Summary: When old scars resurface and laughter turns into battle cries, Chen Yao's place among ZGDX is sealed not by blood, but by fire. Chaos may be their constant, but this time—so is family.
Chapter Two
The clatter of chopsticks against empty containers was slowly dying down, the boys of ZGDX half-sprawled around the dining table in various stages of food comas.
Pang was leaning back dangerously in his chair, balancing on two legs, while Lao K had his head tilted back against the wall, muttering about needing a nap. Lao Mao and Lu Yue were engaged in a lazy bickering match about who had eaten more, with Rui sitting off to the side pretending none of them belonged to him. Ming nursed a can of soda, watching them all with the long-suffering patience of a man who had accepted the madness a long time ago.
At the heart of it all, Chen Yao sat calmly, legs crossed under the table, sipping from a bottle of water, her sharp blue eyes drifting half-lidded as if she were already calculating her next move for survival among these idiots.
It was almost a peaceful moment.
Almost.
And then Ai Jia, clearly suffering from the deadly combination of being full, comfortable, and stupid, opened his mouth. "By the way, Yao-er," he said, voice light and oblivious, "I ran into Jian Yang the other day. He's been asking after you."
For a heartbeat, there was no sound at all. Not even breathing.
Both Chen women—Jinyang and Yao—turned their heads toward Ai Jia with synchronized, predatory precision, their faces darkening with such ferocity that the temperature in the room seemed to plummet by ten degrees.
Ai Jia, oblivious for one blessed second longer, caught their twin expressions of death and panic flashed across his features.
"Oh no," Pang whispered under his breath, slowly sliding his chair away from the table like he was trying to avoid collateral damage.
Yue made a strangled sound, part laughter, part horror.
Ai Jia did not wait for explanations. He bolted upright with a wild scramble of limbs, knocking his chair over in his desperate haste, and sprinted toward the door with a terrified yelp.
"You idiot!" Jinyang barked after him, half rising from her chair, while Yao calmly set her water bottle down, cracked her knuckles once—sharp, deliberate—and rose to her feet. The look on her face could have frozen lava. Without a word, she took off after Ai Jia, moving with a predatory grace that promised nothing good for the idiot Midlaner who had dared to invoke that name in her presence.
"You better run, Ai Jia!" Pang howled, laughing so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
The front door slammed open and then slammed shut again as Ai Jia tore across the compound, screaming something about friendship being a lie and how betrayal hurt worse than physical pain. Behind him, Yao moved at a steady, merciless pace, cursing him to hell and back in fluent English and Mandarin, her voice carrying easily across the courtyard.
"You absolute moron!" Yao growled as she picked up speed. "When I catch you, I'm going to tie you to a chair and make you listen to Cambridge law lectures for eight hours straight!"
"Mercy!" Ai Jia wailed, sprinting harder.
"Mercy is for the intelligent!" Yao shot back without missing a step.
Back at the doorway, Sicheng leaned one broad shoulder lazily against the frame, arms crossed over his chest, dark eyes glinting with sharp amusement as he watched the chaos unfold.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Jinyang said dryly beside him, folding her arms as she watched her best friend hunt her boyfriend across the courtyard.
Sicheng smirked faintly. "Beautiful disasters."
Pang and Yue stumbled out onto the porch, laughing so hard they could barely stay upright, while Lao Mao and Lao K stood in the doorway, silently appreciating the show like connoisseurs of fine art.
In the distance, Ai Jia's desperate yelps grew fainter as he ducked around the side of the YQCB base, Yao hot on his heels.
"Should we help him?" as Lao K with a bored tone saying he was only asking, so no one could say he did not.
"Nope," Pang said immediately.
Ming sighed, shaking his head.
"Not a chance," added Lao Mao.
Yue, grinning, cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered after them, "You're digging your own grave, bro!"
