Cheating Not Caught Red-Handed Isn't Cheating!

New York, on York Avenue in the Upper East Side, stood Juilliard Academy—a private aristocratic school. Not only were its campus facilities beautiful and luxurious, but the surrounding area also felt like being near a park.

Though the nearby Carl Schurz Park had less green space than Central Park, it offered unique play areas for children. The school had a long history, offering full-time courses while cleverly and dynamically integrating modern science and technology into the classroom atmosphere. It also collaborated closely with local cultural organizations, launching numerous artistic and creative extracurricular activities, making its teaching resources unprecedentedly excellent.

Of course, the hefty enrollment sponsorship fees excluded most children from ordinary-income families! The kids who could attend here were generally wealthy or powerful—others shouldn't even think about it.

And now, this was the school Anne was about to enter as a transfer student. To forge a complete set of identity documents for Anne, a S.H.I.E.L.D. archive team worked through the night, finally fabricating all her birth certificate, parent details, enrollment records, medical records, insurance records, and everything else!

With a professional S.H.I.E.L.D. archive team on the job, Anne's documents had no flaws. All records, both paper and electronic, were filed into the federal government's central database! Even the paper files were aged artificially—no one could find a trace. For a powerful organization like S.H.I.E.L.D., putting together a set of identity info for a little girl was child's play.

Though it wasn't enrollment season and the school normally wouldn't accept new students, under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s authority, would the school dare say no? Even if it was inconvenient and the procedures didn't meet standards, they could only grit their teeth and find a way to squeeze out a spot for Anne.

"Good morning, class! Today, I'd like to introduce a new student. Let's give her a round of applause!"

The female English teacher, Sally Carter, led Anne by the hand into the classroom, introduced her to the fourteen students, and gestured for Anne to step up to the podium and introduce herself.

To improve teaching quality, Juilliard Academy generally kept class sizes to no more than twenty students, or even fewer! This class had fourteen, and adding Anne would make it exactly fifteen.

Anne held two books in her arms, had swapped her Little Red Riding Hood-style magical dress for Juilliard's long-skirted uniform, and wore a backpack on her back—though it contained no books, only her bear, Tibbers.

Actually, at first, given Tibbers' immense deterrent power as a dangerously cute pet toy, Coulson and May both opposed Anne bringing it to school.

But later, Anne said that if Tibbers got too far from her, it might break the contract and revert to its Flame Bear Shadow Bear form—and that would be too dangerous!

So, in the end, Coulson and May considered it and agreed to let Anne bring Tibbers to school, but demanded she keep it in her backpack and never take it out casually!

If Tibbers could talk, it would have argued back then! Anne's words could only fool these Earth natives who didn't understand magic! Was a soul contract so easy to break?

Look at those warlocks who enslave demons! They summon their bound demons across countless planes as easily as calling a dog. Do you see any of those demons daring to break their contracts? Tibbers' contract with Annie is far, far more solid than any of those enslaving pacts!

Led by the teacher to the podium, Anne looked at the dozen or so pairs of curious eyes fixed on her. She felt a bit happy. So this was school? It seemed like fun!

"Hello, everyone! My name is Anne, Anne Hastur! Nice to meet you all." Maybe this would be a pleasant day, Anne thought.

During the morning classes, Annie behaved very obediently. Before she got familiar with this place, she didn't do anything unnecessary! She was still observing, observing this novel school for Earth humans! So they really didn't teach magic at all—everything they taught was simple and strange.

In the afternoon, the school music room. Calling it a room was an understatement—it was more like a small theater, complete with a stage and audience seating. A teacher was playing a tune on the piano on stage, rising and falling in rhythm, while Anne and her classmates sat in a row in the audience.

This was the last music class before dismissal. The music teacher was a long-haired male teacher named John Phillips, said to be a famous Hollywood music producer. Next to Anne, a chubby classmate admired him greatly, going on about how good and amazing he was. But Anne had no idea who this old man was!

"Aha~! I think I've spotted a new face! Let me check the roster. Good, Anne, right?" John Phillips finished playing a piece, picked up the attendance sheet, and easily found the newly added name—Anne.

"Yes, teacher! Nice to meet you." Anne stood up and gave a slight bow.

"Oh! Good, nice to meet you too, Anne. But..." John Phillips closed the roster, thinking, "According to our rules, newcomers have to play a new piece for the class!"

As soon as he finished, a chubby student immediately raised his hand. His name was Jack Harper, son of an entrepreneur, and he was the one who admired the music teacher. His hobby was eating, so he was especially fat. Or maybe his talent points were all allocated to fat, leaving his brain not so sharp—he was particularly straightforward, honest, and stubborn!

"Teacher, we don't have that rule." After getting permission to speak, Jack Harper stood up and said.

"Well, now we do! Alright, please sit down." The teacher waved him off impatiently and looked at Anne.

"Anne? What instrument can you play? Piano? Or violin?"

Anne bit her finger and thought. Playing, she could do that, but piano? Violin? She didn't know them! However, she could play the moon lute—her mother had taught her a little skill!

"I can play that moon lute!" Anne pointed to the instrument storage room on the right side of the stage, where various instruments were stored. Among them, two delicate harps—one large, one small—sat there. The big one was clearly for adults, probably for teachers, while the smaller one was just right for little arms and legs of elementary students.

"Wow! That's surprising—I don't even know how to play that! It's actually called a harp, Anne, not a moon lute. Are you sure you can?"

John Phillips immediately felt this new girl was special! Because the harp was a relatively obscure instrument—a large plucked string instrument, one of the oldest in the world, originating from ancient Persia.

