Chapter 5

I followed everyone's gaze to the results board.

First place: Selene Chevalier.

Second place: Summer Barnes.

Selene had beaten me and taken the top spot in the grade, a position I had held for more than two years.

Selene stood off to the side of the crowd, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "See? I told you there was nothing wrong with my study method.

"Lucky for all of you that I transferred into this class. Otherwise, who knows how much longer that so-called top student would've held you back."

The moment she said it, several classmates around me shot me strange looks.

I clenched my fists without thinking, but I couldn't come up with a single word to argue back.

Selene wasn't wrong. Grades were the most direct proof there was.

This time, I really had lost to her. Even the students from the class next door who had used the notes I'd put together had failed to outperform the students in my own class who had studied with Selene's materials.

Was it possible that there really was something wrong with the way I tutored?

The thought had barely surfaced before I shut it down.

One reaped what they sowed. Nothing in this world rewarded results without the effort to earn them. Unless something else was going on.

…

That night, after I got home, I privately messaged Denise and asked her for the review packet Selene had sent out before the mock exam.

After I went through it carefully, the truth hit me.

Eighty percent of the problem types in that packet matched the questions on the mock exam almost exactly. It was practically the same as having the questions leaked in advance.

However, the mock exam questions came from the city's Department of Education. How could Selene possibly have known what would be on the test?

No matter how much I turned it over in my head, I couldn't figure it out.

Still, I kept the discovery to myself. I had no real proof. If I spoke up recklessly, people would only see it as jealousy over losing first place and accuse me of trying to slander Selene out of spite.

Whether my suspicions were right or not, the college entrance exam would settle it soon enough.

A mock exam might have loopholes that allowed questions to leak. The real exam would never allow that kind of shortcut.

…

In the days that followed, I accepted my senior's invitation to work at her tutoring center.

I went there every day and worked one-on-one with her students to reinforce concepts and clarify key points.

Meanwhile, the classmates who had still felt a flicker of unease after the mock exam now threw themselves completely into eating, drinking, and having fun with Selene. Their mock exam scores gave them all the excuse they needed.

Two days before the college entrance exam, they even went out to a bar with her to unwind.

"The worst thing you can do before an exam is get too tense. Having a little fun now and then helps you perform better.

"Just stick with me and you can't go wrong. I guarantee most of our class will get into an Ivy League school!" Selene claimed.

The nights before the college entrance exam were supposed to be reserved for getting enough sleep and eating light meals. Going out drinking at a bar was out of the question.

I stepped in to stop them, but the class president led the mockery against me. "Come on, Summer. We get that you're jealous of Selene, but the facts speak for themselves. You just don't measure up to her in any way."

"Exactly! We're lucky Selene transferred into our class. Otherwise, who knows how much longer your rigid tutoring style would've held us back!"

"If it weren't for you, we'd already be on track for Northshine University!"

Hearing all that, whatever warmth I had left toward them vanished. After that, I stopped bothering with anything related to the class.

…

The weather was clear on both days of the college entrance exam.

Because I already had a recommendation slot, I didn't sit for the exam myself. I only went through that year's leaked practice papers online.

There was nothing unusual about the problem types. I had practiced all of them before. Anyone who had put in steady, honest effort should have scored well.

After the final subject ended, I planned to reach out to my senior at the tutoring center.

Instead, the moment I opened my phone, I saw that the senior class group chat had exploded.

There were more than 99 messages, and every single one was either tagging Selene or... me.