Chapter 172

“Goodbye, Mr. Schwartz,” Qadir said, hoisting Juniper’s bag onto his shoulder. Just as he was about to follow the girls, Shanley spoke.
“Does your family own a livestock farm?”
“Huh?” Qadir paused, then nodded honestly.
“Thank you for letting me know what happened this time,” Shanley said, his eyes on Qadir, a faint smile on his lips. “Juniper is a simple girl. Don’t let any ill-intentioned punks get near her.”
“Of course, Mr. Schwartz,” Qadir replied with a grin. “Don’t worry, everyone at our school is a dud. Juniper wouldn’t be interested in any of them.”
“Good.” Shanley nodded in satisfaction and gestured with his chin. “Go on, then.”
After the three had left, Shanley settled back into the car, loosening his tie. “Look into Qadir’s father’s company,” he commanded in a low voice. “Invest some money into it.”
“Yes, boss.” Felton immediately set off to handle the task.
Twenty minutes later, Qadir, who still hadn’t made it back to his classroom, received a call from his father.
“Qadir, you’re not going to believe this! Some mysterious person just invested tens of millions into our pig farm!”
Qadir was speechless. “What?”
Back at Aurora High School, the way students looked at Juniper had completely changed after the morning’s events. None of them had ever met someone who could achieve a perfect score.
“Juniper, can you share some study tips?” a classmate asked, leaning over her desk with a sincere expression.
“Tips?” Juniper was fiddling with a bottle. She frowned at the question. “You just… study.”
“What do you mean?” the other students asked, confused.
“You just learn it,” Juniper tried to explain, finally deciding to just be honest. “I listen
to the teacher’s examples, read the book… do this and that… and then I just know
it.”
“What?!” The students’ eyes widened in disbelief. “Do you stay up all night studying?”
There was no other way to learn so many subjects in just a few years.
“Stay up all night?” Juniper thought for a moment, then a faint smile touched her lips. “Sure.”
“Really?”
The students let out a collective sigh of relief, their faces breaking into bright smiles. Even the genius had to pull all-nighters. That made them feel much better.
But before their relief could last another second, she added casually, “Does staying up all night to play video games count?”
Silence. They felt as if they’d been stabbed. Twice.
“Then do you
“That’s enough,” Qadir cut in, annoyed by the incessant chatter. “Do you really think getting a perfect score is about study methods? It’s about having a brain!”
The students, utterly crushed, shuffled away with pale faces.
During the final exam of the day, foreign languages, Juniper found it even easier than the other subjects. It was mostly just filling in bubbles with very little writing She finished the entire test in thirty minutes. With the paper done, she propped her head on her desk and stared blankly at her bottle, her mind consumed with the fact that Shanley wasn’t coming to pick her up.
“Fine, don’t come,” she thought irritably. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have given him that discount.”
Feeling disgruntled, Juniper stuffed the bottle into her bag and slumped onto her desk to sleep. Outside the classroom window, teachers from other subjects were pecking in one more excited than the next. The foreign language teacher was practically vibrating with
anticipation, eager to see what a perfect paper looked like.
“I heard someone is sleeping during the exam?” Just as they were whispering, the Dean of Students walked over, his face grim. He glanced into the classroom, and his expression twitched when he saw who was asleep.
Juniper?
Oh. Well, in that case, carry on.