The October heat in Nanshi didn't just linger; it suffocated. It was the kind of humid, relentless temperature that made your skin feel two sizes too small. High above the classroom, the ceiling fans groaned in a rhythmic, mechanical protest, lazily pushing the heavy air around without ever actually cooling it.

I pushed my oversized, black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. These glasses were more than a prescription; they were my armor. Combined with the thick, blunt bangs that nearly reached my eyelashes, I was successfully invisible. In the cutthroat social hierarchy of Nanshi No.1 High School, being a ghost was the only way to survive.

I was currently hunched over a complex physics problem, my pen flying across the paper. Velocity, mass, kinetic energy... BANG!

A heavy thud echoed from the other side of the classroom wall, followed by a chorus of raucous laughter and the distinct sound of a deck of cards being slammed onto a desk.

"Joker! Boom! Pay up, losers!"

"You idiot! We're playing Bridge, not Poker! There are no Jokers in Bridge!"

"My bad! Again! Deal them again!"

I gritted my teeth, the tip of my pen digging a jagged hole through my worksheet. It was Class 9. The "Black Hole" of the eleventh grade. While my class, the elite experimental group, was drowning in preparatory exams, the kids next door were treating high school like a permanent summer camp.

And at the center of that chaos was always one person.

Lu Shaodong.

Even if you lived under a rock in this city, you knew his name. He was the school's golden boy—if the gold was forged in ice and arrogance. He was the perennial Rank 1, the genius who never seemed to study, and the rebel who broke every rule just to see if the teachers were brave enough to catch him. He was the King of Class 9, and he was currently making my life a living hell with his sheer existence.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A basketball was being rhythmically bounced against the dividing wall. Every vibration rattled my desk, mocking my attempt at focus. My legendary patience, cultivated through years of living in a dysfunctional blended family where I had to be the "perfect, quiet daughter," was finally snapping.

I stood up so abruptly my chair shrieked against the linoleum floor.

"Ling Yin, where are you going?" my teacher asked, startled.

"I... I need to clear my head, sir. Just five minutes," I muttered, not waiting for an answer.

I stepped into the hallway, the air even hotter out here. As I approached the door to Class 9, the noise became a physical wall of sound. I stopped just outside their open back door. Through the gap, I saw him.

Lu Shaodong was leaning back in his chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles on top of a desk. He wasn't wearing his school blazer; his white button-down shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned, muscular forearms. He was spinning a basketball on the tip of one finger with effortless, irritating grace.

He looked up, his gaze cutting through the crowd like a cold blade. Our eyes met through the doorway.

"Look who it is," he drawled, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate in the humid air. The room went silent. "The little owl from the honors class has flown out of her cage."

His cronies erupted in whistles. I felt the heat creeping up my neck, but I didn't back down.

"Some people actually came here to get an education, Lu," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "Not to act like toddlers in a sandbox. Keep it down."

Lu Shaodong's lips tilted into a smirk—not a friendly one, but a challenge. He stood up, and the height difference was immediate. He moved with the predatory confidence of someone who knew he owned every square inch of the ground he walked on.

He walked toward me, stopping just inches away, invading my personal bubble. I could smell him—expensive peppermint and the faint, metallic scent of the basketball.

"Toddlers?" He leaned down, his face dangerously close to mine. I could see the flecks of gold in his dark irises. "Maybe if you spent less time hiding behind those windows on your face and more time actually living, you wouldn't be so high-strung, Scholar Ling."

"I am not high-strung. I am focused," I snapped.

"You're a bore," he countered, his eyes scanning my face with a disturbing intensity. He reached out, his fingers ghosting near the frame of my glasses, but he didn't touch them. "But I'll tell you what. If you can beat my score on the mock exam next week, I'll keep the 'sandbox' quiet for a month. If not..."

"If not?" I challenged.

"If not, you have to do my physics homework until the end of the semester. Without complaining."

The audacity. The sheer, unadulterated arrogance. I looked at him—the boy who had everything and respected nothing—and I felt a spark of something I hadn't felt in a long time. Competition.

"Deal," I said, my voice cold.

"Deal," he whispered, the smirk widening. "See you in the rankings, Owl."

I turned on my heel and walked away, my heart hammering against my ribs. I hated him. I absolutely, purely hated him.

But as I sat back down at my desk, the wall next door was suddenly, eerily silent.