Chapter 14 The Sabotage

Chapter 14 The Sabotage
Thanks to her previous experience with brutal hangovers, Ruth had kept her drinking to a very reasonable limit the night before.
She was back in her hotel room and asleep by 9:00 PM, resulting in her waking up the next morning feeling completely refreshed and energized for class.
As September drew to a close, the financial markets were in a frenzy. Corporate executives and investors were spending every waking hour agonizing over line graphs, tree diagrams, and quarter-end reports. Back when she lived abroad, Ruth would have been right there with them, interning at The Buckley's overseas headquarters to build her resume. But now, temporarily freed from those corporate shackles, she was thoroughly enjoying the simplicity of college life.
Cal U was just as busy as the stock market, but for an entirely different reason: the upcoming Autumn Sports Festival.
As someone who was fundamentally athletically blind, Ruth had always avoided this event like the plague. It wasn't just basketball she was terrible at—she was terrible at literally anything related to physical exertion. Even if she wanted to contribute to her class's glory, she physically couldn't.
Back in high school, her only role during PE and sports events was being the designated "water and chocolate delivery girl" for the actual athletes.
Because she had excellent grades and a pure, innocent face, she was undeniably the teachers' favorite. Whenever there was a sports event, the teachers would specifically assign her to hand out water to the boys' track team, claiming her presence "boosted morale."
Because of this, Olivia and Anne used to ruthlessly mock her: 'Ru, you are permanently destined to be the decorative vase of every sports festival.'
This year was no different.
When the class sports representative came around with the sign-up sheet, Ruth aggressively shook her head. "I promise you, if you put me in an event, I will literally just be feeding points to the enemy classes. I am garbage at sports. It would be entirely too humiliating."
Unable to persuade her, the rep pivoted to his next target. "Coach Lynes! What about you, Coach?"
The rep looked like he was about to cry. "Please save me! You're a god at basketball, your stamina is insane, and your legs are a mile long! Running track would be a breeze for you, right?"
Ruth turned in her seat, looking at Matthew.
It had only been a couple of weeks since classes started. Matthew had gone from the mysterious, untouchable guy who slept through morning lectures with his hat pulled low, to the undisputed "Coach Lynes" who effortlessly commanded the respect of every guy in the class.
Ruth still didn't fully understand the complex, primal bond men formed over playing basketball together, but whenever a guy in the class addressed Matthew now, their tone was 100% pure worship.
Matthew was currently suffering from a severe lack of sleep. His eyelids were drooping, and the faint, bluish shadows under his eyes stood out starkly against his pale skin. He was casually sucking on a lollipop.
He shot the sports rep a cool, lethargic look. He had the absolute aura of an untouchable campus bad boy, but the white plastic stick poking out of his mouth created a bizarrely adorable contrast.
After a few seconds, he barely lifted his eyelids and asked, "...Sign up for what?"
His voice was clear, but edged with a slight, sleep-deprived rasp. It sounded incredibly good.
The rep excitedly shoved the clipboard under Matthew's nose. "Look! We have the basketball tournament right before the actual track events! You obviously have to play in that! And for track, we have the 100-meter, 200-meter, 400-meter, 800-meter..." The guy sounded like a desperate car salesman.
Matthew shifted the lollipop to the other side of his mouth and interrupted him. "...Are you trying to kill me?"
The sheer bluntness of the question hit Ruth's funny bone, and she burst out laughing. Both men turned to look at her. She quickly waved her hands. "Nothing, nothing! Keep going."
But Matthew didn't look back at the clipboard.
He reached up, pulled the lollipop out of his mouth, and stared directly at her. "Classmate Keen. What kind of events do you like?"
"Huh?" Ruth blinked, completely caught off guard. "Events I like... why?"
"No reason," Matthew said, raising a single brow. "Just tell me. I need a reference."
"Oh." Ruth nodded, genuinely trying to think of an answer.
But the sports rep, fully aware of the rampant rumors and forum posts about these two, instantly caught the subtext. He gasped. "Bro! I'll translate for you! He's not asking what events you like, he's asking what events you think look hot!"
Matthew’s lips curved into a faint smile. He glanced at the rep approvingly. "You catch on quick."
Ruth froze.
Oh.
So he's basically saying: Tell me what you think is hot, and I'll sign up for it just to show off for you.
