The atmosphere inside the Lane family's Bentley was suffocating. The leather seats, usually a symbol of comfort and status, felt like a prison cell to Faye.
She sat in the corner, clutching the crumpled silver invitation in her hand. Her eyes were red and swollen, her meticulously applied makeup smeared across her cheeks. The sound of Master Wei's voice echoed in her mind like a curse: *"You play like a typewriter. No soul."*
And worse than the criticism was the comparison. *"A young friend of mine helped me tune my violin... The sound of her tuning had more soul than your entire performance."*
Faye knew who that friend was. She had seen Ren walk into the VVIP room. She had seen the way the security guards bowed. The humiliation burned in her chest, a mixture of shame and disbelief that threatened to consume her entirely.
"Stop crying," Madam Vivian said sharply, breaking the silence. She was massaging her temples, her face set in a hard line. As a woman who had navigated the treacherous waters of Capital society for decades, she refused to be sunk by a single evening.
"But Aunt Vivian..." Faye sobbed. "He didn't choose me. And Ren... she was back there. She touched the Dolphin Stradivarius. How can she be better than me? She's just a dropout from the countryside!"
"Faye, listen to me," Vivian said, her voice cold and calculating. "You are panicking, so you are missing the truth."
Faye looked up, sniffing. "What truth?"
"Did Ren play a song?" Vivian asked, her eyes narrowing. "Master Wei said she 'plucked the strings' and 'twisted the pegs'. He said she tuned it."
Vera, who had been sitting in stunned silence, suddenly perked up. "Tuned it?"
"Exactly," Vivian sneered. "There is a condition called 'Absolute Pitch'. It's a genetic quirk. Some people are born with it. It means they can identify notes perfectly. Blind tuners often have it. But does that make them musicians? No. It makes them technicians."
Vera's eyes widened, the fog of fear lifting. "So... you're saying she's just a worker?"
"Of course," Vivian said with conviction, constructing a reality that saved their pride. "Master Wei is eccentric. He values his instruments above people. He keeps Ren around because she is a useful tool, like a high-quality screwdriver. She tunes his violin so he can play. That is why she was in the VVIP room—service staff always use the back entrance."
Vera let out a long breath, a smile returning to her face. "I knew it! I knew there was no way she learned the violin in that mud-hole village. She's just a laborer!"
"Don't lower yourself to compete with a screwdriver," Vivian said, patting Faye's hand. "You are a performer. You stand in the spotlight. Ren stands in the dark, getting her hands dirty with rosin and dust. That is the difference between a lady and a servant."
Faye's breathing steadied. The logic was comforting. It made sense. Ren was just a tool. A useful, perhaps talented, tool. But a tool nonetheless.
"I understand, Aunt Vivian," Faye said, wiping her tears. Her eyes hardened. "I won't let a tuner affect me. The speech contest is tomorrow. I will show everyone who the real genius is. Grades don't lie."
***
By the next morning at Wolven High, the rumor mill had already churned out the Lane family's version of events.
*"Did you hear? Faye wasn't chosen, but Master Wei praised her technique."*
*"What about Ren? Someone said she was in the VVIP area."*
*"Yeah, as a worker. My aunt knows the Lane family. Apparently, Ren has perfect pitch and works as a tuner for the orchestra. She was there to move equipment and tune instruments."*
*"Oh, that makes sense. She needs money, right? Tuning pays okay for manual labor."*
The students nodded, accepting this explanation. It fit their worldview. Ren was poor; Ren was rough; Ren was a worker. Faye was rich; Faye was elegant; Faye was an artist.
Ren, the subject of these whispers, naturally didn't care. She skipped the morning assembly and headed straight for her sanctuary.
***
The school infirmary was warm and smelled faintly of disinfectant and... braised pork?
Luke was sitting on the edge of a desk, aggressively chewing on a spare rib while scrolling through his phone.
"Boss!" Luke shouted, spraying a bit of sauce. "Look at this! The school forum is full of idiots! They're saying Ren is a 'blue-collar worker' who 'fixed' Master Wei's violin like a plumber fixes a toilet! The Lane family's PR is insane!"
At the window desk, Juan sat in his white coat, reading a medical journal. He looked like a painting of a scholar—calm, refined, and utterly unbothered.
"Let them dream," Juan said, turning a page without looking up. "The higher they build their castle of lies, the louder it crashes when reality hits. Waking up is always painful."
The door creaked open.
Ren walked in. She looked exhausted. Her hair was messy, her eyes half-closed. She didn't say a word. She just walked over to the sofa, dropped her backpack on the floor, and collapsed into the cushions.
"Hungry," Ren mumbled into the pillow.
Juan closed his journal. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and set them on the desk. His eyes, usually cold and sharp, softened as he looked at the lump on the sofa.
He stood up and walked to a portable thermal box in the corner. He pulled out several stacked containers.
Braised Lion's Head meatballs.
Stir-fried seasonal greens.
And a box of perfectly peeled shrimp.
"Come eat," Juan said, his voice low and magnetic.
Ren sat up, sniffing the air. She shuffled to the table and sat down.
Juan pulled up a chair opposite her. He didn't leave. He watched her eat, his chin resting on his hand.
"Hand," Juan commanded gently.
Ren had a meatball in her mouth, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster. "Mmph?"
"Change the dressing," Juan said.
Ren swallowed and extended her right hand.
