The drive back was silent, but not the comfortable kind. It was the silence of a system crash.
"I didn't know," Li Yan said, his voice raw. He had pulled the car over to the side of the road, the city lights blurring in the rain. "I used the Institute's VPN to access your GitHub because I wanted the fastest connection to see your work. I never thought they'd crawl the metadata."
"She stole my life, Li Yan," I said, staring out the window. "That algorithm was my ticket to the Senior Dev position. It was my 98.2% in the real world."
"I'll fix it," he said, reaching for my hand.
I pulled away. "How? By telling them you were 'mentoring' your secret girlfriend? You'd lose your fellowship. You'd lose everything you worked for in the North."
"I don't care about the fellowship!" he roared, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. "I care that I've spent ten years trying to protect you, and I'm the one who keeps breaking your world!"
The "Group of Seven" chat pinged.
Su Lan: Xiao Xing, check the Tech News. Why is Ying Yue's name on your 'Blue-Pulse' project? If she stole it, tell me now. I've already started the counter-hack.
Zhang Wei: Wait, what's happening? Do we need to mobilize?
Lin Chen: I have the sketches of the original drafts from the library in 12th grade. They prove the logic started with Xiao Xing.
I looked at the phone, then at Li Yan. We weren't just two people in love; we were a team that was under attack.
"We don't fix this with feelings, Li Yan," I said, my voice turning cold and sharp—the "Karate Princess" returning to the mat. "We fix this with logic. If she wants a war over my code, I'll give her a 'Zero-Day' exploit she'll never forget."
Li Yan looked at me, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes. Not of the Institute, but of the fire he'd reignited in me.
"What's the move, President?" he asked, his voice low.
"We call the Stars," I said. "All seven of them."