Book TRK
Chapter 59
Chapter 59
Outside the exam hall, the person in charge of maintaining order stood with Cordelia and Yuna
The exam was taking place at a borrowed school Inside the classroom, there was a surveillance camera
The person in charge played back the footage for Latham and Yuna’s team leader, Zack, explaining. “According to the surveillance, it was Yuna who threw the first punch Cordelia was merely defending herself when she pushed Yuna down. But the rule is clear that both parties involved in a fight will be disqualified from the competition”
High schoolers tend to be hot headed and impulsive. Some brawds started from a simple verbal dispute, making it hard to tell right from wrong. Therefore, in the competitive arena, the rules were unbiased. Anyone who resorted to violence got disqualified
On the video, Cordelia blocked Yuna’s path. After a struggle, Yuna pretended to be shoved by Cordelia From the surveillance alone, it was impossible to tell whether it was Cordelia’s push or Yuna’s own stumble
Yuna’s waist ached from the impact. Even standing made her painful. Gritting her teeth, she admitted, “Fine, I started it. I’ll take the penalty!”
She glared at Cordelia, thinking that if she couldn’t win, at least she could drag Cordelia down with her.
Cordelia was tight with anger, her lips pursed.
Latham was frantic, “Please look closely. It’s clear that Yuna attacked, and Cordelia was just defending herself. She didn’t fight back and only gave Yuna a light push. How could that have
knocked her down like that?”
Zack, on the other hand, spoke up with dissatisfaction, “What are you implying, Latham? Are you saying Yuna is faking it?”
Latham nodded emphatically, “Last exam, she was already hostile towards Cordelia. They didn’t even exchange words this time. It’s obvious it was deliberate!”
Zack sighed, “I don’t know the exact details, but the rule is clear. Cordelia did retaliate. Latham, are you suggesting we break the exam rules?”
Latham continued to plead with the person in charge.
When Cordelia had entered the exam hall, she had surrendered her phone, but now, as she stepped out, she had it back.
Her phone vibrated.
Mr. All–Round asked, ‘Has the exam started?”
Cordelia sighed and replied, “Nope.”
It was already time for the exam, and the fact that Cordelia could still text was a red flag for Everard.
Mr. All–Round asked, “What happened?”
Cordelia, still fuming, quickly typed out a summary of the events.
No sooner had she sent the message than Mr. All–Round replied, ‘Give me twenty minutes.”
Cordelia was surprised and checked the time. It was exactly eight o’clock.
She didn’t respond to the message.
As Latham kept arguing with the person in charge for twenty minutes and was about to give up, a man with a buzz cut suddenly jogged over from a distance. He was dressed in a mechanic’s jumpsuit with a fair and boyish face. Once he arrived, he took a deep breath, checked his watch and said, “Twenty minutes on the dot!” Then he looked up and almost greeted Cordelia at the sight of her, but he caught himself in time, “I’ve been briefed about the situation over the phone. Now, show me the surveillance footage.”
11:16
Both the person in charge and Latham were taken aback, while Zack asked, “And who might you be?
The man slapped his forehead, Ah, forgot to introduce myself. I’m a cop.”
He flashed his badge quickly. “Let’s see the footage
Nobody had called the police.
The person in charge, still bewildered, played the surveillance video on the computer
The man took over the computer, typed a few keys to slow the video down to one eighth speed, and pointed out. “Look here, this student hesitated after being stopped by Cordelia, steadied herself, and then fell backward. It’s not apparent at normal speed, but at this slow rate, it’s clear Cordelia didn’t retaliate at all. This was a self–staged act by this student. Do we still need to disqualify Cordelia?”
Within three minutes, he presented the evidence to everyone involved.
At the sight of the irrefutable evidence, the person in charge turned to Yuna in anger, “Yuna, you’ve disrupted the order of the exam, and you will be banned from all official competitive exams!”
After that, he checked the time again and addressed Cordelia, “You can enter the exam hall, but because there’s another exam after this, I can’t make up for the lost time. Is that okay with you?”
Cordelia expressed her understanding.
Latham reassured her, “Cordelia, don’t panic! The spirit of competition is to never give up. You got this!” Cordelia nodded and followed the person in charge to the exam hall. The plainclothes officer called out, “Cordelia, I’m Skyler. Remember my name, we’ll meet again!”
Cordelia glanced at him again. His jumping and waving figure was quite endearing, like a little dove. Cordelia was late entering the exam hall, so she had half an hour less than the others.
After the first part was over and her papers were collected, Cordelia sat in her chair, letting out a sigh of relief. Then, the light in front of her dimmed.
She looked up to see a tall and lean boy standing before her, wearing Lakeshore City High School’s uniform, with a mischievous smile on his handsome face, “Cordelia?”
Cordelia was slightly taken aback.
He spoke, “I’m Keen. To be fair, I’ll wait for you for half an hour before starting the second part.”
Cordelia wanted to decline, but before she could speak, Keen turned and left, taking a seat in the front row
When the second part of the exam began, the boy indeed rested his head on the desk and slept for half an hour before starting to answer the questions.
As soon as the final bell rang signaling the end of the exams, the Math League forum was buzzing with a new post, [OMG, I am totally shipping Keen and Cordelia! These two geniuses are just too cute together! Someone needs to write a high school romance novel about them now!]
The thread quickly caught fire. Amidst the excitement, the story of Cordelia losing a precious half hour during her exam spread like wildfire. In no time, the forum’s pool on who would snag the top spot saw Keen and her slipping in the ranks, while Jake emerged as the new favorite to win.
But Cordelia couldn’t care less about the online chatter. After her math ordeal, she’d been busy collaborating with Mathster.
Frankie had found someone reliable to digitize her handwritten draft, although some details still needed her personal touch and confirmation.
It took over a week of hard work, but her paper was finally ready. Frankie had submitted it to an international journal, and now it was just a matter of waiting for the peer review process.
Meanwhile, the scores for the National Math League finally rolled in. This text is © NôvelDrama/.Org.