I'm in a real religion, why are all the people who confess to me girls?

If it were said that Longyuan was plotting something, everyone could accept Longyuan's confident explanation. However, this special test that Longyuan was facing, despite its great potential, could never be separated from the question and answer.

This means that this special exam is a contest of intelligence and academic ability.

Ryuen's intelligence is among the best in the school, but when it comes to academic ability...

"What? You don't believe me?"

Ryuen could see the questioning looks in Ibuki's and Ishizaki's eyes.

"It's not that I don't believe you... well, Ryuen, what you're saying is really hard to believe. Do you really think we can win this special exam by playing some trick? You know, the stakes for this special exam are one-fifth of the class points... plus the challenge fee, if we fail the challenge and those guys from Class D figure out our challenge, we'll drop to Class D in no time. Are you sure you're okay? Hey, why are you all looking at me like that?"

After Ibuki finished her reasoned analysis, she saw everyone looking at her with incredulous eyes.

"Ibuki, have you been feeling unwell lately? Like, a headache or something..."

As Shiina spoke, he reached out to touch Ibuki's forehead, but Ibuki quickly dodged him.

"Hey! I've always been perfectly healthy. Why are you all suddenly acting so strangely? Did I say something wrong?"

"Ibuki, those words you just said don't sound like something you would say. Could someone have taught you to say that?"

"Long Yuan, what do you mean by that? Are you doubting me?"

Ryuen stroked his chin, unable to determine whether Ibuki had suddenly gained a brain or was being instructed to do so by someone with ulterior motives.

However, if we were to use the process of elimination, the first thing we would have to do is rule out the possibility that Ibuki has a brain. In other words, Ryuen would rather believe that Ibuki was instigated or turned by someone than believe that she could say such a logical and coherent thing.

"Wait a minute, put aside how Ibuki suddenly became so smart, I think what Ibuki said makes some sense. Everyone's personal points have shrunk drastically in the past few months, and I heard that some people are already relying on school aid to barely make ends meet..."

Before Ishizaki could finish speaking, Ryuen interrupted him with a gesture.

"Today is only the third day. On the first day of this month, we distributed more than 67,000 personal points. How could we rely on the school for relief after only three days? Where have you all spent your points?"

Ryuen glared angrily at Ishizaki, who, under Ryuen's questioning, looked somewhat guilty at Ibuki, but Ibuki turned her head away, clearly not intending to help Ishizaki explain the matter.

Ishizaki looked to Albert for help again, but only glanced at Ishizaki before looking away, as it would be difficult for Albert to explain.

"Let me explain. After you, Ryuen-kun, collected everyone's points to bribe Totsuka, everyone started borrowing money from acquaintances in other classes because they didn't have enough personal points. From what I've observed, it seems to be mostly people from Class B. After all, we're either fighting against Class D or having conflicts with Class A, so no one dares to borrow money from students in those two classes. So, they usually choose to borrow from Class B. Later, because so many people wanted to borrow, Class B even assigned someone to take charge of this matter. The person in charge is called Koenji Rokusuke, who is said to be the only son of the Koenji Zaibatsu. With the Koenji Zaibatsu's name, everyone can lend money with peace of mind..."

When Kaneda saw that Ryuen's gaze was becoming dangerous, he realized that his stalling tactics were not working. The reason he had been going on and on was to buy time so that he could give Ryuen an explanation that he could accept. However, under Ryuen's gaze, he chickened out and chose to confess.

"Gaoyuan Temple was very quick to lend money because it accrued interest, with a monthly interest rate of one-tenth of the principal. Initially, everyone borrowed only a few thousand to tens of thousands of yuan, with interest rates ranging from a few hundred to a thousand yuan, so no one paid much attention. But..."

Kaneda's words ended abruptly there.

Ryuen's brows furrowed at first, then slowly relaxed. However, it wasn't hard to imagine from the way he massaged his temples that Ryuen understood the meaning behind Kaneda's words.

