: Chapter 18

The next morning, I wake up with a pounding headache and the pattern of my pillow pressed into my cheek. For a few short, blissful seconds, I forget I’m back at home. I forget why my throat feels so dry, like I haven’t drunk any water in days. Why my eyes are almost swollen shut.

Then I hear the clatter of pots, the click-click-click of the stove turning on in the kitchen—the kitchen—and everything comes flooding back to me in one sweeping, nauseating wave—

Fuck.

My lungs seize up as I’m assaulted by memory after painful memory, forced to relive every second of yesterday’s meeting, the look of profound disappointment on Baba’s face, the way Mama kept her lips pursed on the long subway ride home, as if she was trying to hold back tears.

I can’t remember the last time I messed up on such a catastrophic scale. I’ve never even been grounded before; whenever I did something wrong as a child, like accidentally scribble on the walls or shatter a plate, I’d be so harsh on myself that Mama and Baba would end up comforting me instead of handing down punishments.

But this is different. What I did was completely, undeniably wrong on every conceivable level. You can always fix or replace a broken plate, but when you hurt people—there’s no going back from that.

And that’s not even considering the legal implications. If Peter’s family decides to sue—which, let’s face it, they probably will because he’s their only child and I’m powerless and they’re used to having their way… If the school decides to expel me, put “criminal activity” into my permanent academic records… Or worse, if this ends up going to court… I’m not even sure how much lawyers cost, but I do know they’re expensive, a thousand times more expensive than we could ever afford, and if any of the court dramas I’ve watched are grounded in truth, a legal case like this could drag on for years. But what would the alternatives even be? Prison? Would they force my parents into jail in my place, because I’m underage? Or would they send me to some kind of juvenile detention center, where kids hide knives under their pillows and attack the physically weak like me?

A terrible wheezing sound fills the room, like that of a dying animal caught in a snare, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me. I’m curled up on the bed in a fetal position, panic threatening to crush my very bones.

I don’t know how much time I spend like this, trying and failing to remember how to breathe and hating myself, hating everything—

Then Mama’s voice cuts through the closed bedroom door:

“Sun Yan. Come eat.”

My heart stutters a beat. I cling onto the tone of her voice, try to dissect her every word. Mama only ever calls me by my full Chinese name when she’s angry, but at least she’s still willing to feed me. To speak to me.

Maybe I haven’t been disowned just yet.

I rub the sleep from my eyes, take a deep breath, and tiptoe out into the tiny living room, feeling like a criminal in my own house. I half expect to find a lawyer or the police or maybe one of Peter’s parents’ assistants sitting on our worn sofa, ready to take me away at a moment’s notice, but the room is empty except for me and Mama.

Mama doesn’t look up from her seat at the dining table when I move to join her. Just pushes my breakfast closer toward me.

It’s the sort of food she used to make me when I was in primary school: a bowl of steaming soybean milk—not that silky, supersweet stuff you can buy in cartons at the supermarket, but the homemade kind you need to filter through a sieve—an already peeled hard-boiled egg, two platters of Laoganma chili sauce and pickled vegetables, and half a chunk of white mantou.

Though I don’t have much of an appetite, hunger pinches my stomach. I realize I haven’t eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours.

I rip off a small piece of the mantou and chew. It’s still warm, the bread soft and faintly sweet. If only I wasn’t having difficulty swallowing.

“Is Baba joining us for breakfast?” I ask quietly, cautiously, wincing as the words scrape their way up my throat.

Mama doesn’t reply for a long time, the room deadly silent save for the soft crunch of peeled eggshells and the clink of her spoon against her bowl. Then at last she says, still not looking my way, “He already go to work.”

My heart sinks to my feet.

“I’m really sorry, Mama,” I whisper, staring down at a stain on the table. “I just—I wish—” My throat closes up, and I go quiet, fighting back the sudden press of tears. Deep down, I know there’s nothing I can say to change the situation; even if I’m sick with regret, even if I apologize a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, it’s too late. The past is permanent.

“We’re out of duck eggs.”

I jerk my head up, certain I’ve misheard. It’s not as if I expected Mama to respond to my apology, but… “What?”

“I need to go to market before work.”

Mama downs her bowl of soybean milk, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and rises to her feet. Then, for the first time in months, she looks at me. Her gaze is gentler than I would’ve dared imagine, more tired than angry. “You coming or no?”

