Against the Algorithm

Chapter 54: Given, Not Owed

One of the delivery drivers, stunned speechless, quietly handed her the envelope. Her name. A note.

You once said this was your dream. I remembered. Please don't scream too much. I don't want to cause a public panic. And yes, you're allowed to post it. Just... maybe crop my name?

—Yao

Jinyang screamed again. "I'M NOT CROPPING ANYTHING! I'M TATTOOING THIS!"

Ai Jia, still standing by the Audi, slowly lifted his eyes toward the sky, as if trying to process what reality had become.

"Did she just gift-drop two fantasy cars into our courtyard like it was fan mail?!" muttered Kun Hyeok staggered outside, barefoot, eyes wide.

"She's the CEO of kindness!" Jinyang howled. "She's going to make me cry into the engine block!"

Ai Jia finally spoke.

Softly. Quietly.

"...She remembered."

And no one—not a single soul—had it in them to laugh at that.

Because they knew what it meant. And for a long moment, the YQCB base stood in the shadow of two impossible vehicles, gifted without fanfare, without publicity, and without expectation. Only love. Only memory. And a girl who never said a word.

It was mid-afternoon at the ZGDX base.

The team was deep in training drills, the room alive with the familiar cadence of strategizing, keys clicking, and Kwon's occasional sharp corrections from behind his clipboard. Yao had stepped out briefly to make tea, Xiao Cong trailing at her heels, Da Bing draped over the back of the main lounge couch like an oversized white fur-guardian in sleep mode. She'd just added honey to her cup when the front door slammed open.

Hard.

Yao barely had time to set the mug down.

"YAAAAAAO—!"

The screech could only belong to one person.

Before she could even blink, a designer blur of motion—sneakers, denim, oversized hoodie, and wild perfume—launched through the hall, cutting past a stunned Lao K and a bewildered Lao Mao like a heat-seeking missile.

Jinyang.

And she didn't stop running.

"No no no wait—!" Yao tried, backing up a step.

Too late.

Jinyang fly-tackled her best friend straight into the lounge couch with the kind of love and reckless abandon that could only come from someone who'd just received the car of her dreams and hadn't emotionally processed it yet.

Yao let out a high-pitched yelp, flailing helplessly as she went down with a soft whumph into the cushions.

"You're mine now! I don't care what the law says, I am marrying you as well when I marry that idiot of mine!" Jinyang shouted, wrapping her arms around her like a starfish and nuzzling into the top of her head.

Yao squawked again, her face already red, her hands caught in the sleeves of her cardigan.

Inside the training room, all activity stopped.

Pang peeked through the door. "Was that Jinyang?"

Yue didn't even look up from his keyboard. "Yao's about to die under the weight of female friendship."