Chapter 28: The Thirty-Five-Dollar Hour

At this moment, at the back gate of Golden Terrace Estate.

A secluded cobblestone street lay here, lit by only a few dim street lamps. The cold wind rustled the fallen leaves along the roadside.

Rumble…!

The deep growl of a V12 engine echoed through the night, impossibly clear. A black Lamborghini sat at the curb, hazard lights blinking, its fierce headlights piercing the haze before the rain.

Xu Zhou had just stepped out of the side door when the supercar’s scissor door shot upward with a hiss.

Mateo had one hand on the steering wheel. His dark eyes burned through the window at Xu Zhou.

“9:30 and five seconds! Xu Zhou, you made me wait five seconds extra!”

“The cobblestones were slippery. I was afraid I’d fall.”

Xu Zhou walked over as if he had every right to be late, tossed his canvas bag into the car, and bent to get into the passenger seat.

Mateo cursed once in a Reyes family dialect. But the moment Xu Zhou was settled, he reached over, pulled the seatbelt, and clicked it shut with a snap.

“That fox Theodore didn’t mess with you, did he?”

Mateo floored the gas. The supercar lunged forward with a roar. He looked at Xu Zhou from the corner of his eye.

“If he dared to keep you against your will, I’ll smash his damn greenhouse tonight.”

“No. He was pretty polite. He even gave me a glass of warm water.”

Xu Zhou shut his eyes and leaned back in the seat.

“Water? You drank it?”

Mateo’s voice shot up, and his foot pressed the gas harder.

“You actually drank Theodore’s water?”

“Didn’t drink it. It was too hot.”

Xu Zhou’s voice was muffled.

Hearing that, the handsome face that had been tight as an iron plate finally relaxed. Mateo turned his head. The old scar at the corner of his mouth twitched with satisfaction. He twisted his wrist, and the Lamborghini cut a red streak through the mountain road, speeding toward Arden House halfway up the hill.

“That’s more like it.”

The wild dog gave a low growl into the wind.

Outside the window, raindrops began to smack against the windshield.

In the shadows of Golden Terrace, Bai Qi stood under a streetlamp, holding his rain-soaked lecture notes. He watched the sports car’s taillights disappear, his face pale as paper.

On Monday morning at St. Lest, the air was thick with expensive hangovers.

In the lecture hall, the old professor of Western Art History was drowsily droning over a slide of Raphael’s Madonna. The heirs and heiresses in the audience were mostly catching up on sleep. Only Xu Zhou was genuinely dreaming.

Last night’s roaring V12 had rattled his skull. And after returning to Arden House, the Crown Prince had blocked him at the door for another half hour of questioning. At that moment, all he wanted was to perform a live devolution into a paramecium.

The empty suck of a straw at the bottom of a juice box sounded especially loud in the silent classroom.

Joey sidled over and poked Xu Zhou with his elbow, holding a discounted blueberry juice from the campus store. It was close to expiry.

“Hey, Xu Zhou, wake up.”

Joey kept his voice low and sneakily glanced under Xu Zhou’s desk.

“Are you really wearing it today?”

Xu Zhou let out a long yawn. Those peach blossom eyes glazed over with a thin layer of tears.

He leaned back lazily. The movement pulled up his school trouser leg, exposing a stretch of pale ankle.

Under the warm lecture-room lights, the silver chain wrapped in black sheepskin lining was blindingly bright. The letters “D.Gu” surfaced in the shifting light and shadow every time he breathed.

Joey looked at the real thing, muttering under his breath. His expression was one of total disbelief.

“Locked on by Student Council President Gu himself… sheepskin lining… custom spec… I thought those rumour accounts were making it up. There isn’t even a keyhole?”

“What do you know? This is what’s called St. Lest-style torture.”

Xu Zhou pulled his trouser leg back expressionlessly, took the sour blueberry juice carton from Joey, and took a sip. In his head, he grumbled: ‘This thing isn’t protective equipment. It’s a three-kilogram lead ball. Gu Yanli probably thinks my fitness test isn’t up to standard, so he’s giving me extra gravity training.’

“Count yourself lucky. This chain’s price is probably a full year of my scholarship.” Joey clicked his tongue.

“By the way, are you actually going to the library shift this afternoon? Bai Qi has been sitting in there the whole morning. I heard he’s going to hand back his management badge.”

Xu Zhou pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Thirty-five dollars an hour, only an idiot wouldn’t go. As for Bai Qi, as long as he doesn’t block my scanner, he can stay there as long as he wants.”

To a clear-headed wage worker with modern thinking, the transfer of favour from the powerful was an illusion. Only the money that landed in the bank was real.

Theodore had used the Golden Register to force him into the first tier, and that had cost Bai Qi his original job. If Xu Zhou didn’t step in, that thirty-five dollars would just go to some relative of the board trustees.

At two in the afternoon, at the library.

It was St. Lest’s oldest building. The air always smelled of old paper, mildew, and pine-wax. Tall rosewood shelves soared to the vaulted ceiling. Through stained-glass windows painted with religious stories, sunlight cast dappled patches of light and shadow across the worn wooden floor.

When Xu Zhou arrived, Bai Qi was standing behind the circulation desk.

He was plainly dressed today. Beneath the shadows, his clean-cut, unyielding face looked pale.

He was bent over, slowly removing the sterling silver badge that read “Senior Administrator” from his chest. His fingers lingered on the worn edge for a long time, as if saying goodbye to the last shred of dignity.

“Just leave your things over there.”

Xu Zhou walked over carrying his old canvas bag, his tone plain and free of any sense of showing off.

“Theodore put your name on the first line.” Bai Qi’s voice was a little hoarse. He set the badge gently on the marble counter and laughed bitterly.

“He said that the library administrator seat was never something a person in the first tier should take, because it meant lowering themselves.”

“It really does mean lowering themselves.”

With a smooth motion, Xu Zhou grabbed the badge and pinned it to his uniform, then lowered the desk chair.

“But compared to status, I prefer the air-conditioning and the thirty-five-dollar hourly wage. Senior Bai, if you haven’t found a new spot yet, the copy room on the second floor of the administration building is short a paper carrier. You could give it a try.”

Bai Qi froze in place. The bitter ache of having his pride crushed found nowhere to strike against Xu Zhou’s completely off-script wage-worker logic.

At that moment, a thick stack of old books slammed onto the counter with a crack. The books had clear, malicious tearing marks.

“Newbie, input these. I want the borrowing receipt in the system within one minute.”

The speaker was Lloyd, Bai Qi’s most loyal supporter in the commoner faction and the second son of a declining minor noble. He stood with his followers, eyes dark and fixed on Xu Zhou, wearing a provocative smile.

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