Sophie had visited that tower herself, just a few days ago, walked through the model suite during an open viewing, admired the panoramic aspect and the landscaped reserve, and walked away knowing with perfect certainty that she would never own a unit there. The building wasn’t sold to the public. Period. No amount of money could open that door without the right name behind it.

Which was precisely why she’d used it as her go-to rejection line. ’Buy a house in Four Seasons Garden.’

It was the polite equivalent of go away forever, an impossible task dressed up as a challenge.

And someone had done it. Not just done it, obliterated it. Bought not one unit, not five, not ten, but the entire restricted building and sent the deeds over in a manila envelope like a stack of postcards.

The gift wasn’t just valuable. It was incomprehensible. A hundred million dollars, minimum. Probably more. Delivered without fanfare, without a note, without even staying to watch her open it.

Sophie’s heart was beating very fast now.

"Who sent this?" she asked quietly.

"The guy said his name was Stan."

Sophie went still. ’Stan.’

Of course it was him.

The boy who’d walked up to her in the courtyard without flinching. The one who’d said okay to a million-dollar house like she’d asked for a cup of tea. The one who’d come back this morning, waved to her across a hostile crowd, and tried to follow through on every word, only to be turned away by her own cousin. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

And instead of giving up, he’d simply found another way.

’He really does like me.’

The thought arrived with a warmth that spread through her chest like sunlight hitting glass.

She’d suspected it before, felt the pull of it during their brief encounters, caught the flicker of something real behind his composed exterior. But this confirmed it in a way that words never could.

No one spent a hundred million dollars on a gesture unless they meant it. No one bought an entire building for a girl they were only casually interested in.

"Stan Harrison gave you an entire building in Four Seasons Garden," Claire said slowly, as if hearing the words out loud for the first time might make them more believable. "Are you, are you going to see him? Tomorrow? The next day? Ever?"

Sophie looked down at the stack of certificates fanned across her yoga mat. Fifty-plus deeds. An entire tower. Delivered in a manila envelope to her dormitory.

"I’ll go see him tomorrow."

She said it quietly, almost to herself.

She’d go low-key this time. No crowds. No courtyard theatrics. And absolutely no chance for Arnold to insert himself into the middle of it and ruin everything for a second time.

Across campus, in the familiar darkness of his dorm room, Stan lay on his back staring at the ceiling.

His phone was resting on his chest. He wasn’t looking at it, he didn’t need to. The system notifications were already scrolling past in his mind’s eye.

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 58]

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 59]

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 65]

A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face in the dark.

She’d received the gift. The deeds had landed. And the numbers were climbing, not in frantic leaps, but in the steady, warming way that suggested something deeper than surprise. Something closer to genuine feeling.

[Favorability threshold update: Next consumption event targeting Sophie Youngs will trigger a 6× rebate.]

Six times.

Stan closed his eyes and let that number settle into him. At sixty-five favorability, the multiplier was already extraordinary. If he could push her to a hundred, full affection, no ceiling, the system would unlock the ten-times tier.

Ten times return on every dollar spent.

The kind of number that turned millions into billions.

He laced his fingers behind his head and let out a long, contented breath. Outside the window, the campus was quiet. Zack was snoring softly in the bunk across the room. The city hummed its distant, indifferent hum.

’Tomorrow,’ Stan thought, the smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth, ’is going to be another day of spending money.’

....

Despite having more money than most people would earn in ten lifetimes, Stan Harrison’s daily routine hadn’t changed in any noticeable way.

He still woke up to Zack’s snoring. Still brushed his teeth at the same cracked sink. Still walked to the same campus cafeteria for lunch, because the fried chicken and chips on Wednesdays were genuinely better than anything he’d eaten at the five-star hotel the other night.

Old habits didn’t break easily, and Stan saw no reason to force them.

He and Zack grabbed their trays and found a table near the windows. The cafeteria was at peak capacity, every seat taken, every table loud, the air thick with steam and competing conversations. And woven through the noise, like a thread he couldn’t quite ignore, Stan could hear them talking about him..

"...asked Sophie Youngs for her Snapchat again yesterday..."

"...and her brother shut him down right there in front of everyone..."

"...heard he just stood there and took it. Didn’t even argue..."

"...honestly kind of pathetic at this point..."

The commentary drifted in from multiple directions, nearby tables, the lunch line, a cluster of girls by the drink station.

The consensus was unanimous and merciless. Stan Harrison was a delusional nobody who’d been publicly rejected by Sophie Youngs’s cousin and was now the campus cautionary tale for overreaching.

"Stan." Zack set his tray down with a deliberate clatter and dropped into the seat across from him, his voice low and firm. "Don’t listen to these clowns. They don’t know what they’re talking about."

Stan nodded absently, already reaching for his chopsticks.

He genuinely didn’t care. The gap between what these people thought they knew and what was actually happening was so vast it was almost funny.

They were gossiping about a man they believed was broke, desperate, and humiliated, while that same man was sitting three meters away with six hundred and fifty million dollars in his bank account and a building’s worth of property deeds in Sophie Youngs’s hands.

Let them talk. It cost him nothing.