“I have a plan.”
Henry jerks his head up at the sound of my voice, trying—and failing—to find me in the dim light of his dorm. Faint confusion touches the space between his brows as he sets the dumbbell in his hand down on the desk, still scanning the room for me. As he does, the clouds shift outside his window, and a stream of pure, silvery moonlight spills in around him. Sweat drips from his midnight curls, darkening the collar of his tight-fitted tank.
I feel a hot stab of irritation. Who the hell works out at four in the morning? And who looks this good while doing it?
“Alice?” he calls, his voice quiet, slightly uneven from exertion. “Are you…”
“It happened again,” I say by way of explanation, as I step around his bed and stride toward him. Pat his arm to let him know where I am. His skin is warm beneath mine, the muscles underneath tensing instantly at my touch.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “Couldn’t you at least knock before—”
“The door was open,” I speak over him. “Besides, this is important.” I grab the mini notebook from my blazer, flip it open to the right page, and hesitate. Just for a moment—enough for me to feel the notebook’s weight in my hands, to realize the significance of what I’m about to trust him with. The risk of it. But then I remember the jagged scar running down Mama’s palm, the hundreds of thousands of yuan I need and don’t have, the threat of leaving Airington looming over my future like a sharpened axe, and I unfreeze. Press the opened pages into his hands.
As soon as it leaves my fingers, the notebook must become visible to Henry, because his eyes widen. Then he focuses on what’s been written in my tiny scrawl, all the highlighted numbers and color-coded tables and detailed lists I spent most of my weekend working on, and his eyebrows arch.
“This looks like a business proposal,” he says slowly.
“That’s because it is.”
“For…?”
“My invisibility services. See, I was thinking about it,” I say, injecting as much confidence into my voice as possible. I imagine myself a businesswoman, like the ones you see on TV, all fresh-ironed pencil skirts and swishing ponytails and clacking stiletto heels as they sell their pitch to a table of bored executives. “And it seems like a waste not to monetize what’s otherwise a pretty shitty situation, don’t you agree?”
He folds his arms over his chest. “I thought you said you couldn’t control it.”
“I can’t,” I say, fighting back a small surge of annoyance as I recall our last conversation. “But I’ve been tracking the instances I turn invisible, and there’s a sort of pattern to it: I always get the same strange cold sensation right before—almost like my body has an inbuilt warning system—which gives me about two to three minutes to run to a deserted area. It’s not ideal, of course, but it’d be enough for me to work with if—when we get this business running.”
He glances down to study my notes again, his expression unreadable. “And this business would be…you carrying out whatever tasks people at our school want from you while invisible.” He says it like a question, like he’s not sure if I’m joking.
“It wouldn’t be any task,” I tell him. “I’m not down to help some creep get his hands on his crush’s underwear or set the school on fire or whatever. But imagine how much money people would be willing to pay just to—I don’t know, see if their exes secretly still look through old photos of them, or if their best friend’s been gossiping about them behind their back. We’d turn a profit in no time.”
“And where do I fit into all this?”
“I need an app,” I say, pacing before him. His gaze follows the soft shuffle of my footsteps. “Something that can allow people to send their requests easily, without getting caught. Or maybe a website, some sort of device. It’s your call—you’re the tech guy. But once we get our communication channels sorted, I’ll be doing all the dirty work.”
I study his face carefully as I speak, watching for the telltale sign that he’s lost interest. If you look close enough, you can always catch it: the second his eyes grow distant, cold, even as he continues smiling and nodding and saying all the right things in that polite-but-bored way of his. Years of careful observation have shown me that trying to hold Henry Li’s undivided attention is like trying to hold water in your hands.
Which is why I’m so surprised to see the light in his eyes now. Feel the intensity of his gaze and focus on me, even if he can’t see me, can only hear the words coming out of my mouth.
When I’m finished, he nods once and says, slowly, “That does sound like a plan…”
“But what?” I say, catching his tone.
“Well, what about the ethical implications?”
“What about them?” I challenge.
“So you think there aren’t any,” he says, eyebrows raised, enough sarcasm dripping from his voice to form a pool at his feet. “According to you, everything about your plan screams perfectly moral. Everything. As in, if Jesus were here, he’d be completely on board—”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t drag Jesus into this. You’re not even religious.”
