Alaricka snapped back without hesitation, “You’ve got the nerve to stand here; of course, I’ve got the nerve to come.”

Clarissa’s face fell, and she gave a snorty laugh. “Alaricka, you really wouldn’t cry until you saw the coffin, huh? Snatching someone else’s first place by cheating made you this happy?”

“I told you, everyone already knew you cheated, so don’t think about running away, and don’t try to deny it.”

The dean of students coughed and said in a serious voice, “Alaricka, because of the alleged cheating, the school was going to cancel your exam results and give you a major demerit. Do you have anything to say?”

Alaricka was speechless: You guys aren’t even pretending anymore.

Alaricka almost laughed out of anger. “You guys keep saying I cheated, but what proof do you have?”

Clarissa shouted, “You still need evidence? When did you ever get such good grades before? You definitely cheated this time!”

Alaricka laughed again. “I told you, show me the evidence.”

“Besides,” Alaricka looked sarcastic, “I earned first place fair and square, so how did it become ‘cheating’ to you guys?”

The dean squinted his eyes. “We did check the cameras and didn’t find you cheating in the exam room."

"But…" The dean changed the topic. "After we checked, the answers to this monthly exam had already leaked out a few days earlier, and since your previous grades had never reached this level, we had reason to suspect that you already had the answers and memorized them. And that’s why we didn’t catch you cheating in the exam room.”

Alaricka really laughed this time. “So, you guys said I cheated, but there wasn’t a single real piece of evidence, and then you just wanted to call it settled and even give me a demerit?”

The dean’s face suddenly darkened. “Alaricka, you know what you’ve done yourself. We’re not trying to hurt you by doing this; we just want you to get back on track. Think about it, during exam week, could you really buy the answers? In the end, isn’t it all up to you?”

“You said you got high grades in both math and literature—is that possible? If you didn’t cheat, I can’t think of any ability you had that could get you such good scores.”

All the teachers and students around looked at Alaricka with a contemptuous look, like a hopeless case.

Alaricka’s lips curled up in a mocking smile. “I’ll say it again, show me the proof that I cheated. You guys said I bought the monthly exam answers ahead of time, then show my purchase record. It’s that simple.”

Clarissa stood up. “You and Jaylene were selling barbecue at a stall a few days ago just to buy the midterm answers, right? Otherwise, why did you suddenly go make money at a stall? Who knows what you guys were up to?”

The teachers around also said, “Alaricka, I know you were anxious about the exam, but you couldn’t do this kind of thing. All the other students worked really hard, and because you cheated for a moment, their hard work was wasted. As teachers, it was hard for us to watch too. Do you understand?”

Alaricka knew that saying anything more right now was useless; these people just didn’t have a brain.

She walked over and pulled a test paper from the dean’s desk. It was this month’s math test from a top high school in the country. The last big question on the test was just brutal. No matter which high school it was, hardly any teachers or students could solve it.

Clarissa saw what she did and laughed, saying, “Alaricka, you’re not gonna do this test to prove you’re innocent, are you?”

She chuckled, “I told you, you’d better switch to another test. This one, there’s no way you could finish it. You’ll just embarrass yourself for nothing.”

Alaricka didn’t say a word and silently picked up the pen.

This big question was really tough, and Alaricka also took a minute or two to figure out how to solve it.

It was just in these two minutes that Clarissa and the other teachers, including the head teacher, already lost their patience.

“Alaricka, why bother?”

The dean seemed generous and said, “How about this, the school won’t give you a major demerit, but your exam results still have to be canceled.”

The moment the words were spoken, Alaricka’s pen was already on the test paper, scribbling numbers and letters.

The dean’s voice caught, and he frowned right away.

He instinctively thought Alaricka was just showing off. Even at their school, only a few teachers could solve this big problem.

How could a student like Alaricka have written that?