The clock on the far wall read 11:47 p.m.
Mo Group's Jinhai branch was silent except for the faint hum of servers and the low city wind brushing against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The skyscraper lights outside glittered like a thousand restless thoughts — bright, feverish, unstill.
Inside the penthouse office, Mo Shenyu stood behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled up. His broad shoulders caught the cold light of the monitors, and the cords of muscle along his forearms flexed as he leaned forward over the keyboard.
She hadn't texted him all day.
Surely she couldn't still be working on the project. Not after the fourteen-hour stretch she'd pulled the night before. He had even offered — no, insisted — that she take a break, to let Helios delay the deliverables if needed. But, as always, she had refused him with that polite, infuriating firmness of hers.
Was she ignoring him now?
He frowned, jaw tightening, eyes fixed on the dark chat window of their encrypted channel. The last message she'd sent was seven hours ago — a single line of neatly written code snippet, followed by a characteristically dry "done."
It wasn't enough.
He wanted to ask if she'd eaten. If she was sleeping properly. If her wrists ached from coding for so long. But every time his fingers hovered over the keyboard, he forced himself to pull back. He couldn't push her. Not yet.
The screen's reflection trembled across the veins on his hands. He had never been a man to wait easily. The board waited for him. Rivals bowed to him. But when it came to her — to XL— his power meant nothing. He would willingly bow to her.
The quiet knock on the door barely registered until Assistant Liang's hesitant voice followed it."Sir… news just came in. You'll want to see this."
Mo Shenyu didn't turn. "If it's about the Chen family, handle it yourself."
"It isn't," Liang said, his tone careful. "It's about her."
That single word froze him.
He turned, slowly. "Explain."
Liang approached, tablet in hand. "There's been a stir on the National Olympiad forum tonight. The anonymous competitor XL just broke the University Olympiad record. She didn't just win — she out-performed current math majors at Tsinghua and Fudan. Solved the entire set in six minutes, forty-seven seconds."
He tapped the screen. "They're calling her the 'Ghost Mathematician.' Recruitment boards from three universities have already posted open invitations — if she's still in high school, they'll take her sight unseen."
Shenyu's gaze flicked to the tablet. Lines of complex equations filled the screen, timestamped, verified, irrefutable. The distinctive precision of her logic leapt off the page — every step clean, ruthless, beautiful.
A slow smile curved his lips, more felt than seen. "Six-forty-seven," he murmured. "The time she last sent me a message was six-fifty."
Liang blinked. "Sir?"
"It's her," Shenyu said quietly. "It has to be."
The words carried no doubt — only a bone-deep certainty that hit like gravity.
Liang hesitated. "Sir, with all due respect — if others make that connection—"
"They won't." Shenyu's tone was calm, almost gentle, and all the more frightening for it. "No one else knows of her work with Helios tech. The inner circle who are familiar with her work wont care about waves in academic circles. And the Chen family idots are looking for a martial arts expert, they won't connect this genius mind with her."
He reached for the tablet again, eyes tracing the symmetrical structure of her work — the same meticulous mind that had built Helios' latest defense layer from scratch. "Every line she writes," he said softly, "is like her breath — quiet, perfect, alive. She's… exquisite."
Liang looked away, uncomfortable. His boss turned into a love brain at the mention of XL. "We know the schools Chen Yutian visited, do you want me to cross verify all the info we have on her with those school rosters? We can easily find her…"
"No!" refused Mo Shenyu sharply. "She is not a target to be hunted down! Besides, if I make a move on the schools, the Chen family buffoons will catch on. We want all their attention exactly where it is now – on the Dragon Gate Championship."
"Understood, Sir!"
"Did you make the arrangements I asked you to make?" Mo Shenyu asked, going over their strategy for the Championship night. "There can be no mistakes."
"Don't worry sir. Everything is in place." Assistant Liang paused for a bit. "You've been working nonstop since Haicheng, sir. Given our plans for this Friday night, maybe you should rest. Dr.Chen insisted - "
"I understand your concern" Shenyu's voice cut like ice. "But I cannot rest until I find her, unitl she is safe". Then, lower, to himself: "Until she is by my side"
Right on cue, the encrypted channel he shared with her went green and his computer gave a soft ding.
Mo Shenyu leaned eagerly towards his screen, his chair moving back with the force of his excitement.
XL: Final patch complete. Uploading now.(file: Helios_CyberShieldV3_final)Remember to verify the loop integrity before launch.
Mo Shenyu's mouth eased into a smile that was far too quick for a man of his composure. Assistant Liang looked away. It was really unbearable to watch.
MS: Finally. I was starting to think you'd forgotten your favorite client.
A pause. Then her reply blinked in.