“But to capitalize on people’s vulnerabilities, their darkest secrets—and our own classmates, no less, who you’re going to have to sit next to and talk to every day…”
And despite myself, despite the carefully thought-out list of pros and cons I’ve already made addressing these exact concerns, I do feel a jolt of guilt.
But right now, my wants are bigger than my fears. This plan is a perfect win-win situation, if only I have the nerve to carry through with it; with the profit I make, I could stay here at Airington and complete my IBs instead of taking the gaokao or moving across the world, pay the 250,000 RMB needed for my school fees, maybe even my college tuition, and give all the extra money to my parents, to Xiaoyi. I could treat Baba and Mama to a real feast, at a proper Peking duck restaurant where they carve the meat right in front of us, buy Mama expensive hand creams and lotions to undo the damage from all that scrubbing and soaking around in disinfectants at the hospital, get her and Baba a car so they never have to squeeze into the subway at peak hour again…
I almost consider telling him this, justifying myself, but then I remember who I’m talking to. 250,000 RMB is just a number to Henry Li, not the difference between two lives. He would never understand.
“You, of all people, shouldn’t get to make a speech on ethics,” I snap. “SYS has enough money to basically stop global warming, but instead all you’re doing is coming up with new algorithms to benefit your sponsors and contribute to the rising wealth gap—”
“Our apps do their part to benefit society,” he says smoothly, readily, standing up straighter all of a sudden, and I wonder for a second if I’ve just stepped into a company ad. “And for your information, forty-three percent of our daily active users are actually from third-and fourth-tier cities, and over thirty percent—”
“—identify as being from lower-income families, yeah I know,” I cut in, impatient, then realize my mistake.
God, I really need to stop talking.
Henry pauses. Stares in my direction, long and hard. If his eyebrows shoot up any higher, they’ll probably disappear. “I’m sorry, do you—do you secretly work for my father’s company or something?”
I make a noncommittal noise with my throat, though it sounds more like I’m choking, and scramble to get back to the point. “Look. If you’re so concerned about ethics, we can donate ten percent of the profits to charity—”
“That’s not how—”
I snort. “That’s exactly how all the big corps work, and I’m not even doing it to dodge taxes.”
He opens his mouth to argue, then clamps it shut again. Most likely because he knows I’m right. A silence falls over us, broken only by the low rumble of snores from the neighboring rooms and the persistent chirp of cicadas outside. Then he says, “To be honest, I’m surprised you of all people would come up with something like this.” Amusement curls the corners of his lips. “Weren’t you the one who burst into tears in Year Eight maths because the teacher scolded you for not bringing a graphing calculator to class? Then followed up the next day with a signed ten-page letter vowing to never make the same mistake again?”
“How—how do you even remember that?” I demand, humiliation burning through me at the memory. The truth is that I had brought a calculator with me that day, but it was one of those old second-hand ones Mama had found in a sketchy little store down the street. It’d broken into pieces by the time I pulled it out from my bag at school, and after the teacher’s scolding, I’d used up all my lunch money for the next month to buy myself the same calculator as my classmates.
But Henry definitely doesn’t need to know the full story.
“I remember everything,” Henry is saying. Then he clears his throat, some indecipherable emotion flickering over his face. “About everything, is what I mean. I just happen to have an excellent memory.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or roll my eyes. Henry’s arrogance will truly never cease to amaze me.
“So? Are you in?” I ask, fighting back a swell of impatience. Every second we waste standing around here talking is a second that could be better spent getting this thing up and running.
Henry moves to sit down on the edge of his perfectly made bed, crossing one long leg over another. “What’s in it for me?”
I’m more than prepared for this question; I did the calculations last night. “Forty percent of all profits,” I say. It’s more than he deserves, but I need to make an appealing case. Right now, he’s the best—and maybe only—person who can help me.
“Fifty.”
“What?”
“I’ll settle for fifty percent.”
I grind my teeth together so hard I half expect them to fall out. “Forty-two.”
“Fifty-five.”
“Wait—what? That—that’s not how negotiations are supposed to work,” I splutter, anger rising to my cheeks. “You can’t just keep—”
“Fifty-six,” he says, leaning back now, his gaze steady, his eyes the same ink-black shade as the night sky outside.