Tsk. This guy is so incredibly arrogant... and so ridiculously sweet.
Ruth fought back a massive smile. She pretended to think about it seriously for a moment before saying, "I guess I like running. Sprints or long-distance, either is fine."
"Then I'll run," Matthew immediately repeated, not changing a single word. "Sprints and long-distance."
The rep practically wept with joy, frantically scribbling on his clipboard. "Yes! Perfect! I'll put you down for the 100m, 200m, and 800m!"
Ruth: "...?"
Are you ordering off a restaurant menu?!
She tried to intervene. "Um, rep, don't you think three events is a bit too much? He's going to exhaust himself."
Both men looked at her simultaneously.
Ruth genuinely thought running three back-to-back races would be brutal, but she couldn't exactly say out loud: 'Hey, don't overwork the hot ass I'm trying to claim!'
She awkwardly tried to backtrack. "I mean, I just meant you should pick one. Short or long, it doesn't matter..."
"It's fine. Sign me up for all of them," Matthew told the rep.
As the rep happily finalized his roster, Matthew turned his attention back to Ruth.
He didn't look nearly as sleep-deprived as he had five minutes ago. A slow, wicked smile spread across his lips. He leaned in, dropping his voice so low that only she could hear it.
"Don't worry," he murmured. "My stamina is actually very good."
His tone was incredibly, devastatingly meaningful.
Ruth: "............"
He's doing it again! He's doing the thing!
We were talking about running! Why are you suddenly bringing up your stamina in that specific tone of voice?!
While the rep was distracted, Ruth's eyes went wide. She glared at him, though she had absolutely zero actual intimidation factor. "...I didn't say I was worried about you."
She paused, then added a highly unconvincing, "...Stop being so full of yourself."
Matthew didn't say anything else, but the smug amusement in his eyes was blinding.
The two of them were sitting close together. The lollipop Matthew had been eating was a bright, obnoxious strawberry pink. The sweet, fruity scent drifted through the air between them, and for a split second, Ruth was hit with the insane, visceral urge to just grab his face and taste the sugar right off his mouth.
Just as that highly inappropriate thought flashed through her brain, a loud, booming voice shattered the tension.
"Morning, academic gods!"
It sounded like a literal thunderclap going off right next to her ear. Ruth jumped guiltily, feeling like she had just been caught doing something illegal. She whipped her head around and saw Jerry grinning at them.
As always, Jerry’s situational awareness was completely nonexistent. He had absolutely no idea he had just bulldozed through a heavily charged atmosphere. He looked at the clipboard. "Oh hey, the sports rep is here! What are you guys talking about?"
"Sports festival sign-ups," the rep sighed, looking up. The second he saw Tom, Jerry, and Helen standing there, his eyes lit up like a predator spotting fresh prey. "Oh thank god! You three! Everyone has been rejecting me all morning! Only Coach Lynes gave me any face! Quick, tell me what you're signing up for!"
The rep looked exactly like a shady cab driver aggressively harassing tourists outside an airport.
Within sixty seconds, the trio had effortlessly picked their events. Even Helen signed up for two.
Watching the rep walk away entirely satisfied, Ruth couldn't help but ask, "You guys signed up for so much... Do you really like the sports festival that much? Do you do this every year?"
"Yeah, all of us are pretty athletic," Helen nodded proudly. "Not to brag, but we basically grew up running wild, climbing trees, and causing chaos in our hometown!" She pointed at Jerry, who was already aggressively tapping away on a mobile game. "This guy has been an idiot since birth. Aside from managing to test into Cal U, he is completely useless."
Then she pointed at Tom, who was currently yawning. "And this guy... Jerry and I learned every single curse word we know from him. He was the king of the playground as a kid, and now he's just the king of trash talk."
Ruth: "..." Why are you suddenly roasting your childhood friends?
A familiar, cartoonish sound effect blasted from Jerry's phone: 'Bomb!' 'Airplane!' followed immediately by a furious roar from Jerry. "FUCK! This absolute bastard! I just lost nine million chips!"
"You deserve it," Tom mocked lazily. "You play degenerate poker all day. With your IQ, you’re going to lose your mind."
"It's called Happy Poker!" Jerry snapped, realizing Tom had just insulted him. "Fuck you, Tom! Do you think I don't have a temper?!"
