the Capital's military and political elite.
"That plate..." Xavier whispered, his hands turning cold. "The Cheng Family?"
The Cheng Family was a legend, a myth spoken of in hushed tones. They were the uncrowned kings of the Capital. If Ren was associated with them...
Xavier thought back to Vera's dismissal of Ren, to Faye's arrogance, to the school's rumors about a "Sugar Daddy."
They were all blind.
They were laughing at a sleeping dragon, thinking it was a stray cat.
As the black car disappeared around the corner, Xavier realized that the hierarchy of Wolven High—and perhaps Moon City itself—was about to be shattered by the girl everyone had underestimated.
**[Chapter 35 End]**