There was no response, only the sound of more cursing and the echo of running footsteps vanishing into the twilight. Inside, the ZGDX base settled back into a low, lazy hum, the warmth of dinner and laughter lingering heavy in the air. But everyone, even the idiots who claimed otherwise, knew one thing with absolute certainty. Yao wasn't a visitor anymore. She was family. And God help anyone who dared mess with one of theirs, because now they had two Chen women to answer to and neither believed in mercy.
As the lingering laughter finally started to fade, the group drifted back inside the ZGDX base, slinking toward the couches like overfed lions lazing after a feast. The doors were left cracked open to the cooling evening air, distant yelps from somewhere near YQCB's side of the compound serving as occasional background music.
Sicheng dropped into his usual seat, stretching out with the same effortless sprawl that made exhaustion look regal. Rui settled at the far end, phone in hand, while Pang, Lao K, Lao Mao, and Ming spread out around the lounge in various states of contentment.
Jinyang, casual as ever, dropped onto one of the armchairs and tucked her legs up under herself, a lazy smirk still curling her mouth as she watched the aftermath of her best friend's warpath with undisguised pride.
It was Yue who broke the comfortable lull, tilting his head thoughtfully and asking, almost idly, "So... what's with you two and CK's Captain?"
Every head in the room subtly shifted toward Jinyang, curiosity sharpening.
Jinyang, for a moment, just smiled—sharp, cold, and without any real humor.
Across the open doorway, Pang whistled under his breath, low and impressed. "That bad, huh?"
Jinyang tilted her head back against the chair, studying the ceiling for a long moment as if debating how much she wanted to share. Then she lowered her gaze, and for the first time since she had arrived, there was no teasing, no mischief, only a cool, cutting truth. "Jian Yang," she said evenly, "is a parasite." The words dropped like stones into the room, sucking away the last of the lingering laughter. "Used to date Yao," she added, voice still calm, but the undertone was pure venom. "A long time ago. Before Cambridge. Before everything. He cheated on her the second he got a little fame with CK."
A muscle in Sicheng's jaw tightened imperceptibly.
Yue's easygoing expression faded, replaced with something sharper.
"And if that wasn't bad enough," Jinyang continued, her voice never raising, "he didn't just ghost her. He humiliated her. Made her think it was her fault. Publicly played the good guy while dragging her name through the dirt to cover his own ass." There was a dangerous silence now, heavy and brittle. "He tried to come back when he thought she was vulnerable," Jinyang said, eyes narrowing. "Showed up at her school, her old apartment. Tried to sweet-talk his way back in. Threatened her when she didn't fall for it."
Pang let out a low, furious sound from the back of his throat.
Lao Mao muttered a curse under his breath, and even Rui, who was usually unshakeable, set his phone down slowly with a sharp, deliberate movement.
"And before any of you ask." Jinyang finished, voice softer now, deadlier, "No, she never told us. Never told the League. Never went public. Because Yao's the kind of idiot who thinks protecting other people from embarrassment is more important than protecting herself."
Sicheng shifted forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, his dark eyes like polished steel.
"So," Yue said finally, voice low and hard now, "you're telling us the guy she's been chasing Ai Jia around over? That's the same Jian Yang from CK?"
Jinyang smiled, a cold, dangerous curl of her lips. "The very same."
No one moved for a long moment.
The sound of distant footsteps, Yao's heavier steps stalking after a still-screaming Ai Jia, floated faintly through the open door.
"She doesn't talk about it," Jinyang said after a moment, softer now, something like sadness threading under the anger. "She just... put her head down. Built a life without him in it. But every time he tries to crawl back into her orbit, she shuts him down harder. And now?" She smiled faintly. "Now she's stronger than he could ever hope to be."
Sicheng, who had said nothing through the entire explanation, finally exhaled a slow breath through his nose and leaned back. "He ever tries again," he said, voice calm but carrying the weight of something final and absolute, "he won't get a second chance to regret it." It was not a threat. It was a promise. The others, to a man, nodded silently.
Across the room, Jinyang smiled—this time real, small and knowing. "You boys might actually survive after all," she said lightly, her tone returning to something closer to teasing. "Assuming Yao doesn't kill you first."
From outside came another distant, furious yell and the sound of Ai Jia's pained whimpering.