Tom sneered. "I tell you you're stupid and you still don't believe me. Fine, let me ask you a question. A turtle and a rabbit race. A pig is the referee. Who wins?"
Jerry answered without hesitation. "The rabbit, obviously! Do you think I'm an idiot?!"
Ruth suddenly realized that Helen's assessment of her friends was 100% accurate.
As Jerry looked completely confused, Helen started absolutely dying of laughter. "He literally just said the pig is the referee... and you still jumped right into the trap! Hahahaha oh my god..."
While Helen cackled and Tom went back to sleep, Ruth tried desperately to suppress her own laughter. She glanced over and saw Matthew, still casually biting down on his lollipop stick, the corners of his mouth tilted up in quiet amusement.
When Helen finally caught her breath, her eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Oh right, Ru! I've never asked you. Where are you from? Are you from Veridian City?"
"Yeah," Ruth nodded. "Actually... I grew up in a small town, too."
Ruth was a Veridian City native, but because of her complicated family background, she hadn't grown up in the city center.
It was actually incredibly ironic. As Ruth grew older and started reading romance novels, she belatedly realized that her biological mother's life was the exact plot of a classic, melodramatic "Runaway Bride" soap opera. And Ruth herself was the classic "Secret Baby" that the heroine had run away with.
Unfortunately, in her mother's story, the secret baby didn't magically fix the broken relationship. Even as a romance novel, it was destined to be a tragedy.
Before the Keen family finally tracked them down and dragged her back to the estate, Ruth had spent her entire early childhood in Clearwater Town. The memories were a bit blurry, but she remembered that the time she spent with her mother was genuinely happy.
According to her grandfather, her mother had been a proud, brilliant, and stunningly beautiful socialite with an incredibly stubborn streak. That description didn't match Ruth's memories at all.
She just remembered a woman who was incredibly beautiful, and even when she threw a tantrum, she was adorable. Half the men in the town were secretly in love with her. Because they were too shy to confess directly, the local uncles and older guys would constantly sneak candy to Ruth when she was a little girl.
Her mother would gently pat her head and say, 'Be a good girl, baby. We don't eat candy from other people. If you want something sweet, Mommy will buy it for you.'
Maybe some memories, gently brushed by the passage of time, just turned into beautiful, untouchable dreams when you looked back at them.
The professor arrived exactly on time. As Helen turned around to face the front, Ruth pulled out a fresh notebook and her designated Coach Lynes pen.
Suddenly, she heard a soft clack.
Something light and small dropped perfectly onto the center of her desk.
Ruth looked down. It was the daily "equivalent exchange" candy.
Today's candy was wrapped in green foil. She couldn't tell what flavor it was yet, because the grape, kiwi, and green apple ones he had given her before had all been green.
Ruth stared at the candy, her mind drifting.
When she was a little girl, she had been absolutely addicted to sugar. She ate so much candy she had way more cavities than any other kid her age.
But after she lost her mother and was dragged back to the Keen estate, the little girl had inexplicably lost all interest in sweets. That habit had carried over into adulthood.
Thinking about it... she genuinely hadn't eaten hard candy in years.
Until she met Matthew Lynes.

As October approached, the hype for the Sports Festival completely eclipsed the Vanguard Cup prep.
Because the basketball tournament was scheduled right before the opening ceremony, the campus forum was absolutely flooded with betting pools and prediction threads.
[THREAD] Ahhhhh! As someone who just watched the practice games, I have to officially declare: Matthew Lynes is an absolute GOD on the court! Believe me!
[THREAD] Hahaha! Our Finance 101 class is finally going to rise up! International Trade can go eat dirt! (Please don't kill me)
The International Trade department’s Class 3 had a squad of incredibly tall, coordinated players who had dominated the basketball tournament for two years running. They had ruthlessly oppressed every other major in the Economics department. But this year, the absolute hype surrounding Matthew Lynes had ignited a fiery wave of hope across the campus. The legend of "Coach Lynes" reached peak virality.
Ruth only found out about the hype a few days before the actual match.
She rarely browsed the forum, but when she casually searched his name, she was shocked by how famous he had become. Every single PE class was treated like a celebrity sighting, with girls sneaking blurry photos of him running drills.
One of the threads even had a photo of her and Matthew walking side-by-side. The comments immediately derailed from analyzing his basketball skills to obsessing over their "god-tier romance," officially cementing them as a canonical power couple.
