No. 6 High School Stands Up for You

The next day, while Li Dong was still painfully waiting for his 20,000-yuan prize money to clear the approval process, Jiangcheng No. 2 High School was experiencing a completely different scene.

Unlike Jiangcheng No. 7 High School's "free-range" model of giving students both weekend days off, Jiangcheng No. 2 High School, an established provincial key school, held regular supplementary classes for its senior year students on weekends. They only got a pitiful half-day off on Sunday afternoon.

At that moment, inside the principal's office.

Li Yiming, the dean responsible for publicity, stood smiling in front of the desk as he reported to Principal Zhang Cheng.

"Principal Zhang, the reporters from Jiangcheng Education Channel have arrived at the school."

"They'll be conducting a simple interview with Zhang Zeyu on the athletic field shortly."

Zhang Cheng sat in his chair, lightly tapping his fingers against the desktop.

"Old Li, go tell Zhang Zeyu that when he's interviewed later, he shouldn't mention rankings or scores. Just talk about his usual attitude toward studying, the effort he put in, and the school and teachers' guidance."

Li Yiming immediately understood and nodded.

"Understood. We'll highlight No. 2 High School's heritage and academic atmosphere. I'll go brief him now."

With that, Li Yiming left the office.

Leaning back in his chair, Zhang Cheng raised his thermos and took a sip of tea.

He had played an exceptionally clever word game with the semifinal results list this time.

Zhao Ziwei from No. 6 High School had bombed the exam. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If No. 6 High School came out to refute them and said the list actually had rankings, wouldn't that mean admitting that Zhang Zeyu from No. 2 High School had scored higher than Zhao Ziwei?

So No. 6 High School could only swallow this loss in silence.

At 8:30 that morning, Jiangcheng Education Channel's interview van drove into the No. 2 High School campus.

Taking advantage of the break between exercises, the reporters set up their camera on the athletic field and invited Zhang Zeyu, dressed in the No. 2 High School uniform, in front of the lens.

At ten in the morning, Jiangcheng Education Channel broadcast the interview footage right on schedule.

Zhang Zeyu looked somewhat nervous in the video, his eyes darting beyond the camera from time to time.

Holding up her microphone, the female reporter asked with a warm smile.

"Student Zhang Zeyu, congratulations on successfully advancing to the Huaxuan Cup national finals and outperforming so many students across the province."

"Many parents and students watching at home are curious. How do you usually study? Do you have any secrets you could share with everyone?"

Zhang Zeyu swallowed and replied stiffly.

"Actually... there's no special secret. I mainly just follow the pace set by the school's teachers, listen carefully in class, and finish my assignments on time afterward."

"Our teachers at No. 2 High School are all extremely responsible. They also incorporate plenty of extracurricular extension knowledge into their classes, so perhaps my breadth of knowledge is just a little wider than that of ordinary students..."

The video was not only broadcast on television; it also played on a loop on the electronic screen on the No. 2 High School campus.

Around the athletic field, quite a few regular-class students who had come out for some fresh air gathered around the screen and discussed it animatedly.

"Hey, don't you think Zhang Zeyu usually isn't among the absolute best in the grade? His physics scores are good, sure, but not to the point of being unbeatable across the province. How did he suddenly get first place this time?"

"Who knows? No matter how much he overperformed, No. 2 High School came out looking good this time."

However, just as these ordinary students were talking among themselves, several competition students from the advanced science classes happened to walk past.

These top students, who actually knew what had happened, glanced at Zhang Zeyu's somewhat guilty-looking face on the screen, exchanged looks, and all shook their heads.

They said nothing and simply turned away, as if walking any slower would make them feel ashamed.

As a local traditional media outlet, Jiangcheng Education Channel did not actually have particularly high ratings in this era of rising new media and short videos.

But it had an extremely stable audience.

Namely, parents whose children were about to move on to the next stage of education.

These parents might not usually scroll through social media feeds or local public accounts.

But whenever they were bored, they habitually left their televisions tuned to the education channel.

That morning, many parents naturally saw the news story about "No. 2 High School student outperforming all rivals in physics competition."

"Huaxuan Cup? What kind of competition is that?" some parents unfamiliar with it asked in their residential complex group chats.

Very quickly, parents who knew the field looked it up online and posted the information in the groups.

"Oh my, this is huge! The Huaxuan Cup is a major competition organized by a domestic semiconductor chip giant! I heard it's incredibly difficult. High school students who place well might even catch that company's attention and be recruited directly as core employees after graduating from college!"

The group chats immediately erupted.

"Really? Then No. 2 High School is incredible this time! They even beat No. 6 High School?"

"I don't know, but No. 2 High School really has been rising fast these past two years."

"My child is taking the high school entrance exam next year and is still a little short of No. 6 High School's cutoff. I was originally thinking of paying a school selection fee to get into No. 6 High School, but now I'm hesitating. Should my child attend No. 6 High School or No. 2 High School?"

While Jiangcheng's parents were discussing the matter heatedly.

Liu Limin, the dean of No. 6 High School, sat in front of his computer with a cup of tea in hand.

The principal of No. 6 High School happened to be attending an important national forum for key high school principals in the provincial capital these past few days, so he had no idea what was happening in the city.

Therefore, the burden of handling this matter naturally fell on Liu Limin's shoulders.

Watching the education channel's video and the comments favoring No. 2 High School, Liu Limin was not the least bit worried or angry. Instead, he could not help laughing.

"No. 2 High School, No. 2 High School... you've really lost your heads. You dare pick just any peach you see!"

Liu Limin clicked open a document and began drafting an official press release himself.

