Heavenly Net and Earthly Cage

Bang.

As the doors closed, only Zhou Chechen and Lan Ling remained in the office.

Lan Ling continued working the barbell in his hands as he said, "President, this Zhang Yu is a little greedy."

Zhou Chechen lay on the sofa and said with a light laugh, "Poor people, once they make it big, tend to be young and reckless. That's perfectly normal."

"If I'd raised my score by seventy points in a single month like him, I'd be just as arrogant."

"Let him have another month to think it over."

Lan Ling's gaze turned cold. "President, are you really going to increase his contract benefits?"

Zhou Chechen said indifferently, "Lan Ling, you've seen too few poor people. You still don't understand them."

"Limited by family education, experience, and standard of living, poor people's horizons are often very narrow."

"In a situation like that just now, nine out of ten would have signed with us on the spot."

"But Zhang Yu was able to hold his nerve and say he wanted to go back and consider it. That makes me think more highly of him instead."

"If he can raise his grades again in the Monthly Exam a month from now, so what if I raise his benefits by one grade?"

Lan Ling frowned. "I'm just afraid people like him will be insatiably greedy."

Zhou Chechen laughed. "All right, Big Lan. Be more magnanimous. Don't fight with those below you."

"Zhang Yu isn't walking the same road as us, and he won't come fight us for our positions. We've never been competitors."

"On the contrary, the better he does and the more he improves, the more we earn. That only makes him more worthy of investment..."

As he spoke, Zhou Chechen placed a Spirit Realm Mask over his head.

"I'll be making up lessons in the Spirit Realm all afternoon. If there's nothing important, don't come looking for me."

Inside the cafeteria.

The moment Zhang Yu left the Student Union office, he rushed over to Bai Zhenzhen.

Seeing her still calmly eating, Zhang Yu said urgently, "A-Zhen, you'd better give me a good enough reason."

"Do you know how much determination it took for me not to sign just now?"

"You have no idea how much they appreciated my talent..."

Bai Zhenzhen said calmly, "The moment you went in, did he rush over, grab your hand, and not even have time to put on his shoes?"

Zhang Yu froze slightly and stopped talking.

Bai Zhenzhen continued, "It's always the same. Whenever Zhou Chechen gets someone to sign a contract, that's how he receives them."

"Huh?" Zhang Yu was stunned.

So he was playing the shoe-in-hand welcome routine with his bros?

Zhang Yu added, "But he even cleared my debt."

Bai Zhenzhen snorted. "Did he really clear it?"

"He just became your creditor instead, right?"

"Did he also tell you there'd be no interest, that you didn't need to rush to repay it, and that you could slowly pay it back after graduating from university and finding a job?"

Zhang Yu was startled again. "He said that to you too?"

Bai Zhenzhen said, "He probably says that to everyone he wants to sign."

"But don't you dare think that's a good thing."

"The part about not making you repay it is nothing more than lip service."

"If you stop repaying the debt and it becomes overdue, the decision-making power will all be in their hands."

"If he truly doesn't care, then there really won't be a problem."

"But once he applies for compulsory enforcement, the money in your account will immediately be used to repay the debt."

"If the money isn't enough, your assets will be used as collateral."

"Think about it. What's your most valuable asset?"

Zhang Yu's gaze flickered. He really did not have much in the way of assets. If compulsory enforcement came down on him, he would probably just become a deadbeat.

But Bai Zhenzhen snorted coldly. "The most valuable things on you are your cultivation, your body of flesh tempered a thousand times over, and your dantian you've diligently cultivated without cease."

Zhang Yu's gaze sharpened. "You mean they would?"

Bai Zhenzhen nodded. "Compulsory enforcement means you repay with money if you have money, and auction off assets if you don't. Once all your worldly possessions are sold, naturally they'll sell your organs, your flesh, your dantian..."

Though Zhang Yu had long since held no expectations for Kunxu's moral bottom line, Bai Zhenzhen's words still made his heart sink.

And Bai Zhenzhen continued, "And don't even think about running. This contract isn't merely a paper contract."

"Do you remember the Law Department among the Eight Divine Departments?"

"When this contract is signed, the Student Union uses Talisman Arts to respectfully invite the Heavenly Covenant and Contract Great God of the Law Department as witness. When the time comes, compulsory enforcement will also be carried out by the Eight Divine Departments."

Good lord. What a Zhou Chechen. The more Zhang Yu listened, the more shocked he became. A brother bared his heart to you, and you played mind games with him? Was this trying to send a brother into the compound?

Across from Zhang Yu, Bai Zhenzhen continued, "However, if you abide by the contract completely and your grades improve in line with their expectations, they might not do anything to you."

"But there's another key point: the other part of the contract, concerning your choice of university and major when applying to university, as well as compensation for violating the relevant clauses."

"In other words, after signing the contract, which university and which major you apply for will all be decided by them."

"And there are all sorts of other rules and regulations besides this. Violate any of them, and the penalty will be an astronomical breach-of-contract fee..."

Seeing the blank look on Zhang Yu's face, Bai Zhenzhen said irritably, "Didn't you read this part of the contract?" Zhang Yu answered with perfect righteousness, "The benefits at the beginning were already making me unable to take it. I was afraid that if I kept reading, I wouldn't be able to resist signing, so I hurriedly turned Zhou Chechen down and ran to the cafeteria to find you."

Bai Zhenzhen nodded. "All right. I suppose Yu Zi's willpower is extraordinary."

