Some agreed with this speculation, but others raised doubts. "No, that can't be right. If it's really as you guessed, and his scores were too embarrassing to even release, how could Zhao Yuan possibly rank first?"
The crony from before pondered for a moment, then said, "What's so hard to understand about that? Zhao Yuan was established as the pride of the school by Principal Ma. If he couldn't get a good ranking in the final exams, wouldn't that tarnish his title? It would be a slap in the face to Principal Ma, right? So no matter how badly Zhao Yuan did, he had to be first in the year."
This explanation won the approval of all the cronies, and they all started crying foul on Lu Ping's behalf.
"Damn, this is so unfair!"
"Brother Lu worked his ass off to get a perfect score in every subject, but Zhao Yuan bombed his exams and still gets to be number one! This is a complete trampling of fairness! And a trampling of knowledge itself!"
