Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Morning light streamed through the penthouse’s wall of glass, gilding the outrageously expensive Italian sofa in pale gold. The air was a cocktail of espresso crema and the faint gun-powder tang of Old Wei’s aftershave.
I sat ramrod-straight before an acre of mirror. My cherry-white hair was twisted—by Yue Fei’s incomprehensible but undeniably wizard fingers—into a knot that looked casually loose yet could survive a hurricane. A few fly-aways kissed my cheek, softening the line and... more or less hiding the stubborn little “all-nighter medal” still camping on my right cheekbone.
No more radioactive neon pink. Today I wore oatmeal cashmere: a midi knit dress cut so cleanly it could have been sculpted. The silhouette walked the knife-edge between “barely legal teen” and “full-blown femme fatale,” clinging to a body that is, annoyingly, “slightly taller than schoolgirl, nowhere near bombshell.” Old Wei had hurled the boutique bag at me last night with the face of a man chewing broken glass. The price tag could fund a lunar mission, but for once his taste had online status—probably thanks to a terrified sales assistant.
The Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss bracelet on my wrist pulsed a muted silver-blue, dialed down to “art-gallery chic” instead of “cosplay floodlight.”
In the glass, a stranger stared back—ethereal, blue-eyed, still bruised from lack of sleep, wrapped in an automatic DO NOT DISTURB force field. A far cry from the towel-wrapped banshee of a few days ago.
“Meow. Flawless.” Yue Fei’s spectral silhouette draped itself over my shoulder, violet eyes appraising. “Elegance is a weapon, distance is armor. Keep that composure, Mistress.”
“Mistress, Mistress! Are you nervous? Don’t be—Xing Dian will protect you!” The indigo dragonlet spiralled around my wrist, sparks fizzing off its tail.
Nervous? Maybe. Mostly I felt the calm of a vase that’s already hit the floor. I inhaled; coffee beat back the acid swirl in my stomach.
“Let’s go.” Old Wei’s voice cracked from the living room, impatience set to default. He’d suited up—charcoal grey, razor-creased, beard gone, hair tamed. The usual thug-in-a-hoodie had been replaced by something closer to “mafia accountant who moonlights as an assassin.” He held my bag—another weapon-grade accessory—and flicked his chin toward the door.
“Mm.” I stood, trying to look like I owned gravity.
...
Cloud Summit Tech headquarters stabbed the sky, glass walls throwing sun into my eyes. I’d spent five years here—five years of midnight debugging and instant-noodle sacrifice—until the day I cashed out my shares and supposedly bought freedom.
The lobby smelled exactly the same: chilled marble and ambition.
“Mr. Wei!” The receptionist sprang up, smile laminated on. Her gaze ricocheted to me, pupils dilating in raw, unfiltered wow. “Mr. Yun... he...”
“Mr. Yun is indisposed. His younger sister, Miss Yun Xi, holds his proxy.” Old Wei’s voice could have sliced steel. He shifted half a step, putting his bulk between me and the staring crowd.
“Sister?” The receptionist’s smile froze. She ping-ponged her stare between us, hunting for shared genes, found none, and retreated to protocol. “One moment—I’ll inform Director Zhang.”
“Sister?” “Since when does code-monkey Yun have a sister this pretty?” “Different league entirely...” The whispers swarmed like mosquitoes. I felt them—curious, hungry, appraising, doubting. The guy who used to shuffle through this lobby in hoodie-and-glasses mode bore zero resemblance to whatever I was now.
Old Wei stood like a carved door-god, aura set to DO NOT APPROACH. Every time someone’s stare lingered too long, his radar eyes locked on until they remembered urgent emails.
The elevator ride was a coffin with LED numbers. Mid-level managers breathed through their mouths, risking side-eye at the mirrored walls.
Top floor. Executive-land: thick carpet, designer incense, the faint hiss of money.
“Miss Yun Xi! An honour!” Director Zhang—forty-something, hair gelled into compliance—glided forward, hand extended. His smile slipped a millimetre when he actually looked at me. He knew the proxy transfer; he hadn’t expected the face. “Your brother... his health...”
“He’s well. Merely unavailable.” I touched his fingers, withdrew. The bracelet’s chill kept my pulse flat. Old Wei hovered at my shoulder, a storm cloud in a suit.
“Understood! Right this way—lawyers and buyers are ready.”
Conference room the size of a basketball court. Across the mahogany ocean, the acquisition team sat in formation: suits, notebooks, predatory patience. Their eyes mapped me like sonar—asset value, risk factor, female—then flipped back to the contracts.
I signed where they told me, Yue Fei murmuring clause warnings inside my head, Xing Dian heating my wrist whenever someone’s pulse spiked with greed. Page after page—Yun Xi, Yun Xi, Yun Xi—until the final stroke. The invisible boulder tethering me to this company rolled away and shattered somewhere far below.