It’s been years since I last visited the local grocery store with Mama. After I moved into the dorms at Airington, I was simply too far away to visit home on a regular basis. But even during the summer holidays, I’d turn down Mama’s offers to go shopping—if trying to find the biggest possible cabbage for the cheapest price can even be called that—choosing instead to get a head start on coursework for the next year or polish up my holiday homework.

But not a lot has changed around here since I was twelve or thirteen.

There are still the same clustered shelves of ripe fruit: round nashi pears wrapped in white foam netting, sliced watermelon quarters and whole dragon fruits; the same overflowing trays of recognizable candy usually distributed at weddings: sticky peanut sweets wrapped in shiny red foil, tiny plastic cups of translucent jelly, thick marshmallows with strawberry swirls; the same glass displays at the Asian bakery, showcasing the freshly made sausage rolls and glazed egg tarts and purple taro buns stuffed with whipped cream.

Even the people seem the same: the little girl staring longingly at the row of fruit cakes, the old nainais squinting at the different brands of soy sauce.

And as I drift from aisle to aisle like a fish in freshwater, trailing behind Mama as she slaps a watermelon to check if it’s sweet, weighs out a bag of roasted sunflower seeds with expert precision, a strange feeling washes over me.

Peace.

Because it hasn’t just been years since I last visited the grocery store. It’s been years since I did anything that wasn’t for school, or, more recently, for Beijing Ghost. Years since I wasn’t so busy—always hustling, always striving to get further, do better—I could barely breathe.

The sudden freedom is dizzying. It makes me feel…well, human again.

All this time, I’d thought the nickname Study Machine was a compliment of sorts. That it meant productivity, above-human levels of discipline, that I was programmed for success.

Now I wonder if it describes someone devoted to doing at the expense of feeling. Something barely alive.

Mr. Chen’s words resurface in my mind—

What is it that you want?

The answer had seemed so obvious to me then: I want whatever other people want, whatever they assign the most worth to. But standing here in the middle of a crowded supermarket, like some scene from a childhood dream, the first thing I think of is the English program Mr. Chen recommended to me. Well, not so much that specific program, but the idea of just getting to write for two whole months, or even longer, of having that be what I’m best at…

“Ready to leave?” Mama asks, pulling me from my thoughts. Her basket is only half filled with vegetables and fruit, her hands pale and chapped over the handle. The winter always makes her skin dry, the scar more noticeable.

I’m about to tell her yes, when my eyes fall on the little pharmacy store next to the seasoning section.

“Wait right here,” I say, ducking around the nearest shelf. “There’s something I want to see first…”

Over the course of the next week, I do everything I can to distract myself.

I catch up on all the popular costume dramas from the past few years, the kind that stretch on for over seventy episodes and involve such complicated relationships you’d need a diagram to sort them out. I read books that aren’t Macbeth or dry classics or compulsory texts for IB, but fun fantasy novels with magic and mythology. I help Mama cook when she’s working, help Baba fold his clothes even though he’s still not speaking to me. I make long to-do lists, SMART goals, Five Year Plans, then toss them in the trash, knowing how pointless it all is when my future now hangs on such a thin thread.

And no matter what, I try not to think about Peter, or Andrew She, or the fact that the school should be calling any day now to announce what exactly my punishment will be.

I try not to think about Henry Li.

But then one afternoon, when Baba’s still at work and I’m watching the last episode of Yanxi Palace alone in my bedroom, a knock sounds on our front door.

“Alice,” Mama calls from outside, and I know right away that something is wrong. She’s using her fake polite voice, usually reserved for chats with the neighbors at the local park or large family gatherings.

I bolt upright from bed, pulse already racing, and call back, “What is it?”

“Someone’s here to see you.”

Henry Li is standing in our living room.

There’s something so surreal about the scene that I’m half convinced it’s a hallucination. Henry—with his perfect posture and ironed button-down shirt and polished shoes, the very image of wealth and privilege—next to our battered sofa, our yellow-stained walls with bits of old newspaper pasted over the holes.

He seems too big for the room. Too bright.

It’s like one of those “Which of these things is out of place?” games, except the answer is painfully obvious.

Then Henry’s eyes land on me, and I realize how I must look. I’m wearing Mama’s baggy plaid pajamas—the ones that have a wide tear in the sleeves—my eyes are still single-lidded and puffy from crying, and I haven’t washed my hair in four days.

A hot, sticky sensation fills my stomach, humiliation turning into anger and back again, and suddenly I want to crawl out of my skin.

