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

Chen Yu was not at school.

She went home the day before yesterday and said she would come back after the results were released.

She was squatting in the corner of her balcony, the light from her phone screen shining on her face.

The progress bar on the score inquiry page is stuck at 67% and won't move.

In the living room, her mother was mopping the floor, muttering, "It doesn't matter how many points you get on the test, Mom won't blame you," but she rubbed the mop back and forth on the same tile eight times.

Sixty-eight percent.

seventy.

Seventy-five.

The page jumped briefly, then went blank.

Then, the scores were released.

Chinese: 118.

Mathematics: 96.

English: 101.

Science score: 189.

Total score: 504.

Chen Yu stared at that number.

504.

The system predicted 502, but the actual score was 504, a difference of two points.

It's worse than high.

Her eyes welled up the moment she saw "504".

The admission score for the Chinese Language and Literature major at Tomato Provincial Normal University was 489 last year.

She scored fifteen points more.

The phone slipped from my hand and hit the tiles on the balcony.

"Mom," she called out, her voice cracking.

The mop noise stopped.

Her mother peeked out from the living room and saw her daughter squatting on the balcony, covering her face, her shoulders trembling.

"Rain? What's wrong?" Her mother, still in her slippers, ran over barefoot. "Didn't do well on the test? It's okay, Mom won't..."

"Mom." Chen Yu looked up, her face covered in tears, but her mouth stretched into a wide grin. "I got 504 on the test."

"I can go to teachers' college now."

Her mother stood there, still clutching the mop.

Three seconds later, the mop fell to the ground with a thud, and her mother pulled Chen Yu into her arms.

The two of them squatted on the balcony, hugged each other, and cried their hearts out.

Hearing the noise, the neighbor peeked out and asked, "What's wrong?" but no one answered.

"Mom, I have to go to school."

After crying for a full five minutes, Chen Yu finally crawled out of her mother's arms, wiped her face, and snot smeared all over her sleeve.

"Where are you going?"

"Go and thank the principal."

Chen Yu rushed into the bedroom and pulled out the brand-new No. 13 Middle School uniform from the closet.

As she put on her school uniform, she glanced at herself in the mirror.

His eyes were swollen like walnuts, his nose was red, and his hair was a mess like a bird's nest.

But she felt she had never looked this good.

……

12:15.

The dormitory building of No. 13 Middle School was completely destroyed.

The corridor was filled with a mixture of screams, cries, and laughter.

Some people ran barefoot from their dorm room into the hallway and jumped, some hugged their roommates and spun around in circles, and some cried while making phone calls.

"Mom! I passed the first-tier university entrance exam! First-tier university!"

"Dad, did you hear that! Five hundred and thirty! Your son is five hundred and thirty!"

"Holy crap, Chen Bowen, that bastard, actually got 490! Isn't he a fan of esports?"

Chen Bowen was sitting on the edge of his dormitory bed, holding his phone, his expression as complicated as if he had finally relieved himself after being constipated for three days.

491.

The cutoff score for the first-tier university is 487.

He passed.

It exceeded the limit by four points.

The online system is so tight, every extra point is too little, and every minute too little is fatal.

"Brother Bowen! You passed the first book!" Zhang Yang and the others sat on either side of Chen Bowen, their faces filled with disbelief.

As teammates who had participated in internet cafe leagues together, they never expected Chen Bowen to be so incredibly lucky.

"I know."

Chen Bowen turned off his phone screen, threw it on his pillow, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

He tried his best to maintain his usual nonchalant expression, but the redness at the base of his ears was impossible to hide.

"Brother Bowen, are you pretending to be an expert by not saying anything?" Skinny Monkey rushed over to hug him.

"Get lost." Chen Bowen slapped him away and stood up.

"Bowen, you've changed. What happened to our promise to go through thick and thin together?"

Upon seeing this, the skinny monkey collapsed onto the bed, looking utterly pitiful.

Chen Bowen ignored the school uniform on the bedside table, tied it around his waist, put on his shoes, and walked out.

"Where are you going?"

"Find Principal Lin."

"what?"

When Chen Bowen reached the dormitory door, he paused for a moment and squeezed out a sentence from his throat.

"We should... say thank you to him."

When he walked out of the dormitory building, a lot of people had already gathered on the playground.

Some were making phone calls to share good news, some were huddled together in small groups looking at their phones, and some were sitting on the grass laughing loudly.

The July sun beat down relentlessly, making people feel scorching hot, but no one wanted to seek shade.

These kids have been waiting for this day for far too long.

……

12:30.

The news went viral online.

The first thing to spread was a post on WeChat Moments by students from No. 13 Middle School.

"Our school's first-tier university admission rate is 60%! Third in the city!" The accompanying image is a screenshot of a results page.

"No. 13 Middle School, awesome!"

Hundreds of comments flooded the comment section instantly.

"No. 13 Middle School? Which No. 13 Middle School? Isn't it the one at the bottom of the rankings?"

"Is this for real? Last year it was only 5%, this year it's 60%? Are you writing an online novel?"

"It's not fake. My cousin is from No. 13 Middle School. He just checked his scores and he passed the first-tier university admission line."

"You forcibly controlled me for thirty seconds? What kind of outrageous plot is this?"

By 1 p.m., local news outlets couldn't sit still any longer.

"[Breaking News] Tomato City No. 13 Middle School achieved record-breaking results in the 2018 college entrance examination, with an undergraduate pass rate of 91.9% and a first-tier university pass rate of 60.1%, ranking third in the city, second only to Tomato City No. 1 Middle School and Tomato City Experimental Middle School."

The official account of the Tomato City Media Convergence Center was the first to release a breaking news report.

"The school's undergraduate enrollment rate was only 5% last year, but it has increased nearly 18 times in one year, making it the biggest dark horse in the history of education in Tomato City."

The comment section exploded.

Within two hours, the news was forwarded more than 30,000 times and received over 10,000 comments.

"Eighteen times?? Did their school add 'smart water' to the cafeteria food?"

"I looked into this school. Their principal only took office six months ago? Eighteen times the growth in six months? What kind of principal is this?"

"No, is this reasonable? Can any education experts come forward to explain?"

"I don't know if it's reasonable or not, but I do know one thing... the first-tier high school's first-tier university admission rate this year is only 63%."

"The percentage of No. 13 Middle School is 60.1%, just two or three percentage points short."

"Is the percentage of students admitted to top-tier universities by No. 1 High School (which selects 800 top students) the same as the percentage admitted to top-tier universities by No. 13 High School (which admits students with lower scores)?"

This comment was pushed to the top.

Below are all "666" and "indeed".

When the news reached No. 1 Middle School, Qian Wenhua had just returned from a meeting of principals.

He slammed the office door shut, making the windows shake.

The No. 13 Middle School not only did not rank at the bottom, but instead broke into the top three in the city.

His statement, "Let the bullets fly for a while," now seems like a joke.

After waiting and waiting, the result I least wanted to see came.

Qian Wenhua stood by the window, staring intently at the deserted admissions building outside, without moving for a long time.