"Xueling! You have to see this again—come on, just once more!"
Before Xueling could even set her bag down, Xiaoman shoved her phone into her hands. The video started instantly: the lean figure in the alley striking like lightning, three hulking men toppling one by one.
"Look at that move!" Xiaoman squeaked, eyes sparkling. "She's like a movie heroine. If she were in our school, I'd follow her around with snacks every day just to learn her secrets."
Xueling glanced at the screen, then calmly pressed pause. "You've watched this ten times… today."
"Eleven," Xiaoman corrected proudly. "And she's still amazing."
Xueling set the phone flat on the desk and nudged it back toward her friend. "If you can recite her every move, then you can definitely recite the quadratic formula. Focus."
Xiaoman groaned and flopped onto her notebook. "Ugh, you're cruel. Cruel and heartless."
"You'll thank me when you pass finals." Xueling opened her book, pen moving smoothly across the margin. "Unless you want to stay behind while I go to Tsinghua?"
That got Xiaoman upright again. She scowled, pouting, then dragged her textbook over. "Fine. But if the mystery girl ever shows up, don't come begging me to introduce you."
Xueling allowed herself the faintest smile. "Deal."
As Xiaoman finally started copying problems, the classroom buzzed with laughter and chatter. It had been a week since Zhang Wei's departure. The Zhang family had since moved away, and for Xueling, the only trace of him — and the trouble he brought — was the "Mystery Martial Arts Heroine" video.
Ding! A new notification pinged on Xiaoman's phone.
"Ahhh! My goddess's video just hit another milestone!" Xiaoman squealed, immediately clicking into the feed to check the updates.
Xueling's expression tightened, her eyes narrowing slightly. She had calculated the Zhang family's downfall and ensured they wouldn't get back up again. But the video… that had been beyond her plan. At first she assumed the hype would die down, swallowed by the constant churn of online noise. Yet a week later, it was still climbing — too neatly, too cleanly. The trending posts almost looked curated.
Her frown deepened. This doesn't look like a coincidence…
"Alright, alright!" Xiaoman said quickly, mistaking the look for annoyance at her distraction. "I'll get back to work. But this problem is impossible. Could you give me a hint?"
And just like that, Xueling was pulled back into the daily grind — guiding Xiaoman through equations, explaining steps with quiet patience — setting aside the unease tugging at the back of her mind.
That evening, she skipped self-study and made her way to the Ruyi Pavilion, an elegant, quiet café in the bustling business district. Sliding into a corner seat, she checked her watch. One hour until her appointment — enough time.
She flipped open her laptop, fingers flying across the keys. Her screen filled with code and network traces, every line sharpening her focus.
It was time to follow the trail of the "Mystery Martial Arts Heroine" video — and find out who was pushing her into the light.
Elsewhere, in a dark room crowded with monitors, lines of code scrolled endlessly across the screens. The air was stale, heavy with sleepless nights.
Suddenly — BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! — a shrill alarm pierced the silence.
The man slumped at the desk jerked awake, eyes wide. "No… no, no, no!" His fingers hammered at the keyboard, frantic. "Stop! Stop!"
But the system ignored him. Code windows blinked out one by one, collapsing like dominoes. Within minutes every screen flared red: ERROR.
He sagged back, defeated, then with trembling hands dialed a number. "Hello… yes, I was hacked—"
"What?!" The voice on the other end roared so loud he pulled the phone away from his ear. "Useless! Absolutely useless!"
The phone slammed down, shattering against the wall. A colder, calmer voice cut through the fury. "If you want to go mad, do it elsewhere."
The man froze. It was Mr. Chen — the same professor the principal of No.1 High School had introduced as a visiting faculty.
"How can I calm down? We were hacked! How do we push the video viral now?"
"Hacked?" Mr. Chen's tone was almost amused. "Wasn't he supposed to be a top-five hacker?"
"Damn useless!"
"No… this makes things interesting. If even he can't hold his ground, then it means this is no ordinary student. It's a pity we couldn't dig up more clips of her. All traces in and out of the alley were wiped clean."
Mr. Chen's voice sharpened, deliberate. "Don't worry. Contact him again. Put me in touch. There are… other ways to find her."
Across the city, Xueling closed her laptop with quiet satisfaction. Just as she suspected, the hype around the video had been engineered. It was a deliberate strategy to bring her under the spotlight. It looked like…they were searching for her. Good thing she had erased her digital footprints that very night. And now she had scrubbed every remaining trace of the alley fight from the net. They would be left with nothing.
If they continued to look for her, then they would walk into a trap. For she had built a countermeasure — a custom high-level intrusion detection lattice, an encryption trap laced with honeytokens. Anyone who tried to dig into her data again would trigger it, and she would know. Every attempt to unmask her would be logged, traced, and recorded.
This was the best she could do for now.
Exactly an hour had passed when the café door swung open. A man in his mid-thirties stepped in, shoulders hunched under the weight of strain. Once, he must have carried himself with confidence — the suit sharp, the haircut neat, the smile assured. But time and stress had chipped all that away. His jacket sagged, his hair was overgrown, and even his stride faltered.
Only his eyes still burned with life. They darted anxiously around the café once, then again, dimming with disappointment when they failed to find what he sought.
At Mo Shenyu's office
"The Chen family is already on it?!" Mo Shenyu sprang to his feet.
"Mo zong, calm down. We aren't sure it's a concrete lead yet…" Assistant Liang said, voice measured.
"Didn't you say it was a school in that city? Weren't you supposed to be following up?" Mo snapped, blood roaring in his ears.
Heat flared behind his eyes. The idea that she might be on their radar — that they could lose the chance to find her — detonated something inside him. A sharp crack split the air as the edge of his hand struck the desk; the lacquered surface of the huanghuali panel split under the force.
"Quick — call Dr. Chu. Prep the meds.." Assitant Liang shouted at the bodyguards.
"No!" Mo Shenyu barked, grabbing at the black hairband on his wrist. He twisted it tight until the sting steadied the storm in his chest. He fought for breath, for control; ten long minutes later his shoulders eased and his voice came out low and gravelly. "Prepare the private plane. We leave tonight."
"Mo zong… your condition—Dr. Chu says—" Assistant Liang began, concern cracking his professional tone.
Mo turned on him, eyes ice. It was clear he was hanging by a thread. "Don't make me repeat myself. Plane. Now."