On the next day, everyone’s grades for all the courses in the fourth semester got recorded into the school’s data store.

At this time, Liu Man was still sending out products with the employees at the storage space.

She received an automatic message from the school website, telling her that she could now start checking her grades. She immediately logged onto the school website using her phone and input her student number along with the password.

Her grades report had already been exported into the PDF format, and it automatically popped out as soon as she logged in. She opened the file, and the first grade listed on the chart was English 4: 63 points.

She passed!

Liu Man then scrolled down.

For all the other courses, she scored points ranging from 80 to 90.

Excluding the Chamber Ensemble Music course. She got a 60…

In the column that calculated the total points, her average points for each course this semester was 68…

Zhang Pei saw her freeze with a not-so-good expression, and she couldn’t help but ask,

“What happened? Are there any other random rumors online?”

“I’m checking my exam scores,” Liu Man’s voice contained a hint of disappointment.

Zhang Pei recalled her biological daughter, who wasn’t into studying, failed many courses, and had so few points. She felt however Liu Man’s grades were, they must be better than Man Man’s.

“Did you pass all of your courses?”

Mhm, in Zhang Pei’s mind, she thought it was already very good as long as she passed the course. She felt satisfied and had very low expectations for her daughter!

Liu Man nodded her head softly, “I passed.”

“That’s pretty good. Why the face?”

“English takes up four credits, and I only got 63 points. That’s my problem; I did not prepare so well. I also have a course that takes up 16 credits, and I only received a 60. I think this score is unfair. It’s impossible for me to only get a 60,” Liu Man frowned and told Zhang Pei honestly, “These two courses straight up pulled down my average score. In the fourth semester, my ranking in the entire grade is number 117.”

“There’s nothing bad with ranking 117,” Zhang Pei didn’t think it was important and started encouraging Liu Man, “Let’s not look at the leaderboard. You are from the ancient past, so English is already something never seen before for you. You already did awesome by scoring a 63.”

“However, the school looks at the leaderboard. On the total grades report, the computer has already automatically calculated my total scores for these four semesters, and I have been ranked again automatically,” When she got here, Liu Man’s tone had a hint of helplessness. She lifted her head and looked towards Zhang Pei.

“Our grade only has 132 people, and I’m number 123 on the leaderboard. The school’s new rule says: The last ten people ranked on the leaderboard will be expelled.”

Zhang Pei couldn’t wrap her head around it immediately. She counted with her fingers and abruptly realized Liu Man was one of the last ten rankings on the leaderboard, “You are going to get expelled by the school!? No, no, no. That’s not fine, that’s not okay.”

Zhang Pei was getting a little upset and did not control her voice level, and she scared the four employees, who were still working. They thought their boss was arguing against her daughter.

“The rule is locked; however, you have such wonderful talents, and your school won’t expel you,” Zhang Pei slightly calmed down and said with hope.

Liu Man shook her head, “This leaderboard can be seen by everyone. We all know the protocols. I don’t think the school would joke around with their own rules. I might be expelled. If I had only done a little better on my English test,” Liu Man blamed herself.

Of course, if the past Liu Man had passed every single one of her exams, she wouldn’t be in this situation right now.

“English only takes up four credits. How much can that influence? What’s going on with that course you have in which you only scored a 60?” Zhang Pei instantly grabbed onto the main point.

“I don’t know the reason either. This 60 is how much my classmate and I scored in the performance at the start of May,” No wonder Zhu Xiyang didn’t immediately announce each team’s grades at that time. No wonder he said he would calculate a total of all the scores at the end-of-semester. Liu Man could tell he did this intentionally.

“You had such a brilliant performance, and you only scored a 60?!” Zhang Pei abruptly threw away what she was working on, “I need to visit your school and have a talk with your major head. On what reason did they give you only a 60 for that course!”

At the same time, the many teachers in the piano major were also thinking about this question, and they were divided into two sides of this conflict because of it.

Teacher A was on Liu Man’s side, “Liu Man’s a very outstanding student. Everyone saw her brilliant performance at the ensemble concert. We can’t decline her talents just because she didn’t do good on this once exam.”

Teacher B disagreed, “Not only did she do badly this time, out of the four semesters, but she also did not pass two professional exams. Excluding that, she only passed many of her courses because teachers gave her second chances. Her grades are initially very sucky.”

Teacher C also felt Liu Man was being mistreated, “But Liu Man has improved a lot on her studies ever since she became a Sophomore. Last semester, she was number 102. Although her ranking went back a little this semester, none of her grades for the courses that depended on theories were lower than 80 points. Only her English course had slightly fewer points.”

The female teacher who taught Liu Man’s class felt very ambivalent and resentful. She saw how hardworking Liu Man was. Although she only got a 63 at last, it was a huge improvement.

She graded Liu Man based on her real score in the English exams using the total score grading chart. The female teacher didn’t give Liu Man any extra points, but she didn’t take any extra points away either. If only she had to know Liu Man would get expelled from the school because of this, she would’ve given her a 73 even if she risked getting punished!

But now, the grades had already been shown to the public. Even if she wanted to change the grades, there was no way for her too.

Teacher D pointed out a doubt, “I took a look at Liu Man’s grades report for this semester. The reason why her average score is so low is that her English 4 and Chamber Ensemble Music grades dragged her down. Her Chamber Ensemble Music grade is way too low. In the entire grade, only Li Xiaoru’s and hers are 60. Chamber Ensemble Music is a course based on performance; as long as the students took the performance seriously, prepared, and finished it, their score shouldn’t have gotten below a 70. Teacher Zhu deemed their performance in violation of the protocols and gave them a low score because they changed their instrument halfway, and they did not fit the standard definition of a ‘trio’. Isn’t that too strict?”

However, Zhu Xiyang, who was called on, smiled as he said, “If I am strict with Liu Man and Li Xiaoru, I wouldn’t have let them pass this course. Giving them both a 60 is already me taking a step back. At least they won’t have to test again.”

Zhu Xiyang said solid words. Although Teacher D felt empathetic towards Liu Man, he didn’t dare say anything else.

Zhu Xiyang hadn’t been teaching for a long time, and he hadn’t taught many lessons. However, he didn’t focus on teaching and got a huge concert, messing around with all the Sophomores, not letting them have a good year. Many students skipped other teachers’ classes and rehearsals just to prepare for his concert. Besides, the school also respected Zhu Xiyang, announcing to give all the Sophomores in western music majors two break days so the concert could go successfully as planned.

All the other teachers followed the protocols and gave lessons according to their plans and the usual times for lessons. After Zhu Xiyang’s interruption, their usual course syllabus got messed up, and they had to spend twice the time to reprepare their lessons. Therefore, some of the teachers had already started to want to complain about Zhu Xiyang’s flaunty behavior. However, because of Zhu Xiyang’s background, they could only be angry and not say much.

Translated by: Sydney