“Still can’t believe they’re raising the prices again,” she says with a snort. “The sheer nerve.”

My heart seizes. “Wait. What?”

“The school fees,” she says casually. “Didn’t you know? They sent out an email about it a few months back.”

“I—I don’t...” All the school’s emails go straight to Mama and Baba, but between their long work hours and old phones and the crappy connection in their little flat, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Important things. My heart starts pounding faster.

“Here. This is just a reminder for the upcoming deadline. The original email’s down below.” She scoots closer, holding her screen up for me to see. I can’t read anything at first—can only stare at the tiny black numbers, the harsh white light, my stomach writhing. Then the figure comes into painful focus. 360,000 RMB.

No.

That’s a 30,000 RMB jump from what it used to be, and that’s only for one school year. It’s too much. It’s more than what I have, what I could possibly earn before the fee deadline in seven days, even if I were to complete another Beijing Ghost task—

I’m only dimly aware of what Rainie is saying. “...first heard about it. Apparently a bunch of the other international schools have raised their prices too, beginning from next semester—such a rip-off. My dad’s company had like, a mini fit when he sent them the receipt.”

“Right,” I manage. The cafeteria suddenly feels too small, or maybe it’s just my lungs that have shrunk. 360,000 RMB. It’s the kind of number that should be overwhelming, apocalyptic, illegal, that should send everyone at this school into mass panic, but Rainie looks mildly annoyed, at best.

Then again, of course she is. Most of my classmates have their parents’ companies covering their school fees, their private drivers, their giant condos. Everything. That would explain why I never heard about the raised prices until now, too; this is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to them, hardly worth dwelling on for longer than a few seconds.

Case in point: Rainie’s already launched into another conversation topic—this time about the midterm exams, and how they should be graded on a curve, and wasn’t that English essay question so vague, and—

“Oh yeah, did you hear about Evie?” she asks.

If I wasn’t already on edge, I most certainly am now. My spine goes rigid, half my thoughts still stuck on the school fees, trying desperately to calculate how much more money I need to make in the next week. “What—what about Evie?”

“Apparently, she smashed her history midterms—for her standards anyway. Got like, eighty percent or something. Pretty impressive, huh?”

I search Rainie’s body language for any hidden, darker meaning behind her words, but she just tightens her ponytail, flips it over her shoulder, and sighs.

“I’m happy for her, honestly,” she continues. “She’s gone through at least ten different tutors in the past year, and none of them helped. Guess she finally found the right one.”