“Hi, Alice,” he says, his voice overwhelmingly soft.

“Bye,” I blurt out.

And I flee.

Our flat is so small that it takes only seconds for me to sprint back into my room, slamming the door shut behind me with such force the walls tremble. I haven’t felt this kind of panic, this mad, heart-pounding, nauseating rush of adrenaline, since the last Beijing Ghost task. Since everything fell apart.

My mind whirs as I fall onto the bed, pulling the blankets high over my head as if I can somehow pretend this nightmare scenario away. I have no idea why Henry’s here, but I need him to leave. Now.

Maybe I’ll tell him I’ve developed a rare but very serious allergy to other humans, I think desperately. One that will cause intense choking and potential death if anyone comes within three feet of me. Or maybe I’ll say I have a dog in here who’s terrified of strangers. Or maybe—

“Alice?” He knocks on the door once. Twice. I hear the faint rustle of fabric, and imagine him sliding his hands into his pockets, cocking his head to the side. The image is so vivid, so terribly familiar it makes my chest hurt. “Can I come in?”

I open my mouth to give him one of my very flimsy excuses, but I choke on the words. After all that’s happened, I’m still a terrible liar. Maybe it’s for the best.

“Um—wait a second,” I tell him, scrambling out of bed. In one sweeping motion, I clear the dirty laundry and empty snack packets and wads of tissue off the sheets and stuff them all into a basket, cringing at the thought of Henry witnessing such a mess. When I’m absolutely certain there are no more unwashed bras or socks lying around, I open the door.

“Thank you,” Henry says, his tone and expression so formal I’m almost tempted to laugh.

Then he steps inside and examines the tiny bedroom carefully, as if trying hard to come up with a compliment. Him and his manners. At last, he points to a plastic tiger statue by the bed that was a Lunar Festival gift from Xiaoyi to Mama—the only object in the room that isn’t a necessity.

“This is really nice,” he says.

“Thanks. It’s my mum’s.”

He quickly drops his hand.

I debate offering him a seat out of courtesy, but there’s barely enough room for him to stand as it is. “Sorry this place is so small,” I mumble, then realize who I’m talking to. Remember how he usually acts in such cramped spaces. “Wait. Aren’t you afraid of—”

“I’m fine,” he says, but he doesn’t look fine. Now that he’s this close, I can make out the familiar lines of tension in his shoulder and jaw.

God. As if I needed another reason for this arrangement to be a bad idea.

“You should get out,” I tell him. “I mean, not as in I want to kick you out or anything, but if you’re not comfortable—”

“I want to be here,” he says, like that settles everything. Then he adds, quietly, “It’s been ages since we last saw each other. I…” He clears his throat. “I’ve missed fighting with you at school.”

My heart stutters.

“Same.” I allow myself just two more seconds to fully indulge in those last words, the look on his face when he said them, before moving on to business. “Speaking of school… How are things there?”

“Well, Peter still hasn’t been discharged from the hospital yet.”

All remaining thoughts of Henry’s dark gaze and parted lips vanish in a crushing wave of nausea. I can’t help picturing Peter’s pale, almost lifeless face, lying completely still while strapped to a heart monitor and IV, his parents weeping beside him. “Oh, god. Is he—”

“No,” Henry says quickly. “No, it’s not that bad. He’s lightly concussed, but he should technically be able to go about his life as usual by now. His parents are the ones keeping him there—they’re somewhat paranoid about him getting injured again. Understandably, of course.”

“Of course,” I echo, hugging a pillow to my chest. My pulse still hasn’t returned to normal yet.

“You know, if I’m being honest,” Henry says suddenly, “part of me was expecting you to go back for Peter.”

“You…were?”

I lean back, unsure how to respond. Unsure if I want to keep talking about this at all.

But Henry continues, “Because deep down—”

I glare at him.

“Deep, deep, deep down,” he amends, “you’re hardly as terrible as you try to be.”

“And look where I ended up,” I say bitterly, even though I don’t mean it, not really. I’ve had time to regret plenty of things—but somehow, going back for Peter isn’t one of them.

“See.” Henry gestures in my direction, eyebrows raised. “That’s precisely what I’m talking about.” A pause. “I never entirely understood why you’d insist on creating such an app—on forcing yourself to be someone you’re not—”

“It’s not that simple—”

“But I—”

“You don’t get it,” I say. I want to sound angry, to push him away, but my voice comes out thin and fragile as eggshells. “You—you and all the kids at Airington… All you have is light. Light and glory and power and the whole world laid out for you, just waiting for you to take whatever you like.” I draw in a shaky breath, wrap my arms tighter around myself, bury my chin into the pillow. “Is it really too much to ask? For people like me to want a bit of that light for ourselves?”