As an old fox in Jiangcheng's education world, Liu Limin knew only too well the core logic behind why key high schools became key high schools.

Abundant educational resources were certainly part of it, but the absolute core was always the student body!

Only with strong students could they achieve strong results. With strong results, the authorities would allocate more educational resources. With top-tier educational resources, they could attract even better students in the next cohort.

It was an unbreakable cycle.

But No. 2 High School had only seen this tiny bit of immediate prestige and wanted to use it to suppress No. 6 High School, forgetting that the education world had the least tolerance for fraud and deception.

Of course, Liu Limin was not writing this press release simply to seek justice for No. 7 High School.

What interested him was Li Dong himself!

He had personally seen how absurdly difficult the Huaxuan Cup's experimental question was.

Although he did not know what miraculous answer Li Dong had written on the test paper, Qiao Fan of Chengdu No. 7 High School—a first-year student hailed as a genius—had been forcibly pushed into second place by Li Dong on that list!

One had to know that Chengdu No. 7 High School's teaching staff was on an entirely different level from every high school in Jiangcheng.

For Li Dong to win the favor of Huaxuan Technology's grading team on that final anonymized engineering question and firmly hold first place, the kid was clearly anything but ordinary!

"No. 7 High School, you produced such an extraordinary student, and he suffered such a huge injustice, yet your school doesn't even dare make a peep. You won't even fight for your student's reputation."

Liu Limin gave a calculating smile.

"Since No. 7 High School won't seek justice for him, then No. 6 High School will do it for him!"

With that thought, Liu Limin pressed the telephone button on his desk.

"Xiao Wang, go ask around the classes and see whether anyone knows this Li Dong from Jiangcheng No. 7 High School..."

Less than an hour after Jiangcheng Education Channel finished airing the interview video.

No. 6 High School's official website suddenly updated with a pinned article.

As the undisputed top school in Jiangcheng's education world, No. 6 High School's website had always received considerable traffic. Countless parents refreshed it every day, hoping to find hints about independent admissions.

The article immediately caught the attention of many parents.

Its title was perfectly proper.

<Warm congratulations to Zhao Ziwei of our school for successfully advancing to the Huaxuan Cup national finals. May he continue to strive for even greater heights.>

The content was entirely non-confrontational. It congratulated their own student on reaching the finals and encouraged him to keep working hard, without mentioning Jiangcheng No. 2 High School even once.

But!

At the very bottom of the article, No. 6 High School had very "thoughtfully" attached an original screenshot of the advancement list from Huaxuan Technology's official website.

The parents who clicked on the article were all stunned.

[First Place: Li Dong (Jiangcheng No. 7 Middle School)]

[Second Place: Qiao Fan (Chengdu No. 7 Middle School)]

[Seventh Place: Zhang Zeyu (Jiangcheng No. 2 Middle School)]

[Fourteenth Place: Zhao Ziwei (Jiangcheng No. 6 Middle School)]

The parents carefully examined the small line beneath the list stating that the rankings were in no particular order.

"What? If there's no particular order, how does No. 2 High School dare claim they outperformed everyone?"

And as for the supposed ordering rule of "no particular order"...

If it was alphabetical, why was Cao Yang from Miancheng High School fourth while Li Dong was first?

If it was ordered by school prestige, how could Chengdu No. 7 High School, such a golden brand, possibly be listed below Jiangcheng No. 7 High School?

"This is obviously a hidden ranking based on scores!"

"No. 2 High School is playing word games! Not only did they not get first place, they didn't even come close to the provincial top three!"

What kind of people constantly followed developments on No. 6 High School's official website?

They were all elite parents who were extremely anxious about their children's education and possessed a certain level of social resources and understanding.

In parent group chats, these people were normally monstrously competitive child-braggers and education-path analysts.

Thus, No. 2 High School's little bait-and-switch trick quickly spread through this circle of elite parents.

If they had honestly said,

"Our student Zhang Zeyu won seventh place in the province and successfully advanced to the finals," everyone would still have praised the child and said No. 2 High School had taught him well.

But he was clearly seventh, yet they insisted on using words like "outperforming all rivals" to lead the public into thinking he was first, treating everyone like fools...

The spectators and gossip-loving parents were no longer sleepy. They immediately entered battle mode!

The first place to fall was Jiangcheng No. 2 High School's Baidu Tieba forum.

A post titled [Exposing a Certain School's "Outperforming All Rivals": Does Seventh Place Deserve to Be Called First?] was quickly pushed to the top.

At first, the ordinary first- and second-year students at No. 2 High School who did not know the truth argued fervently in the thread, defending their school's honor.

"OP, stop being jealous. Our senior Zhang is just that amazing."

"The news reported it. An official media outlet certified that he outperformed everyone, got it?"

However, when the fact-checkers directly posted the ranking screenshot in the forum and circled [First Place: Li Dong (Jiangcheng No. 7 Middle School)] and [Seventh Place: Zhang Zeyu] in red.

The No. 2 High School students who had not known the truth all fell silent.

In the end, only a few stubborn No. 2 High School students remained, trying to preserve the last shred of dignity.

"Our school's promotional article... never said he was first place to begin with!"

"Exactly! How is outperforming all rivals not outperforming all rivals? Senior Zhang ranked seventh, which means he outperformed more than a hundred people below him! How is that not outperforming all rivals?"

This forced whitewashing through Ah Q-style logic only earned them one response from the poster and countless spectators.

"Heh heh."

"Redefining 'outperforming all rivals.'"

"Jiangcheng No. 2 High School teaches Chinese really well!"