Against the Algorithm

Chapter 22: How It Begins

"Tong Yao, come to the living room."

It wasn't soft. It wasn't warm. It wasn't a question. And it sure as hell wasn't optional. That voice, calm yet commanding, familiar in its elegance and steel, belonged to no one but Aunt Lan.

Madam Lu.

Yao swallowed hard, the sound dry and uneven in her throat, her heart still pounding from the complete disaster of a conversation she had just barely survived, her nerves frayed to the point of snapping, her skin still prickling with the warmth of embarrassment that clung to her like static, refusing to be shaken off no matter how many times she closed her eyes or told herself to breathe. Her fingers remained curled tightly around the edge of the portfolio as though the structured paper could protect her, as though it might anchor her in place when everything else inside her was a whirlwind of mortified panic and confusing exhilaration. She heard it then—the slow, deliberate click of heels retreating down the hallway, Madam Lu's perfectly measured stride echoing against the floor as she walked away, her tone and timing making it clear that she expected to be obeyed without delay, without question, without excuse.

And Yao, knowing better than to test that kind of expectation, knowing that whatever waited for her in the living room was almost certainly going to be a whole new level of mortifying, knowing that staying behind would only prolong the inevitable—finally moved.

Slowly.

Carefully.

She pushed herself to her feet, exhaled once, inhaled deeply, trying to summon whatever shreds of composure she had left, trying to shove down the overwhelming weight of everything that had just happened—his words, his smirk, that voice—so she could just get through whatever was about to come next. She reached for the doorknob, her fingers curling tightly around the cool metal, her movements quick, sharp, deliberately efficient—because she needed to get out of this room, she needed to move, she needed to escape before he said one more word that might finish what little was left of her dignity.

But then—she paused.

Stopped short.

Her fingers curled tighter, not out of panic, but out of something else—something sudden, something unfamiliar, something that surprised even her. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, her breath still shallow, her body still practically vibrating with residual embarrassment—but underneath all of that was something else.

A flare of defiance.

A pulse of boldness.

A spark of pride.

And for the first time since Lu Sicheng had started this insufferable, maddening, completely infuriating game, for the first time since he had turned her world into a series of breathless reactions and flushed silences and emotional chaos, for the first time since she had realized that she was undeniably, irrevocably in a relationship with a man who thrived on making her flustered—

She decided to be brave. Her spine straightened. Her grip on the doorframe tightened. And before she could talk herself out of it, before she could let the fear or the nerves or the mortification win, before he could walk away from this with one more undisputed victory tucked under his belt—she glanced over her shoulder. Hazel eyes, still wide with heat and embarrassment, but burning now with something else—something stubborn, something sharp, something quietly fierce—locked onto his golden-amber gaze with a focus she had never dared direct at him like this before.

And then—she scowled. Her voice, still soft, still flustered, still barely steady—but carrying the unmistakable undercurrent of defiance—cut through the air between them like the sharp point of a blade she hadn't realized she'd been holding.