All Chapters of Rich Under Their Hate: The Social Status System: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

"A ghost doesn't leave digital footprints in a high-security relay, Chalida. Ghosts don't have secondary signatures." Pim tapped the screen with trembling fingers, her eyes darting between the fluctuating lines of the code. "This user is actively scrubbing our location, yet they’re leaving breadcrumbs. Why?" "Maybe they want us to find them," Chalida suggested, leaning over Pim's shoulder. The light from the tablet washed out her features, turning her eyes into hollow, dark pits. "Or maybe they’re baiting us into a trap. Think about it. The slums of Klong Toey? It’s a labyrinth. One wrong turn and we’re buried in the concrete." "If we don't follow, we’re blind," Pim countered, her voice sharp. "If the Minister—if our mother—finds this user first, she’ll close the loop. She’ll incinerate the evidence and anyone attached to it. Including us." "So we go to the slums," Ch

"Don't start a war before we even get through the door," Pim snapped, her boots slipping on a patch of slick, oily mud. She gripped the strap of her bag so tightly her nails bit into her palms. "If you provoke them, we won't get ten feet, let alone to the basement." Chalida didn't slow down. She stepped over a stagnant puddle of grey water, her expression flickering between boredom and a dangerous, manic curiosity. "They aren't looking for a fight, Pim. Look at their eyes. They’re looking for a payday. They’re survivors, not soldiers. If we show them a little gold, they’ll lead us to the Devil himself, provided he’s still breathing." "The Secondary User isn't a demon. He’s a former tech-officer from mother’s firm, and if the rumors are true, he’s spent the last decade perfecting the art of vanishing," Pim muttered, checking the signal strength on her handheld interface. The blue line was erratic, pul

"Terrifying," Chalida smirked, though her fingers tightened around the handle of her concealed pistol. "But it doesn't matter if he locks onto our biometrics if he’s already dead. Look." Pim looked up from the screen. A man, rail-thin and draped in a translucent, light-bending poncho, emerged from the mouth of a dark alleyway forty meters ahead. He was dragging a heavy, clattering hard-drive array on a makeshift trolley. His face was a map of scars and radiation burns, the telltale sign of someone who had spent too much time interfacing with high-voltage core systems. He didn't look like a genius; he looked like a carcass that had forgotten to stop walking. "He’s not scanning us," Pim realized, her pulse hammering. "He’s dumping his local cache. He’s abandoning the terminal." "Catch him," Chalida commanded, already moving. "Wait, the grid—" "Forget t

"He didn't ditch it," Pim countered, kneeling. She pulled a thin, glowing data-spike from her jacket and jammed it into the primary port of the abandoned array. "He planted it. This isn't garbage, Chalida. It’s an invitation." Chalida stepped back, scanning the towering, grime-streaked walls of the Klong Toey labyrinth. Her eyes were sharp, searching for a thermal signature or the glint of a sniper’s lens. "An invitation? Or a death trap? The last time someone left us a present like this, we ended up with enough classified state secrets to get us executed for treason three times over." "This is different," Pim whispered, her eyes tracking the cascade of amber code scrolling across her glasses. "He wasn't just hiding. He was partitioning the data. Look at the decryption path. It’s not leading to a bank account or a blackmail file. It’s linked to the guest list of the Silom Gala tonight." Chalida&rs

"Twenty minutes," Pim repeated, the amber glow of the terminal reflecting in her pupils. "Enough time to break a company, build a fortune, or ruin a legacy. And we are going to do all three before the champagne is poured." Chalida laughed, a sharp, brittle sound that cut through the humid gloom of the Klong Toey alleyway. She straightened her posture, the frayed edges of her tactical vest disappearing beneath a sleek, synthetic-silk cloak she had pulled from her hidden stash. "I love it when you talk dirty, sister. But twenty minutes is a lifetime in a room full of sharks. If the Algorithm glitches, we aren't just broke—we’re lunch." "The Algorithm doesn't glitch," Pim said, yanking the data-spike from the array. The devices dimmed instantly, returning to their inert, junkyard state. "It calculates. And right now, it’s calculating that mother’s rivals are holding a combined liability of four trillion baht in unsecured