Pang snorted, folding his arms behind his head. "Please. Compared to her wrath, Jian Yang's a footnote."
Yue shook his head, a grin twitching at his mouth. "Still can't believe Ai Jia stepped on that landmine like a damn rookie."
"You forget," Lao Mao said with a smirk. "Ai Jia is a rookie—at life."
The room finally, slowly, began to crack back into laughter, though the undertone had shifted. The bond between them had thickened, deepened into something heavier, more solid.
Yao might have been dragged into their chaos by accident.
But now?
Now she was theirs to protect too.
And God help Jian Yang—or anyone else—if they ever dared touch her again.
The tension in the room had settled into a thick, thoughtful quiet, the air heavy not with discomfort but with something more solid—understanding, connection.
Pang, who had been uncharacteristically quiet through the explanation, suddenly blurted out the question that had clearly been brewing in his mind for some time. "So..." he said slowly, glancing between Jinyang and the empty space where Yao had vanished outside, "are you two... sisters?"
The question hung in the air for a moment.
Jinyang smiled faintly, not with her usual sharp-edged amusement but something gentler, a thread of old, quiet affection woven through it. "In every way that matters," she said simply.
The boys leaned in subtly, curiosity sharpening again, but this time no one interrupted.
Jinyang shifted slightly in her chair, tucking one leg under her, her voice steady as she spoke, not rehearsed, but something she had clearly carried with her for a long time. "Yao's biological father... he wasn't a good man," she said, her voice cool and even. "He cheated on his wife, had an affair when he was in the States. Yao was the result."
Around the room, faces hardened instinctively.
"For years, no one even knew she existed," Jinyang continued. "Her mother raised her alone, completely shut out from anything to do with her father's side of the family. But when her mother died..." Jinyang's mouth tightened briefly. "The authorities over there tracked her father down. Not because he deserved her. Just because blood makes paperwork easier."
Lao Mao muttered a low curse under his breath.
Jinyang nodded slightly, acknowledging the sentiment before she continued, her voice dipping lower, edged with old anger. "He didn't want her. Not really. He wasn't fit to be a father. And it didn't take long before the cracks showed. His wife, Yao's stepmother and her half-sister treated her like a burden. Like a dirty secret that was finally catching up with him."
Yue's hands curled loosely into fists where they rested on his thighs.
"But my father..." Jinyang said, her voice softening slightly, "he saw it immediately. The way they treated her. How isolated she was. How unwanted. And because the man who fathered her was a very, very distant relation to the Chen family—not close enough to ever have a claim, not close enough to matter, but close enough to offer a little leverage—my father stepped in." She paused, eyes dark with memory. "He didn't hesitate. He took her in. Fought for her. Adopted her formally before she turned fifteen. Made sure she would never have to wonder again if she was wanted."
The room was silent except for the low hum of the air conditioner and the faint sounds of the compound beyond their doors.
Jinyang smiled faintly, eyes far away for a moment. "She became my sister that day. Officially. But truth is, it didn't take paperwork to make it real."
Pang rubbed the back of his neck, swallowing hard. "That's... that's messed up," he said quietly, meaning every word.
Jinyang shrugged one shoulder lightly, a casual gesture that did nothing to hide the protective fire smoldering in her eyes. "Messed up, yeah. But she survived it. She fought her way through it. She built herself up stronger than any of them ever thought she could."
Sicheng, who had been listening in absolute stillness, finally spoke, his voice low and certain. "She's not just strong," he said, his words cutting cleanly through the heavy air. "She's exceptional."
Jinyang's lips curled into a small, genuine smile, one laced with something rare and proud. "Yeah," she said quietly. "She is."
From the doorway, soft footsteps padded back into the room.
Yao reappeared, cheeks slightly flushed from her earlier pursuit, her dark chocolate hair mussed by the breeze, a faint smudge of dirt on her jeans where she had probably tackled Ai Jia at some point. She looked at the gathering, blinking once at the heavy quiet, her sharp blue eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. "What?" she asked, tone wary.
