966 Better At Everything
The other students reacted negatively to Li Yue’s words, and they wasted no time making it known.

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting, Li Yue? Yao Ran’s grades have always been excellent. There’s no way she would score lower than you.”

“Right. Don’t push it, Li Yue. Everyone knows that you sleep in class and slack off with homework. Yao Ran, on the other hand, is studious and hardworking. How can you accuse her of having a worse score? Stop trying to pick trouble with Yao Ran.”

Li Yue sneered. “Well, she shouldn’t have any qualms about telling us her score, then. I already said mine is 560, so how bad can it be? I’ll still be at the bottom of the ranking.”

Yao Ran’s face darkened even more when she heard what the others had to say.

They were so adamant about defending her, but the truth was that her score was indeed lower than Li Yue’s. By ten points, no less.

“I don’t want to tell you my score,” she told them. “You guys carry on with your conversation. I’m going out to get some air.”

A bewildered hush fell on her classmates as they watched Yao Ran exit the classroom. With her suspicions nagging at her at the back of her mind, Li Yue finally walked up to Zhang Ting. “Teacher, you must know what Yao Ran’s score is, right? How many points did she get?”

The woman frowned. The thing was, even she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw Yao Ran’s score. She had even called around and asked a few people to see if there had been a mistake, but the figure was accurate.

Zhang Ting sighed before saying, “550 points.”

“What?!” Li Yue burst out. “550 points? How is that even possible? How did Yao Ran get such a bad score?”

They were an elite class, where the majority of the students scored above 600 points. 550 points might have gone over better in the other classes, but here, it was at the bottom of the ranking.

A buzz circled the room as the students discussed their disbelief. As for Li Yue, she let out a loud and unreserved laugh.

“See, what did I tell you? Yao Ran refused to tell us because her score is so low!” She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Ah, I never thought a day would come when even the humble me would best the great Yao Ran.”

“Don’t cross the line, Li Yue,” an annoyed student snapped. “Yao Ran was probably going through something during the exams. We all know this isn’t like her at all.”+

Yao Ran had never scored below 650 points, regardless of what kind of test it was. Though the college entrance exams had been a little more difficult than they had anticipated, they were still expecting her to score at least 620 points.

But 550 points? Nobody had ever dared to imagine that.

Yao Ran all but fled the room in a panic. It was true that she had been frazzled during the exams, and it was because her valuable contact had suddenly disappeared. That mysterious person had left her a million yuan, saying that it should be enough to get her through college. She had been told that he would return once she graduated with a degree, and that she was expected to surpass Yao Tang in any way possible during the interim.

If it was in the past, Yao Ran would have scoffed at a measly one million. But her exam results were a disaster. At this rate, she wouldn’t even be able to get a decent degree, and would eventually have to settle for some pathetic job in the future. She might not even be able to earn a million yuan if she worked for a decade!

Yao Ran felt as though her entire world had collapsed. This was more than she could bear.

She had always regarded Yao Tang as a target for comparison…

Yao Ran started. Now that she thought about it, Yao Tang hadn’t participated in the college entrance exams at all. Did that mean that she hadn’t even qualified for it? Yao Ran was still better than her, after all!

Before she knew it, Yao Ran was already making her way to the room of Class 12. As she walked through the hallway, however, she kept hearing about the rumors that Yao Tang was being scouted by top universities.

Yao Ran stopped in her tracks, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.

She gnashed her teeth together and thought, ‘Why the hell are you so brilliant, Yao Tang? Why do you have to be so much better than me at everything?’

Yao Ran could no longer stay in this school, she didn’t have the face to show. She needed to start looking for a good university. She needed to work hard, harder than she ever had in her life, and best Yao Tang in the future.
Meanwhile, when Qin Man heard their neighbor gushing about how their child had scored high in the college entrance exams, her curiosity got the better of her. She wanted to know how Yao Tang did. So, she headed over to ask Jiang Wan about it, only to learn that Yao Tang had not even participated in the exams.

Qin Man snorted with disdain. “You know, I always wondered how that brat could do so well in her tests. It looks like she’s been using some underhanded methods all along. Let me guess, she refused to take the college entrance exams because she didn’t want to risk getting exposed for cheating, right?

I suppose I have to give her points for being clever. Well, what is she going to do next? Repeat a year doing the same thing and bask in the public’s adulation?”

Qin Man shot a haughty look at Jiang Wan. “I already warned you about Yao Tang. You don’t even know what kind of person she truly is. Do you see it now? She is a liar and a cheat! And I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it now.”