When Stella Hargrove got Julian Takashi’s breakup text, she was sitting in a huge lecture hall, auditing a Financial Department class on options and analysis.

"One last thing," the professor was saying from the podium, "the nature of options trading is different from futures. It’s very hard to do short-term trades well. That depends on trading volume and pricing..."

It was Professor Ebenezer Zion’s class. At Zhendan University, he was the real deal in finance, the kind of legend everyone knew by name. His lectures were sharp, vivid, and insanely clear, so the whole stepped classroom was packed wall to wall.

Stella was a law student. This year, she had switched tracks and applied for graduate study in finance at the same university. Since she was only there to audit, she could only squeeze into a seat in the very last row.

With the exam date getting closer and closer, she had been pushing harder than anyone.

To stay in Hawtin and fight for their future side by side with her boyfriend, she had basically spent the last six months either sitting in on finance classes or buried in the study room. Out early, back late. Busy to the point where even dating had become a luxury.

When her phone buzzed with a text alert, she reached over, switched it to silent, and kept listening, fully locked in.

It wasn’t until class ended, when the other students gradually filed out of the room, that she finally picked up her phone and checked the message.

The group chats were blowing up as usual, mostly study groups spamming nonstop. The only unread private text was from Julian Takashi.

A little warmth rose in her chest. A faint smile touched her bright, fair face.

Then she tapped open the message.

The moment she saw the content, her heart gave a violent jolt, and her mood dropped straight to rock bottom.

Julian Takashi had sent her a breakup text.

Stella’s fingers froze over the screen, trembling slightly. She slowly scrolled up. The previous message between them was still from a week ago.

How long had it been since they’d last seen each other? Half a month? Twenty days? A bitter, confused smile crept onto her face.

When she walked out of the teaching building, the sky was already dark and heavy. Snow had started drifting down.

She hesitated for a moment, then opened her umbrella and headed into the wind and snow toward the Finance Graduate Institute.

Her mind was a complete blur, like it had crashed on the spot. Her chest felt pinned under a huge stone, so tight she could barely breathe.

She hated this kind of vague, out-of-nowhere ending. If people were going to break up, they should at least say it face to face.

By the time Stella reached the boys’ dorm building at the graduate institute, evening had deepened, and the snow was falling even harder.

She stood by the roadside with her umbrella up. The streetlights along both sides of the path flicked on one by one. Under the dim yellow glow, the snowflakes whirled through the air like moths gone mad.

There was barely anyone on the road. The cold had seeped all the way into Stella Hargrove’s bones, sharp and merciless.

She had no idea how long she’d been standing there when, through her blurred vision, she finally saw two figures in the distance. They were pressed close together, walking toward her, slowly coming into focus.

The taller one was painfully familiar, yet weirdly strange now. In his arms was a petite girl, leaning against him like she belonged there, letting out soft, sweet little laughs every now and then.

Julian Takashi lowered his head and took a sip from the milk tea the girl held up for him. The gentleness in his eyes when he looked down was so familiar it felt like a slap.

The corner of Stella’s mouth twitched faintly. Her chest filled with a dense, needling ache, spreading bit by bit, until she could only stand there almost numb, watching the smile on Julian’s face as he looked at someone else with open affection.

She had imagined all kinds of reasons, all kinds of endings. But not this. Never something this ugly, this disgusting, this eye-burning.

The boy she remembered—the tall, upright, sun-bright, disciplined one—seemed like he’d disappeared a long time ago. Or maybe... she had never truly known him at all.

She clenched her hands hard. Her nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms, and the sting dragged a little of her reason back.

Her fingers had long since gone stiff from the cold. Slowly, Stella pulled out her phone and, expressionless, took a picture of the scene in front of her.

The flash hit the two people feeding each other milk tea. Julian frowned and looked over.

"Stella!"

A flicker of panic flashed through Julian’s eyes, though he forced himself calm almost immediately.

He clearly hadn’t expected Stella to be waiting for him outside the boys’ dorm. Seeing her small face under her dark hair, pale to the point of bloodlessness, something sour tightened in his chest.

"Senior!"

A sugary voice rang out beside him. The soft body in his arms leaned in even closer. He paused, then quietly moved his arm to put a little distance between them.

Julian took two steps forward. In the dark, his expression was hard to read, and his voice carried a trace of hesitation. "Stella, why are you here?"

"Senior, you’re standing too far away from me. I’m cold."

The girl’s voice was soft and gentle, almost delicate, as she smoothly tucked herself right back into Julian’s arms like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Stella bit down hard on her jaw, her tone full of mockery.

"Julian Takashi, if I hadn’t come, how else would I have seen your true face?"

"Stella, I..."

"Julian!"

The girl leaning against his side clutched his arm so tightly her knuckles almost showed. There was obvious nerves in her eyes.

Julian Takashi had both hands shoved into his pockets. He lowered his head and let out a bitter little laugh.

"Stella, the text I sent this afternoon... you saw it, right?"

The corner of Stella Hargrove's mouth lifted, but there was zero warmth in it. She looked at her ex like she was looking at something ridiculous.

"Julian Takashi, if you're breaking up with someone, shouldn't you say it to their face?"

She lowered her eyes and glanced at the girl curling herself around Julian's arm again. This time, he didn't pull away. The girl slightly lifted her chin, her half-lidded eyes carrying a smug little sneer.

"So this is your seamless transition? If you cheated, then just own it. What exactly are you trying to cover up by being vague?"

Stella had never thought one day she'd be standing here, swallowing this kind of humiliating betrayal. Her voice turned colder with every word.

