Chapter 268

Chapter 268

Night settled over the institute, and lights blinked on one by one.

Lucinda hadn't turned on the overhead light—just the small desk lamp—and sat quietly working through the experimental data briefs Royce had left for her.

Tamsin drifted in from next door and dropped into the chair beside her. "Found it. That online friend of Dahlia's? It's her birth mother."

Lucinda turned a page without stopping. Her eyes stayed on the data. But her lips moved slightly. "I know."

"You already figured it out?"

"More or less." She turned another page, her tone easy.

Tamsin sat up straighter and looked at her. "You're not surprised?"

"No." Lucinda finally closed the briefs and turned to face her. "I had someone pull Dahlia's communication records. She's been in contact with that number for years, and frequently. And..." She paused. "Shortly after I was taken from the airport, Dahlia showed up at the Douglas Estate. The timing was too convenient."

Tamsin's brow furrowed. "You think someone's pulling strings behind her mother?"

"Someone arranged to remove me from the Douglas family and deliver Dahlia to their doorstep at the same time. That's not a one-person operation." Lucinda leaned back in her chair. "Dahlia's mother is at most an executor. There's someone else behind this."

Tamsin was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Got it. I'll keep digging. I'll have Clayton go deeper on the call history and financial records tied to that number."

Lucinda gave a soft sound of acknowledgment and said nothing more.

Tamsin headed back next door. Lucinda turned off the lamp and sat for a while in the dark.

Then she lay down, closed her eyes.

The next day.

The International Research Institute's advanced seminar. Main lecture hall.

The room had the weight of something serious. Every person seated here was a top scientific mind or established authority from across the field.

Onstage, a senior academician was walking through an extraordinarily complex set of molecular recombination data. Around the room, gifted students furrowed their brows, scribbling calculations furiously.

Lucinda sat in the corner, relaxed, absently spinning a plain black ballpoint pen between her fingers.

The academician tapped the board. "This computational problem is currently an unsolved bottleneck in international research. Anyone want to come up and try?"

Silence. People exchanged uncertain glances.

Lucinda lifted her eyes. She had better things to do with her time.

She stood, walked straight to the front, and stepped onto the stage.

Her expression was calm, her eyelids barely fully raised.

Without a moment's hesitation, she began writing—an entirely new algorithmic model taking shape beneath her pen.

"Is that... an extension of Felix's algorithm?"

A white-haired expert in the front row shot to his feet, nearly losing his glasses.

"No—she's stripped down the entire third step using hacker logic! My God, how is that possible?"

In under three minutes, the previously unsolvable data was closed into a complete solution, laid out perfectly on the whiteboard.

Lucinda tossed the pen onto the lectern. "Done. I'm heading out."

As the room erupted in stunned silence, she slid one hand into her pocket and walked out early.

She moved through the quiet corridor toward the exit.

Just as she rounded a corner, a muffled sound reached her.

Crying. Suppressed, barely controlled.

Her steps slowed. She frowned without meaning to.

She followed the sound to a dim alcove near the emergency stairwell. A girl was crouched on the floor, shoulders shaking with each breath. She wore an old hoodie, slightly pilled at the sleeves, and held a well-worn textbook clutched tightly to her chest.

Lucinda stopped in front of her. "What are you crying for?"

The girl startled and looked up in a panic.

The light caught her face. Lucinda's eyes narrowed slightly.

On that young, fair face was a vivid red handprint. Half her cheek had already swollen. Her eyes were brimming with tears she hadn't let herself shed.

Seeing a stranger—a pretty one she didn't recognize—the girl instinctively raised her hand to cover her face, her eyes sliding away.

"Who hit you?" Lucinda's voice was flat.

The girl sniffled. "No one... I accidentally walked into something."

"You can walk into a wall and leave five finger marks?" Lucinda's mouth curved, humorless. "Tell me the truth."

The girl bit her lip. The tears fell anyway.

She'd been holding it in too long. It all came out at once, her voice unsteady. "It was... some of the girls in the advanced seminar. They said someone like me—someone who got in on a poverty scholarship—has no right to sit in a classroom like that. That the smell coming off me would dirty the air..."

She glanced at the book in her arms, eyes red. "They blocked the door and wouldn't let me in. I had no choice but to wait by the back entrance to catch what I could. When they came out and saw me, they said I was lurking around trying to steal state secrets. One of them... slapped me."

Lucinda let out a short, cold laugh.

Smells bad? Dirties the air?

"Get up." Her voice was quiet.

The girl blinked, staring at her with uncertainty.

"I said, get up." Lucinda repeated it once.

The girl pushed herself to her feet and self-consciously tugged at the hem of her hoodie.

Without a word, Lucinda closed her hand around the girl's wrist, turned, and walked straight toward the main lecture hall.

"Where—where are you taking me?" The girl panicked, pulling against her.

"Back to class." Lucinda didn't turn around.

Inside the hall, the break wasn't over yet. Most people were still clustered around the whiteboard, studying the algorithm Lucinda had left behind, trading exclamations of disbelief.

The front door swung open hard.

The noise dropped away instantly. Every head turned toward the entrance.

Lucinda walked in, pulling the girl in the old hoodie behind her.

Under the full weight of the room's attention, she walked straight to the second-to-last row, swept her bag aside with one hand, pulled out a chair, and pressed the girl into it. "Sit here. Pay attention."

She pulled out the adjacent chair and sat down herself.

The girl hunched into her shoulders, trembling, not daring to make a sound.

Toward the back of the room, a cluster of girls sat draped in head-to-toe designer labels.

The one in front wore the latest Chanel. She was watching this unfold with open contempt.

"Saskia, isn't that the little charity case we kicked out earlier?" The girl beside her leaned over, rolling her eyes. "How'd she get back in? And who's that busybody she dragged with her?"

Saskia Fuller let out a cold sniff, her gaze settling on Lucinda.

Her group had been chatting in the back during the earlier session and hadn't registered what happened onstage—had no idea that Lucinda was the one who'd just cracked the unsolvable algorithm in under three minutes.

As far as they were concerned, Lucinda wore clean clothes but nothing with a label. Probably just another overachieving nobody playing at being important.

"Coming in here to show off in front of me," Saskia murmured, lip curling.