“Look, you asshole, forty-two is more than generous—”
“Fifty-seven—”
“Forty—”
“Fifty-eight—”
“Fine,” I snap. “Fifty percent.”
He grins, amusement dancing in those night sky eyes, and the effect is striking. Disarming. My stomach dips as if coming off the high of a roller coaster.
Then he says, “You’re a terrible negotiator, Alice.”
And I consider strangling him. I probably would, if it weren’t for the fact that murder seems like a less-than-ideal way of starting a business partnership.
“Do we have a deal, then?” I press, hoping to walk away from this conversation with something concrete to hold on to, to plan around, at the very least.
But ever the experienced negotiator, all Henry says in response is, “I’ll think about it.”
Henry and I don’t speak a single word to each other for the next three days.
Not for lack of trying on my end; every time I try to make eye contact with him from across the classroom, he’s distracted, a distant, faraway look on his face, or he’s busy working on something on his laptop, his long fingers flying over the keys. Then as soon as the bell rings, he’s gone, striding out the doors without even a glance back. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was the one with the invisibility problem.
Soon I’m starting to regret everything—seeking him out in his dorm, revealing the details of my plan, believing we might actually make some kind of partnership work between us—and with the regret comes a fast-brewing anger, like a gathering storm. This is my nightmare scenario; Henry Li knowing he has something I want, and having every right to withhold it from me. I imagine him mocking me in his head—I can’t believe what Alice Sun asked me to do the other day—and resentment fills my mouth like spit.
But then Thursday rolls around, and Henry hurries into our social ethics class ten minutes late.
This is unprecedented.
Everyone turns to stare at him, whispers flying across the room as we take in his appearance. He looks—well, not disheveled, exactly, since Henry at his very worst still looks better than every other guy at their most polished. But his normally immaculate school shirt is creased at the sides, the top two buttons undone, exposing his sharp collarbones. His hair falls in wild waves over his brows, rumpled and uncombed, and his perfect porcelain skin is a shade paler than usual, the area under his eyes stamped with dark circles.
If he notices the stares, he doesn’t show it. He simply takes off his fancy pollution mask, folds it into his blazer pocket, and makes his way over to the teacher’s desk.
“Sorry I’m late, Dr. Walsh,” Henry says to our social ethics teacher. Her full name is Julie Marshall Walsh, and she insists on being addressed as Dr., but everyone just calls her Julie behind her back.
Julie purses her lips, her white-blond Anna Wintour bob bouncing past her ears as she shakes her head. “I must say, I expected better of you, Henry. You missed ten minutes of a very important lecture.”
Someone makes an abrupt coughing sound that sounds suspiciously like a snort. The very important lecture in question is, in fact, a slideshow on “poor kids in Asia.” We’ve spent the entire class looking through high-resolution photos of matchstick-boned children covered in mud or eating scorpions, all while Julie sighs and gasps—at one point, I swear I see her pale blue eyes fill with tears—and dramatically whispers things like, “Can you imagine?” and “Oh, it really makes you realize how very lucky you are, doesn’t it?”
Henry’s brows lift a fraction, but his voice sounds completely respectful, earnest when he says, “I won’t let it happen again, Dr. Walsh.”
“I certainly hope not.” Julie sniffs. “You can go to your seat now.”
As Henry turns around, his dark eyes search the room, then lock on mine. My mouth goes dry, a violent bolt of anger and something else I can’t quite name flashing through me. Now he’s decided to acknowledge my presence? I glare at him with all the force I can muster, and—to my surprise—he holds my gaze, as if trying to convey something meaningful without moving his hands or his lips. Clearly, this boy has overestimated my ability to read minds.
I jerk my shoulder in the universal I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-saying gesture, and he frowns. Drags a hand through his messy, crow-black hair. Opens his mouth—
“Is something the matter over there?” Julie calls. It’s a known fact around the school that the chirpier Julie Walsh’s voice gets, the angrier she is.
And she sounds very chirpy right now.
Henry must hear it too, because he quickly slides into his usual seat at the opposite end of the room. I’m not even sure when that started happening—us sitting as far away from each other as possible in every classroom. If it was something intentional, or if perhaps we work like magnets, with some kind of invisible field automatically pushing us apart wherever we go.
But for the first time, I hate the distance between us. What was he trying to tell me? And why was he late?