Jinyang, without missing a beat, smiled sweetly and patted the seat next to her. "Nothing," she said lightly. "Just telling the boys how you used to beat me up for stealing your dessert."
Yao snorted, rolling her eyes as she dropped into the empty seat beside her sister, grabbing a half-finished bottle of water and taking a swig. "That's because you always stole the first bite," she muttered. "You deserved it."
Pang leaned his chin on his palm, staring at her like she had just grown a second head. "You're seriously, like... our honorary little sister now, you know that, right?"
Yao paused, mid-sip.
Jinyang's hand bumped against hers under the table, a small, grounding nudge.
Yao blinked again, softer this time, the edges of her suspicion smoothing into something more uncertain.
Across from her, Sicheng's dark eyes met hers, steady and unwavering.
"You're stuck with us now, Shorty," Yue added brightly, ruining the moment as only he could.
Yao exhaled a breath that sounded suspiciously like a half-smothered laugh, shaking her head as she leaned back against the chair. "God help me," she muttered under her breath.
The room slowly relaxed again, the earlier tension easing into a lazy comfort as everyone slumped a little deeper into their seats. The scattered remains of dinner, a battlefield of empty containers and crumpled napkins, lay abandoned on the table, but no one seemed in a hurry to clean up just yet. The fading evening light poured through the open door, casting long golden streaks across the floor, and somewhere far off, Ai Jia's whining could still be faintly heard from the YQCB side of the compound, much to everyone's quiet amusement.
Jinyang shifted in her seat beside Yao, resting her chin lightly on her palm as she studied her sister with that half-playful, half-affectionate look she reserved for no one else. "So," she said casually, but her eyes stayed sharp, "when do you have to head back to Cambridge?"
At the question, the conversations scattered around the room stilled slightly, subtle but noticeable. Even those half-dozing like Pang and Lao K lifted their heads just enough to listen, while Rui, still half-scrolling on his phone, paused and looked up.
Yao shrugged one shoulder, nonchalant, though a flicker of something, maybe reluctance, maybe resignation, passed through her expression. "End of the week," she said simply, twisting the cap back onto her water bottle. A small frown tugged briefly at Jinyang's mouth, but she masked it quickly, offering only a soft hum of acknowledgement.
Pang, predictably, groaned dramatically from his slouch against the back of the couch. "That's not fair," he whined. "We just got you broken in! You can't leave yet!"
Yue nudged him with his foot, snickering. "Idiot. She's got a real life. Unlike you."
"Still not fair," Pang muttered stubbornly.
Across the room, Sicheng's gaze rested steadily on Yao, his expression unreadable but the weight of it palpable all the same.
Yao, sensing the attention, gave a small snort and leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms over her head lazily. "You'll survive," she said dryly. "Try not to burn the place down while I'm gone."
"No promises," Lao Mao muttered, earning a laugh from Lao K and a helpless sigh from Rui.
Jinyang shook her head with a fond roll of her eyes, then tilted her head slightly, a sly smile curling her lips. "You could always transfer," she said casually, teasingly. "Come back here for good. I'm sure ZGDX would be more than happy to adopt you officially."
Yao shot her a look, one eyebrow arching in dry amusement. "You just want someone to help babysit Ai Jia when you're busy."
"Obviously," Jinyang said, completely unrepentant.
The others broke into laughter again, the easy kind that buzzed under the skin and filled the spaces between words without effort. For a while, the conversation drifted into lighter territory, favorite takeout spots, horror stories from old tournaments, bad haircuts immortalized forever in League promos but even with the laughter, a quiet thread ran under it all.
A thread that tugged a little tighter with every glance Yao caught from across the room.
From Sicheng, who said nothing but watched everything with the heavy, unblinking patience of someone who did not often ask but remembered everything he wanted.
And if Yao felt that weight settle against her ribs, heavy and unfamiliar, she gave no outward sign. For now, it was enough to sit here, surrounded by chaos and laughter, by Jinyang's sharp smiles and the boys' relentless noise. It was enough to pretend the end of the week was farther away than it was. It was enough—for now.