Ryuen had gathered all the points in the class to reach the number Totsuka had quoted in order to bribe him, but later Totsuka cheated them. Although Ryuen recovered the principal and some compensation with the intervention of Amane, he did not return the points to everyone.

Everyone in Class C knew about this, but who dared to ask Longyuan for it? If it was just a month without points, it wouldn't really matter; they could just get through it by eating the free mountain vegetable meals provided by the school.

But this happened during winter break, and the school cafeteria was not serving food. In addition to supermarkets, all restaurants were closed, which made the students in Class C starving. Those who couldn't bear it any longer had no choice but to try to borrow some points from other classes.

However, Class A, which had just had a conflict, and Class D, which was already impoverished, had no way of lending them points. In the end, the students in Class C had no choice but to borrow money from Class B.

At first, the students in Class B only lent money privately. However, after discovering that the number of people borrowing money was increasing, Tenon prohibited students from lending points to other classes privately and instead put Koenji in charge of managing this matter.

Everyone originally thought that Koenji would be lazy and indifferent to such matters, or even disdain to deal with them at all. However, to everyone's surprise, Koenji actually changed his usual lazy ways and handled each personal point loan very seriously, even funding the loans himself.

Of course, this is why Koenji had such strong initiative after Tenon promised that all the loan proceeds would belong to him.

The winter break was finally over, and the training camp in the forest earned a lot of class points. However, the specific class points will not be updated until after the official start of the semester, which means that I can only get a little over 20,000 personal points each month for the next two months.

With the addition of events like Valentine's Day, the students in Class C were forced to live a life where they were broke by the beginning of each month.

This time, more than half of the participants used all of their 60,000+ points to pay off their previous debts.

If the class points can remain unchanged, then we just need to get through this month, and when we receive another 60,000+ individual points next month, Class C's financial situation will return to normal.

Therefore, what they fear most is that Longyuan will be too capricious in this special exam, resulting in them having to rely on mountain vegetable meals or take out loans to make ends meet.

The person responsible for all of this was none other than Ryuen, which is why Kaneda dared not directly explain the situation.

"Kinda, I'll transfer the points to you first. Go find Koenji and make sure to clear all the debts at once. Then, divide the rest equally among everyone."

Long Yuan certainly knew that his precious personal points would only be valuable if they were used together, but now that his classmates were struggling to even afford food, what use were these points that were far from enough to save even one person?

"Then this special exam..."

Shiina was also learning about this situation for the first time, and couldn't help but ask with some concern.

If everyone is facing financial difficulties, then no one should be careless in special exams.

This would only push the class's dissatisfaction with Ryuen to its peak. Even if they won the special exam, they wouldn't be grateful to Ryuen; instead, they would only think that Ryuen had just gambled correctly, and that there would always be a time when he gambled wrong.

When everyone participates in the special exam with this mindset, if they actually encounter a situation where Longyuan fails, then everyone will immediately become Longyuan's enemy.

Offering help in times of need is not something everyone can do, but kicking someone when they're down...

“I understand what you mean, Shiina, but I’ve decided to do it my way.”

Since Ryuen had made up his mind, Shiina couldn't say anything more. After all, Ryuen was still the leader of the class, so all Shiina, as a member of Class C, could do was to fill in the gaps in her knowledge.

"So, Ryuen, what kind of difficult problem will you present as the question for the special exam?"

Upon hearing Shiina's question, Ryuen first sneered, then picked up the chalk, walked to the podium, and wrote down a math problem that couldn't be simpler.

"What are you doing, Dragon Garden! Are you playing us for fools?"

The moment Ibuki saw the question, she couldn't help but voice her doubts. In her opinion, if the goal was to stump the bookworms in Class D, the question should at least be one that she couldn't understand at all. But the question that Ryuen wrote on the blackboard was not only easy for her to understand, but it was also so simple that it felt like child's play.