I can barely keep still for the rest of class. Even as the classroom lights dim and the projector flickers on again, more images of starving, unsmiling children flashing over the screen like phantoms, I can’t stop peering over at where Henry is sitting, trying to search his face for clues. And more than once, I catch him looking at me too.
The second the bell rings, Henry strides over to my desk.
“Can we talk?” he asks. The dark circles under his eyes are even more prominent up close, yet there’s no trace of exhaustion in the way he’s carrying himself, his chin lifted and his back straight as an arrow, or the crisp inflection of his tone.
“Um. Right here?”
The thing is, I want to talk, I’m dying to, but I’m all too aware of the kids around us slowing their footsteps, the curious glances they’re sending our way. Everyone knows Henry and I are sworn enemies, and even if we weren’t, Henry has never approached anyone in class before. He doesn’t need to; people have a way of gravitating toward him.
“Maybe somewhere more…private,” he concedes, seeming to realize the issue. He shoots a look at Bobby Yu, who’s lurking around my desk, and Bobby quickly ducks his head and hurries away, textbooks tucked under his beanpole arms.
Then, without another word, Henry spins around on his heel and heads out through the classroom door, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Walking next to Henry through the crowded halls of Airington is a deeply strange experience. More people—teachers included—stop and greet him in the short walk from our social ethics classroom to our lockers than the total number of people I’ve spoken to since school started. That’s not an exaggeration either. I can almost feel the tides of power ebbing and flowing around us, how everyone’s attention shifts to Henry and stays on him as if he’s glowing, and I think, briefly, that this must’ve been what it felt like to walk beside the emperor in the Forbidden City.
If only the emperor were me.
At last, we reach a quiet, deserted spot nestled between the lockers and the ayis’ cleaning cabinets. We have a twenty-minute morning break before next class, so most students are rushing off to the school café at this time.
Henry stands with his back to the wall, scans the area twice to make sure no one’s passing by, then says, “The app is ready.”
I blink. “What?”
He sighs, takes his iPhone out of his pocket, taps onto something, and holds it up for me to see. A little blue logo shaped like a cartoon ghost blinks at me from the center of the screen, positioned next to Douyin and some kind of stock market app.
“Your app,” Henry repeats. “Beijing Ghost. I’ve already trademarked the name, so if you don’t like it, there’s unfortunately not much we can do to change that.”
“Wait—wait—so you’re in?” I say, my mind scrambling to catch up. “You—we’re really doing this?”
He gestures to his phone, eyebrows raised. “What does it look like?”
I grit my teeth. Would it really kill him to give a straightforward answer without sounding so condescending for once? A few choice words rise to my lips, but I force them back down. If he’s gone ahead and made the app for me, then we’re officially business partners now, meaning it’d be quite unprofessional to tell him to shove his phone up his—
“I would’ve come to you sooner,” Henry tells me, “but there were a few logistics I still needed to figure out, and as a general rule, I dislike talking about things before I have concrete results. So, if you look over here…”
He’s talking faster than usual, I notice, his hand motions almost animated as he navigates the app’s home page and points out the key features. “The app essentially promises anonymity on both sides, for those in request of a service and those carrying out the service—though of course, in this case, it’d only be you. All users have to do is set up an account, fill out a quick request form, and message you with any additional questions or concerns they have. Then you can respond with whatever price you’re charging—I’d recommend starting at around 5,000 RMB and raising the price depending on the scale of the task—and if they agree, you enter into a binding contract until the task is complete, and they’ve made their payment.”
“And how do they do that?” I ask.
A small, self-satisfied smile spreads over his lips. “I thought about using cash at first—it’s untraceable that way, and it’d simplify the process—but then I came up with something better.” He clicks away from the app for a second and shows me an official-looking email from the bank, addressed to the owners of Beijing Ghost. “I asked a friend at the Bank of China to help set up a private account just for this—under a fake name, of course.”
My head snaps up. “Isn’t that…”
Isn’t that illegal? The question dangles at the tip of my tongue, but then, with a bubble of hysterical laughter, I remember that everything about this is at least a little bit illegal.
Alice Sun: Airington academic scholarship recipient. Honor roll student. Student council representative. And now criminal. Who would’ve thought?
“Isn’t that what?” Henry prompts.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I shake my head. Then I glance up at the app again, with its bright blue logo and sleek, professional interface, and can’t help asking, “How did you get so good at this?”