Then she changed the subject and began talking about something else. "Yu Zi, have you noticed that the filthy rich people at our school rarely clash with poor ghosts like us?"

"Have they always been gentle and refined, kind and polite, rarely throwing their weight around to bully others?"

Zhang Yu recalled it briefly and nodded. "It does seem that way."

Bai Zhenzhen said, "That's because the rich and the poor aren't competing on the same track at all. From beginning to end, they never treated us as competitors, which is why they seem almost like people."

Zhang Yu frowned slightly. They were clearly all taking the Gaokao together. What did she mean, not competing on the same track? Could they get into university through aerobics?

Bai Zhenzhen continued, "Because poor people apply to ordinary universities, while the targets of those filthy rich people are the Ten Great Top Universities."

"For them, with their wealth, there are plenty of chances to get into ordinary universities. They never saw poor ghosts as competitors."

"Only Top Universities require even them to fight with all their strength against other rich people."

Zhang Yu could not help asking, "Can't poor people apply to Top Universities?"

Bai Zhenzhen said, "The Ten Great Top Universities have limited enrollment slots, and when divided among each city, there are even fewer."

"In Songyang City, the total annual enrollment quota for all Ten Great Top Universities combined... is only a few dozen students."

"Those slots have long been monopolized by them through all sorts of means."

"A Grade A Contract is one such method. They sign up poor ghosts with talent and good grades, then directly decide which universities they apply to."

"Of course... once you sign this contract, you can't apply to the Top Ten, but you become their investment project. They'll still be polite and friendly to you, and they'll still be your good classmates."

"But if you don't sign this contract, or even reveal an inclination to apply to the Top Ten later on, then you truly become their competitor."

"What awaits you will be incomparably brutal competition. You'll also see all the ways they truly stop treating people as people, along with pressure surging at you from all directions."

"The enrollment slots at the Top Ten Elite Schools are something their circle jointly protects, something they absolutely will not allow any poor ghost to lay a finger on."

"On this point, even the Student Unions of all Key High Schools share glory and loss alike."

"And don't expect the school to interfere too much. When the social influence of students' parents far exceeds that of the school, the Principal often cannot control the Student Union either."

Listening to Bai Zhenzhen's words, Zhang Yu immediately understood. The Songyang lords were joining forces to squeeze out the stinking poor ghosts.

At that moment, he felt as though he had seen an invisible great net, blotting out the sky and covering the earth, hanging over every student's head and crushing them until they could barely breathe.

Zhang Yu could not help sighing. "Is the gap between the Top Ten Elite Schools and ordinary universities really that huge? Huge enough to make them this afraid?"

Bai Zhenzhen rolled her eyes. "What else would it be?"

"The Ten Great Sects are something people can never escape from birth to death. They are the force that determines Kunxu's course."

"And only by entering the Top Ten Elite Schools does one have a chance to enter the Ten Great Sects."

"As for graduates from ordinary universities? The Ten Great Sects will not accept them as disciples. At most, they can become employees of some corporation under one of the Ten Great Sects."

Zhang Yu sighed inwardly. Sure enough, even after graduating from university, he could not escape academic discrimination. Graduating from an ordinary university meant being an outsourced disciple for life.

Bai Zhenzhen continued, "Of course, there is another very important point: only the Ten Great Sects... can lead to immortality."

At that moment, a trace of longing showed in her voice as well.

Immortality—the ultimate pursuit in the hearts of countless Immortal Cultivators. It could be said that among cultivators who had stepped onto the road of the Immortal Dao, who had never thought of it?

Zhang Yu remembered as well. Immortals existed only within the Ten Great Sects.

Bai Zhenzhen said, "That's the situation."

"If you want to apply to the Top Ten Universities, what you'll face is a slaughtering net that covers heaven and earth."

"Yu Zi, now that you know all this... what are you planning to do?"

Under Bai Zhenzhen's gaze, Zhang Yu looked incomparably hesitant.

"Should I sign? If I sign, I can study and take exams safely. With the Feather Scroll, even if I get into an ordinary university and work for a Sect corporation, I should still be able to get by very well, right?"

"But... the Ten Great Sects..."

At that moment, Zhang Yu thought of the Immortal Spiritual Roots only disciples of great Sects could implant, the Immortal Sect Grade cultivation techniques only disciples of great Sects could use, and the immortality only disciples of great Sects could attain...

In every shape and form, too numerous to count—between the futures offered by the Top Ten Elite Schools and ordinary universities lay countless chasms, some he knew of and some he did not.

Just as Zhang Yu hesitated, a chill rose from his heart. Along with the appearance of the countdown, it reminded him of something.

"Hah... Study seriously, work hard, get into university, join a great Sect, then earn money to buy every antique in the shopping cart."

"To join a great Sect, I have to get into the Top Ten..."

"Fuck... I actually never had a choice from the start."

Seeing Zhang Yu's constipated expression, Bai Zhenzhen patted his shoulder. "Think it over slowly. This choice really isn't something you can decide easily."

"They should have given you a month to consider it."

As Bai Zhenzhen stood up to leave, Zhang Yu suddenly asked, "What about you, A-Zhen? What are you planning to do?"

Bai Zhenzhen paused slightly, then said with utter resolve, "I won't sign."

"I'm going to apply to the Top Ten."

Feeling the chill within him slowly fade away, Zhang Yu seemed to see the choice in his own heart directly.

He smiled. "Then we'll do it together."