If Ruth wasn't the person in the photo, she probably would have believed the rumors herself.
Because it was the biggest game of the year, the class sports rep was constantly trying to organize practice matches.
Matthew didn't attend all of them. Out of five practices, he showed up once, and he only played half the game before subbing himself out.
Ruth remembered the rep begging him: "Mat, you can't just leave! We know you're a high-tier carry, but we still need to practice our team coordination!"
Matthew had casually smiled and said, "I don't need to practice. I can perfectly coordinate with you guys anyway."
The rep had looked so incredibly pathetic and wronged that Ruth couldn't help but laugh. She nudged Matthew. "If you don't have anything else to do, why don't you just go play with them for a bit?"
She had literally just said it casually. She didn't expect Matthew to actually agree.
As they walked toward the courts that day, Ruth asked him why he had changed his mind so quickly.
Matthew looked at her. "Because the tone you used just now sounded exactly like..." He paused, pretending to search for the right words. "...A wife lecturing her husband."
Ruth: "..."
You are absolutely delusional.
During that half-game, Matthew proved that he really didn't need to practice. He perfectly read the court and elevated the entire team, proving that a top-tier carry could easily drag four absolute scrubs to victory.
A week later, the sports rep ran into the classroom looking incredibly suspicious and excited. He announced that the notoriously arrogant International Trade Class 3 had officially challenged them to a "friendly" private scrimmage.
The rep was thrilled. This was the perfect chance for Matthew to analyze the enemy's tactics!
Ruth assumed Matthew would decline again, but to her surprise, he didn't.
"You're actually going to play today?" she asked.
"Yeah, I can play," Matthew nodded. "Work hasn't been too busy lately, so I have a lot of free time."
He had barely stepped foot in The Lynes corporate headquarters recently. Aside from his high school days, this was probably the most relaxed period of his entire life.
But when you relax, your guard drops. The second the words left his mouth, Matthew realized he had slipped up.
"..." Work? What work?
Hearing the word 'work,' Ruth was confused for a split second.
But her memory was excellent. She instantly recalled the excuse he had used weeks ago.
"Oh! You mean your tutoring job, right?" Ruth blinked, suddenly enlightened. "Does tutoring really take up that much of your time? I thought it was just like an hour a day..."
Matthew let out an invisible sigh of relief, nearly forgetting his own fake backstory. He nodded smoothly. "Yeah. Exactly. The kid lives... pretty far away, so the commute takes a while. But I don't have to go as often right now."
Hearing this, Ruth's brain immediately conjured an image of Matthew, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black jeans, sitting on a subway train listening to music. She pictured him patiently helping a little kid with their homework. Tsk tsk tsk... so pure. So hardworking.
Before she could romanticize it any further, the sports rep yelled from the doorway: "Mat! We're just waiting on you! Let's go!"
Matthew didn't answer the rep. Instead, he turned to look at Ruth. "Are you coming?"
Ruth nodded. "If you're going, I'll go."
"You're going to wait for me by the court?"
"Yeah."
"You're going to bring me water?"
"...Huh?"
"You're going to hold my jacket?"
"..." Ruth blinked, looking him up and down. "What jacket?"
Matthew didn't say a word. He stood up from his desk.
He was wearing a pure black, windbreaker-material pullover. The collar was wide, with drawstrings, and she could faintly see the collar of a clean white T-shirt underneath.
Before Ruth could even process what was happening, his arms crossed, grabbing the hem of the black pullover. In one fluid, rapid motion, he pulled the entire shirt up and over his head.
For a split second, before the fabric covered his face, Ruth had a front-row, high-definition view of his torso.
Because he was standing slightly angled away from her, the view was agonizingly perfect. His skin was pale and flawless. His waist was lean and tight, and the sharp, deeply carved lines of his abdominal muscles flexed cleanly as he moved. It was a masterpiece of raw, physical perfection.
It was an absolute crime.
Even though she only saw it for a fraction of a second, Ruth's brain completely short-circuited.
She followed the rest of the group out of the classroom, the chilly September wind doing absolutely nothing to cool the violent flush burning across her face.
Sitting in a total daze on the sidelines of the basketball court, clutching Matthew's jacket to her chest, Ruth pulled out her phone and frantically typed a message to the group chat.
