His innocent wife is a dangerous hacker. Chapter 778 Robotics Lab

Winter pulled out her phone. The case was black, plain, no decoration. Bella did the same.

They exchanged numbers in silence. Winter typed quickly, her thumbs moving across the screen with precision. Bella watched her, trying to read her but there was nothing to read.

Winter glanced at her phone, then at Bella. "I’ll send you the project overview. Read it before we meet again."

"I’ll look forward to it," Bella said.

Winter nodded once. A short, sharp motion. Then she turned and walked out of the office without another word. No goodbye. No nice to meet you. Just the click of the door closing behind her.

Bella stared at the door, her phone still in her hand.

"Well," the executive said, leaning back in his chair, "she’s... intense."

Bella laughed softly. "That’s one word for it."

"She’s the best," the executive said. "The best we’ve seen in years. But she’s not easy to work with. She doesn’t trust easily. She doesn’t let people in. If you decide to join her, be prepared for that. She will test you. She will push you. She will not make it easy."

Bella nodded, tucking her phone into her pocket.

"Thank you," she said. "I’ll think about it."

She stood up, shook hands with each of the executives, and walked out of the office. She went straight to her class.

The lecture was long. The professor’s voice droned on about algorithms and data structures, the words blurring together. Bella took notes out of habit, answered a question when called upon, and tried to focus. But her mind kept drifting. Winter. The project.

After classes ended, she checked her phone.

A message from Winter:

Bella’s heart skipped.

She typed back:

The campus was beautiful in the late afternoon. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the grass. The buildings glowed gold and red, their windows reflecting the fading light. Students milled about, some heading to the library, some to the parking lot, some just sitting on benches, talking and laughing.

Bella walked quickly, her bag slung over her shoulder.

The location Winter had sent was on the far side of campus, an area Bella had never explored. The buildings here were older, with ivy crawling up their walls and windows that reflected the sky like dark mirrors. The paths were narrower, lined with trees that had turned orange and red. Fallen leaves crunched under her feet.

She asked a passing student for directions. He shrugged and pointed vaguely toward a cluster of buildings.

She asked another student. She shook her head and hurried past.

Finally, she spotted a professor walking briskly toward the parking lot, a briefcase in one hand and a coffee cup in the other.

"Excuse me," Bella said. "I’m looking for the robotics lab."

The professor stopped and looked at her over her glasses. "Robotics lab? That’s on the other side of campus."

"I know. I was told it’s near here."

The professor studied her for a moment. Then she pointed down a narrow path. "Down that path. Third building on the left. You can’t miss it. It’s the one that looks like it hasn’t been renovated since the seventies."

Bella thanked her and kept walking.

The path curved between two old buildings, then opened into a small courtyard. The building on the left was small, tucked between two larger structures, its brick facade weathered and dark. A small sign beside the door read:

Winter was standing outside. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her face was as expressionless as ever.

She looked at Bella. "Come."

She turned and pushed open the door. It creaked on its hinges.

Bella followed.

The lab was larger than she had expected. Much larger. Rows of workbenches lined the walls, covered in tools, wires, circuit boards, and half-assembled robots. Computers hummed in the corner, their screens displaying lines of code, graphs, and 3D models. Shelves held boxes of components, all labeled in neat handwriting.

The air smelled of metal and solder and something faintly sweet, like the perfume Winter was wearing.

But it wasn’t the lab that made Bella’s heart beat faster.

It was the robots.

They were everywhere. Small ones the size of her palm, with delicate metal limbs and blinking lights. Larger ones with arms and joints and wheels. One in the corner was almost as tall as her, its face a smooth, blank screen, its hands folded in its lap like it was waiting for someone to wake it up.

Bella’s breath caught.

She walked toward the nearest workbench, her feet moving on their own. She reached out and touched a small, spider-like robot. Its legs were folded, its body cold and smooth. She could see the tiny wires, the careful soldering, the hours of work that had gone into it.

"It’s not finished," Winter said from behind her.

Bella turned. Winter was watching her, her dark eyes unreadable. Her arms were still crossed.

"It’s beautiful," Bella said.

Winter tilted her head. "It’s functional. Beauty is irrelevant."

Bella smiled. "I think beauty is part of functionality. If a robot is designed to help people, to be around people, to work in hospitals where people are scared and in pain... shouldn’t it be something people want to look at? Something that makes them feel calm instead of nervous?"

Winter was silent for a moment. Her eyes didn’t move from Bella’s face.

"That’s an interesting perspective," she said finally.

She walked to the workbench and picked up a tablet. The screen glowed to life. "This is the project overview. I’ll send it to you, but I wanted to show you the lab first. See if you’re still interested after seeing the mess."

Bella looked around at the organized chaos. The stacked boxes. The labeled shelves. The careful order beneath the clutter.

"I’m interested," she said.

Winter looked at her. "Most people aren’t. They see the robots, they get excited. They think it’s going to be fun. Then they see the work. The coding, the debugging, the endless testing. The nights spent staring at a screen, trying to find one tiny error in thousands of lines of code. They lose interest. They disappear."

Bella held her gaze. "I’m not most people."

Winter’s lips curved. Just slightly. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close. The first crack in her cold expression.