Monday morning at Wolven High was always a dreary affair. The sky outside was a heavy, slate grey, matching the mood of the students dragging themselves to their first-period classes.
Ren arrived at Class 9 just as the bell rang. She tossed her backpack onto her desk, pulled her cap down over her eyes, and prepared to sleep through the morning reading session. However, the classroom was buzzing with whispers about the weekend's events at the Grand Theater. Although the school had suppressed the worst of the rumors, the image of Faye running off stage in tears had leaked.
Ren found the noise annoying. She stood up, grabbed a small black USB drive from her bag, and walked out the back door while the teacher was writing on the blackboard.
She headed for the library. Specifically, the electronic reading room on the top floor.
It was a desolate place. The computers were ancient relics from a decade ago, with bulky CRT monitors and towers that wheezed like asthmatic old men. Dust motes danced in the beams of light filtering through the high windows.
Ren chose the machine in the furthest corner, hidden behind a stack of old encyclopedias. She pulled out a chair that squeaked in protest and sat down.
She pressed the power button.
*Whirrrrrr—Chunk.*
The fan kicked into high gear, sounding like a tractor engine. The Windows XP loading screen appeared, the green bar crawling across the screen with agonizing slowness.
Ren propped her chin on her hand, looking unimpressed. "Garbage," she muttered.
Once the desktop finally loaded, revealing a pixelated bliss wallpaper, Ren inserted her USB drive. Her fingers, usually so lethargic, suddenly came alive.
She didn't use the mouse. Her hands flew across the sticky, plastic keyboard.
*Clack-clack-clack-clack.*
A black command window popped up, covering the cheerful blue desktop.
Green lines of code began to cascade down the screen like a digital waterfall. The refresh rate of the monitor seemed to increase physically, the flickering vanishing as the hardware was pushed to its absolute limit.
If a computer science professor were standing there, they would have fallen to their knees.
She was rewriting the underlying drivers of the operating system in real-time, bypassing the hardware limitations and turning this rusty calculator into a temporary supercomputing terminal.
Ren adjusted her cap. The reflection of the scrolling code danced in her dark eyes.
She wasn't just a student skipping class. In this moment, in the digital realm, she was God.
***
Meanwhile, in the Presidential Suite of the Royal Hotel.
Charles was pacing back and forth across the Persian rug, wearing a track in the expensive fabric.
Juan sat by the window, reading a medical journal, a cup of coffee steaming on the table beside him. He looked the picture of tranquility, a sharp contrast to his friend's manic energy.
"It's been three hours," Charles said, checking his Patek Philippe watch for the twentieth time. "Three hours, Juan. Do you think he's actually doing it? Or did he just take the job to troll me?"
Juan turned a page. "Patience."
"I can't have patience!" Charles exploded, running a hand through his hair. "Do you know what kind of wipe they used? It was a DoD 5220.22-M standard! Seven passes! That means they overwrote the data seven times with random patterns. Mathematically, it should be impossible to recover. Even the NSA would take weeks."
He slumped onto the sofa. "I was an idiot. I got my hopes up because of a legend. Lone Wolf is probably just a kid in a basement who thinks he can run a simple recovery software. He's going to come back in two days and tell me it's gone."
"If he can't do it, no one can," Juan said simply.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Charles groaned. "If I lose this case, my perfect record is gone. I'll be the laughingstock of the Capital legal circle."
*Ding.*
A crisp, unassuming email notification sound cut through the room.
Charles froze.
He looked at the laptop sitting on the desk.
The screen had lit up.
For a second, he didn't move, afraid that it was just a spam email or a newsletter.
Then, he lunged for the computer.
There was one new email in his secure inbox.
The sender field was blank. The subject line was blank.
The only content was a small icon in the body of the email: a red skull with crossed lightning bolts.
And an attachment: **[Recovered_Data_Full.zip]**
Charles's hands trembled as he hovered over the mouse. "No way..."
He clicked download.
The file was large. It unzipped in seconds.
Charles opened the folder.
His eyes widened until they threatened to pop out of his skull.
"Oh my god."
"What?" Juan asked, finally looking up from his book.
"Everything," Charles whispered, scrolling frantically. "It's all here. The financial spreadsheets, the deleted emails, the secret contracts... Juan, look at this! He even recovered the metadata! And... wait, what is this?"
Charles clicked on a sub-folder labeled **"Bonus_Logs"**.
Inside was a text file containing the IP addresses and login times of the people who had performed the data wipe.
"He traced them," Charles gasped, falling back into his chair. "He not only recovered the data from a military-grade wipe in three hours, but he also back-traced the perpetrators and gave me their digital fingerprints. This... this isn't hacking. This is time travel. This is witchcraft."