Ruth: Holy fuck. Hot Ass isn't just a hot ass. He is a literal waist-slut qwq!!

The scrimmage didn't even last the full game.
Matthew had known from the start that the enemy team had no intention of playing a full match. They just wanted to test the waters and see what this rumored "Coach Lynes" could actually do. So when they called the game at halftime, he wasn't surprised at all.
He casually tossed the basketball back to his class's sports rep. Suddenly, a voice called out from behind him.
"Hey!" A heavy hand slapped him on the shoulder. Matthew turned around to see a guy from the rival team grinning widely at him. "Bro, your handles are fucking insane!"
Matthew recognized him as the captain of the International Trade team. Liu something.
Their team was decent. They had solid synergy and mostly played around this Liu guy. But compared to the collegiate leagues Matthew was used to playing in abroad, they were absolute child's play. Still, for a bunch of non-athletic majors at an elite academic university, they were pretty good.
Matthew looked at him and gave a brutally honest assessment. "You're alright."
"..." Why did that sound like such a backhanded compliment?
"Anyway, bro, I actually came over to ask you something..." The guy paused, pointing a finger toward the sidelines. He suddenly looked incredibly shy. "That girl standing over there... is she your girlfriend?"
The courts were mostly empty today, and the private scrimmage had been kept a secret. Matthew didn't even need to follow the guy's finger to know exactly who he was talking about.
When another guy asks you that question, there is only one possible reason: he's interested.
Matthew's eyes darkened. Since it was their first time meeting, he decided to be somewhat diplomatic and gently crush the guy's hopes. "Not yet, but—"
Before he could finish, the guy loudly interrupted him. "Not yet?! Oh, thank god! Man, I was so worried! I thought if she was your girlfriend, I'd have absolutely zero chance!"
Matthew: "..."
The guy completely lacked any ability to read a room. He kept talking, speaking rapidly and looking thrilled. "Do me a huge favor, man! I just wrote my number down. Can you pass this to her for me? I'm worried if I go up to her myself, she'll reject it..."
The guy aggressively patted Matthew on the shoulder again, shoving a folded piece of paper into his chest. "Thanks, bro! You're a lifesaver!" Then, wiping his sweat, the guy turned and happily jogged away.
"........."
Matthew stood entirely frozen in place. In a single instant, his mood violently plummeted into an abyssal trench.
Whatever microscopic shred of goodwill he had felt toward that guy immediately evaporated into the negatives.
He stood there for a long time, staring down at the thin piece of paper in his hand. "........."
Fuck.
Who the hell is your bro?
Ruth had been so distracted by the abs incident that she had completely forgotten to bring her bag outside. While the teams were wrapping up, she had run to the restroom, leaving Matthew to head back to the classroom first.
Matthew was currently sitting at his desk. His mind was entirely consumed by the piece of paper.
He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it.
Hello classmate, I am Liu Ke from International Trade Class 3. My phone number is...
The more he looked at it, the more furious he became.
You're trying to hit on a girl with handwriting this garbage?!
I could dip an ant in ink, let it crawl across a page, and it would look better than this.
Matthew took a sip from his water bottle, his irritation spiking.
He stared at the note. Then, holding his water bottle directly over it, he executed a highly precise, completely "accidental" flick of his wrist.
Water splashed out, immediately soaking the paper.
Feeling like that wasn't enough, he used his thumb to aggressively smear the wet ink around, rubbing it until the handwriting was an absolute, illegible blur. Only then was he finally satisfied.
When Ruth walked back into the classroom, she immediately spotted Matthew sitting at his desk. He was staring down at something in front of him, and the side profile of his face looked unusually cold and hostile.
But even when he looked like he wanted to murder someone, he was still undeniably gorgeous. Ruth jogged over to him, her eyes landing on the desk.
It looked like... a piece of paper?
Hearing her footsteps, Matthew looked up. He picked up the paper and casually handed it to her. "A guy from the class we just played told me to give this to you."
"Huh? To me?" Ruth was completely baffled. "But I don't know anyone from that class..."
She took the bizarrely damp piece of paper from him. She flipped it over a few times, squinting at it.
"I don't get it," Ruth frowned. "What does this even say? The ink is completely smeared..."
"Who knows," Matthew said, his face a mask of cold, deadpan perfection. "Maybe his hands were sweaty."