The laughter was just starting to settle when Yao, eyebrows raised and expression caught somewhere between exasperated and amused, dropped her water bottle back onto the table with a soft thunk. "How the hell would they even adopt me?" she asked dryly, shooting Jinyang a look. "I'm not an E-Sports player."
Across the room, Pang immediately piped up, grinning widely, "You could be!"
"I'm not," Yao shot back before he could build momentum, her voice sharp but not unkind. "I play OPL in my apartment when I have downtime, not tournaments. Big difference."
Yue, ever the instigator, leaned forward eagerly. "Doesn't matter. If you can beat Pang in a 1v1, we're drafting you anyway."
"I will end you," Pang said without heat, earning another ripple of laughter.
Yao ignored them, her arms folding lazily across her chest as she tilted her head, sarcasm dripping from her next words. "What exactly are you going to do? Hire me as a damn live-in lawyer? Make me argue your penalty fees and sue other teams for stealing your snacks?"
Pang opened his mouth like the idea genuinely intrigued him, but Lao Mao reached over and shoved his head lightly before he could say something even dumber.
"Honestly," Lao Mao said with a shrug, grinning, "you'd probably be better at it than most of the League's lawyers."
Yao rolled her eyes so hard the entire table caught it. "You think I'm joking," she muttered under her breath.
Ming, who had been quiet through most of the exchange, finally spoke, his voice dry and laced with amusement. "Technically," he said, glancing at Rui, "we could hire her. Teams have analysts, publicists, legal advisors. We could always use someone who isn't afraid to rip out a few throats."
Rui, deadpan as ever, nodded solemnly. "I'd sign the paperwork tonight."
Pang raised his hand enthusiastically like a schoolboy. "Seconded!"
"Thirded," Yue added, grinning.
Even Lao K, who usually preferred to stay out of their ridiculousness, muttered, "It'd be the smartest decision we've made all year."
Yao gave a soft, incredulous snort and dropped her forehead briefly into her hand like she could physically block out their stupidity. "I hate all of you," she said flatly, though her mouth twitched in a way that betrayed her.
"You'll learn to love us," Pang said brightly.
"I'll learn to kill you," Yao corrected without missing a beat.
Laughter exploded again around the room, filling the space with a kind of easy warmth that curled under the skin and made it feel, just for a little while, like none of them had ever been strangers at all.
Across the table, Lu Sicheng sat quietly, elbows on his knees, his dark eyes lingering on her through the haze of teasing and noise. Not with amusement. Not with pity. With understanding. He said nothing—he never did when it mattered most—but the weight of his gaze settled against her like an anchor, quiet and steady, as if telling her without a single word that if she stayed, if she wanted it, there would always be a place for her here. Not because she was Jinyang's sister. Not because she could argue contracts or sue a League official into oblivion. Because she was herself. And that was enough.
Yao, sensing the heaviness of his attention without even needing to look, reached for her drink again, hiding the faintest flicker of emotion behind the casual roll of her shoulders. "End of the week," she said again, as if repeating it made it more real. But somehow... it already felt too close. Too final. And not nearly enough.
The laughter was still bubbling around the room when Yao, sitting back in her chair with the weary patience of someone dealing with a room full of particularly excitable children, lifted her hand in a sharp, cutting motion, bringing them all to a halt. "Alright," she said, voice crisp and bone-dry, "before you all start making banners and offering me office space, let me burst your bubble real quick."
The boys blinked at her, wide-eyed, mid-conspiracy.
Yao arched one eyebrow, the glint of sharp amusement flickering behind her ice-blue gaze. "I haven't even graduated yet," she reminded them pointedly. "Still finishing my degree. After that?" She gave a little shrug, lazy and deliberate. "I still have to pass the bar."
There was a collective beat of silence, the weight of reality finally catching up to their enthusiasm.
Pang's face fell so dramatically it was almost comical. "Wait... what? You mean you're not already a full-blown lawyer who can sue evil snack thieves on our behalf?"
