Chapter 391: Favorability: -5

Paul cleared his throat.

It was a sharp, forced sound, the kind a man makes when he wants the room to move on before an awkward silence can settle.

"President Lucas," he said, taking a half-step sideways as if his body could block the line of sight. "Sorry. This is my sister. Lyra."

She looked up.

She had already noticed the way Lucas’s gaze had settled on her. It showed in nothing more than a slight lift of one brow. She did not blush. She did not rush to look away. Men staring was not new. She had lived with that kind of attention long enough that it barely registered as something worth reacting to.

"Hello," she said simply.

Lucas heard the name and felt something catch.

Lyra.

It sat in his mind like a word scraped off an old page, the meaning half forgotten. He almost let it pass. Then the pieces lined up~Ashford, the short stretch of time she had spent on campus, the way people used to whisper her name in the same breath as money, trouble, and disappearing acts.

He looked at her properly now.

"Wait," he said. "Did you attend Ashford?"

Her eyes lifted to his again. For a second she only studied him, weighing whether the question was worth answering, before she gave a small nod.

"Yes."

That was all it took.

The memory snapped back into place. Lyra Harper. The one people called the campus beauty until Maya took the title and held it. Her presence back then had always felt strange. She showed up, turned heads, barely stayed long enough for anyone to learn her schedule, then vanished. Half the school assumed a girl with that kind of money did not bother with lectures. Suitors still lined up. Most never got past a polite greeting.

Lucas almost smiled at the thought.

[Ding!]

Detected that the host is conversing with a member of the opposite sex.

Binding successful!

Personal Information

Name: Lyra Harper

Age: 20

Favorability toward host: 15

Identity: Student at Ashford University

Current Relationship Status: Single

Lucas kept his expression smooth as the interface faded. Fifteen points. Not cold. Not warm. Just the baseline of a girl introduced to a stranger in her brother’s office who had not decided what to make of him yet.

Paul, still smiling a fraction too wide, tried to bridge the gap.

"President Lucas, I can see you’re already familiar with my younger sister." He gestured between them, clearly pleased with the connection. "Many of the programming algorithms for Switch Streaming at the time were actually designed by Lyra."

That landed differently.

Lucas’s gaze drifted back to her, slower this time. Not the school beauty stories. Not the vanishing act. The work.

She did not look particularly proud of the claim. She only adjusted the folder in her lap, fingers neat against the edge, as if Paul had mentioned something as ordinary as the weather.

Lucas found himself hooked.

It was not only the face across from him. It was the work Paul had just dropped. Algorithms. Switch. A girl who had helped build part of the platform and then disappeared. He wanted the rest of the story. He never got the chance to ask for it cleanly.

Paul’s expression changed first, the easy smile draining away like someone had just flipped a switch. His shoulders tightened and when he spoke again, the polished charm was entirely gone.

"She’s been sick," he said.

The words came out flat and careful, as if he had practiced saying them without letting the weight show and still failed.

"Several times. This is only her second day out of the hospital in months." He glanced at Lyra, then back at Lucas. "She goes back tonight. Until she recovers, she’s stepped away from everything."

Lucas looked at her again.

The folder remained neat in her lap and her posture hadn’t shifted an inch, yet the office suddenly felt smaller around that single fact.

"Wait," he said. "That’s why she stopped attending?"

Paul gave a single, heavy nod.

"Sickness."

Just that. No soft explanation, no attempt to dress it up.

The answer landed harder than it should have. Lucas ran the timeline backward in his head. She had entered Ashford before him, and while her program was five years to his four, they should have crossed paths often enough to make her more than a campus rumor. Instead, he had only ever heard her name drifting through hallways and group chats~wealthy, elusive, untouchable. People assumed money made attendance optional, chalking up her absences to boredom.

Nobody ever talked about hospital wards.

Looking at her now, even beneath the dull office light, the word still didn’t fit. She was striking, controlled, and startlingly clear-eyed. If anything, she looked like someone who had just stepped out of a high-stakes board meeting rather than a sickbed.

’If this is her while she’s ill, what does she look like healthy?’

He pushed the thought down and asked the only question that mattered.

"What’s the cause?"

Paul shook his head with a helplessness that did not suit a man who usually had every answer ready.

"I don’t know. I’ve taken her to see everyone. Capital specialists. State hospitals. Traditional practitioners. All of it." His voice dropped. "Every single one told me the same thing. A rare genetic disease. No cure."

The office went quiet.

Lucas let the words settle. A girl with that mind and that face, written off by every clinic her brother’s money could reach. Fate had a twisted sense of humor.

Then something else cut through the stillness.

The Soul Awakening Needles.

He had been so distracted looking at her that the system tool almost slipped past him. Almost. The moment it surfaced, the rest of the room snapped back into focus around a single idea.

He looked from Paul to Lyra.

"What if I try to help?"

The offer came out simple. No speech. No dramatic promise.

Her reaction was immediate and cold.

[Ding!]

Lyra: Favorability -10

Lyra: Favorability -10

Current Favorability: -5

The numbers hit harder than a slap. Fifteen down to negative five in two strikes. Whatever she had heard in that offer, she did not like it~and she did not bother hiding the shift behind politeness.