What's wrong with me, a school principal, listening to students' suggestions?

"Can the classroom fit them all?"

Lin Yucai spoke with a smile.

"Our school has quite a few unused buildings; if we clean them up, we should be able to create a lot of new classrooms."

Su Qingyan pulled out a floor plan and pointed with her right hand,

"This building has always been used as faculty and staff dormitory, but it only occupies one floor. It could easily be renovated into classrooms."

"Renovation," Lin Yucai said without hesitation. "Money is not a problem."

Su Qingyan glanced at him and suddenly laughed: "I've heard that sentence of yours no less than twenty times in the past six months."

"Never mind all that, just tell me if it works or not."

Su Qingyan couldn't help but laugh at him, and looked down to flip through the documents. A strand of hair slipped down from behind her ear and fell onto the summary sheet.

She reached out to put it away, still holding the pen in her hand, but couldn't quite manage it after a couple of tries.

"Have some water, you've been busy all afternoon."

Lin Yucai casually pushed the glass of warm water that had just cooled down on the corner of the table in front of her.

Su Qingyan was taken aback for a moment before taking the cup.

The temperature of the cup traveled up my fingertips, neither too hot nor too cold, just right.

She looked up and met Lin Yucai's face, which was unpredictable yet unusually serious.

The two looked at each other for a second, but neither of them spoke.

Su Qingyan looked away first, her ears burning slightly, and she lowered her head to take a sip of water to cover it up.

"Take a good look at your list."

She put the cup down, her voice a little softer than before.

Lin Yucai smiled, didn't expose him, and buried his head back in flipping through the stack of registration forms.

The only sounds in the office were the rustling of papers and the faint laughter drifting in from outside the window.

The sunlight slanted between the two laptops, illuminating the swirling dust particles clearly.

That afternoon, they didn't mention Liu Jianguo, the college entrance exam, or the meeting on July 10th.

They kept an ever-growing stack of lists, carefully typing the name of every child who was willing to come into the form.

……

At six o'clock in the evening, the system panel lit up briefly in the corner of Lin Yucai's field of vision.

[Recruitment targets have been exceeded; hidden progress continues to accumulate.]

[High-quality students have been detected actively seeking opportunities, triggering additional evaluation.]

Lin Yucai's heart skipped a beat. He looked at the panel closely, but nothing else popped up.

He didn't think much of it, assuming the system was accumulating something big.

He turned off the panel, stretched, and his bones cracked.

"Let's go eat." He stood up. "Zhou Dahai said he added braised pork to the meals for the kids who registered today, let's have some too."

Su Qingyan closed her notebook and picked up the half-finished glass of warm water: "Okay, but let's get this straight, don't put the blame for this braised pork on me again."

"Put it on my tab, put it on my tab." Lin Yucai waved his hand, "When have I ever asked you to pay anything?"

The two left the office one after the other.

At the end of the corridor, the setting sun bathed the entire passageway in a warm yellow light.

Meanwhile, at the other end of this warm yellow light, on the other side of the city, the lights in the No. 1 High School's admissions office have been deserted for several days.

……

The admissions office of No. 1 High School is usually the busiest place in the city at this time of year.

Parents lined up all the way to the stairwell, teachers' voices were hoarse from talking, and stacks of registration forms piled up.

This year is different.

Old Zhou sat behind the front desk of the admissions office, the thick registration book in front of him had only had three lines added in the entire morning.

Three lines.

On the same morning last year, he registered until his hand cramped up.

The two rows of brand-new reception chairs in the lobby were empty, and even the cleaning lady slowed down her mopping, making the whole space seem particularly deserted.

"Hello, parents, are you here to inquire about registering your child?"

A middle-aged woman led a child in, and Old Zhou's eyes lit up. He quickly put on a smile and stood up.

"I'm just... here to take a look around."

The woman glanced at the deserted hall, then looked at the promotional photos of the school on the wall, and hesitated before speaking.

"What was your child's score? What are the cutoff scores for the top high school this year...?"

"598".

Old Zhou was overjoyed; this score was more than enough to get him into the top class at No. 1 Middle School.

"That's more than enough! You should register quickly; there are spots in our honors class..."

"Hey, don't rush." ​​The woman interrupted him, tugging at the child's hand beside her. "The child wants to go to No. 13 Middle School, and I'm here today to compare them."

Old Zhou's smile froze.

A student who scored 598 points wants to go to No. 13 Middle School?

"Parents, you..." Old Zhou was a little anxious, "No. 13 Middle School is the worst school in the city, with the lowest college entrance rate. You can't let it ruin your child's future."

"Teacher, the results for this year's college entrance examination at No. 13 Middle School haven't been released yet, how do you know we're near the bottom?"

Before the woman could speak, the fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy next to her raised his head.

Old Zhou was speechless at this question.

"My cousin is in No. 13 Middle School, and he improved his score by more than 50 points in the midterm exam."

The boy continued, "He said that the teachers at that school manage you, they manage the student as a person, not like..."

Before he could finish speaking, his mother patted him, and the boy shut up.

But Lao Zhou understood that half-sentence.

Unlike No. 1 High School, which only cares about grades and not people.

The woman thanked her politely and left with her child.

Old Zhou stood there, watching the mother and child disappear at the bottom of the stairs, and didn't sit back down for a long time.

He had worked in student recruitment at the No. 1 High School for over a decade, and this was the first time he had truly experienced what it meant to be unable to retain students.

……

This scene quickly reached Qian Wenhua's ears.

"A kid from 598 is going to No. 13 Middle School?"

After hearing this, Qian Wenhua put the pen in his hand on the table, and the nib was dented.

"What kind of bewitching potion did Lin Yucai give these kids?"

Old Zhou from the admissions office, sitting at the lower end of the table, dared not utter a sound.

Qian Wenhua stood up and paced around the office twice, his face growing increasingly grim with each pace.

He figured something out.

All the fancy things Lin Yucai has done in the past six months—free cafeteria, air-conditioned dormitories, e-sports arena, new school uniforms—are nothing special on their own.

But when all these things are put together and amplified by short videos, they become a network.

This net covers precisely the softest part of a child's heart.

Parents want their children to have a better life, and children want to be treated as human beings.

No. 1 High School can't provide this.

All the school can offer is a cold "It's for your own good" and a schedule that runs until 10 p.m.

"Principal Qian, how about we implement some employee benefits?" Old Zhou finally blurted out, "Install air conditioning, renovate the cafeteria?"

"What are you going to change?" Qian Wenhua turned around and glared at him. "How much would it cost to eat a free meal in the cafeteria of No. 1 Middle School, which seats 800 people? How many students does Lin Yucai's school even have?"

"Besides, we're a top-tier high school; we rely on grades, not on serving others!"

That's what he said, but Qian Wenhua wasn't sure about it.

He was well aware that the prestige of No. 1 Middle School was declining.

……

In fact, Qian Wenhua's calculations were not just about saving face.

The ranking of key high schools is directly linked to annual government funding and enrollment quotas.

A higher rating means millions more in funding, and teachers' performance evaluations and school projects all depend on this.

What do ratings look at?

Look at the rate of students admitted to top-tier universities, the quality of the student body, and the size of the student body.

If a quarter of the student body is lost, all three of these factors will decline.

Even more critically, Qian Wenhua and Liu Jianguo were connected through another connection.