"Ibuki, you seem to have gotten quite bold lately, daring to speak to me in such a tone. I'm curious who gave you this confidence? Is it Miyako? Or someone else? Since you think this question is so simple, why don't you tell me the answer? You wouldn't... not be able to answer it, would you?"

Ryuen, with a smug look on his face, provoked Ibuki.

Ibuki blurted out the answer without thinking.

For a moment, everyone's eyes turned to Ryuen, because the question was very simple and everyone knew the answer. Ibuki's answer was completely correct.

So what else does Longyuan have to say?

"Ha, I almost thought you'd gotten smarter. Are you really sure the answer is the one you said?"

"Is not it?"

"A test that puts the class's points at stake, do you think I'm joking with you? I'll ask you one more time, are you sure your answer is correct?"

"..."

When Ibuki saw Ryuen's teasing gaze, she suddenly felt a little insecure. But no matter how she looked at the questions on the blackboard, they were the kind that anyone who had been to kindergarten could answer.

How could her answer be wrong?

No, what if the solution isn't as simple as she thinks? This problem is worth over a hundred class points, which translates to over ten thousand individual points. If a class has forty students, that's over four hundred thousand individual points per month.

Even if Longyuan were having a mental breakdown, it wouldn't be worth giving away so many points to Class D for nothing...

"It should be correct, right?"

"sure?"

Ryuen's eyes, which seemed to see right through people, sent a chill down Ibuki's spine. What was the answer to this question?

"I understand, Ryuen-kun. You want to do the opposite of what's expected. You set up this question because the other party can't believe that the correct answer is so simple, right?"

Shiina was the first to react.

Seeing that someone finally understood his thoughts, Long Yuan put away his terrifying expression.

"Just like you think, this method is completely useless against hotheads, but against those bookworms... Hmph, the more they think they're smart, the more likely they are to fall for it."

"But this method has a fatal problem."

Shiina's next words piqued Ryuen's interest.

"What do you think."

"Although you can try to fool them and make them think that their answer is wrong, even if they want to fail, they still have to give an answer, otherwise the fee they paid to participate in the challenge will be wasted. So when the time for the question and answer is approaching, even if they feel insecure, they will find an acceptable answer as their final answer. And your question is too simple, so it is easy for them to guess the correct answer with their 'take a gamble' mentality!"

Long Yuan pondered for a moment and couldn't help but nod.

"That is indeed a problem, but I will find a way to solve it. However, the overall approach will still revolve around this issue. Ibuki and Ishizaki, you two won't be needed for this special exam. You can take advantage of your free time to visit Class D, but be careful not to overstep your bounds, understand?"

Although Ryuen knew that Shiina was right, he had no intention of changing the question; everything would revolve around this naive question.

Meanwhile, Ryuen plans to find weaknesses in Class D before the special exam begins, or to demoralize Class D.

If Ichinose were still around, Ryuen wouldn't have let Ibuki and Ishizaki run into trouble, but now...

Without Ichinose, Class D is nothing. Once known as a united class with the strongest defense in the entire grade, it is now as fragile as paper.

Long Yuan even felt that if he got serious, he could kick that paper-thin class to the ground with one kick.

However, Ryuen believes that now is not the time to do so. On the one hand, his current enemies are actually Class A and Class B. It's just that this time he turned his attention to the weak Class D in order to sit back and watch the tigers fight. After this special exam, no matter which class, Class A or Class B, fails, Ryuen Sho wouldn't mind picking up the pieces. After all, no one is better at kicking someone when they're down than him.

Chapter 169: Are you crazy?

"Teacher Hoshinomiya just explained this special exam in detail, and the handbooks that were distributed also provided. What are everyone's thoughts on this?"

Unlike the other classes where discussions about the special exams were lively, the atmosphere in Class D could only be described as lifeless.