Juan took her wrist. His fingers were cool against her warm skin. He unwrapped the gauze with the precision of a surgeon. The wound from the glass was healing well, scabbing over neatly.
He took a cotton swab and applied a clear, odorless gel. It was a military-grade regenerative salve from the Capital, worth more per ounce than gold. Here, it was just hand cream.
"Did Master Wei make you touch the violin last night?" Juan asked casually, applying the gel.
"Yeah," Ren grumbled, picking up another meatball with her left hand. "Annoying old man. He made me tune that broken fiddle."
Luke, who was listening in the background, almost choked on a bone.
*Broken fiddle.*
The Stradivarius Dolphin. The Holy Grail of violins.
"Don't do manual labor," Juan said, wrapping fresh gauze around her hand. He tied a neat little knot. "These hands are for holding scalpels... or chopsticks. Not for servicing other people's instruments."
Ren looked at the box of peeled shrimp. They were arranged in perfect rows, pink and white.
"Did you peel these?" Ren asked.
"Luke did," Juan lied smoothly.
"Hey!" Luke protested from the corner. "I did not! You spent twenty minutes peeling those while listening to a conference call! You even yelled at the Board of Directors because a shell was stubborn!"
Ren looked at Juan. Juan looked at Ren.
"Eat," Juan said, pushing the box toward her. "They're high in protein."
Ren picked up a shrimp. She didn't say thank you, but the corners of her lips twitched upward.
"I want milk tea," Ren stated.
"No," Juan rejected instantly. "Sugar is bad for wound healing. Drink water."
Ren glared at him. She bit the head off the shrimp with unnecessary violence.
***
After lunch, Ren took a nap in the infirmary, almost missing the afternoon assembly.
When she finally arrived at the Multi-Purpose Lecture Hall, the room was packed.
There were nearly two hundred people present. Aside from the senior students, there were judges, school administrators, and even two cameramen from the city television station.
The atmosphere was tense.
This speech contest carried significant weight. Winning meant extra credit for college applications and a glowing entry on one's resume.
**Class 9** was seated in the fourth row.
Lily waved frantically when she saw Ren enter. "Ren! Over here! Hurry up, they're about to draw lots!"
Ren walked over and sat down.
Her group consisted of Lily, **Wendy**, and a few other girls. Everyone looked nervous and pale, except for Ren, who looked like she was there to watch a movie.
"Ren, did you memorize the speech?" Lily asked anxiously. "I know the script is in your bag, but I'm still worried..."
Ren had just put her backpack down. She paused.
"The script?" Ren frowned. "Isn't it in that blue folder?"
She pointed to a blue plastic document folder sitting on the desk. Lily had given it to her that morning for safekeeping, containing the only printed final draft and the USB drive with the presentation slides.
Ren had left the folder on the desk when she went to the restroom earlier.
"Yeah, it's in the folder." Lily reached for it. "Your memory is good, but this is a full English speech about global economics. If you freeze..."
Lily opened the folder.
Her smile vanished.
The folder was empty.
"What's wrong?" Ren noticed the change in Lily's expression.
"It's gone..." Lily's voice began to tremble. She turned the folder upside down and shook it. Nothing fell out. "The script... and the USB drive... they're both gone!"
"What?!" The other group members gasped. "How is that possible? It was just there!"
Sitting next to them, **Wendy** turned around. Her eyes flickered with something unreadable before shifting into a mask of shock and anger.
"Ren! How could you be so careless?" Wendy's voice was shrill, drawing the attention of the surrounding rows. "That was our hard work from the entire week! The only printed copy and the digital file were in there! And now you're telling us you lost it?"
Ren narrowed her eyes. Her gaze lingered on Wendy's face for two seconds.
When she went to the restroom, only Wendy had been sitting next to her.
"The folder was full when I left," Ren said, her voice cold. "Who touched my desk?"
"Who would touch your desk?" Wendy scoffed, standing up to make a scene. "Everyone saw you holding the folder all morning! Now the competition is starting, and you've lost everything. Are you trying to sabotage us? If you didn't want to do it, why did you agree to represent us?"
Wendy's voice carried through the quiet hall.
The judges frowned. The Dean of Students looked over with disapproval.
In the front row, **Faye** turned around. Seeing the chaos in Class 9, a smile of schadenfreude curled her lips.
"We're finished..." Lily looked like she was about to cry. She frantically searched inside her desk. "We don't have a backup... we didn't print a second copy..."
No script. No PowerPoint.
In a lecture hall of two hundred people, under the lens of TV cameras, this was a disaster waiting to happen.
Wendy looked at Ren, her heart filled with the thrill of revenge.
*Let's see what you do now.*
*Without a script, you academic failure, just wait to be humiliated in front of the whole school!*
Ren looked at the empty folder, then at Wendy's smug face.
She didn't panic. Instead, she reached out, calmly crumpled the empty plastic folder into a ball, and tossed it into the trash can next to the aisle.
"Enough," Ren said, standing up. She straightened the hem of her slightly wrinkled t-shirt.
"Ren, what are you doing?" Lily asked through her tears.
Ren shoved one hand into her pocket. Her gaze swept over the hall with indifferent arrogance, finally landing on the stage.
"It's just a speech."
She spoke casually, her voice not loud, but carrying a terrifying confidence.
"Who says I can't speak without a script?"