The modern harp was designed in 1810 by the French piano maker Sébastien Érard. It has forty-seven strings of varying lengths and seven pedals that alter the pitch of the strings, enabling it to play in all keys. The harp's form is delicate and graceful, exuding an artistic temperament—elegant, pure, and crystalline as pearls, with a tone as clear as morning dew.

Of course, the harp had one more crucial point: it was expensive! Very expensive! Especially a harp from a master craftsman—definitely not something ordinary families could dream of! If Juilliard Academy weren't an aristocratic private school, it probably couldn't afford these two beautiful harps either, right?

John Phillips walked over, pretended to pluck a couple of notes on the big harp, then awkwardly stopped, not daring to continue to avoid embarrassing himself.

"Alright! Anne, you can come up and perform." He moved the small harp to the front of the stage, set down a small square stool, and gestured for Anne to come on stage.

"Then, I'll play a little piece for everyone. It's called: The Moon Goddess's Embrace."

Anne hopped onto the stage, stood before the harp, faced the classmates and teacher, and gracefully performed a Valoran princess's bow. Then she sat on the small stool, plucked a few test notes, adjusted the pedals, got used to the harp—slightly different from the Valoran moon lute—stopped her little hands, and took a deep breath.

Teacher John Phillips and the students immediately quieted down, knowing Anne was about to start her formal performance. They had never heard this instrument played before, and their faces showed curiosity or anticipation.

Anne was about to start playing, but her sly eyes darted around. Suddenly recalling a little trick her mother taught her, the corners of her mouth curled up smugly, like a fox that had stolen a grape.

A wisp of magic surged to her fingertips. As her fingers plucked the strings, an invisible ripple of magic vibrated with the sound waves...

One note, two notes, three notes—the beautiful melody flowed without end, like a gentle ray of moonlight filtering through the window, spilling onto Anne on stage. The moonlight seemed like moon spirits dancing on the strings, flying out from the harp one by one. Sometimes they were like light clouds and flowing water, sometimes passionate and soaring, sometimes like song and tears, sometimes soul-shaking and breathtaking.

The listeners in the room felt as if they had dissolved into the world, thrown into the boundless universe. Everything around them vanished—only the vast, pure moon before their eyes! And the notes drifting in their ears...

The piece ended in less than five minutes! The audience sat dazed, eyes unfocused, as if still staring into the void.

The music teacher, John Phillips, was the first to snap out of it. His face full of shock, he stared at Anne and exclaimed, "My god, what did I just hear? I just embraced the moon!"

Yes! He had been immersed in the music, drifting with the notes, and at the piece's climax, he had actually embraced the moon in the void!

"A genius performance! Oh, no! Anne, you must be an angel sent by God! I was lucky enough to hear the sound of heaven! I'm giving you an A+ in this course!"

"Wow! Wah~!" The young audience also came to their senses, but a blonde little girl suddenly burst into tears. Teacher John hurried over to comfort her.

"What's wrong, Angelina?"

"Wow~! I, I saw Mommy... sob sob!" It turned out the little girl was crying tears of joy. John remembered that on the student information sheet, this little girl was called Angelina Roberts, from a single-parent family. Her father was a company president, and her mother had reportedly died of cancer two years ago.

Annie stuck out her tongue in an embarrassed grimace and hopped off the stage. She wasn't about to tell them that her playing wasn't actually that good, but that she'd secretly used magic to sneak a charm trick into the melody. This spell would guide people to immerse themselves in the music, unable to pull away, sometimes even triggering the strongest memories in someone's heart, or letting them see the loved ones they missed most.

(Master, is it really okay for you to do this? Using mind-charming magic in a piano piece isn't really appropriate, is it? If I remember correctly, the Valoran Performance Convention explicitly forbids this! I think you should seriously learn how to play the piano properly. Even if you can't play as well as that Sona person, you shouldn't play too badly, right? Your performance just now, to be honest, if you remove the magic's charm effect, was really terrible! You missed several notes, played several places wrong, and the rhythm didn't seem quite right either...)

"Shut up! Tibbers, you know too much!"

After stepping off the stage and returning to her seat, Annie punched her schoolbag twice! How dare he say she played badly? She decided that tonight when she went home, she'd extend her bath time by double. Lately, her little bear seemed a bit too dirty and needed a good soak in the water!

Coulson and Melinda had a very pleasant day. After dropping Annie off at school in the morning, they sat in a café near the campus, drinking coffee and chatting about life, all the way until school let out and they saw Annie walk out the school gate.

This time Annie went to school, they were taking a big risk. Although they had repeatedly told Annie she couldn't use magic at school or casually set the bear loose, and Annie had given her word, worry was still there! They were afraid Annie might lose her temper and burn some unlucky soul to ashes, and then things wouldn't be easy to settle.

As things stood now, everything was still going well. Annie had kept her promise and followed the rules, which made Coulson and Melinda secretly breathe a sigh of relief!

"Annie, how was your day today?"

Coulson pulled the car up beside Annie and stopped, opening the door. Normally, Julia Academy had a school bus for pick-up and drop-off, but Annie lived by the seaside in the suburbs, which wasn't within the bus route's coverage area, so they had to drive her themselves.

"Great! I had a few classes today. Some were a bit boring, but in the afternoon I played a piece, and the teacher said I could get an A+ in music class!" Annie climbed into the back seat, closed the door, pulled Tibbers out of her schoolbag, and grinned smugly at the two in the front.

"Really? That's fantastic!"