Chapter 4 The Hardest Question

Once the bet was made, Celine immediately called the Department of Education's tip line and demanded that the entire process be livestreamed.

To make herself look impartial, she even called over the dean who lived in the same neighborhood—the same Linnea Ashcombe who had once accepted money from Lucian to help change his exam scores.

Linnea was a portly middle-aged woman. Perhaps it was all in my head, but I felt like I was watching a pig trot over when she rushed to the scene. Still, she immediately straightened and draped herself in an air of impartiality the moment she saw the camera.

"What's going on here? What's with all the commotion?" she demanded brusquely.

Lucian spotted Linnea and rushed over as if she'd come to save him.

"Ms. Ashcombe, you have to stand up for me! Someone switched my college admissions exam score. I only got 324… but I've always scored top ten in my grade!"

Linnea's expression changed instantly.

She knew what Lucian was really capable of, but she'd taken his money. So, they were in this together.

If Lucian had actually done badly on the exam and his cheating at school came to light… Well, she'd be finished as well.

Linnea's eyes shifted, and she immediately pointed at me with righteous indignation.

"Evander! You again! You've never applied yourself at school. You're always skipping class to hang around the Olympiad class. And now you've even tampered with the college admissions exam scores? This is outrageous!"

Celine looked like she'd just found her strongest witness. She excitedly turned to the livestream and blabbered, "Did everyone hear that? Even the dean says so! Evander has always been a lousy student! How could he possibly score higher than Lucian?

"There's only one explanation—he switched the scores!"

The comments exploded again.

"We've got proof! Even the dean has testified against that brat!"

"He skipped class to hang around the Olympiad class? That's hilarious. You can't just walk into the Olympiad class whenever you feel like it."

"His family must've paid to get him in there just so he could pad his resume."

I looked at Linnea's ugly expression and spoke calmly. "Ms. Ashcombe, accusations require evidence. You say I never apply myself. Then, tell me, which exam did I fail during my senior year?"

Linnea was momentarily at a loss for words.

I never once attended the regular class exams ever since I transferred to the Olympiad class.

My tests came directly from the Olympiad class, and they were infamous for being ten times harder than the regular class exams, and those scores weren't included in the grade rankings.

She stubbornly argued in an attempt to cover her mortification, "You were too afraid to take the grade-wide exams. What else could that mean? Lucian, on the other hand, has always been in the top ten in his grade!"

"Oh? Always in the top ten?"

I looked at Lucian with a faint smile.

"Lucian, since Ms. Ashcombe has so much confidence in you, why don't you solve an actual college admissions exam question right now, in front of the tens of thousands watching this livestream?"

I pulled up a picture of the final math problem from this year's exam and held it up to the camera.

"This was the toughest problem in this year's exam. If you really were wrongly given a 324 and a top student who normally scores in the 1500s, surely this problem wouldn't take you more than five minutes, right?"

Lucian's face went deathly pale as cold sweat trickled down his forehead.

There was no way he could solve it.

His grades had always come from cheat sheets and memorized answers.

Celine immediately jumped to his defense. "Evander, what are you trying to do? Lucian is clearly shaken right now, yet you're going to force him to solve a problem? You're deliberately putting him under pressure!"

Linnea chimed in as well, "Exactly! The college admissions exam is so difficult. Who could solve a problem like that in the middle of all this racket? You're asking too much of him!"

I let out a cold laugh. "You can't solve it? Fine."

I casually picked up a twig from the flower bed beside us and started writing rapidly in the dust-covered ground.

My movements were smooth and effortless, without the slightest hint of pause.

The dusty ground was covered in dense equations in less than a minute.

…

I'd given them three different solutions. Each one was simpler and more elegant than the official answer.

Once I was done, I tossed the twig aside, dusted off my hands, and looked at the stunned crowd. "I'm supposedly a lousy student who could only score 324, yet I can work this problem out easily. Meanwhile, this hoity-toity top student who scores in the 1500s can't? Ridiculous, don't you think?"