Against the Algorithm

Chapter 22: How It Begins

Sicheng leaned back slightly, his mind catching up with the weight of what she'd just told him, because this—this wasn't something light. This wasn't her joking or reacting blindly. This was her telling him, in her own quiet way, that she understood what he was offering. That she saw it. That she recognized it. That she respected it. Because maybe this wasn't about age. Maybe it wasn't about timelines or expectations or whether or not this was her first time being with someone. Maybe it was about something deeper. About instinct. About recognition. About belonging. And in that moment, with her voice still lingering in the air and her eyes cast down, unaware of the impact she had just made, Sicheng let himself smile—slow, satisfied, full of something dark and possessive and certain. His voice, when it came, was smooth and low, edged with warmth but also with something harder beneath it—something dangerous in its certainty.

"Then I guess you should get used to the idea of being mine, Xiǎo Tùzǐ."

Yao's head snapped up just long enough to register what he had said—just long enough for her expression to freeze, for her lips to part in a soft, strangled noise, for her eyes to widen in pure, unfiltered disbelief—before she buried her face into her sleeves with a muffled, horrified squeak, shaking her head furiously.

And Sicheng?

Sicheng only smirked wider. Because she was flustered. Because she was overwhelmed. Because she was folding into herself in the way only she did when something reached too close to the core of who she was. But she wasn't running. She wasn't pulling away. And that? That was all the confirmation he needed.

Yao's entire face was burning, her skin practically radiating enough heat to warm the entire room, and she couldn't even bring herself to look at him as she pressed her sleeves up against her cheeks, as if the soft fabric could somehow absorb the blaze that had overtaken her since the exact moment Lu Sicheng had opened his mouth and said, with absolutely no shame and far too much smug satisfaction, "Then I guess you should get used to the idea of being mine, Xiǎo Tùzǐ."

It had been too much.

Far, far too much.

Because what kind of man says something like that—so effortlessly, so smoothly, with that infuriating smirk that was both self-satisfied and devastating, like he knew exactly what those words would do to her? Her brain had short-circuited, her pulse completely derailed, and her hands were now curled tightly into the sleeves of his hoodie, gripping the fabric like it was the only thing anchoring her to reality, like it was the only barrier she had left between her and total emotional combustion.

And yet—he wasn't done.

Because even as she buried her face further, even as she silently begged the universe to grant her invisibility, even as she hoped with everything she had that he would have mercy and move on, she heard it—the low, smooth sound of laughter, soft and amused and utterly infuriating, the kind of laugh that said he knew exactly what he was doing and was going to enjoy every second of her unraveling.

And when she finally, slowly, hesitantly peeked up from behind her sleeves, when she risked a glance in his direction, she was immediately met with the sight of Lu Sicheng leaning back in his chair, one arm resting across the desk, completely relaxed, completely unbothered, watching her with the kind of lazy satisfaction that made her want to throw something at him—because his expression was far too smug, his smirk far too pleased, and his entire presence far too entertained by her suffering.

She scowled. Flustered beyond belief, drowning in her own overwhelmed silence, she summoned the only coherent insult her fried, spiraling brain could conjure—one that slipped out in a breathless, exasperated mutter, barely audible and yet still laced with the kind of wounded pride that only she could carry with such sincerity. "Stop being a hooligan."