He looked at Juan, his eyes shining with a fanatical light. "Juan! Five million was too cheap! This is worth fifty million! Lone Wolf is a god! I want to hire him! I don't care what it costs. If I can get him on a retainer for the law firm, we will rule the world!"
Juan smirked, closing his magazine. "Don't get any ideas. You know the rules of the 129 Agency. You don't find them; they find you."
"I know, I know," Charles said, practically hugging his laptop. "I'm just saying. This person is terrifying. I need to send the payment immediately. And a tip. A big tip."
***
Back in the library.
The screen on the old computer had returned to the Windows XP desktop. The fan was slowly spinning down, the machine cooling off after its sprint.
Ren pulled the USB drive out and tossed it into her pocket.
She felt a vibration against her leg.
She pulled out her phone.
A notification from her offshore bank account popped up.
**[ Credit: $5,000,000.00 USD ]**
**[ Note: Thank you, Great God! - Charles ]**
Ren looked at the number. She did a quick mental calculation.
Five million dollars.
That was enough to buy the original handwritten manuscript of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle notes that had just surfaced on the black market in Berlin.
"Easy money," she murmured, yawning.
She put the phone away, crossed her arms on the desk, and put her head down. Within seconds, her breathing evened out. She fell asleep to the hum of the old computer, completely unconcerned that she had just performed a digital miracle that would shake the legal world.
***
While Ren was sleeping on a pile of millions, Faye was living through a nightmare.
Monday was brutal. Although the teachers tried to stop the gossip, the students of Wolven High were ruthless.
As Faye walked down the hallway, conversations stopped. Eyes followed her.
She could hear the whispers.
*"That's her? The genius?"*
*"I heard she got kicked off stage."*
*"Fake. My cousin was there. He said Maestro Weiss yelled at her for cheating."*
*"So embarrassing. The Lane family must be mortified."*
Faye kept her head high, clutching her books to her chest, but inside, she was crumbling. The shame burned like acid. She had worked so hard to build her image as the perfect, talented goddess of the school. In one weekend, it had all been tainted.
She needed a way out. She needed a new ladder to climb, one that would take her above these petty rumors.
After school, she waited by the student council office.
When Xavier walked out, looking tired from organizing the upcoming physics competition, Faye stepped into his path.
"Xavier," she said softly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her makeup minimal to emphasize her vulnerability.
Xavier stopped. He looked at her with a mixture of pity and hesitation. "Faye. Are you okay? You shouldn't be at school today if you're feeling unwell."
"I'm fine," Faye said bravely, offering a weak, trembling smile. "I just... I realized that I was too arrogant. Maestro Weiss was right. I need to settle down and learn more before I try to fly."
Xavier nodded, relieved that she wasn't making a scene. "That's a good attitude. You have talent, Faye. Just give it time."
"I was thinking," Faye said, stepping closer. "I want to shift my focus. I heard that... Lawyer Charles from the Capital is in Moon City?"
Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Lawyer Charles? Qi Chengjun? Yes, he's here. He's a close friend of the Cheng family."
"I want to meet him," Faye said, her eyes pleading. "I know he is the top legal mind in the country. I was thinking... if I could get some advice from him, or maybe a recommendation letter for the Youth Leadership Summit in the Capital next month, I could start over. I want to prove that I'm not just a musician, but a well-rounded student."
Xavier frowned. "Faye, Charles is... difficult. He doesn't see people. Even my father has trouble getting an appointment with him. He's very exclusive."
"Please, Xavier," Faye whispered, reaching out to touch his sleeve. "You're the only one who can help me. I just need five minutes. If I can get a recommendation from someone of his stature, everyone will forget about the audition. I need this to save my reputation."
Xavier looked at her desperate face. He remembered how they had grown up together, how the Lane and Xu families were allies.
He sighed.
"I can't promise anything," Xavier said. "I can try to ask. But don't get your hopes up. Charles is here on private business, and he's known for having a terrible temper if he's disturbed."
"Thank you!" Faye beamed, the darkness in her eyes lifting. "Thank you, Xavier! I knew you would help me."
She watched Xavier walk away, her mind racing with plans.
Lawyer Charles.
The Gold Medal Lawyer of the Capital.
He was a man who stood at the apex of power and intellect. If she could charm him, if she could become his mentee or even just get a photo with him, the humiliation of Maestro Weiss would be forgotten.
Who cared about a violin teacher when you had the backing of the legal emperor?
Faye smirked, checking her reflection in the window. She fixed her hair.
She was Faye Lane. She always found a way to win.
She had no idea that the "terrible tempered" Lawyer Charles she was so desperate to meet was currently sitting in a hotel room, giggling like a schoolgirl while sending heart emojis to her sister's bank account.
**[Chapter 58 End]**