Lin Chujing was caught stealing answers.

Lin Chujing maintained her top ranking by cheating!

This incident shocked the entire school.

Upon hearing the news, the admissions office immediately revoked Lin Chujing's qualification. They even reduced the number of early admissions slots at our school, clearly questioning the quality of our teaching.

At the teachers' meeting, the principal was furious, repeatedly emphasizing quality education and insisting that we shouldn't only focus on scores.

Although the principal didn't mention my name, everyone could tell. During the two-hour-long meeting, his main point was only one:

Blame me.

The principal has only been in office for two years and won't retire for over a decade. I knew my days at the school wouldn't be easy.

I was ruined by Lin Chujing.

The teachers who used to constantly talk about Lin Chujing and admire me now all acted as if they had expected this.

"Grades aren't as important as character."

"I've come to terms with it. Being the city top scorer is a matter of destiny. We just don't have that destiny!"

Only the PE teacher wasn't pressured by graduation results. He didn't even care about this incident. He told me that he never judged students by grades. In his eyes, all students, good or bad, were treated equally, and no one could get any special privileges from him.

Wait a minute, something's not right.

On the day Lin Chujing's father died, didn't she skip PE class to go home?

"Impossible! Even girls with menstrual issues wouldn't dream of skipping my PE class. Only you main subject teachers always find excuses to take away my PE class time!"

If Lin Chujing didn't skip PE that day to go home, then she couldn't have witnessed Xia Rong committing murder at the time of the incident. Was she lying?

I remembered Lin Chujing's essay where she mentioned her hatred for Xia Rong...

Could it be that...

Under Qin Chuan's coercion, Lin Chujing finally confessed.

On the day of the incident, when she returned home, her father, Lin Shan, was already dead.

With the knowledge Lin Chujing had gained from reading extracurricular books, she quickly determined that it was a suicide.

Her first instinct was to call the police, but she didn't. She thought of one thing:

Since her father was dead, Xia Rong would become her guardian.

No way did she want that to happen.

So she changed Lin Shan's clothes, put the replaced clothes in a washer-dryer, and washed them. She also carefully wiped down the table.

Thus, she destroyed the entire suicide scene. The police, upon even a slight investigation, would find signs of tampering and naturally determine it as a homicide.

In that case, the prime suspect would undoubtedly be Xia Rong, who had enough motive to kill him.

At this point, Lin Chujing only needed to add a little extra push to completely frame Xia Rong.

She just didn't expect that Xia Rong would admit so quickly, saving her a lot of trouble.

"Lin Shan never did anything good for me while he was alive. At least in death, he could do one good thing for me."

Lin Chujing said coldly.

"Even if Xia Rong gets sentenced, given the domestic violence, Lin Shan was the one at fault. She probably won't get the death penalty, right? She killed my mom! I didn't even insist on a life-for-life exchange, I was being quite merciful!"

Qin Chuan let out a long sigh.

Actually, upon reinvestigating the scene, the police also found discrepancies—Xia Rong's testimony didn't match the scene details at all.

It's impossible for the police to conclude the case so sloppily. They never thought a middle school girl had been tricking them all along.

"Will she be prosecuted?" I still found myself worrying about Lin Chujing's future.

"Tampering with and fabricating evidence is a serious crime. But she's a minor, so she probably won't be prosecuted. I heard her grades are pretty good. They say she could be the city top scorer? I hope this doesn't affect her exams."

City top scorer? Hmph, she's just a compulsive liar.

I explained everything that had happened recently to Qin Chuan, who was also dumbfounded.

"She's quite the 'prospect' for fraud. When she grows up, we'll have to keep an eye on her. She might pose as some high-society lady and scam people out of their entire savings."

I thought Qin Chuan was exaggerating. Lin Chujing was only causing minor trouble at school; how could he see her as so despicable?

Qin Chuan said, "Do you know how Lin Shan married Xia Rong? Do you know how Lin Chujing's mother died?"

I shook my head.

Years ago, after failing the college entrance exam and only getting into a junior college, Xia Rong decided to take a self-study route back to university after experiencing the harsh realities of life. She studied every day at the city library, fighting for her dreams.

However, everything came to an abrupt halt one night.

Xia Rong was raped.

The perpetrator was Lin Shan, the seemingly gentle and harmless librarian.

The location was the study area where she prepared for her exams.

Looking at her review materials, which represented her dreams, Xia Rong went through the darkest moment of her life.

Her parents, thinking the incident was too shameful, forbade her from reporting it to the police.

Lin Chujing's mother learned about it, crawled out of her sickbed, went to Xia Rong's house, and knelt before her, begging her not to report it.

You could say Lin Chujing's mother died from the sheer indignation of this incident.

After Lin Chujing's mother died, Xia Rong's parents took a large dowry from Lin Shan's father and married her off to the man who destroyed her.

Afterward, Xia Rong tried to resume her studies, but whenever she saw her study materials, she felt a visceral disgust, shaking with fear.

She could never pick up a textbook again; her life was completely ruined by Lin Shan.

Thus, even without the domestic violence, Xia Rong had enough motive to kill Lin Shan.

In public, Lin Shan presented himself as a book-loving scholar, but in private, he was a complete scumbag.

Lin Chujing had Lin Shan's blood running through her veins.

"Do you think scumbaggery can be inherited?"