As soon as Wang Nina left, Li Xiaoru immediately called Liu Man, “Man Man, hurry up and check your grades online. Wang Nina is despicable. She coaxed Zhu Xiyang to intentionally give both of us low scores because she wants you to get expelled.”

Liu Man had already guessed Wang Nina was behind it all, too, “I’ve seen the grades already. I only got a 60 for the Chamber Ensemble Music course.”

“Sure enough. I got a 60, too,” Li Xiaoru hurriedly asked, “What’s your total ranking?”

“Number 123 in the grade.”

“Oh, my God. What do we do now?” Li Xiaoru felt very angry, “Wang Nina and Zhu Xiyang had collusion. They will die painfully! We can’t let her get what she wants.”

Li Xiaoru hated herself for not slapping Wang Nina a few more times just now!

“My mom and I are preparing to go to school right now.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Have your mom visit and try begging the school leaders. Describe the situation. Have them give you a retest or even stay back a grade. No matter what, you can’t get expelled.”

…

Zhang Pei was not in the mood to work. She told the employees to go back and rest shut the door to the storage space and went to the school with Liu Man.

She was going to reason with the school leaders!

The nurse, who was waving goodbye at the customers at the entrance of the pet clinic, saw the mother and daughter stop a taxi beside the road. They seemed to be in a hurry. The nurse felt something was wrong, and so she went back into the shop and told Yu Zhan everything she saw.

“Neither of them had a fine expression. Did something happen?”

“Thank you. I know, now,” Yu Zhan didn’t show any special expressions, but he had a few thoughts in his mind.

Zhang Pei and Liu Man straightforwardly went to the major leaders’ office building. The major head, secretary, and counselor all worked here.

Zhang Pei was the wife of someone working for the government, of course. She knew that suing required her to meet someone from the low rankings before she meets ones from higher rankings. She could not leap through the ranks!

They first went to the counselor’s office. There were four people in the office, and each one was responsible for a grade.

Liu Man’s Sophomore counselor was a male young adult that was about the same age as Zhu Xiyang.

The past Liu Man was at the edge of everything. She never got tagged as an important role by the school, and she never contacted the counselor excluding the start-of-year meeting.

Liu Man only knew that this counselor was the piano major in this school before. After he graduated, he went on the administrative route and became a counselor. He had already been a counselor for five to six years and was very experienced.

Seeing Liu Man and her mother, the counselor was not surprised at all. He knew they must be here because of the grades. In fact, after the calculation of the grade ended yesterday, they, from the administration department, received a list of students’ names. Every student that appeared on this list either would get expelled, punished, or suspended.

And Liu Man’s name was eminently on it.

The counselor was also very surprised. Liu Man, before, was always unknown to the public. His only impression of her was her being a pretty girl. However, now that Liu Man’s talents got known by everyone, how could the school waste her skills and expel her?

The counselor even discussed with his colleagues what this was all about. Someone told him Zhu Xiyang disliked Liu Man and wanted her punished. The school didn’t want to offend Zhu Xiyang and pretended not to see his actions. The other teachers didn’t have ways to stop him either.

After Liu Man’s mother and the counselor greeted each other, the counselor told them two to sit down with a very polite attitude.

Zhang Pei misunderstood him and thought there was still hope of finding a turning point. She got right on the topic, “Man Man told me the school prepares to clean out and expel the last ten students on the leaderboard. Is that true?”

“It’s something like that.”

“Is my daughter one of those ten students?”

“Uh…” The counselor, feeling ambivalent, nodded.

Although she was mentally prepared, the moment when her guess got proven, Zhang Pei still felt nauseous. She tried her best to calm down and interrogated him,

“I want to know why my daughter only got a 60 for the course of Chamber Ensemble Music? Her performance video can be seen anywhere on the internet, and every netizen thinks it’s very good. Everyone’s complimenting it, and there’s no reason for it to only receive a 60.”

“Every teacher has their own set of judging expectations in their mind. Maybe Teacher Zhu just thinks Liu Man’s performance still lacks something.”

The counselor knew he was only saying nonsense and trying to trick them. He took a look at Liu Man on the side, and Liu Man’s beautiful eyes were also staring at him. He felt guilty from this gaze.

He couldn’t set his mind to tell the mother and daughter that he really couldn’t do anything about it.

However, Liu Man could already see what he meant through his eyes, “Teacher, I beg you, can you let me see the other students’ grades for the course of Chamber Ensemble Music?”

“This…” The counselor hesitated a bit. He had already seen everyone’s grade report. Excluding Liu Man and Li Xiaoru, everyone else’s grades were above 70.

Besides, everyone also got full scores for their class time grades. Only two received a 60 for class time grades as well. Even idiots could tell that someone was being very biased.

The counselor’s hesitation proved furthermore that Liu Man and Li Xiaoru’s scores contained issues.

“One’s grades deserve to be kept private. I have no right to show you them,” The counselor found another excuse.

Liu Man’s voice softened, “Then, do you mean I have to get expelled, and there’s nothing I can do to save myself?”

How could the counselor have given a random response? He couldn’t take this responsibility. He said, “Let me ask the boss.”

He walked to his desk, picked up the telephone, and called the major head with the set number. He told his boss everything about the situation at this moment, emphasizing how both Liu Man and her mother were sitting in the office right now, pressuring him a lot.

The major head said, “You just tell them that there’s no way for us to make Liu Man a special case; or else, what if the other students mimic her? The new rule has just been set in place, and we definitely will fire 10 students. Liu Man is surely the tenth to last. If we don’t fire her, are we firing the eleventh to last? Then, won’t that student and his parents come over and argue against us? We are not the teachers; we don’t care about the scores, and we only look at the protocols. We will treat Liu Man like everyone else according to the school rules!”

“But…” The counselor also wanted to complain about Zhu Xiyang.

“No ‘but’. You have been working for five to six years in the administration department. Do I need to teach you the schemes and how to survive here?” The major head hung up, which was a way to say there was no turning point to this. He would not offend Zhu Xiyang for a student; it was not worth it.

The counselor repeated the major head’s words to Liu Man and Zhang Pei.

Zhang Pei felt very angry. The major head’s words were too infuriating. Just as she was about to rush up to reason with the counselor, Liu Man hurriedly pulled her back as they left the counselors’ office. Before they left, Liu Man said “thank you” to the counselor.

Even when this happened, she still kept her courtesy. Such good etiquette. This made the counselor feel even guiltier. After some deep thinking, he sent a message to Liu Man, “You should go find Zhu Xiyang. Maybe you can still reverse the situation here.”

Translated by: Sydney