Against the Algorithm

Chapter 64: Before the Game Began

"She forgave him," Kaya muttered under her breath, half to herself.

Jinyang turned, eyes narrowing. "She what?"

Kazime exhaled and nodded, one hand slipping into the pocket of his slacks. "Of course she did. She's a ball of sunshine and soft hands," Kazime muttered, shaking his head. "Loves too easily. Forgives too easily."

Kaya's expression didn't shift, but her tone deepened. "That's why we need to watch her closer. She's too kind for this world. And far too trusting."

Jinyang bit the inside of her cheek but didn't argue.

Kazime gave a sharp breath through his nose, leaning back slightly against the wall as he added, "Especially once Lu Sicheng—Chessman—finds out she's been using him as her case study for her dissertation."

"She hasn't even met the man," Kaya said, the barest hint of a smirk curling at her lips. "And yet he's the one she chose. Out of every pro in China. Every personality. Every play style. She's been analyzing him for nearly a year."

"Why him?" Jinyang blinked.

Kaya shrugged with a tilt of her chin. "Because she says he's the hardest to understand. The most emotionally distant. The most untouchable. And somehow, she decided that made him the perfect subject."

Kazime's mouth curled into something darker. Not amused—delighted. "That cold, stingy bastard that's more lethal than a black mamba?" he muttered. "He's going to fall hard and fast for our girl the moment he meets her."

Kaya's eyes glinted. "She's not a fan girl. She doesn't even like the image he's cultivated."

"That'll be what wrecks him," Kazime said, looking almost entertained. "She picked him not because he's popular. Not because he's a star. But because he's difficult. Because she doesn't need anything from him. And gods help anyone who tries to take her from him once that man decides she's his."

Kaya's smirk deepened. "Then we'd better be ready."

Kazime lifted his brow. "For what?"

She looked toward the hall where Yao had disappeared, her voice as smooth and lethal as a razor's edge. "For when, the Lu Scion realizes the girl dissecting his patterns has no idea she's already under his skin."

Kazime snorted, sharp and low in his throat, the sound edged with dark amusement as he pushed off the wall, shaking his head like he was already preparing himself for a battle no one else knew was coming. "No." he muttered flatly with all the overprotectiveness of an elder brother. "Absolutely not."

Jinyang arched a brow at him. "What now?"

Kazime glanced at her, eyes narrowing with that familiar calculating glint that always appeared when he saw trouble on the horizon, trouble no one else had recognized yet. "I don't want Yao within a hundred feet of the YQCB or ZGDX bases."

Jinyang blinked. "They're literally right up the road from one another."

"I know," he said, scowling as he ran a hand through his hair. "Which is exactly the problem."

Kaya gave a slow blink but said nothing, her smirk deepening.

"I don't want Lu Sicheng even hearing her name," Kazime continued, voice clipped and deliberate. "Not until she turns twenty. At least. She just turned nineteen. She's too young for a man like him to be anywhere near her."