So I message back: Sure.

And almost instantly, the call comes in. I do a quick scan of the locker area before I pick up. The place is empty. Good.

“Hello?” I say, wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder.

“Wei?” The voice distortion feature works so well I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or girl speaking. But I can hear the slight hitch in their breathing, the nervousness in their tone when, in slow, carefully enunciated Mandarin, the person asks, “Do you speak Chinese?”

“Oh—um, yeah, no problem,” I say, switching to Mandarin too.

A sigh of relief. “Great. And...whatever I say next—you won’t tell...?”

“Of course not,” I reassure them. It’s what most users ask when they first start using the app: You promise this will stay private? You promise no one else will ever know? “Everything is strictly confidential.”

“Okay.” Another sigh, but this one is heavier, drawn out, as if they’re bracing themselves for what’s next. “Okay. What I want is...”

They trail off. Go silent for so long I pull the phone away from me, check to see if I’ve accidentally disconnected the call. I haven’t.

Then, in one desperate, breathless rush, they say: “I want answers.”

“Answers?” I repeat. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific than that.”

“Exam answers. For the history midterm. Ideally a week before the actual exams so I can, you know...so I’d have time to memorize them.”

“Right.” I fight to keep my voice neutral, free of recognition, even though I can already guess who the user is. Can picture her vividly, with her head bowed over last week’s history test, frustration flushing her cheeks. “I see.”

One of the first things that shows up on Beijing Ghost’s homepage is that we have a no-judgment policy. Because, let’s be honest, if you’re hiring some anonymous person to carry out the kind of tasks you can’t get caught doing yourself, the last thing you want is moral scrutiny.

But this feels different from the previous jobs. If Beijing Ghost has a strict no-judgment policy, then Airington International Boarding School has a very strict no-cheating policy. A few years ago, a kid in Year Ten was found cheating on his final exams by copying his textbook out on toilet paper in the bathroom beside the exam hall. He was kicked out within weeks, and to everyone’s indignation, we haven’t been allowed toilet breaks in exams ever since.

But the worst part isn’t even that. The kid’s parents were so ashamed that they flew all the way over here from their company in Belgium, and bowed repeatedly to the principal, his teachers, and classmates, apologizing with every bend of their spine.

I’d die before I put my own parents through such a thing.

Maybe Evie Wu can sense my hesitation through the phone, because she hurries to explain, “I know it’s bad. Trust me, I don’t want to be doing this either. But... I don’t have any other choice. If I fail this exam again, my mother...” A shaky breath. “No. No, I have to pass. I must. And I can’t without the answers...” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I can’t do it on my own.”