He stayed silent for a while and nodded. “I understand.”

He smiled. “You two did very well.”

Principal Liu was exceptionally touched. He didn’t think that Lu Man would be so considerate towards the school.

Principal Liu looked so moved and touched, it made a chill run down Lu Man’s spine.

It was too terrifying!

“At the start, I felt that it was such a pity for you guys. It was such a good opportunity. But now, it looks like it probably wasn’t such a good opportunity, after all.” Principal Liu sighed deeply and said, “No matter what, you two have made this decision and I will support it. Thank you, too, for thinking about the school first, even before developing your own future career.”

“Then what about Ni Xue? She signed the contract,” Li Zeyu said.

Principal Liu shook his head and smiled mindlessly. “Everyone has their own career to develop. She agreed to participate in it, and the school doesn’t have the right to interfere. After all, she had the right. From the start, it was already decided that the top five from the Chinese Arts Championships could enter The Performer. The school also can’t force her to back out at this time. I can only hope that the program will move on well and not implicate those three students who are participating.”

Li Zeyu didn’t say anything else. After all, Lu Man had already talked about the inappropriate aspects of the program in front of everyone.

Ni Xue clearly knew it, but she still chose to participate. She had already made her decision.

Everyone has their own fate and destiny. Everyone has their own future.

He chose to believe Lu Man and leave the program.

Whereas Ni Xue chose to seize the opportunity and take a gamble. That was her own choice too.

***

Lu Man walked out of the dean’s office and met with Zheng Yuan and the others.

“So how was it? Did you sign the contract already?” Zheng Yuan asked.

Lu Man shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“Huh?” Pan Xue’s eyes widened in shock. “You finally won first place after so much effort, so why didn’t you sign it? It was such a good opportunity!”

“Don’t be so anxious, wait for Lu Man to explain herself.” Han Leilei pulled on Pan Xue and told her to be softer. “Lu Man must have her own reasons for not signing it. With that brain of yours, you should stop worrying for Lu Man.”

Pan Xue scratched her head and waited for Lu Man to speak.

Lu Man told them about the contract. “I think that after signing it, I would lose any say. No matter how many tricks I have up my sleeve, I wouldn’t be able to win against their contract. Look at Xing Ke Station, they have always been playing tricks. When the time comes, if they have any requests, I can’t do anything but cooperate with them, even if I resist and fail, I will still be used for them to create a buzz again. The losses will outweigh the benefits.”

“Ah, who would have thought that the program was like that? Then I better not watch it too.” Pan Xue hardened her face. “Originally, looking at the publicity, I did like the actors that they have invited.”

“You don’t have to treat it as a legit competition, you can just watch it as entertainment,” Lu Man said as she smiled.

“That Assistant Director Xu also went a little overboard. To put it bluntly, he is so stuck-up.” Zheng Yuan continued softly, “Right now, he looks down on us students, but when we become famous in the future, wouldn’t he still try to suck up to us?”

“By that time, who knows where he would be? Maybe he would even have been promoted,” Han Leilei said.

“Ah, that’s true too.”

“But I still am pretty grateful for Assistant Director Xu’s personality,” Lu Man said. “If not for the fact that he was looking down on us, would he still have told us about all this dirty dealings behind the scenes? Just because he looked down us, he thinks that we are powerless, that our words will mean nothing, that we have no right to discuss the contract with them, and that even if we knew about all that, we also couldn’t do anything to them. From the bottom of his heart, he was belittling us, and so he said those words.”

Right now, they were walking out of the school gate together. The four of them were smiling and chatting. None of them saw that there was a car parked not far away from them.