I, the spiritual mentor of beautiful girls from all over the world

This ability to control people's hearts transcends mere teaching skills; it's more like an art.

Even the seemingly perfect, popular Hayato Hayama sensed this incredible change.

He wore his usual sunny smile, but his eyes held a deep interest.

As a professional peacemaker, he knew how difficult it was to get two girls who were at odds to coexist peacefully, and the scene before him was like magic.

In this peaceful yet curious atmosphere, the door to the activity room was suddenly pushed open.

A female student from the Executive Committee's accounting team rushed in, panting, her face full of panic, clutching a crumpled report tightly in her hand.

"Yukinoshita-san! W-something's wrong!"

"Calm down, what happened?" Yukino Yukinoshita put down her teacup, her voice still cold, trying to stabilize the situation.

"The sponsorship...the sponsorship is in trouble!" The accounting girl slammed the report on the table, her fingers trembling slightly with fear. She pointed to the first line, her voice trembling with tears.

"I just received a call. 'Chiba Village Bakery,' as well as the three beverage sponsors we contacted... they... they all withdrew their sponsorships citing 'rising raw material costs'! In total... it's 500,000 yen!"

"What?!" Yui Yuigahama exclaimed in surprise. "How could this happen? We had an agreement!"

Yukino Yukinoshita frowned slightly.

Although the shortfall of 500,000 is troublesome, it is still within a controllable range and can be filled by cutting some unnecessary expenses.

She was about to speak to comfort everyone when the accountant girl's next words struck them like a heavy hammer.

"And...and more!" The girl's voice trembled even more as she pointed to the middle line of the report, her eyes filled with disbelief.

"'Sato Heavy Industries'...they...they sponsored one million yen for stage construction, and just now, they cancelled it, citing 'internal budget adjustments within the group'!"

one million!

This number made the air in the entire activity room freeze instantly.

Yui Yuigahama's face turned deathly pale.

They had been preparing diligently and full of anticipation for almost a month, so why did this happen at this crucial juncture?

Overwhelmed by resentment, she instinctively reached out and grabbed the only thing beside her that offered her a semblance of reality—not the Shiba Inu plush toy in her arms, but the cool, slender hand of the girl sitting next to her.

Kasugano Sora's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.

She didn't like this sudden, flustered touch.

But when she turned her head and saw Yui Yuigahama's bloodless, red-rimmed, and helpless face, her hand, which was about to be pulled back, stopped inexplicably.

Hayato Hayama's sunny smile vanished completely, replaced by a solemn expression.

Hachiman Hikigaya narrowed his dead fish eyes slightly; he had already smelled a rotten stench of "conspiracy."

This was no accident; it was a premeditated and precise sniping.

Yukino Yukinoshita's face had turned somewhat pale.

Just as she was about to say something, the accounting girl seemed to have all her strength drained away. In an almost dreamlike, trembling voice, she uttered the final judgment that was enough to crush everyone's nerves.

"with...and..."

“Our biggest sponsor… Chiba Bank…”

"They...they provided that...that total sponsorship of twenty million..."

The girl's voice grew softer and softer until finally, as if she had lost all her strength, she slumped into the chair, repeating the number with a blank stare.

"...and...it's all gone..."

Twenty million!

This number, like a nuclear bomb detonated at absolute zero, instantly froze the entire room.

It was so large that it lost its sense of reality, becoming an absurd, fantastical disaster capable of completely erasing the concept of a high school festival.

Just as the entire activity room fell into dead silence, and even the sound of breathing disappeared.

"Jingle Bell--!"

The old landline phone in the activity room suddenly and sharply rang, like a death knell shattering the silence.

Everyone was like a startled puppet, stiffly turning their heads to look at the phone.

Yukino Yukinoshita took a deep breath, forced herself to stand up, and answered the phone with trembling hands.

"Hello, this is the Soubu High School Festival Executive Committee..."

"Yukinoshita-san? I'm the student council president of Seaside Comprehensive High School." A polite but clearly questioning voice came from the other end of the phone.

"I just heard that your school festival sponsorship has run into serious problems this year, with even Chiba Bank withdrawing its funding? Will our joint event between the two schools be affected?"

Yukino Yukinoshita's lips moved, but she couldn't utter a single word.

How could the news spread so fast?!

Before she could answer, Hayato Hayama's phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID, his expression changed, and he walked to a corner to answer it.

"Hello, yes, I'm Hayama from Soubu High School... Um, I know, we're handling this..."

Immediately afterwards, the accountant's phone rang!

In an instant, three phone calls, like three sharp swords, pierced the heart of the General Military High Executive Committee from different directions.

The entire activity room was filled with a cacophony of suppressed explanations and the other party's blunt questioning.

This is no longer just a simple matter of funding.

This is a public execution.

When Yukino Yukinoshita hung up the phone in a daze, she saw Hayama walk back with a serious expression.

"It was Yang Nai who made it." Ye Shan's voice carried a hint of helplessness.

"She not only withdrew the sponsorship, but also leaked the news to all related parties immediately."

That's the cruelest part.

She not only wants you to lose, but she wants you to lose in a way that is known to all and makes you lose face completely.

Just then, Yukino Yukinoshita's own phone screen lit up.

