Upstairs, the hallway still buzzed faintly with the remnants of Liu Jiahui's shrieking.
Xueling ignored it entirely.
She closed her bedroom door with a soft click and leaned back against it for a moment. The adrenaline from the confrontation still pulsed through her bloodstream—sharp, electric—but beneath it lay a deeper exhaustion, the kind that settled into the bones after years of swallowing one's voice in a toxic household.
She inhaled slowly.Exhaled.Rolled her neck until the tension eased.
Enough, she thought. It's over. I chose my path.
She crossed the room unhurriedly and pulled out her chair. The familiar weight of her laptop beneath her fingertips grounded her far more effectively than any breathing exercise ever could. This space—her desk, her screen, her world—belonged to her alone.
She opened the laptop.
The cool blue glow washed over her face, chasing away the last residue of anger. She logged into the international Olympiad training platform she had been competing on. A new round of challenges had unlocked—higher difficulty, longer time limits, problems designed to separate the truly exceptional from the merely excellent.
Perfect.
Xueling stretched her fingers once, then began.
The questions were intricate, deliberately laced with misdirection meant to entangle weaker minds. Her thoughts, however, moved cleanly through them. Patterns unfolded. Numbers aligned. With every elegant line she typed, the disquiet in her chest smoothed into quiet certainty.
By the time she finished the first set, the confrontation downstairs felt like a distant storm she had already outflown.
Her cursor slid to the next question. She worked swiftly, decisively.
Just as she finished and clicked Submit, a soft chime sounded.
A message from Chairman Lin.
Chairman Lin:Xueling, the restructuring model—you'll want to see this. Are you free for a moment?
She typed back a brief confirmation.
Moments later, Lin Zhihang appeared on her screen. Exhaustion lined his features, but it couldn't hide the exhilaration burning beneath. His face looked alive in a way it hadn't for months.
"Xueling," he said, almost breathless, "the results are even better than projected. If everything continues at this pace, Lingyun Capital will turn a profit within the month."
She stretched her fingers and replied evenly, "As it should."
He let out a helpless laugh. "Only you could say that so calmly. For the rest of us, this is nothing short of a miracle."
Lingyun Capital had not begun as a miracle—far from it.
It had risen from the ashes of a mid-sized financial firm on the brink of collapse, a company strangled by liabilities and half-failed ventures. Sentimental investments, reckless expansions, blind complacency—each had hollowed it out further. Competitors had circled like vultures, waiting for Chairman Lin's company to finally die so they could pick it clean.
Lin Zhihang had been desperate then—so certain of the decline that he had even contemplated ending his life.
Then Xueling had stepped in.
Her proposal carved away dead weight and realigned the company's entire spine toward sectors others had overlooked or dismissed. She wasn't guessing; she was forecasting, with the precision of someone who had lived inside the tides of global finance for a lifetime.
Sitting across from her in that quiet café, listening as she laid everything out with calm clarity, Lin had struggled to reconcile the plan's audacity with the barely adult girl in front of him. The realization had struck him like lightning.
She was an unsurpassed genius.
He hadn't questioned her after that.
Lingyun Capital was born the following week—lean, clean, built for speed. Xueling injected the funds needed to stabilize the transition; Lin executed the rest with ruthless focus.
Now, as he spoke, awe filled his voice. "It's like we're no longer fighting just to survive. We're… moving. Advancing. And no one understands how."
"They don't need to," Xueling replied gently. "For now, stay low. Let them keep underestimating you."
He nodded without hesitation. "Rest well, Boss. I'll update you tomorrow."
The call ended.
Xueling closed her laptop.
Lingyun Capital was moving exactly as it should. At this pace, it would become a global hedge fund within a year—more than enough to support her plans in the capital and deal cleanly with the Chu and Su families when the time came.
Her thoughts drifted downward—to the scene that had unfolded barely an hour earlier.
She was so close to escaping this rat nest.
The Fengs would never agree to her terms. They could not relinquish their precious shares, nor could they abandon the Gu family engagement they had spent years cultivating. Her demands had been a calculated strike—aimed precisely where their vanity and ambition overlapped.
They would refuse her.
And in doing so, they would choose the path most favorable to themselves: sacrificing her.
Disowning her was the only move that allowed them to bow to the Zhangs while preserving their own pride. One daughter cast out from each family—face balanced, debts settled, harmony restored. To seal the deal, they would likely sweeten the gesture with a lucrative business concession, strengthening their alliance while washing their hands of her entirely.
She almost smiled.
The true casualty of this exchange would be Xueyao.
Without Xueling, Xueyao would lose the shadow she borrowed brilliance from—and she would also have to contend with an enraged Zhang Qiqi. If expelled from her family, Zhang Qiqi would never dare direct her fury at her parents. But Xueyao? She would drag her down without hesitation.
Every threatening message. Every recorded call. Every instance of bullying Xueyao had encouraged—or quietly covered up—would spill into the open.
Xueyao's carefully cultivated image—the sweet, gifted daughter façade—would fracture.
Then collapse.
It would be spectacular.
Downstairs, the Feng family's study was in chaos.
Father Feng paced the room like a caged animal, his movements sharp and erratic. Madame Feng hurled curses in rapid succession, her voice shrill with fury. Xueyao sat frozen on the sofa, shock and dread knotting in her chest.
Everything had spiraled out of control.
It's all because of that Zhang Qiqi—and that wretched Xueling, she thought viciously.
"How are you placed for the expo?" Father Feng demanded abruptly.
"P-pretty well," Xueyao stammered, caught off guard.
"Speak clearly," he barked. "If Xueling is removed from the project, can you handle it?"
"I… I think—"
"Don't think!" he snapped. "Tell me clearly. Yes or no."
"Why are you shouting at the child?" Madame Feng cut in sharply. "She's done nothing wrong!"
Father Feng laughed harshly. "Done nothing wrong? The Zhangs want answers, Xueling has issued an ultimatum, and the 'good daughter' you raised can't even give me a straight response!"
He was at his wits' end. Useless, he thought bitterly. Both of them.
"Calm down," Madame Feng said, forcing a smile as she shot Xueyao a meaningful look. "Our Yaoyao can do it."
"Yes, Father," Xueyao said, finding her courage under her mother's gaze. "Everything is in place. I can definitely handle it."
Father Feng stopped pacing and stared at her. "Are you certain? I am staking the Feng family's face on your answer."
Xueyao straightened her shoulders, lifting her chin. "I can do it. I'm your most capable daughter—aren't I?"
He studied her for a long moment. Finally, he waved a hand. "Go. Both of you."
He watched them hurry from the room before turning toward the towering French windows. The night outside was pitch black.
It was just as dark as that night years ago—the night he had taken Xueling.
Even now, the thought of that person made his skin crawl. He hadn't heard from them in so long.
Surely… they couldn't still be watching him.
And even if they were, so what? He had upheld the spirit of the contract for years. That had to count for something. And now, with the Gu and Zhang families backing him, he was far more powerful than before.
He could shake them off easily.
Decision made, Father Feng turned back toward his desk and reached for his phone.
It was time to call the Zhangs.
And the Gus.