He’s silent for a long time. I watch the faint movement in his throat, the tension bunching in his shoulders. His eyes lock on mine. “No,” he says softly. “Of course not.”

“Then why…” My voice trembles. I inhale, try again. “Why do I feel so fucking tired all the time?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

And despite myself, I choke out a laugh. “I’ve never seen you so lost for words before.”

“Yes, well…” He looks away. “I’ll admit I really don’t know what to say.”

“Look, you don’t have to say anything—”

“But I do.” He shifts position slightly, his attention going to the plastic tiger again, then back to me. His expression is pained. “I wasn’t even aware that your family was living like this. I mean, I suspected, but…”

“Yeah,” I mutter, forcing down that same awful, itchy feeling from earlier: the desire to run, to hide, to turn into someone else—anyone else but me.

The desire grows even stronger when Henry asks, with the air of one who’s just grasped something incredibly obvious and can’t believe it’s taken them this long, “Is that why you came up with the idea for Beijing Ghost? To pay—to pay bills?”

No point denying it now, I guess.

“Not bills.” I dig my nails deeper into the pillow. At this rate, I’m probably going to tear a hole through the fabric. “Just…school fees and stuff.”

“If I’d known—Alice, you realize I don’t care about my cut of the profits, right? It was never really about the money for me.”

“Well, good, because you’re definitely not getting any of it now,” I tell him, only half-joking.

“It’s just not fair,” Henry says after a pause, and I’m surprised by the burr of anger in his voice. “You’re indisputably the smartest person in our entire year level—no, the entire school. You shouldn’t have to resort to monetizing your supernatural powers just to stay at Airington with the rest of us. It’s honestly…” He rakes an agitated hand through his hair. “It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is. You deserve to be there more than people like Andrew She. You deserve to be there more than I do.”

I stare at him. “Henry… Did you just admit that I’m smarter than you?”

He shoots me a half exasperated, half affectionate look. “Don’t make me say it again.”

I feel the corners of my lips twitch, and the tension between us seems to thaw a little.

“Really, though. I’m sorry I didn’t notice anything earlier,” Henry says after a beat. He’s speaking slowly, like he’s weighing out every word in his head first. “You shouldn’t be in this mess, and you certainly shouldn’t be the only one shouldering the blame for what happened.”

“I shouldn’t, but I am,” I remind him. “That’s just how the system works. I don’t have the right connections, or the money to hire a good lawyer, or parents who’ve donated millions to the school—”

“But you have me,” Henry says, eyes blazing. “I’m responsible for Beijing Ghost too, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you. In fact, that’s part of the reason I came here today.”

“What do you mean?”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and holds it up for me to see. The familiar Beijing Ghost logo blinks back at me. “I figured it would be safest for everyone involved if we were to shut down the app—before Peter’s parents or the police decide to investigate further.”

I’d considered this before, too, but…it still feels very sudden. “Shut it down…right now?”

“Would you prefer to hold an elaborate farewell party first? Take time to write out a touching eulogy?” Henry says drily, much more like his normal self. “Or perhaps wait until the tenth day of the Lunar calendar, when the sun and the moon align?”

“Fine,” I grumble, shifting position so I can see his phone screen more clearly. “What do we need to do?”

“Lucky for you, I’ve already set everything up.” He clicks away from the app, and a black page appears, crammed with tiny, multicolored lines of code I can’t possibly comprehend. “All I need is your permission, and the app will be gone. Erased, forever. Permanently rem—”

“Okay, I get it,” I snap. I know Henry was kidding about the farewell party, and that the app’s caused me more pain than anything these past few months, but I still feel a small jolt of grief. We’ve been through a lot together. And at the end of the day, Beijing Ghost did make me a hundred thousand RMB richer—if the police don’t get involved and force me to give the money back, that is. “Just—start already.”

He brings his finger to the screen. Glances back at me. “You sure?”

I roll my eyes, but nod.

“Three…”

I hug the pillow tighter. Lick my chapped lips.

“Two…”

This is for the best, I remind myself. The less evidence, the lighter the punishment.

“Wait,” Henry says, frowning.

