"Give her a test."
Liang Zhen's voice echoed in his boardroom like thunder over glass. The windows stretched from floor to ceiling, overlooking the steel bones of Jiangcheng's skyline. His executives stiffened, confused.
"Sir?" asked Lin Kai.
"The girl from the Wen estate," Zhen said, eyes cold. "Send her a fake job offer. Low-level. Assistant researcher at the Chengye Biotech subsidiary. Let's see what she does when she thinks no one's watching."
Lin Kai hesitated. "Should we... tell her it's from you?"
Zhen smirked.
"No. That would ruin the fun."
Wen Residence – Morning
Yanli wiped the dust off her mother's old violin, her fingers gentle on the strings. It had survived the fire. She had not.
Before she could play a note, a knock sounded at her bedroom door—more like a demand.
Madam Wen's voice followed. "Some delivery for you. Don't make them wait. You're lucky we even let you live here, ingrate."
Yanli opened the envelope in silence.
Job offer. From Chengye Biotech, under a generic name. 3-month contract. Junior lab assistant.
She tilted her head.
Too random. Too sudden.
But she accepted anyway.
She wanted to see who was watching.
Chengye Biotech – One Week Later
The lab smelled of sterilizer and fear.
Yanli wore a white coat two sizes too big and worked quietly in the back, sorting blood samples, analyzing toxin compositions, and correcting errors she wasn't supposed to notice.
She'd rewritten three formulas in secret. One saved a test rat from a fatal dose. One improved cell absorption rate by 17%.
The third was a trap.
She left a deliberate "mistake" in the experiment notes—just enough for someone sharp to catch.
And sure enough...
Liang Zhen's Office – That Night
"She knew," Lin Kai reported, pacing. "She planted a false hypothesis, then corrected it herself anonymously and flagged the department head in the system—under his own login."
Zhen raised an eyebrow.
"She baited us?" he said, a chuckle in his voice.
"Yes, sir. And she never signed her own name."
Zhen leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.
"She knows it's a test. And she's winning."
He looked out over the city.
"Send her a bonus. A silent one. No message. Let her wonder how close I'm standing."
Yanli's Apartment – That Night
She opened her bank app.
Deposit: ¥200,000Note: [none]
Her eyes narrowed.
So the spider wanted to play.
She picked up her phone, opened a secure chat line, and typed a single message to a contact with no name.
"Bait accepted. Now watch your hands."
Bonus Scene: Meihua's Meltdown
At the Wen dinner table, Meihua threw her chopsticks.
"What do you mean she got a job? Who even hired her?!"
Madam Wen sniffed. "Some small lab company. I told her it was charity work. Let her think she's making progress. A fish flailing in a barrel."
Yanli didn't argue.
She just ate her rice in silence.
But in her mind, she was already calculating how to buy that lab within the year—and fire both their names from her memory.