The night was deep.
So were at peace.
So were not.
So, were coming to terms with the quiet.
Right there on the bench in the hotel garden.
At this mont, most only knew that Li Zheng had submitted the joint letter.
As for what had happened and what was about to happen, they remained clueless.
And Li Zheng himself wasn’t sure if his choice was right.
To avoid implicating others, to not harm the competition, for a brighter future.
He chose to shoulder all the darkness, trying to destroy it with his own blazing light.
He wasn’t sure if doing so was right.
He only knew that if Yao Xiaoqian had the courage, if Lin Yujing had the courage.
Then he must have it too.
"Alright, enough calming down, let’s go back and rest," Li Zheng stood up, dusting off his pants. "You sleep in tomorrow, the rest I can handle alone."
"No way!" Lin Yujing leaped up in panic, her pronunciation slurring together. "I was the one who wanted to be the bad student first."
"With that articulation, you’d only cause trouble."
"Mmm mmm mmm mmm!" Lin Yujing pumled him with a flurry of random punches.
"I get it, I get it," Li Zheng said with a laugh, turning his head. "But there’s no need to sacrifice another person. This is our only IPhO, you’ve been looking forward to it for so long, go ahead... And ... I don’t actually like physics that much."
Lin Yujing bristled instantly, throwing more pumling punches: "What’s the point of going alone!"
Li Zheng, rubbing his arm, chuckled, "It’s still interesting. There should be a hirsute Russian there. Teach him a lesson for ."
"Now is not the ti to joke around!"
Lin Yujing grabbed Li Zheng’s shoulder, her eyes sparkling with excitent.
"I never used to care about these things, as long as I was always first, that was enough."
"But now, I care!"
"For the first ti, I feel that besides being first, there’s so much more I can do."
"Can you understand how I’m feeling right now?"
"It’s more exhilarating than winning first place 10 tis, 100 tis over."
"What IPhO? It doesn’t matter at all."
"In the end, it’s the sa old saying."
Lin Yujing raised her hand towards the starry sky—
"No one can stop from using the telescope!"
Looking into Lin Yujing’s innocent eyes, Li Zheng was left speechless.
Lin Yujing was likewise gazing at Li Zheng.
Under the moonlight, their eyes t.
The atmosphere started to grow strange.
As if gravity suddenly ca into effect.
Uncontrollably, yet naturally, they fell into each other’s gravitational field.
An invisible force crossed the visible space, coaxing their eyes closed and slowly drawing them closer.
Just as the satellite was about to orbit.
"S-s-sorry…"
An extraordinarily nasally voice suddenly reached them.
Instantly, the gravitational field turned into repelling magnets.
Both of them stopped at the sa ti, tilting their heads and covering their faces.
"I don’t know why... It always happens like this..." Huang Lingqi lifted his leg and fiddled with his running shoe, "I was just busy all day... This is the only ti I had for a run..."
Can’t you just leave instead of trying to make your presence felt with words?
Although Li Zheng thought this, he managed not to say it out loud. Instead, he cleared his throat and said,
"You’ve got it wrong, we were discussing tomorrow’s matters."
"Oh, okay, then continue... continue..." Huang Lingqi said as he jogged over, his face turned to the side. "I’m just passing by, I’ll take another route after this…"
Li Zheng opportunistically grabbed him: "Great, there’s sothing you can help with."
Huang Lingqi imdiately waved his hands: "No, no, no, not the car license, Jijing’s car plates are more expensive than the cars, my pocket money has its limits."
Li Zheng stared at Huang Lingqi, taking a while to rember, "Are you sick? Who would just give away a car anyway?"
"Don’t look at like that. Don’t asure my pocket money by your standards," Huang Lingqi said with a grin. "It’s just a casual errand, roughly the equivalent to treating soone to a bowl of noodles."
"Alright, forget the car. If you’ve got so much burning-a-hole-in-your-pocket money, then get one of these…" Li Zheng pulled out his phone, showing Huang Lingqi an item. "I could buy it myself, but it’s too late. I need to get it by 9 a.m. tomorrow."
"That’s easy. I’ll have my assistant buy it first thing in the morning." After a mont’s thought, Huang Lingqi shook his head vigorously, "No, no, no, I don’t want to know what it’s for, I haven’t guessed anything, I don’t know anything."
"Thanks then," Li Zheng finally let go. "No need for the car."
"But the car is the key point, don’t bother," said Huang Lingqi as he ran forward, looking back. "Continue on, I swear I won’t co by here tonight, but please don’t change location, or the chance of running into each other would be certain due to Murphy’s Law, Murphy’s Law."
After dealing with Huang Lingqi, Li Zheng turned around only to find that Lin Yujing had already run off, now entering the hotel lobby.
