Lin Mo’s fingers froze on the keyboard. The blue light from the monitor cast a pallor over his face. Behind him, the elevator chimed, and the sharp clip of high heels against the marble floor pierced through him like bullets.
"Did you scrub it clean?"
Su Yuqing’s voice was colder than the night wind atop the building. She leaned against the fire door, her champagne-colored gown still stained with the red wine Chen Hao had "accidentally" spilled three hours ago at the victory banquet. Lin Mo turned slowly to see the cigarette held between her fingertips glowing in the dark, like a dying ember.
"I don’t know what you're talking about."
"The surveillance in the family conference room." She stepped forward, her heels crushing the ash on the floor. "Father said he saw someone messing with the terminal. Now, the data recovered by the tech department shows—"
"It shows your Father is planning to trade you for five percent of the Chen Group’s shares." Lin Mo cut her off abruptly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed the rest of his sentence. A red warning light flickered on his retinas: [Host’s emotional volatility exceeds threshold].
Su Yuqing’s cigarette dropped to the ground.
The wind on the twenty-eighth floor suddenly grew deafening. Her fingers, painted with nude polish, gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white, as if they might snap. It was the first time Lin Mo had ever seen her carefully applied eyeliner blur with tears, leaving two dark streaks down her cheeks.
"Do you know what the most ridiculous part is?" She laughed, a sound like shattering glass. "The whole company thinks you were the one who stole the encrypted file—the trade secrets."
Lin Mo’s temples throbbed. The [Junior Network] his system had just unlocked was frantically refreshing his contact list—Wang Zhen, Director Li, Chen Hao’s driver... He suddenly grabbed Su Yuqing’s wrist. "At ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Oceanic International’s stock price will plummet by 17%."
"Are you insane?" Her Cartier bracelet dug into his palm, causing him pain.
"Buy put options now." Lin Mo pulled up his phone’s notepad and scrawled a string of numbers. "Use this offshore account. The returns will be enough to buy the five percent of shares Chen Hao is holding."
The night wind caught the edge of the note. Su Yuqing stared at him as if he were a stranger; the smudged mascara made her gaze appear sharper than ever. "Who are you, really?"
A prompt, [Trust +5%], lit up the edge of his vision. Lin Mo heard the System Spirit’s voice, uncharacteristically grave: [Suggestion: Display partial forecast data.]
"Last Wednesday, the conversation between your Father and the CFO." He tapped a recording on his phone. "The part about 'Yuqing’s marriage' shouldn't have been encrypted."
Su Yuqing’s breath hitched. In the recording, Su Zhiyuan’s voice mingled with the clatter of porcelain: "...The Chen Family boy may have dirty methods, but the shipping license..."
She suddenly turned and dashed toward the fire exit. When Lin Mo caught up to her, he found her retching into a stainless-steel trash can, her carefully styled curls plastered against her sweat-dampened neck.
"Why help me?" she asked, her voice hoarse, her lipstick smeared like a wound. "The whole city knows the Su Family’s son-in-law is a loser who can't even read a financial statement."
A searchlight from the rooftop swept across them, and Lin Mo’s shadow stretched out long. He pulled out a crumpled cigarette pack—a stimulus item provided by the system when he’d pulled an all-nighter analyzing logistics data—but his fingers were shaking too hard to light it.
"Because..." he looked out at the neon lights of the financial district that never dimmed, "last week at the banquet, you said, 'He is my husband.'"
Su Yuqing suddenly smiled. She snatched the lighter from him. The flame illuminated the thirty centimeters of air between them, and Lin Mo saw two tiny versions of himself reflected in her pupils.
"Deal." She pressed the confirmation key on her mobile transfer. "But I want to know the source of the data."
A [Trust +15%] notification appeared alongside the newly unlocked [Junior Network]. Lin Mo watched "Su Yuqing - Core Ally" being added to his list and heard the System Spirit’s light chuckle: [Host, she just sent Chen Hao a break-up text.]
The east began to pale. As the first rays of sun pierced the clouds, Su Yuqing was busy sending him a screenshot of the option contract. Lin Mo suddenly pressed down on her phone. "Your Father’s car is downstairs."
"So soon?" She instinctively grabbed his sleeve, the expensive silk tearing with a sharp sound.
A system alarm suddenly blared: [Vehicle registered to Chen Hao detected heading toward the Stock Exchange.] Lin Mo pushed Su Yuqing toward the elevator. "Take the service stairs. I’ll go hold them off."
Before the elevator doors closed, he saw Su Yuqing use her lipstick to write "21:00" on the mirror—the time of the rooftop bar they had visited on their first date.
A prompt, [New Mission: Form an initial team within 24 hours], appeared in the narrowing gap between the doors. Lin Mo straightened his torn cuff. As he turned, he locked eyes with Su Zhiyuan, whose malevolent gaze was sweeping across the trading confirmation screen still flickering in Lin Mo’s hand.