XL: Favorite clients don't nag every two hours.
He huffed a laugh.
MS: Nagging? That's called concern. Do you even know what time it is?
XL: Late enough that you should be asleep too. Or is haunting the office your hobby now?
MS: Depends. Are you planning to keep me company if I say yes?
XL: You'd talk the whole night. I'd never finish anything.
MS: Heh, like that would stop you! After all, it only takes you minutes to top national math Olympiads.
XL: ...You know…?
MS: I know.
XL: .....
MS: Don't worry, am sure nobody else made the connection.
XL: Are you sure? At Helios….
MS: You think I'd give away your secret? What do you take me for?
XL: Someone reckless with rules, but good with promises.
He went still, her words hanging warm and unexpected in the cool blue glow.
MS: You remember my promises, then.
XL: Hard not to. You keep repeating them.
MS: Maybe I'm hoping you'll believe them someday.
XL: Maybe I already do.
A quiet blink of the cursor followed, the air between the lines suddenly too alive.
XL: Anyway— check the patch before you fall asleep on your keyboard again.
MS: Again? You make it sound like a habit.
XL: I can hear the way you yawn through text.
Mo Shenyu laughed under his breath — a low, startled sound. For a moment he could almost see her, hair pulled up, eyes a little heavy from work, fingers still flying over the keys.
MS: Fine. But only if you promise to get some rest too.
XL: Good night, Mo Shenyu.
She almost never used his full name. The sight of it made something unclench in his chest.
MS: Good night, XL.
He moved to the window, looking out at the glittering city. The lights of Jinhai stretched endlessly, and somewhere within that expanse, he knew, she was awake — maybe still coding, maybe already asleep with her hair spilling over the keyboard.
The thought pulled something tight in his chest, equal parts tenderness and ache.
He placed his hand against the glass, fingers brushing the reflection of the worn hairband at his wrist. I can't wait to meet you, little one.
Behind him, Assistant Liang stood silent, knowing better than to interrupt the rare peace that settled over his master's face — the peace of a man who had finally found a direction for his obsession.
On the other side
Feng Xueling quietly stretched, the joints in her shoulders and wrists popping after hours of stillness. The warehouse was hushed except for the faint hum of her laptop. Outside, the night air pressed cool and sharp against the windows; inside, the lamplight cast long gold streaks across the floor mats and training dummies.
It was strange how peaceful it felt here — far from the marble glare of the Feng manor. Here, the silence was her own.
She rubbed her temples and smiled faintly. She had only meant to send the final project file, attach the notes, and be done. But somehow, as always, their conversation had stretched — an exchange of quick comments, small jokes, quiet teasing. Mo Shenyu. The man was supposed to be her client, a temporary partner. Yet he had slipped into her days and nights as though he had always been there.
When she had realized he'd guessed that the "XL" on the Olympiad leaderboards was her, she'd half expected him to use it — to corner her, leverage her anonymity.Instead, he'd just written, "I Know."And had even reassured her that her secret would be safe. Stranger still, not only had she trusted him with her secret, but had also felt reassured by his response that nobody else would know about it. Mo Shenyu had somehow quickly gotten under her skin and was even starting to become a safe haven.
Xueling touched the edge of her keyboard, tracing idle patterns on the metal.Safe haven. The word itself startled her.
In her past life, trust had been a luxury she couldn't afford. Every promise had come with a hidden blade; every alliance had ended in betrayal. Even kindness had been currency. She had promised herself she'd never be that foolish again.And yet here she was, trading lines of code and late-night messages with a man she had never met, letting him close enough to glimpse of her — not the dull, gray student of the Feng family, but the real her.
Her fingers hesitated above the keys. Why him? she wondered. Why now?Maybe it was because he never demanded anything. Maybe it was the way he spoke — direct, unflinching, but always with patience and caring. Or maybe, she thought with a wry smile, it was simply that she was tired of being alone.
The cursor blinked patiently on her screen, her last message to him still visible.
Good night, Mo Shenyu.
Her reflection in the monitor was softer than she remembered — eyes calm, mouth curved in a hint of contentment.
She powered the laptop off. The room darkened instantly, leaving only the faint moonlight from the skylight above.
For the first time in years, Feng Xueling didn't feel the need to keep her guard fully raised.That realization unsettled her more than any opponent ever could.
She exhaled slowly then put away the small black training gloves resting beside the keyboard.
She would keep her promise to Mo Shenyu and sleep now. Tomorrow, she would have to train harder — the tournament loomed, and every muscle would have to remember what her mind already knew. But tonight, for a brief, fragile moment, she allowed herself to cling to the special feeling of warmth and understanding Mo Shenyu gave her and drifted into a dreamless sleep.