A notification has popped up over the page: Mobile network not available.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I mutter, taking the phone from him and holding it up at different angles. “Sorry about that. I should’ve warned you—sometimes the connection’s really shitty around here.”

“Maybe I can try one of my other phones,” he suggests.

“I don’t know, it usually doesn’t…” I trail off as an idea sparks in my mind. I drop the phone and turn to face him, my heart pounding at the possibility. If it works… “Actually, let’s not shut the app down.”

“Pardon?”

I smile. “I have a better idea.”

Four hours later, Henry and I are staring down at a five-page-long, just-completed article, a draft email, and the Beijing Ghost app.

Though the cartoon ghost logo and the name are still the same, everything else about the app has changed. The home page no longer promises complete confidentiality and anonymity, or advises the preferred method of payment, but instead encourages students of Airington to “get on top of their studies.”

All my previous private messages have been erased too, replaced by innocuous questions from different accounts—thanks to Henry and Chanel’s many phones—about exam results and the recent chemistry assignment and different interpretations of Macbeth.

Well, not all messages. Andrew She’s long instructions for kidnapping Peter are still there, in bold, as well his original offer of one million RMB in exchange for the task.

“Okay, let’s go over our story one more time,” I tell Henry, who’s now sitting cross-legged on the bed beside me. “How did I end up accepting Andrew’s offer on Beijing Ghost?”

Henry nods and straightens like we’re about to take an exam, then rattles off the answer with impressive speed. “At the start of the school year, I decided to create a study app for some user experience design practice. The main idea behind it was that through the app, anyone at Airington could help each other answer school-related questions, while also earning some extra cash as an incentive. All the accounts are anonymous, but there’s a point system that awards extra points to those who’ve offered the most help, and thus have the most credibility. And since you were, by far, the highest-ranked account, with a reputation for taking on whatever problems came up, regardless of subject or difficulty…”

“Andrew figured that I actually needed the cash, which made me the person most likely to accept his offer and get the job done,” I finish, clapping my hands together. “That sounds plausible, right? Like, specific but not too specific?”

“Right,” Henry says. “And if that doesn’t fully convince the school, your article will.”

I hope so, I think to myself. Writing the article was weirdly cathartic; I’d poured everything I had—everything I’ve experienced in the past five years, every great injustice and minor disappointment, all my loud fears and quiet hopes, all my time spent both on the inside and outside of Airington’s elite circle—into those words. Now I just want to make them count.

“So.” Henry’s finger hovers over the send button on the screen. “Shall we?”

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek and try to act like I don’t feel nauseated at the very thought of emailing the school board. “We shall.”

Before I have time to regret this whole plan, the email leaves my inbox with a loud whooshing sound.

No going back now.

In the silence that follows, I hear loud footsteps, mixed with Baba and Xiaoyi’s voices; something about taking their shoes off. They must’ve just gotten here.

Henry hears them too. He quickly combs his hair with both hands, as if it doesn’t already look perfect, adjusts his shirt collar, and springs to his feet. Then he catches me staring. “What?”

“Where—where exactly do you think you’re going?” I splutter.

“To introduce myself to your father, of course,” he says, now heading for the door. “It’s the polite thing to do—”

I grab his shirt and yank him back toward me. “No. No, no, no, no. You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m barely on speaking terms with my dad right now,” I hiss, refusing to release my grip on his sleeve. “If he sees me coming out of the room with you, he’s going to think—he’ll think—”

“Yes?” Henry arches one brow, testing. Teasing. “What will he think?”

God help me. “You know,” I snap. My whole face burns. “Point is, it’s a very bad idea.”

But instead of being discouraged, he just offers me one of those smug, terribly attractive smiles that used to get under my skin so much. It still kind of does—just in a way that makes me focus far too long on his lips. “Don’t worry. All parents love me; I’ll be sure to make a good impression.”

As I consider the potential risks of hiding Henry under the bed versus introducing him to my family, Xiaoyi’s voice travels through the door. “…Yan Yan inside?”

“She’s with someone right now,” comes Mama’s reply.

Well, I guess my decision’s been made for me.

With a quick warning glare at Henry, I let go of his shirt and enter the living room.

Xiaoyi, Mama, and Baba are all sitting on the couch, a plate of skinned and diced apple set out before them, complete with a set of toothpicks on the side.

“Yan Yan!” Xiaoyi greets me brightly, standing up and shuffling over in her slippers. “I hear you’re a criminal now!”

