Sabine City had a total of twenty-two secondary schools, which were actually high schools. There were no middle schools here, only elementary schools, secondary schools, and universities.
Students spent nine years in elementary school before advancing to secondary school for three years. After completing twelve years of education, they could enter university.
However, not everyone could get into university. At present, the university admission rate was less than seventeen percent, mainly for two reasons.
On one hand, university tuition was still too expensive for ordinary families. Unlike elementary and secondary school, whose fees were relatively low, not every family could afford four years of university expenses.
On the other hand, the current education system was essentially a joke. According to surveys by certain consulting agencies, around ninety percent of university students came from private schools rather than public schools.
The failure of public education, including families' financial problems, ultimately limited people's opportunities to attend university. Lin Qi had been unable to attend university for this very reason, even though he had carefully filled out his application.
In other words, to attend university, doing well academically wasn't important. What mattered was having a family that could afford the high tuition—or a family with some power.
The current president of the Bayer Federation had won the election mainly for two reasons. First, he had promised to complete Medical Reform during his term, lower medical expenses, and make healthcare affordable for everyone.
Second, he had promised to complete a new round of Education Reform during his term, expanding the proportion of public secondary school students who advanced to university from around ten percent to as close to twenty percent as possible. That was why people had chosen him.
As for whether he could actually accomplish it... perhaps they would only know after his term ended. There would always be people who faced the world with the childish belief that things would somehow get better at the very last second.
Of course, the current education system wasn't completely hopeless. Every school offered scholarships. Compared to the brutal competition in public schools, private-school scholarships were much easier to obtain—the Board of Directors could simply decide who to award them to. That was also why people sometimes said that power was equal to or greater than wealth.
Michael's son, Little Michael, was one of those "good children" who could receive a scholarship every year. Academic performance was only one part of being a student. Daily life, extracurricular activities, and after-school conduct were also criteria for evaluating students. At least in those last three areas, he met the scholarship requirements quite well.
Combined with his family background, Little Michael had quite a few good friends at school.
Over the course of one lunch break, Little Michael borrowed around three thousand from his friends. It was still far from enough; he needed at least another two thousand. But everyone at school who could lend him money had already given him whatever spare cash they had.
As for those he couldn't borrow from, no matter how much he said, they might not lend him the money.
He finished his lunch as if he were chewing wax, then drove home without staying despite his girlfriend's attempts to make him remain.
At that time, Michael's Wife had not yet returned from the hospital. To prevent the criminal from coming back to harm her, Michael's Wife had remained at the hospital under police protection.
Many criminals had an inexplicable fixation with silencing witnesses. That was what the Sheriff feared, which was why the entire room was completely empty.
After returning home, Little Michael began rummaging through cabinets and drawers for cash. Michael's Wife was a full-time housewife, which meant she kept plenty of loose change at home for emergencies.
Little Michael soon found several hundred in loose change, but it still wasn't enough—not enough to pay the bartender. After hesitating for a moment, he opened the door to Michael's study.
When Michael was home, he forbade Little Michael from entering the study without permission. Files were sometimes left lying around in there, along with evidence brought home for examination.
If those things were damaged, it would seriously hinder the investigation and might even cause Michael to take the blame. But now, none of that was enough to stop Little Michael from acting on his impulse to avenge his mother while proving himself.
He stood at the doorway in a daze for a while before quietly stepping inside. He knew perfectly well that Michael wasn't home, yet he was still extremely cautious.
He wandered around aimlessly at first, then focused his attention on the desk. He had seen Michael leave loose change in the drawers sometimes. Not everyone liked carrying too many coins around; they made clothes bulge and were uncomfortable.
He opened the drawers one by one and found the money he wanted, but he wasn't satisfied. He wanted to keep looking through the drawers to see what else was inside. Then, when he opened the second-to-last drawer, he found a Gold Ring beneath a file that was visibly sticking up.
He held the ring in his hand and initially intended to put it back. He thought it might belong to Michael or Michael's Wife. But as he was returning it, he noticed a line of writing engraved around the inside.
His curiosity made him pick up the ring again. Holding it up to the light, he read it aloud: "To my beloved Catherine."
Little Michael froze for a moment, his expression briefly locking in place. Clearly, Michael's Wife's name didn't include Catherine, and it was unlikely that anyone would refer to Michael as "Catherine." That meant the ring unquestionably belonged to someone else—or at least had been intended as a gift for someone else.
The injuries Michael's Wife had suffered the previous night, and his own painstaking efforts to uncover the truth, were all shattered before this ring, which was unmistakably filled with signs of betrayal.
Rage surged from the depths of Little Michael's heart. They were under threat, yet Michael, the head of the household, had betrayed the family! His original intention to put the ring back vanished. He clenched it in his hand with a cold expression, then, after a moment of silence, decided to use his not-at-all-mature but supposedly mature mind to formulate a plan.
He would destroy this ring, which might ruin his family's harmony. Pretending to be mature, he would give Michael, his father, one chance to save the family—just like they did in so many television shows.
At that moment, he felt that he had grown up and become mature, no longer so childish. Naturally, he also had to destroy this evidence.
If he sold the ring, he could almost gather enough money.
A little later, Little Michael appeared outside an antique shop. He had learned about it from conversations between his father and his colleagues: some antique shops often dealt in stolen goods.
They never asked where anything came from. They simply labeled the items as antiques, bought them, and issued receipts.
On the other side of the city, Little Michael found an antique shop. He had gone so far because he didn't want the shopkeeper to recognize him. This was another manifestation of his inexplicable belief that he was mature.
"A gold ring..." The antique shop owner looked to be around fifty, with a somewhat balding head and a brown short-sleeved shirt.
He wore glasses and lowered his eyes to examine the gold ring rolling back and forth in his hand, as well as the inscription inside it. Then he looked up at Little Michael. "How much do you want for it?"
Little Michael was actually somewhat nervous. It was his first time doing something like this, and he didn't want anyone to see how childish he was. He tried his best to appear mature and said with feigned calm, "At least five hundred!" He even added a justification for his asking price: "It's pure gold!"
The antique shop owner curled his lip. "Just because you say it's pure gold doesn't mean it is. I need to test it with fire. Wait a minute!" Without caring whether Little Michael agreed, he turned and walked into the room behind him with the ring.
A truly experienced person should have noticed something was wrong by then. No one would let a ring leave their sight—except someone immature who was pretending to be mature.
The antique shop owner entered the back room and quietly picked up the phone, dialing a private number.
"Someone came to sell a ring... Yes, the one you mentioned last time. I understand. I'll keep him occupied!"
The antique shop calmly hung up. Everyone knew that antique shops dealt in stolen goods. The reason they could do so openly without interference from the police or the Bureau of Investigation was actually because of their "cooperation."
They were also among the eyes and ears of the police and Bureau of Investigation agents!
If Little Michael had been able to hear his father's entire conversation with his colleagues that day, he would have known that the core of Michael's conversation with them wasn't that antique shops dealt in stolen goods. It was that they had found clues through the antique shops.
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