Kanzaki looked around the classroom and found that no one wanted to discuss the special exam. The reason was simple: this special exam was not really related to Class D. If the school hadn't mandated that every class participate, Class D wouldn't have even planned to take the exam.

Because this special exam has a challenge fee, and Class D already has zero points, they are afraid of being penalized to a negative number and have no intention of paying the so-called challenge fee, not to mention that failing the challenge would result in a large number of points being deducted.

No matter how you look at it, this is not a game that Class D can afford to play right now. But this special exam seems to have anticipated that a class like Class D with zero points wouldn't be very motivated, so they specially invented the term 'special exam points'.

Classes with zero points will receive 100 special exam points as a bonus. Of course, even if these special exam points cannot be used for other purposes, the school will not generously give them away for free.

The penalty is that if a question set by the class is successfully challenged by the other side, one student will be expelled as punishment.

Furthermore, it seems that considering the fact that 100 special exam points are insufficient for a class like Class D, additional services have been added.

All classes can purchase special exam points, with a minimum purchase of fifty points. For every fifty points purchased, one student will be expelled if another class successfully challenges their class.

If the class has already fallen to the bottom, it would be too tragic to be expelled.

So when Kanzaki spoke, everyone fell silent.

Standing on the podium, Kanzaki looked down at the rows of students below, their heads bowed and unwilling to meet his gaze, and a deep sense of powerlessness enveloped his heart.

He had originally hoped to turn things around in this exam, but before the special exam even officially started, everyone in the class was already thinking of hiding their heads in fear.

This dampened his enthusiasm.

"I know what everyone is thinking, but this exam doesn't allow us to back down. Since we have to participate, it's better to go all out than to cower and get defeated by others..."

Kanzaki recalled the image of Ichinose encouraging everyone back then, but before he could finish speaking, he was ruthlessly interrupted.

"If we fail, will Kanzaki-san take responsibility for dropping out of school?"

It was Ninomiya who asked that question.

Wearing a mask, Ninomiya calmly met Kanzaki's surprised gaze.

A simple question stumped Kanzaki.

The answer is, of course, no. It's impossible for a class leader to take responsibility and drop out of school after failing. If someone did, they would undoubtedly be the most foolish type.

Perhaps there are people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for their comrades, like Hirata, but Hirata is a very rare exception.

Not everyone can be so selfless in their dedication to the class.

Seeing Kanzaki speechless, Ninomiya laughed from below the stage, and the laughter grew louder and louder until it even seemed a bit manic.

However, no one could blame Ninomiya for anything. In everyone's opinion, the best option for Kanzaki to take the consequences of being expelled from school was to take responsibility for the exam, as this would maximize everyone's morale.

But Kanzaki was the least likely to let himself be expelled from school.

Although Kanzaki is currently a member of Class D, with his grades, getting into a good university shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Moreover, although he is in Class D, he is now the leader of the class. Being a class leader is a bonus, and he just needs to graduate safely without taking any risks.

This is why Kanzaki previously chose to hide behind Ichinose and offer advice, and even when he had the opportunity to take her place, he still supported Ichinose.

He wanted to prove his worth, but proving his excellence wasn't the top priority for Kanzaki, which led him to be quite weak in many things.

It's not that Kanzaki is inferior to other class leaders; purely in terms of intelligence, Kanzaki would easily be in the top ten of the entire grade. However, his hesitant and indecisive personality destined him to be unable to become an excellent class leader.

Faced with Ninomiya's provocation, Kanzaki could not think of a single rebuttal besides his face turning ashen, leaving Shibata below sighing in dismay.

It wasn't that Shibata didn't want to step up and lead the class, but his performance in the preferential treatment exam had caused the entire class to collapse. Not only was his reputation ruined, but people's doubts about him still remained.

That's why, after discussing it with Kanzaki, Kanzaki took the lead in Class D.

But... Kanzaki looks like this...

"Ugh."