The auditorium at Jingdu National University smelled of cheap coffee, desperation, and the faint copper tang of status anxiety.
Lu Rin sat in the last row, legs crossed, one patent-leather shoe tapping a silent countdown. A thin black mask covered the lower half of his face (pandemic etiquette was the perfect excuse), and a wide-brimmed hat shadowed the pale lavender eyes that had once made Alphas kneel.
No one here knew who he was.
They only knew the name on the guest list: L.R. Frost, majority shareholder of Éternel Parfums, the single largest private donor the economics department had ever seen.
They thought he was here to watch a lecture.
He was here to watch a public execution.
Down on the stage, a man in an immaculate charcoal suit finished carving a formula across three whiteboards like a surgeon dissecting a still-living patient.
Every stroke was precise, arrogant, beautiful.
Lu Rin's lips curved beneath the mask.
He recognised that handwriting.
He recognised the man.
Gu Xun.
Five years older, sharper, colder. The pine-smoke scent was locked down under military-grade suppressants, but Lu Rin's nose was S-class. He could still taste the ghost of it from a hundred meters away.
Gu Xun capped the marker and turned to the audience.
"The market price is the sum of all human cowardice weighted against my boredom," he said, voice smooth enough to slice diamonds. "Everything else is noise."
A ripple of nervous laughter.
Then silence.
Dr Zhang, the keynote speaker, looked like someone had yanked his spine out through his mouth.
Gu Xun let the silence stretch just long enough to be cruel.
"I'm here to finish the degree I abandoned five years ago," he continued. "Try to keep up."
That was when the first body hit the floor.
A woman in a pearl-white dress shoved through the front row and collapsed at Gu Xun's feet with the grace of a bad soap opera.
"Gu Xun! Please! I was wrong! I was blind! Take me back, I'll do anything!"
Lu Rin recognised her instantly: Lin Daiyu, the Lin family's precious Alpha daughter, the one Chairman Gu had tried to chain his son to the night the lotus froze.
She was sobbing, mascara rivers, clutching Gu Xun's ankle like a lifeline.
Gu Xun looked down at her the way a man looks at gum on his shoe.
"Remove yourself," he said.
She didn't. She wailed louder.
So Gu Xun stepped over her. Literally. One polished shoe on either side of her body, never touching, never looking back.
The entire auditorium inhaled as one.
That was when the second idiot decided today was the day to die.
Wang Chao, student-body president, heir to Wang Construction, strode forward with the swagger of a man who had never been told no in his life.
"Nice parlour tricks, transfer student," he sneered. "Daddy's money and a few equations don't make you king. Some of us built our names the old-fashioned way."
Gu Xun tilted his head. "You built your name on state contracts your grandfather bribed for in 1998. Sit down."
Wang Chao flushed crimson. "You think you can just—"
Gu Xun lifted his phone. Didn't even unlock it.
"Wang Construction Group. Ticker WCG. Current float: 41.7%. Give me ten seconds."
The auditorium lights dimmed automatically as someone patched the live market feed to the projector.
Ten seconds.
The green line on the screen flat-lined, then nose-dived.
Forty-one percent became fifty-one percent in the space of a heartbeat.
A collective scream went up. Phones buzzed like angry hornets as finance majors watched their trust funds evaporate.
Wang Chao's face went the colour of old paper. He lunged for Gu Xun.
Gu Xun sidestepped without looking, caught the taller man's wrist, and twisted. Wang Chao dropped to his knees with a choked sound.
"Absolute control," Gu Xun murmured, almost kindly. "Next?"
No one moved.
Lu Rin rose slowly from his seat.
The click of his heels echoed like gunshots as he descended the aisle. Every head turned. The mask hid his mouth, but not the ice in his eyes.
Gu Xun sensed him first. The suppressants or not, an Alpha always knows when his marked Omega walks into the room.
His shoulders locked. The temperature in the hall seemed to plummet ten degrees.
Lu Rin stopped five paces away.
Two small figures in miniature black suits stepped out from behind him, flanking him like tiny bodyguards.
Beiyan on the left, Beiyu on the right. Four years old, identical, and already radiating enough dominant pheromones to make the front row Alphas whimper.
Beiyan tilted his head. "Is that the bad dog, Mommy?"
Beiyu cracked his knuckles, the sound absurdly loud in the silence. "He smells like a liar."
Lu Rin reached up and tugged the mask down.
The scar at his throat, the faded ghost of Gu Xun's claim mark, gleamed silver under the stage lights.
"Hello, husband," Lu Rin said, voice soft enough to flay skin. "Did you miss me?"
Gu Xun's phone slipped from his fingers and shattered on the marble floor.
The ice lotus had returned.
And it had brought two very angry seeds.
Let the grovel begin.