The morning of the preliminary hearing felt like a trial for a crime I hadn't committed. The air in the principal’s office was stagnant, smelling of old paper and the bitter coffee Mr. Zhang kept sipping to hide his disappointment.

"Academic fraud is a heavy accusation, Ling Yin," the principal said, sliding a folder across the mahogany desk. "An anonymous whistleblower submitted evidence that your core data for the quantum interference project was copied from a classified paper published five years ago. Until the disciplinary committee finishes its investigation, you are suspended from all school activities. Including the Olympiad."

I stared at the folder, my hands trembling. The "evidence" was a series of screenshots—manipulated, doctored, but professional enough to fool a board of teachers. I knew who was behind this. Lu Zhengyuan wasn't just trying to separate us anymore; he was trying to erase my future.

"I didn't do it," I said, my voice barely a whisper but laced with iron. "That data is mine. I spent three months in that basement—"

"The committee needs proof, not passion," the principal interrupted coldly. "You have forty-eight hours to provide the raw logs, or the suspension becomes a permanent expulsion."

I walked out of the office into the crowded hallway, feeling the weight of a thousand judgmental eyes. But Lu Shaodong wasn't there. He hadn't been to class all morning.

While the school was busy branding me a thief, Lu Shaodong was miles away, standing in the lion’s den.

Using a keycard he’d swiped from his father’s jacket weeks ago, Lu slipped into the private study of the Lu mansion. The room was a monument to cold power—marble floors, leather-bound books that were never read, and a safe hidden behind a portrait of a woman who looked like a ghost.

His mother.

"Where is it, you old bastard?" Lu hissed, his fingers flying across the keypad. He was looking for the files his father used to frame Ling Yin, but as the heavy steel door of the safe clicked open, he found something else entirely.

Deep inside, tucked behind stacks of bearer bonds, was a medical file from ten years ago. It was labeled: [RESTRICTED: LU MANSION INCIDENT - MEDICAL EXAMINER REPORT].

Lu’s breath hitched. Everyone told him his mother had died in a tragic car accident caused by her own "unstable mental state." But as he flipped through the yellowing pages, a different story emerged.

There was no car accident. There were reports of domestic disputes, a suppressed police call, and a settlement paid to a forensic pathologist to change the cause of death from 'internal hemorrhaging due to blunt force trauma' to 'accidental impact.'

His father hadn't just been cold. He had been a monster. And he had used the same machinery of lies to bury his wife that he was now using to bury Ling Yin.

"Looking for something, son?"

The voice was like a whip. Lu Shaodong froze, the file still in his hands. Lu Zhengyuan was standing in the doorway, the silhouette of his body casting a long, dark shadow across the room.

"You killed her," Lu whispered, his voice cracking with a decade of unspeakable grief and newfound rage. "You killed Mom, and you covered it up."

"I protected the family legacy," Lu Zhengyuan replied, his face as unmoving as a mask. "And I am doing the same now. Give me the file, Shaodong. Don't make me do to you what I had to do to her."

Lu Shaodong looked at the file, then at the man he had called father. For the first time in his life, he wasn't afraid. He felt a cold, crystalline clarity.

"You won't touch her," Lu said, his eyes burning with a lethal fire. "And you won't touch me. Because if Ling Yin doesn't get her seat back at that competition by tomorrow morning, this file goes to every news outlet in the country. Let's see how your 'legacy' handles the truth."

Late that night, I was sitting on the floor of my room, staring at the moon, when my window rattled. I opened it to find Lu Shaodong climbing onto the ledge. He looked exhausted, his shirt torn and his knuckles bruised, but his eyes... his eyes were wide awake.

"Owl," he breathed, pulling me into a fierce embrace. "I've got it. I've got everything."

"Lu, what did you do?" I asked, feeling the frantic beat of his heart against mine.

"I ended the war," he whispered, burying his face in my hair. "We’re going to that competition, Ling Yin. And after we win... we’re never coming back to this graveyard."

He pulled back and handed me a flash drive. "Your logs are on here. The whistleblower's IP address is traced back to my father’s assistant. You're cleared."

I looked at him, sensing the heavy burden he was now carrying. "At what cost, Lu?"

He smiled—a sad, beautiful, broken smile. "The cost of finally being free."