Both Baba and Mama make a series of deeply disapproving noises.

“Please don’t encourage her,” Mama mutters in Chinese.

But Xiaoyi’s already turned her attention to Henry beside me. I’m not exaggerating when I say that her eyes literally light up, her jaw dropping all the way to her feet. You’d think she’s never seen me with a tall, good-looking, well-dressed boy my age before.

Okay, fine. She hasn’t.

Still, she doesn’t have to look that surprised.

“Oh!” she exclaims, looking Henry up and down at least five times. “Oh! Who’s this?”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Henry says before I can reply, slipping smoothly into Mandarin to address both Baba and Xiaoyi. His smile is bright and earnest, his head bent at a respectful angle. “I’m Henry Li—I go to the same school as Alice. I just wanted to see how she was doing.”

Xiaoyi positively melts.

Baba looks less enthusiastic about Henry’s presence. His brows furrow. “You came all the way from school just to see our Alice?”

Henry nods. “Yes, shushu.”

It’s the polite, appropriate term to use, but Baba’s frown only deepens. He gets up and walks closer so that he and Henry are standing face-to-face and asks, very slowly, “Are you…dating my daughter?”

Oh. God. I definitely should’ve made Henry hide under the bed.

“No, no, of course not,” I hurry to tell Baba, the same time Henry says, “Yes.”

I whip my head around so fast I hear my neck crack, my heart flying into a frenzy. No way. Henry meets my disbelieving gaze with a grin, and I don’t know if I want to strangle him or throw my arms around him.

This is all very confusing.

“Not officially though,” Henry adds, turning back to Baba. “Since we’re still high school students, we obviously need to focus on our studies first. But I’m happy to wait, and I hope that in the future—”

“Alice’s future is very uncertain right now,” Baba cuts him off, his expression stern. “It’s not something to joke about.”

Henry doesn’t falter. Doesn’t even blink. “I know, and I’m being one hundred percent serious. Whatever happens, she’s more than smart enough to get through it, and I’ll be there to support her.”

There’s a long pause as Baba stares Henry down.

My heart keeps skipping beats.

“Hmph,” Baba says at last, which is actually a much better response than I expected. Coming from him, that’s almost an invitation to join the family.

I let out a small, silent breath. Henry winks at me.

“Wait!” Xiaoyi suddenly slaps her thigh like she’s just had a major epiphany, making everyone except Henry jump. “Is this the Henry Li? The boy you’ve been talking about since Year Eight? Your”—she makes large air quotes with both hands—“biggest academic rival? The one you keep having to share the award with?”

I flush. “Uh…”

Henry leans in with great interest. “Oh? So she talks about me a lot?”

“A lot,” Xiaoyi confirms generously, and I contemplate fleeing the city.

“What else has she said?” Henry asks, a gleam in his eyes. “Did she mention anything about—”

“You know what?” I step between them, piercing a chunk of apple with a toothpick and stuffing it into Henry’s mouth. “Maybe we should just eat first. And…you know. Not talk for the next three hours. Or ever.”

Xiaoyi glances at me, amused. “Yan Yan. Your face is very red.”

“I… Thank you so much for pointing that out.”

Henry makes a sound that strongly resembles a muffled laugh. I scowl and force-feed him another piece of apple, doing my best not to react when his lips brush my fingers, not to notice how warm his skin is.

The room is quiet for a blissful three seconds before Xiaoyi starts talking again.

“Tell me. What’s your shengchen bazi?” she asks Henry casually.

Shengchen bazi: The Four Pillars of Destiny. As in, the exact time of a person’s birth used to calculate their destiny—and their suitability for marriage. And judging from Henry’s expression, he knows exactly what Xiaoyi means.

While I scramble for some way to dissuade Xiaoyi from planning out any future weddings, my phone buzzes. I pick it up at once. Refresh my inbox: One New Message. I click on it and—

My stomach flips.

Even though this is what I planned for, it’s still slightly unnerving to receive a vague, passive-aggressive email from the Airington school board agreeing to meet as soon as possible.

“What happened?”

I start at Mama’s voice and look up to see everyone staring at me: Henry, with a grim, knowing sort of expression; Baba and Mama, with concern; and Xiaoyi, with bright curiosity. If I were to give her my shengchen bazi now, I wonder what destiny she’d predict for me. Where the events of today might lead.

“It’s the school,” I tell them, glad I don’t technically have to lie about it. Then I turn to Henry. “We have to leave immediately.”