Across from him, Lu Yue groaned and flopped backward onto the couch like a man personally betrayed. "Why must the good ones always be taken from us before their prime?"
Rui, ever the voice of reason, shot them both a look so dry it could have scorched the earth. "She's twenty-two, idiots. Did you think lawyers just spawned out of thin air?"
Pang pouted. "They should."
"You should spawn a brain," Lao Mao muttered without looking up from the bottle of water he was tossing between his hands.
ao leaned forward slightly, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Graduation first," she said, tapping her fingers idly against the wood. "Then bar exam. Then, maybe—maybe—if you're still desperate by then, I'll think about being your glorified live-in lawyer-slash-sanity-keeper."
Lao K, deadpan, said, "By then, we'll probably be in prison anyway."
"Probably for something Pang did," Yue added brightly.
"Hey!" Pang protested, throwing a wadded napkin at him, which Lao Mao casually intercepted midair without even blinking.
Across the room, Sicheng, silent through most of the exchange, let the faintest curve touch his mouth, less a smile, more a quiet admission to himself. She was already halfway woven into the fabric of this place without even realizing it. And somehow, despite the way she kept pretending to push them back with all her sharp sarcasm and dry wit, she never actually moved away from them. She stayed.
Pang, rallying quickly from his wounded pride, perked up again with the boundless energy of an untrained puppy. "Fine!" he declared. "We'll just start training you now."
Yao gave him a look so flat it could have leveled mountains. "Training me... for what exactly?"
"For ZGDX survival," Pang said proudly, puffing out his chest. "We'll make sure you're ready for life among the wolves."
"You're the wolves?" Yao asked dryly, her tone a perfect deadpan. "You're more like a pack of badly-behaved puppies."
Yue whooped with laughter while Pang clutched his chest as if mortally wounded. "You wound me, Yao-jiejie," he gasped. "You wound me deeply."
"Good," Yao muttered, leaning back again with a roll of her eyes. "Maybe you'll learn something for once."
The room broke into laughter again, easy and warm, the sound carrying out into the deepening night. But even as they joked and teased, even as the chaos started up again like a song they all knew by heart, there was something different now. Something settled. Something claimed.
Chen Yao might still have unfinished business in Cambridge. She might still have mountains to climb and exams to crush. But here, in this small corner of the world built out of late nights, bad jokes, and battered dreams. She already had a place waiting for her. A place she had never even realized she needed.
The chaos had just started to settle, the warmth of full bellies and exhausted laughter drifting lazily through the open space, when a sudden, sharp sound split the air.
A low, ominous rumble of a ringtone—the unmistakable heavy breathing of Darth Vader, echoed through the room, jarring everyone into abrupt silence.
Heads snapped around toward the sound.
Yao froze mid-reach for her water bottle, every muscle in her body locking up as if she had been hit with a stun grenade. Her phone sat on the table, vibrating insistently, Darth Vader's mechanical wheezing growing louder by the second. Slowly, very slowly, Yao turned her head to look at the screen, and her blood ran cold at the name flashing in angry white letters.
Chen Tao.
Across from her, Jinyang caught sight of the screen at the same moment and winced so hard her entire body recoiled like she had been physically struck.
Yao's wide, horrified eyes met Jinyang's matching look of pure panic, and for one suspended second of shared sibling terror, neither of them moved. Then, with all the emotion of a woman staring down her own execution, Yao said a single word, flat, broken, and heavy with inevitable doom.
"Fuck."
The boys, who had no context but an abundance of survival instincts, stiffened immediately.
Sicheng, eyes sharp and predatory as ever, leaned forward slightly, sensing the shift. Yue, Pang, Lao Mao, Lao K, Rui, even Ming, every one of them locked onto her with sudden, focused attention.
"What the hell did you do?" Pang hissed, half-laughing but half-serious.
Yao, not looking away from Jinyang, slowly pushed her chair back with the careful, deliberate movements of someone handling an explosive device. "I," she said, her voice oddly detached as Darth Vader continued to ominously breathe from the tabletop, "forgot to tell Tao-ge I was back in the country."