“I had to design an app on my own to convince my father to let me help out at SYS. He wanted the company culture to be as meritocratic as possible.” He combs back his messy waves with one hand, looking for a moment like the perfect picture of natural genius and nonchalance. “I was only thirteen at the time, so the app was obviously flawed, but it was proof enough that I could do…well, something.”
I hide my surprise. I’d always assumed his father handed out work opportunities and privileges whenever he could, maybe even forced Henry into a high-ranking role at a young age. I’d assumed Henry never had to prove himself to anyone.
I make a vague sound with the back of my throat, and busy myself scrolling through the app. As much as I hate to admit it, Henry’s right—it is easy to use. Not only that, but I can’t find a single discernible fault.
“Well?” Henry leans forward. His dark eyes are alight, his chin angled up a few degrees, the sure, sharp lines of his body tense with something like anticipation. I realize he’s waiting for me to give my opinion—no, for me to compliment him, like some kid proudly holding up his artwork for a class show-and-tell.
My lips twitch. “I didn’t know you had such a praise kink.”
Surprise—maybe even embarrassment—flickers over his face. Then that calm, expressionless mask I’m so used to seeing immediately slides back into place, and I almost regret having spoken. “I do not have a—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” But when I turn and open my mouth to tease him further, I pause.
At this angle, under the fluorescent hallway lights, the fatigue shadowing his features is more noticeable than ever. He must’ve pulled at least two or three all-nighters these past few days just to finish working on the app.
And even though I know he’s only doing it for profit, for his own interests, the words tumble from my lips anyway: “Thank you…for doing all of this. Really. It—it’s even better than I imagined.”
Maybe it’s just a trick of the light, but I swear I see his ears turn pink.
“I’m glad,” he says quietly, holding my gaze for what seems like a second too long.
I clear my throat and look away, feeling strangely self-conscious all of a sudden. “Right. Anyway, um. What do we do next?”
He responds by pulling another shiny new iPhone out from his pocket. “No one at our school knows this number,” he explains, misreading my expression.
“You have two phones?”
“Three, actually,” he says, his voice matter-of-fact. “One for work, one for personal contacts, and one for myself.”
Whatever rush of gratitude I felt toward him just now immediately evaporates. My fingers curl into fists at my sides. I learned not long after I first came to Airington that comparing myself to people like Henry will only make me miserable, but I still can’t help thinking about the battered phone in my own pocket, how Mama had to work overtime during the Spring Festival just to save enough money to buy it.
“All we need now is to get the word out about the app,” Henry’s saying, opening up a few different social media apps with impressive speed: WeChat for the local kids, Facebook Messenger for ABCs, WhatsApp for Malaysians, Kakao for Koreans.
“They’re not going to believe you if you just say there’s someone who can turn invisible,” I point out. “Especially if you’re messaging them from an anonymous number.”
“No,” he agrees. “Which is why I’m leaving that part out completely. All that matters to them is what the app can help them do, not how it’s done.”
Even though all of this is more or less my idea, now that it’s really happening, I can’t fight back the slow creep of doubt. What if everyone dismisses the app as a joke? What if they report it to the teacher? Or what if—
“Don’t worry,” Henry says without even glancing up, as if he can read my mind.
“I’m not worried,” I grumble. I realize I’ve wrung my fingers into knots, and quickly force them to still at my sides. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
He finishes typing out one last message on Kakao, then reaches for his other phone again. “Give it a minute.”
I try to mimic his calm, his patience, start counting to sixty seconds in my head. I fight to keep my expression neutral, casual, to make it look like we’re only going over some particularly difficult homework questions together. Anything to ward off suspicions from passing students when this thing works.
If this works.
It’s true that news has a way of getting around in a school like ours, but could it really be that easy? That fast?
I only get to forty-five seconds when Henry’s phone buzzes. The blue ghost logo lights up, glowing in quick pulses as if in sync with my rapidly pounding heart. A notification flashes over the screen: One New Message.
Henry could not look any more pleased with himself. He nods at me to open it and I do, trying to ignore the shaky feeling in my bones, the terrifying knowledge that there’s no going back from this.
Immediately, a message from user C207 pops up:
is this legit?
I take a deep breath and reply:
Only one way to find out.