"Julian Takashi, if you'd fallen for someone else, you could've told me to my face. Sure, I would've been hurt, maybe disappointed, but I wouldn't have looked down on you. Is having a clean breakup really that hard? Did you seriously have to do it in such an ugly way?"

"Or are you saying you didn't even have the guts to say it to me in person?"

The way she looked at the two of them grew colder and colder, like the wind itself had settled in her eyes.

"One of you knew exactly what you were doing and still chose to be the other woman, and the other is spineless and cheap. Honestly, you two are a perfect match."

"Stella Hargrove, Julian already broke up with you this afternoon. You'd better watch your tone. Julian and I are together fair and square now."

The girl hanging onto Julian's arm looked at Stella with open arrogance. Stella gave a small tug at the corner of her lips.

"Whether you're a mistress or not, the two of you know the truth better than anyone."

"Stella... I'm sorry."

Julian knew he was in the wrong. He instinctively took a step forward, but the girl right behind him immediately yanked him back.

She wrapped both arms around his waist, tilted her face up at him, and her voice was clearly panicked.

"Senior, didn’t we already make plans for tonight? My uncle will be waiting for you at Hawtin Securities tomorrow."

Julian Takashi’s breathing hitched. Panic flashed across his face so obviously it was almost embarrassing. He darted a quick glance at Stella Hargrove, then looked away like he’d been caught red-handed and had nowhere to hide.

"Hawtin Securities?"

Stella let out a soft sigh.

So that was it.

Thinking back to the past few months—Julian leaving early and coming back late, running around for job opportunities, that occasional frustrated look on his face—what else was there not to understand?

Her voice was slow, but every word landed hard. "Julian Takashi, you two are seriously disgusting."

"Don’t talk about my senior like that!"

The girl’s expression changed on the spot.

Of course Isabelle Weston knew exactly why her senior had chosen her.

To make him pick her, she had spent the whole past year scheming, trying, pushing, doing everything she could. And only today had she finally gotten what she wanted.

So the one thing she couldn’t stand hearing was that line from Stella. It was like a slap in the face, a reminder that in this relationship, she had once been the one begging for something she couldn’t get.

She let go of Julian’s arm and walked over at an unhurried pace, chin slightly raised. Then she leaned in close to Stella, almost face-to-face, and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Stella Hargrove, other than that face of yours being halfway decent, you’ve got literally noth—"

Before she could finish, Stella snatched the milk tea out of her hand and splashed it straight across her face. The last bit left at the bottom of the cup flew out too, catching Julian as he hurried forward.

"You’ve got the nerve to be a mistress and still act this self-righteous? Do you not even know what shame is? Guess that’s a parenting issue."

"Ah! Stella Hargrove, what the hell are you doing?"

Isabelle exploded, furious and frantic, hopping in place as she scrambled to wipe the milk tea from her hair.

She glared at Stella with wide, burning eyes.

But Stella’s gaze stayed cold, almost icy.

Isabelle had never suffered this kind of humiliation in her life. Shame and jealousy surged up together, hot enough to make her lose it on the spot.

"Stella Hargrove, how dare you?"

She swung at Stella in anger, but the raised arm was caught in one clean motion.

Stella gave a cold snort and flung her hand aside.

Isabelle stumbled backward, nearly falling, and Julian reached out to steady her.

Julian frowned and scolded in a low voice, "Isabelle!"

Isabelle struggled back to her feet. Embarrassing herself again and again in front of her senior made her feel so humiliated she could barely breathe.

With her eyes lowered, Isabelle Weston said in a hurt, aggrieved voice, “Julian, she literally threw milk tea all over us. Look at my hair—and your face.”

Feeling both upset and wronged, she reached out, wanting to wipe the stains off Julian Takashi’s face, her tone soft but full of complaint.

“So this is the ‘goddess’ of the law school? Turns out she’s just a shrew. She’s nowhere near good enough for you.”

Julian Takashi’s brows drew tight. Almost instinctively, he leaned away and avoided her hand.

Isabelle Weston’s raised hand froze in midair. A flash of humiliation and anger flickered across her eyes.

Stella Hargrove watched the two of them across from her, her gaze cold as ice.

If you ignored the milk tea all over her hair and face, the girl named Isabelle Weston looked polished from head to toe—perfect makeup, fashionable clothes, every detail screaming money.

Anything she had on her body, picked at random, was probably something Stella couldn’t afford.

Julian Takashi choosing someone like that… yeah, maybe he had his reasons. After all, Stella had always just been a broke student. Except for the past six months of grad school prep, she’d spent almost her entire college life without real days off, working part-time whenever she could just to cover living expenses.

Same youth, same age, but other people’s lives and hers were worlds apart. The stab of pain and grievance in her chest came fast, then passed just as fast.

Now that she had seen everything clearly, Stella Hargrove didn’t want to spare Julian Takashi even one more glance. She fixed Isabelle Weston’s arrogant face in her memory, then turned and strode away.

Isabelle Weston’s hand was still gripped tightly by Julian. Seeing the pure disdain on Stella’s face, she grew more and more irritated, embarrassment turning straight into rage. In the end, she couldn’t help but raise her voice.

“Stella Hargrove, aren’t you trying to get into our Finance graduate program? Acting like this, what professor would ever take you?”

Stella stopped for a second.

Her back looked thin, almost fragile, but it was still straight—stubbornly, fiercely straight.

Then she said in a cold voice, “We’ll see.”

After saying that, she walked off without looking back. Her eyes were already burning red, but she forced them wide open, refusing to let a single tear fall.