Yue made a low whistling sound, his face a mixture of admiration and horror. "You what?"
"I left Jinyang's condo," Yao continued grimly, "stormed the YQCB base like an avenging hell-hound," she cut a sharp glare at Ai Jia, who flinched instinctively from his distant spot near the kitchen, "and forgot that Chen Tao is technically supposed to know where I am at all times."
"Darth Vader." wheezed again on the table, as if mocking her impending doom.
Jinyang, looking like she wanted to slide under the couch and disappear, muttered out of the corner of her mouth, "We're so dead."
Yao, heart sinking into her stomach, reached out with mechanical slowness and snatched up the phone, silencing the call before it could go to voicemail. For a beat, she just stared at the dark screen in her hand, feeling the weight of impending doom settle squarely on her shoulders. Then, very quietly, she said, "If anyone asks, I was never here."
Pang immediately threw his arms out wide. "Too late! I'm already posting about it—"
Lao Mao casually smacked him upside the head. "No you're not, you moron."
Sicheng, who had been watching the unfolding disaster with the calm detachment of a man observing a car crash he could do nothing to prevent, finally pushed off the back of the couch, moving to stand beside Yao. "You need backup?" he asked, voice low, steady. The question was so casual it almost masked the seriousness underneath it.
Yao looked up at him, something flickering behind her ice-blue gaze, a strange tightness she could not quite name. She opened her mouth to answer—but before she could, the phone in her hand vibrated again. No ringtone this time.
Just a simple, heavy, vibrating buzz.
A message.
From Chen Tao.
Yao swallowed hard and glanced down at the screen.
Chen Tao: "Five minutes. Out front. Now."
She closed her eyes briefly, breathing out through her nose in resignation.
Jinyang, standing up and smoothing her jeans like a woman preparing for battle, clapped her lightly on the shoulder. "It was nice knowing you."
"I'll send you flowers," Pang offered solemnly.
"Make sure they're lilies," Yao muttered, already moving toward the door. "They're traditional for funerals."
Sicheng followed at her side, hands shoved into his pockets, his long stride lazy but deliberate, matching her tension with a calm steadiness that somehow made it easier to breathe. "Want me to stall him?" he asked under his breath as they crossed the threshold, the warm night air hitting them like a soft wave.
Yao shook her head, grim but faintly grateful. "You want to die too?"
He chuckled low under his breath, the sound rough and amused. "Depends. Might be worth it."
Ahead of them, headlights flared at the far end of the drive, a sleek black car pulling up with the silent, threatening efficiency of a private military extraction.
Yao stopped a few paces from the edge of the base's patio, squared her shoulders, and exhaled slowly. "Pray for me." she said dryly.
Sicheng's mouth curved into a slow, dangerous smile, the kind that said he was already considering five different ways to commit treason if it meant buying her a few minutes of peace. "You're tougher than you look, Shorty," he said quietly.
She smirked faintly at that, rolling her eyes as she moved to meet her brother's incoming storm.
And inside, even though laughter bubbled back up as the boys watched her go, none of them missed the way Lu Sicheng's gaze lingered on her retreating back… Sharp. Focused. Unwavering. Like a man who had just realized that when she left again. The base would not feel the same without her.
The black car rolled to a silent, ominous stop at the edge of the drive, headlights cutting twin beams through the falling night.
Chen Tao stepped out a moment later, the heavy door swinging shut behind him with a muted thud. He looked exactly as Yao remembered, tall, broad-shouldered, dressed sharply in dark slacks and a fitted charcoal jacket, his expression carved from stone. His presence, as always, was an iron weight dropped into the middle of the world. Authority radiated from him with effortless, crushing force. Even without raising his voice, he carried the unspoken threat that chaos would be tolerated only for as long as he allowed it.
Jinyang, who had followed Yao out along with the entire gang from ZGDX, stiffened instinctively beside her, her arms folding tight across her chest. Pang, Lao K, Lao Mao, Lu Yue, Rui, Ming, and even Lu Sicheng loitered just beyond the patio, all pretending very badly not to be completely invested.
