She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 326

When she came to her senses, Giselle realized Loyce had just come from the teachers' office building. "Did you go see my homeroom teacher?"

"Just making sure you get a fair shot." Loyce took her hand and, under a sea of curious stares, confidently led her away from the school and to her stunning luxury Lamborghini.

Giselle didn't understand. "A fair shot? How?"

Loyce glanced at her with a slight smile. "By retaking the test, of course. The only difference is that this time, the questions will come from the very people who raised doubts."

When Loyce arrived at the conference room, she found Clayton, officials from the Board of Education, and Hallie. Staking her doctorate, Hallie insisted that Giselle must have cheated with a pre-obtained answer key. She then pointed to Loyce, who had happened to show up, and claimed that she had been at the bottom of her high school class and had only scraped into college by using the Sampson family's connections.

Clayton tried to explain, "That business with the Sampson family was all over the news! Her grades weren't really that bad. It was all because of her wicked sister sabotaging her, preventing her from getting good scores."

Hallie scoffed at the explanation. "A pen was in her hand, wasn't it? If life with the Sampsons was so difficult, she should have studied even harder to break free from her family's shackles. You can't believe everything you read online; who knows how much of that was true."

As their debate heated up, Loyce began to applaud softly. "Hallie's absolutely right," she said coolly. "The easiest way to prove one's ability is to take the test again."

Hallie was startled for a moment, then turned to face her with a mocking tone. "Even if you retake it a thousand times, with your family’s influence, you could still get the answers for yourself and your star student. The result will be the same."

More than anything, she despised people who used their influence to crush innocent, talented individuals.

Loyce simply smiled and offered a solution. "Then why don't you and teachers from other schools create the questions together? You can print and distribute the papers yourself. We'll use the difficulty level of the Ace Class, and I'll take the test alongside them. To ensure there are no issues with the questions, I'll also serve as an impartial judge and field any challenges. Fair enough?"

Hallie truly didn't know where Loyce got her nerve. She sneered, "I have no objection, of course, but I don't have the authority to make that decision."

Loyce turned to Clayton. "What do you think, sir?"

Clayton immediately consulted with the officials from the Board of Education. They unanimously agreed to the idea, seeing it as a way to prove the school's fairness, show that the teachers weren't playing favorites, and reveal the true abilities of both Cyrilla and Giselle.

That night, the posts on the school forum about Giselle's cheating weren't deleted. Instead, they were joined by new ones demanding justice for Cyrilla's scores.

Cyrilla was speechless. After a long silence, she scrambled for an excuse. "I just have a few weak subjects, and I've only just arrived in Metropia. I haven't fully absorbed a lot of the material yet."

She was unwilling to admit the truth, unwilling to shed the glorious burden of being number one. The academic standards in her old town and in Metropia were worlds apart.

Hallie closed her eyes for a moment. "Since Loyce wants to play games, I'll play one of my own."

She couldn't bear the shame of being seen as less competent than a high school flunky. A student's reputation was a teacher's reputation, after all.

In the end, Cyrilla accepted the email Hallie sent and memorized the answer to every single question.

The test was designed entirely for the Ace Class, filled with advanced concepts and material that Cyrilla couldn't comprehend. But the thought of beating Giselle—of defeating that bitch who was trying to steal Lucian—hardened her resolve. She focused all her energy on memorizing the answers.

Naturally, the commotion at the school reached Lucian, who was still busy dealing with the various matters left in Gavin's wake.