...
I declined the congratulatory lunch. Old Wei and I escaped under Zhang’s obsequious escort.
“Yun Xi, such vision! Any plans to join our new strategy—”
“Well, Director Zhang! And who is this exquisite...”
The voice oozed over us like warm grease. Zhao Kai—company crown prince by nepotism, cologne by the gallon—materialised with a paper coffee cup and a grin that thought it was charming. His gaze crawled across me as if undressing by remote control.
“Miss Yun Xi, freshly minted majority shareholder,” Zhang supplied, smile brittle.
“Yun Xi—cloud clothes, flower face! Literal poetry.” Zhao Kai stepped closer; the cologne hit like a chemical weapon. His pupils were pinpricks of appetite. “New here? Need a guided tour? My card—”
He leaned in, breath laced with last night’s baijiu. Something inside me snapped—clean, audible, like a glass rod breaking under stress.
Cold fury erupted from nowhere. The bracelet flared, silver-blue turning arctic, and a pressure wave—not air, not sound—slammed through the corridor. It was the sensation of standing at the edge of a glacier that judged you irrelevant. Time hiccupped.
“Scram.”
One syllable, girl-bright and glacier-cold. It carved the air like an executioner’s blade.
Zhao Kai’s hand froze halfway to his pocket. His smile shattered into ceramic shards. Colour drained; veins stood livid against the white. He staggered back, coffee cup crashing, brown horror blooming on the carpet. For a second he looked as if he’d stared into a jet engine and realised it was yawning for him.
Nobody breathed.
Then he bolted—shoulder-checked a potted ficus, ricocheted off a wall, vanished around the corner trailing terror like toilet paper on a shoe.
Zhang stood fish-mouthed. Old Wei’s lip twitched—approving micro-smile of a man who appreciates economy in violence.
“Apologies for the carpet,” I said, voice reset to polite frost. I might have been commenting on the weather.
“No—no problem! Cleaner! Elevator—this way!” Zhang was suddenly eager to be helpful in the way mice are helpful to eagles.
...
Back in the penthouse I kicked the sadist heels into a corner, collapsed face-first into the bean-bag cloud, and let gravity win.
“Freeeedom—” The moan came out muffled, salty, greasy with chip dust.
“Meow. Posture, Mistress,” Yue Fei sighed from the arm-rest.
“Mistress, I’ll knead your shoulders!” Xing Dian whirled overhead, tiny dragon fists drumming warmth into my traps.
“No kneading... food first...” I burrowed deeper, eyes shut. The day’s performance had cost more mana than any raid boss.
Fridge door, rustle of plastic, the thud of size-twelve feet. Old Wei reappeared bearing two ice-cold colas and a family bag of barbecue chips, which he drop-kicked into my lap.
“Here.” He cracked his can, gulped, throat working. Jacket gone, sleeves rolled, tattoos peeking—thug mode restored.
“Thanks, bro.” The can hissed; bubbles sang. I tore the chip bag like a raccoon with opposable thumbs and shovelled a fistful into my mouth. Crunch-crunch. Cashmere be damned.
Old Wei flopped into the single-seater, legs sprawling, chips synchronised. The 85-inch wall-screen bloomed into starfields: our scheduled all-nighter—Galactic Conquest IV.
“Logging in?” he asked, thumbs already dancing over the controller.
“Born ready.” I wriggled till the bean-bag swallowed me whole and grabbed my pad. Shares cashed, sleazeball scattered, contract signed. Time for the real endgame.
On screen, my platinum-haired berserker hoisted an axe the size of a satellite dish. Old Wei’s cyber-ranger flicked twin plasma pistols. Behind us, the spirits queued like DLC buffs.
“Xing Dian, scout path. Yue Fei, stack ‘Elegant Focus’—I want crits on crits.”
“Roger! Starlight engine maximum!” A thread of indigo zipped into the code; my boots lit with comet trails.
“Meow—buffs incoming.” Status bars exploded in rainbow icons: attack up, crit up, cooldown zero, micro-crit precision.
“Let’s roll!” I screamed in chip-muffled falsetto and hurled my berserker into the mob. Axes blurred, damage numbers vomited across the screen.
“Filthy casual,” Old Wei laughed, sliding under a boss shockwave and head-shotting its power core. Explosion bloom. We danced the old duet—chaos and surgical strike.
The penthouse filled with crunch, hiss, orchestral battle music, and two grown idiots yelling strats over cola burps. Magical girls, timeline residue, dragon bloodlines—whatever. Right now the only dragons were pixelated and dropping loot.
Victory banner flashed. I flopped back, hair unraveling into vanilla tangles, cheek-badge glowing under screen-light. The witch was off-duty; the couch was sovereign.
Tomorrow I could save the world. Tonight, salt and sugar reign.