Yao inhaled deeply, schooling her face into the kind of bright, innocent calm that spelled absolute disaster.
Chen Tao's sharp gaze landed on her like a missile, his mouth flattening into a grim line. "Chen Yao," he said, voice low and heavy.
Yao smiled sweetly. "Hi, Tao-ge," she chirped far too brightly, ignoring the way Jinyang visibly winced beside her.
Tao advanced a step closer, and several of the ZGDX boys instinctively braced themselves, like spectators expecting blood. "You're home less than twenty-four hours," Tao said, his tone dangerously calm, "and already causing trouble?"
Yao, without a single flicker of shame, pointed dramatically over her shoulder, right at Ai Jia, who had barely slunk out of the YQCB side of the compound, hoping to stay unnoticed. "It wasn't my fault!" she declared loudly. "I was forced into action!"
Chen Tao's brows twitched together. "Forced?"
"Yes!" Yao said, nodding emphatically, her voice gaining speed like a freight train careening toward inevitable doom. "Because someone," she shot Ai Jia the most condemning glare imaginable, "forgot our sister's anniversary! Made her cry! I had no choice but to avenge her honor!"
The crowd of boys broke instantly, Pang choking so hard he had to clutch the door-frame for support while Yue nearly collapsed against Rui in helpless, soundless laughter. Ai Jia opened his mouth to protest but found nothing—absolutely nothing, that would not make the situation worse.
Chen Tao's gaze sharpened immediately, cutting toward Ai Jia like a scalpel. Ai Jia paled, visibly shrinking in on himself like a man facing divine judgment.
"And," Yao added for maximum dramatic effect, stepping forward and clutching her hands sweetly in front of her, tilting her head ever so slightly, her expression shifting with lethal precision. She unleashed the full force of her Bambi eyes. Wide. Soft. Shining. Devastating.
Chen Tao, who had faced corporate boardrooms, international lawyers, and worse, visibly faltered. For a second—just a second—he looked like a man physically struggling to remain stern in the face of weaponized adorableness.
Behind her, Jinyang's hand flew up to cover her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently from silent laughter.
Pang actually whimpered in awe. Lao Mao muttered a heartfelt prayer for Ai Jia's soul. Rui turned away completely, schooling his face into blank professionalism.
Only Sicheng stood steady, watching Yao with something darker and sharper behind his lazy, unreadable eyes, a glimmer of something very much like dangerous admiration.
Chen Tao closed his eyes for a long moment, inhaling slowly as if calling upon the strength of a thousand ancestors to steady himself. When he opened them, he skewered Ai Jia with a look so cold it could have flash-frozen the Pacific. "You," Tao said, voice sharp as ice, "get over here." Ai Jia made a small squeaking sound but stumbled forward obediently. "And you," Tao said, jabbing a finger toward Yao, his voice tight with restrained fury, "are going back to Jinyang's condo. Now."
Yao, sensing victory, fluttered her eyelashes once more and said in the softest, most tragically innocent voice imaginable, "I didn't mean to cause so much trouble, Tao-ge."
Chen Tao looked like he was on the verge of a stroke.
Jinyang, choking on laughter, finally grabbed Yao's arm, dragging her backward toward the porch while Ai Jia, looking like a man condemned, shuffled forward into Chen Tao's line of fire.
The ZGDX boys scattered like cockroaches under a light, hiding inside the doorway but still peeking out shamelessly as the chaos unfolded.
As Jinyang dragged her away, Yao twisted to flash a wicked little grin back at them, at Pang and Lu Yue, still doubled over in laughter, at Rui, deadpanning "I am not writing any incident reports for this," at Ming, pinching the bridge of his nose and finally, at Sicheng. Who, for once, smiled fully. Slow. Dangerous. And just for her.
And as Yao vanished inside, still grinning like the troublemaker she was born to be, Sicheng leaned against the doorway, eyes glinting under the dim porch light.
Yeah.
She was already theirs.
Whether she knew it yet or not.