Chapter 2

2: 2

Eight o'clock, and the freshman chat was already scrolling nonstop.

"Hester, when's the bubble tea getting here? We were out in the sun all morning at training, we're dying of thirst!"

Hester replied: "Heading to the shop right now to pay and grab it."

She rounded up a dozen or so classmates to help carry the drinks, and the whole crowd marched off toward the bubble tea shop by the South Gate.

Hester walked up to the counter, slapped her bank card down hard, and announced:

"I ordered a thousand bubble teas yesterday. Run it on this card."

The clerk took it and swiped. The machine beeped twice, and red letters flashed up on the screen.

"Insufficient balance."

The smile froze on Hester's face. She pushed through it anyway.

"That's impossible. I've got thirty grand on that card. Swipe it again! My family's the richest in our whole village, there's no way it's empty!"

The clerk swiped again. Same warning tone.

"There's really nothing there."

The clerk pushed the card back.

"This batch is already made, we can't cancel it. Please pay soon."

The students lined up waiting for their drinks started murmuring to each other.

Somebody muttered under their breath:

"What's going on? Talked such a big game yesterday, and today she can't come up with the money?"

Someone else said quietly:

"Said her family's the richest in the village too. She wasn't just making that up, was she?"

Hester's whole face went red.

"That's impossible! My family said yesterday they'd wire me thirty grand! It's this junk machine of yours acting up, it has to be!"

The clerk's face darkened. "The machine's fine. Maybe your family just hasn't sent the money yet."

Hester panicked on the spot, head down, thumbing out messages like mad.

My phone buzzed several times in a row.

"Pat, when are you sending the money?"

"Pat? The money hasn't come through, and I really need it right now."

"Pat, please just answer me? I'm waiting here to pay."

I didn't reply to a single one.

I wanted to see exactly how she was going to get herself out of this today.

A moment later my phone was buzzing frantically again. The dorm chat this time.

Hester was spamming @everyone:

"Somebody check if Pat's around, tell her to look at her phone!"

"Lottie, go call her, quick!"

"Alberta, give her a poke!"

"Get her to check her phone, I'm freaking out over here!"

"I don't even know what bubble tea Pat likes, tell her to message me."

The messages flooded in one after another. Lottie looked up at me, and I just shook my head, telling her to leave it alone.

Lottie looked back down and typed something to fob Hester off.

I stared at the chat log. She kept prodding people to make me check my phone. Did she somehow know I was her sponsor?

But the village council had made it clear from the start that the sponsor stayed anonymous the whole way through.

Before I could work it out, another message from Hester popped up:

"A student who says Pat's the one sponsoring her just called me. Says she can't reach Pat and needs the money urgently."

"Pat, you sponsor someone and then just ignore her? That's pretty irresponsible, isn't it?"