It wasn't a phone call, but a text message.

Sender: [Sister]

The message, consisting of only one sentence, was like a poisoned dagger that, after subjecting her to a slow and agonizing death, precisely pierced her heart.

[Yukino-chan, I heard you guys are in trouble? If you need any help, feel free to ask me anytime, just like when we were kids. ^_^]

That smiley face symbol was full of undisguised, condescending mockery.

!!!

All the vague guesses were confirmed at this moment.

A deep, suffocating sense of powerlessness instantly gripped Yukino Yukinoshita's heart.

Faced with that woman's absolute power, his so-called "perfection" and "effort" were nothing but a laughable and presumptuous joke.

She bit her lip hard, her knuckles turning white from the force.

Once again, a fragile vulnerability, utterly shattered and on the verge of collapse, surfaced in those usually cool and aloof eyes.

She slowly picked up her phone, her trembling fingers almost clicking on the contact she least wanted to see.

"Hey, Yukinoshita."

A calm, almost cold voice suddenly rang out.

It's Hikigaya Hachiman.

His rotten, dead fish eyes were unusually bright at this moment, containing no sympathy, only a sharpness that confronted the problem head-on.

"If you give in to her now, it's like admitting that all your previous efforts were a joke. Are you willing to accept that?"

Yukino Yukinoshita's movements suddenly froze.

"But... what else can we do?" Yui Yuigahama asked, her voice trembling with tears, as she looked at everyone in despair.

Panic solves nothing.

Yukino Yukinoshita took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the surging emotions in her heart, and transformed back into the ever-correct "Snow Queen".

She put down her phone, looked around at everyone, and although her voice was still trembling slightly, her logic returned.

"Now, we're holding an emergency meeting. We'll list all the solutions we can think of to address the funding gap."

Hayato Hayama was the first to speak. He mustered his spirits and tried to solve the problem in the way he was best at.

“I immediately contacted my father and several other uncles I knew who worked for other companies to see if we could secure emergency sponsorship. Although time was tight, we had to give it a try!”

"It's no use." Hachiman Hikigaya poured cold water on the situation.

"If Chiba Bank could change its mind at the last minute, do you think Yukinoshita Haruno would leave you such an obvious backdoor?"

“Every call you make now will only result in a polite rejection, and in the process, it will spread the word about our predicament even further.”

Ye Shan's face turned pale, but he couldn't refute it.

“…Then…then we’ll figure it out ourselves!” Yui Yuigahama came up with a quick idea.

"We can hold a pre-sale event, or launch a crowdfunding campaign online! Everyone is so looking forward to the school festival, they'll definitely support us!"

"Crowdfunding online?" Hachiman Hikigaya glanced at her with his dead fish eyes, his tone full of merciless sarcasm.

"You expect those complete strangers on the internet to donate to the Soubu High School Festival, which is known as an 'elite public school'? Don't be naive. We'll be lucky if they don't come and laugh at us for 'why don't they eat cake'."

Yuihama's face fell instantly, and she was speechless.

The air in the activity room seemed to have solidified into lead, so heavy that it was hard to breathe.

"Hachiman is right."

Yukino's gaze swept across the room, and finally, she seemed to have made up her mind, proposing a suggestion that went a step further than all the previous plans, but was also more dangerous.

“Since the external paths are blocked, we can only look for solutions internally.” Her voice was soft, but every word struck a chord in everyone’s hearts.

"Sobu High School is a very special public high school." Yukino Yukinoshita's tone was calm, but she was stating an undeniable fact.

"Its history and exceptionally high deviation value attract the best students from the entire Chiba Prefecture and even the surrounding areas."

"This naturally includes those truly privileged family scions who disdain ordinary private schools. Therefore, Soubu High School... is never short of students from wealthy families."

“We could try… launching a ‘special fundraising’ campaign for their families and promising to give the donating families a public, high-profile thank you at the closing ceremony of the school festival.”

This suggestion stunned everyone.

This is no longer a simple plea for help; it's an attempt to use "reputation" as a bargaining chip.

However, after only three seconds of silence, Hachiman Hikigaya pointed out the most fatal flaw in the plan in an even colder tone, as if he were dissecting a corpse.

"So, shall we now begin the auction of the 'Service Department's Appreciation'?"

He raised his dead fish eyes and stared directly at Yukino Yukinoshita.

"This is worse than begging for mercy directly, Yukinoshita."

"Beg for mercy, and you will only lose your own dignity."

"And with this plan, you are overdrawing the credibility of the entire Executive Committee, and even the General Staff High."

(Qian Wang's) "Putting 'gratitude' on a price tag will only make us seem cheaper."

"And how do you plan to price it? One thank you for a donation of one million, five thank yous for a donation of five million?"

"Such unquantifiable transactions will only bring endless trouble and contempt."

Hikigaya's words were like a scalpel, precisely dissecting the last shred of dignity and feasibility in Yukinoshita's proposal.

Yes, in essence, this is still a more sophisticated form of begging, using "reputation" as collateral.

Three options, three approaches, and even the "internal exploration" option, which was closest to the core, was proven to be a dead end.

The nascent flame of hope was extinguished by the fierce winds of reality.

The activity room fell into an even heavier, more despairing silence than before.

This time, it's truly... a dead end.