<h4>Chapter 180: Chapter 181 Competition</h4>
Ashton squeezed my fingers. ‘Take it easy. I’lle sit in on the presentationter if I’m free.’
I walked in alone.
The registration staff scanned my badge and made me dump my phone, smart watch, even the fitness tracker I never used.
No contact with the outside world for the next eight hours.
My room was a box, maybe twelve square metres, walls painted off-white, no windows.
One metal chair, one worktable, a stylus tablet bolted to the surface.
In the corner, there was a toilet tucked behind a sliding door.
At exactly nine, the screen lit up.
Three sets of words appeared in block text:
[Evening g. Gemstones. Composure.]
We had to design four matching pieces—ring, ne, earrings, bracelet.
I stared at those words for a few seconds.
Then I smiled.
I’d thought of this theme before.
Not the exactbination, but close.
Lucky guess.
Or maybe my instincts weren’t total crap.
Either way, I already had two concepts ready in my head.
I picked the first.
The ne came out fast.
I drew a structured Y-shaped drop cor with a hidden sp and a graduatedyout of baguette-cut aquamarines tapering into a central pendant.
tinum base, tension-set frame, negative space along the corbones for bnce.
No curves. Everything sharp, symmetrical.
When I looked up at the time stamp in the corner of the screen, it said ten o’clock.
I leaned back, stretched my arms behind my head.
Felt smug for maybe half a second—until something started nagging at me.
That ne should’ve taken two hours.
Always did.
It was the slowest part of my process.
I never finished it first. Never that quickly.
I looked around the room again.
There was no clock. No way to double-check anything.
The tablet wasn’t connected to the inte.
I couldn’t even pull up a browser.
And if the tablet was wrong—if the time was off—then I had no way of pacing the rest of my designs.
I’d be flying blind for the next several hours.
I got up and tried the door.
It didn’t budge.
The lock clicked from the outside, standard for this type ofpetition.
Noing or going once the round started.
I knocked.
Then I raised my voice.
No one answered.
The ceiling had a tiny camera wedged into the corner above the doorframe, blinking red at regr intervals.
I looked straight into the lens. ‘Hey. I need someone out here. Something’s wrong with the clock.’
Nothing.
I sat back down, shut my eyes for a second, and pulled in three deep breaths, trying to shake the twitchy feeling out of my hands.
The tablet said noon.
I didn’t believe it.
It had to be closer to one. Maybe two.
I picked up the stylus and pushed forward, scribbling fast.
I couldn’t afford to stop.
By the time the clock on the screen ticked over to 12:00, I’d finished rough drafts for all four pieces.
Line weights were uneven, detailing half-finished, but the base structures were solid enough to refine.
Then I heard footsteps outside.
The lock turned.
Octavia Grey walked in and grinned.
‘Hey, darling. The organisers sent me to do a little judge-and-greet. How’s the sketching going?’
I stood up so fast my chair scraped against the floor. ‘Octavia. Thank god. What time is it?’
She checked her watch. ‘Quarter to two. Why?’
I stared at her. ‘It says noon on my screen.’
She blinked once, then strode over and squinted at the corner of the tablet. ‘Shit. You’re right. Has no onee in to give you lunch? They should’ve done that around half past twelve.’
I shook my head. ‘No one.’
Our eyes met.
Hers narrowed.
If the clock was wrong and lunch never came, someone was deliberately fucking with my time cues—slowing me down, throwing off my pace, pushing me to misjudge how much work I had left.
Most designers get so locked in during sketching they don’t pay attention to the clock.
Someone had been counting on that.
‘Sabotage,’ Octavia said.
I nodded.
She stormed out, mmed the door behind her. ‘I’m going to find out which petty bastard thought this was a good idea.’
Ten minutester, she came back with a small crowd.
The one leading them was tall, blonde, and clearly in charge.
Sharp grey suit, narrow heels, hard stare.
She stood a full head taller than Octavia and introduced herself with a clipped ent.
‘I’m Dr Aliénor Dubois, one of the directors in charge of thepetition. Let me take a look.’
She grabbed the tablet off my desk, scanned the disy, tapped through a few settings.
Her brows lifted.
‘There’s definitely a problem with the time sync.’
A guy in the back, maybe mid-twenties, short hair and aminated badge, stepped forward.
‘Our group handled the equipment orders. Everything was working fine when we brought it in. I don’t know how this could’ve happened.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re saying I tampered with it myself? Why the hell would I do that?’
He stammered a bit. ‘Um, no, I didn’t mean that. Maybe it was a faulty batch. Or a manufacturer defect—’
I just stared until he shut up.
The room went quiet.
Dr Dubois cleared her throat. ‘It appears to have been an oversight. We’ll get Miss Vance a new tablet immediately.’
Octavia cut in, ‘This wasn’t a bloody oversight. I’ve never seen a tablet glitch in just the clock function. Everything else working fine? And if they were all from the same shipment, why was hers the only one acting up?’
Dr Dubois looked her straight in the eye. ‘What exactly are you suggesting?’
‘That someone tampered with it. Intentionally. And if Mirabelle hadn’t caught it, she’d have missed the deadline. Who’s going to take responsibility for that?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘And where the hell was the lunch delivery at half past twelve? No one came to this room.’
A girl near the back stepped forward.
Skinny, nervous, barely old enough to rent a car.
‘That was my fault, sorry. I was supposed to deliver it. This room’s tucked way in the corner and I just... forgot.’
Her eyes were red already.
‘Absolutely not. That’s not an eptable exnation,’ Octavia said sharply.