Li Zheng could only shake his head and smile.
"We really are the bad students, huh…"
…
The next morning, 9:30 a.m.
When they should be entering final scores and preparing the result sheets, Director He Antang of the Competition Committee suddenly called together all 8 senior officials, along with Qin Kaixuan, the Huihu Examination Site official, for an ergency eting.
Overnight, He Antang had already weighed his options multiple tis and clarified his thoughts.
If Li Zheng was set on taking drastic actions, no matter what.
Then the only choices left for the Competition Committee were two.
One: A retest.
Two: Release more evidence to the entire society.
Both options would cause instability and damage the reputation of the competition.
But if Li Zheng indeed held more core evidence.
The second option would obviously result in greater losses.
In choosing the lesser of two evils.
And trying to protect Li Zheng and the other students as much as possible.
This was He Antang’s decision.
When the last attendee arrived, He Antang personally closed the door.
Inside the eting room, most of the leaders looked tired and seed at a loss.
Only Qin Kaixuan was very active, chatting with people around him and getting cozy, sotis bursting into laughter.
This was sowhat unexpected.
After all, it was He Antang himself who inford him to delete his Monts; he wouldn’t be unaware of today’s agenda.
Was he not nervous at all?
Seeing his deanor, He Antang felt a hint of worry.
But as the saying goes, "An arrow on the string must be shot."
He quickly took a seat and pulled out his phone, showing the screenshots of Yang Shaokui’s QQ Monts, passing them around from left to right for everyone to see.
The eting room quickly fell into dead silence.
The 8 leaders either looked down without speaking, furrowed their brows, scrutinized the information, or propped their hands on the table, covering their faces.
In short, no one spoke, and no one knew what to say.
After the last person finished looking, Qin Kaixuan remained calm and said indifferently, "Director He, I can explain this."
"Hold on, I’ll give you ti to explain," He Antang said, gesturing with his hand before looking around the room and speaking word by word.
"First, let explain the situation."
"This information was sent to anonymously."
"The sender believes there was a leak of examination questions in this test, and the results are unfair, hoping that we would organize a retest."
"After receiving the information, I imdiately contacted Teacher Qin Kaixuan and asked him to have Yang Shaokui delete all the Monts."
"Regarding this matter, I personally believe the whistleblower trusted the Competition Committee to send the material to instead of going public."
"After all, if the information had been made public even a minute later, more people would have seen it."
"From that perspective, we should be thankful for their whistleblowing."
"I personally also believe that long-term justice and the reputation of the competition far outweigh the imdiate face-saving."
"So here I am, making my stance clear—"
"I support a retest."
Instantly, the leaders on site erupted into murmurs.
They all instinctively assud that the first response to such an incident must be to calm things down and handle it quietly.
They were completely unable to understand He Antang’s firm attitude.
In fact, He Antang did have untold difficulties.
If he fully disclosed last night’s conversation with Li Zheng, it would be akin to Li Zheng and Lin Yujing threatening the entire Competition Committee, which would not be good for them.
All He Antang could do was to make the best use of his position as director to lobby for a retest with all his power.
Since the situation arose so suddenly, the leaders dared not express their stance too early but unanimously turned their gaze to Qin Kaixuan.
As the competition coach of Huihu, he was the only one who could have written those blackboard writings.
After He Antang nodded, Qin Kaixuan finally got the chance to speak out, with a look of hardship.
"Director He, I really... "
"Ah, today’s students are too cunning, really... I couldn’t have imagined it was like this..."
"To be honest, it was only after looking at your phone that I understood what was going on," Qin Kaixuan continued after a wry smile and scratching his head.
"I am terribly sorry, everyone... I am sowhat flabbergasted. Let explain, and then you will understand."
"Now, let describe what happened."
"Around 11:15 last night, I suddenly received a call from Director He, telling our school’s Yang Shaokui to delete all content from his QQ Monts."
"But Director He didn’t tell the reason and let see for myself."
"I called over Yang Shaokui, and we both didn’t understand it after looking at it for a long ti."
"It was almost 12 o’clock, and I didn’t dare to disturb Director He further, but I still followed his instructions, having Yang Shaokui delete all his Monts and even deregister his QQ account."
Hearing this, He Antang pointed at his phone and looked incredulously at Qin Kaixuan: "You’re saying you couldn’t understand?"
"Director He, please calm down, I completely understand you," Qin Kaixuan hurriedly raised his hand, "That’s what I an, today’s students are so crafty, please let continue."
"After deleting it, I originally planned to consult with you today."
"But then we went straight into the eting, and I’ve only just seen the information you provided."
"I guarantee with my personal integrity."
"All these screenshots are fake, Director."
"They are all fake."
The entire room gasped in shock, including He Antang himself.
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