School Beauty Accuses Our Class of Cheating Chapter 08
The police car drove away with its lights flashing. Pearl sat in the backseat, curling herself into a ball.
The parents still refused to give up. They surrounded the principal and teachers, unwilling to leave. Some offered cigarettes to curry favor. Others wiped away tears, trying to gain sympathy. They were all asking for the same thing.
“Can they be given another chance?”
On the other side of the school gate, the media crew who had originally set up their equipment to interview the first student to walk out of the exam hall caught wind of the incident and rushed over in a massive crowd.
Their cameras were practically shoved into the students’ faces.
“Is it true that your entire class pretended to be exam substitutes?”
“Why did you frame your teacher and your class president? Did you have some kind of conflict with them before?”
“Do you realize you’ve become the biggest scandal of this year’s college entrance exam? What was your purpose? Were you trying to stand out?”
One girl had a microphone jabbed near her chin and immediately burst into tears.
The reporters’ questions, the parents’ angry roars, and the students’ desperate cries all collided at once, turning the school gate into a chaotic mess.
I shouldered my backpack and quietly slipped away through the crowd. No one even noticed I was gone.
That night, every major news outlet rushed to report the incident. Sensational headlines dominated the trending lists.
[Top Honors Class Arrived Late, Claimed Exam Substitutes and Brought Police Investigation]
[Entire Class Missed College Entrance Exam, Distinguished Teacher Collapsed in Shock]
[Behind the Exam Day Scandal: Who Spoiled These Top Students?]
On television, education experts shook their heads in disappointment.
“This is a typical product of distorted achievement worship. These students have been given special treatment their entire lives because they performed well academically. They have lost even the most basic understanding of social rules.
“What’s even more frightening is the distortion of their mindset. Almost none of them believed they were doing anything wrong in this entire incident.”
My classmates who had once walked around with their heads held high wherever they went now did not even dare step outside. Only a few wore masks and protective gear to finish their remaining exams.
Still, even when they sat inside the exam hall, they were a nervous wreck, shaken by every little thing. Their results were no surprise.
I never paid attention to the news. After returning home, I packed my bag and bought a ticket to Lhasa.
I sat inside a beverage shop on Barkhor Street. The sunlight on the plateau was bright and scorching. An elder walked past slowly, turning prayer beads in his hand. The murmured prayers drifted through the air, quiet yet endless.
The weight that had been pressing against my heart for so long suddenly disappeared.
I returned on the day the exam results were released. Ms. Zane called me. “Vivian, everyone in the class failed except you…”
She let out a long sigh. Her voice sounded exhausted and aged. “They all scored a zero on one subject. To be honest, we all knew this was how it would end.”
