The lecture hall smelled of stale chalk dust and nervous sweat, exactly as he remembered from his first read-through of Chapter Five. Thirty-two seats arranged in tiered semicircles, each occupied by students who would—in the original timeline—become either minor antagonists or forgettable background noise in the male lead's rise to power. He chose a seat near the fire exit, where the shadows from the overhead projector blurred his features.
Professor Chen entered like a storm front, tossing his briefcase onto the lectern with enough force to startle the front row. "Turn to page forty-eight," he barked, without preamble. "Today we discuss game theory applications in hostile takeovers." The textbook pages rustled in unison around him, but his own remained conspicuously closed. He'd memorized this chapter weeks ago, back when it was fiction.
A pen tapped rhythmically against the desk to his left. Lin. She'd materialized there without sound, her notebook already filled with equations that shouldn't be solvable without the data Chen had yet to present. When he risked a glance, she was staring straight ahead—but her fingers twitched, deliberately, forming the sign for *liar* in a casual gesture only someone trained in corporate espionage would recognize.
The projector flickered. Chen's slides jumped forward three chapters, landing on a case study about a pharmaceutical merger that wouldn't happen for eighteen months. A mistake, or a test? Around him, students murmured in confusion, but Lin's pen never hesitated. She was writing out the correct stock tickers in real-time, as if the future had already unfolded before her.
His phone buzzed silently in his pocket. The screen showed an alert from a brokerage app he didn't remember installing—$12,000 transferred into an obscure biotech fund that would skyrocket next Thursday. His fingers trembled as he swiped the notification away. This wasn't just deviation. This was sabotage.
At the podium, Chen adjusted his glasses. "Miss Lin. Explain why the acquiring firm in Slide Twelve would reject a poison pill strategy."
The entire room turned. Lin set down her pen with exaggerated care. "Because they already own seventeen percent through offshore shell companies," she said, voice clear as cut glass. "A fact the board won't discover until the shareholder meeting next month."
Chen's eyebrows shot up. The case study hadn't mentioned shell companies. The merger wasn't public knowledge.
Silence pooled like spilled ink.
Two rows ahead, the original male lead—unknowable, unreachable in his threadbare sweater—turned to stare at Lin with the first flicker of real interest. Exactly as Chapter Thirty-Two dictated.
Except it was happening now.
And the genius girl wasn't looking at the protagonist.
She was looking at *him*.