Volume 2 Chapter 54: The Judges Are All on My Side, How Can You Compete with Me?
Wulu wulu wulu wulu malu—
After the competition supervisors at the scene finished collecting all the papers, the girl shook her head for a while. Her eyes slowly became clear again.
Uh… what?
She looked around at the other students in confusion. When she turned her head, she finally realized that she had already handed in her paper.
Her mind was completely blank, and for a moment she couldn’t understand what was going on.
Did I… fall asleep?
Oh no!
Th-this… what about my paper-doll livestream image?!
I’m doomed!
The girl panicked for a bit, and then her memory slowly returned. She remembered everything she had seen while in her spirit form. Another version of herself summoned like a heroic spirit was drawing, while Gao Liang stood there looking totally confused.
Ahem…
After a short pause, she slapped her forehead.
Oh, right. I—I already finished the drawing.
Phew~
Thinking of this, Lin Lin suddenly felt much more confident. Damn it, now she really didn’t know how she could lose.
She watched as the teachers who had collected all the papers sorted them by competition number. Then they told everyone to line up and prepared to score the works on the spot.
Lin Lin lined up together with the other contestants. Han Kui walked past her and showed a look of contempt.
The girl looked away, feeling a bit unhappy. She watched Han Kui move to stand in front of her, proudly shaking her head. Lin Lin curled her lips slightly, not understanding what this person was being so arrogant about.
The scoring hadn’t even started yet, and she was already in such a hurry to show off?
Where did she even get that confidence?
After thinking for a moment, the girl came back to her senses and tilted her head to look toward the front of the line.
Several teachers were there, scoring the papers one by one. After calculating the average score and recording it, they handed the paper back to the student. While watching this process, Lin Lin couldn’t help but think, this so-called preliminary round really wasn’t very professional.
“72 points.”
One teacher announced the average score. Another supervisor wrote it down, and the last one handed the paper to the student, whose face didn’t look very good.
72 points… that didn’t sound very great.
Hmm…
Lin Lin kept watching from behind and felt it was actually okay. After all, judging by the scores of the people behind her, most were also around the low seventies. There were even a few tragic cases with scores in the sixties.
The scoring speed was quite fast. Before long, it was Han Kui’s turn, and Lin Lin wasn’t far behind.
Lin Lin had been keeping track of the highest scores so far. The current top scores were 85, 82, and 80.
Now that it was Han Kui’s turn, there were almost no contestants left. If no surprisingly amazing work showed up later, the rankings would probably end here.
The supervisors took out Han Kui’s paper. The three of them looked at it carefully and began to discuss it in low voices.
One of the teachers hesitated and gave his first impression. To be honest, Han Kui’s drawing wasn’t especially good, just average.
“On my side, I think about 75 points would be fair?”
“I’ll give 79 points,” said the second teacher with a smile, speaking to Han Kui, who looked calm and cold. “Your facial features still need more practice.”
But just then, the last teacher, who usually didn’t talk much, suddenly spoke up.
“89 points!”
“Cough… huh?”
The other two teachers were stunned. They stammered for a moment, clearly shocked that this usually quiet Teacher Han had suddenly given such a high score.
However, scoring is a fairly subjective matter. Although the difference in scores was a bit large, this was only a preliminary round, so…
The other two teachers nodded awkwardly. Fine, let’s go with that. Then they calculated the average score.
“81 points!”
Uh… wow.
Lin Lin blinked. Seriously, Han Kui had just slipped into third place like that.
Han Kui smiled when she heard the result. She took her paper and walked proudly to the classroom door. Instead of leaving, she turned around and looked back at Lin Lin with interest.
Lin Lin was startled. Damn it, she was waiting to see my score.
The girl suddenly became much more nervous. Even Gao Liang, who was also standing near the door, started to feel worried.
Although he didn’t know why, he could already sense that something felt off.
“Lin Lin…”
It was her turn.
Lin Lin swallowed nervously and stepped forward to the desk. The supervisors pulled out her paper and looked at it together.
Hiss—
Two of the teachers immediately clicked their tongues in amazement.
Wow… these lines, this composition, this kid…
Th-this level is terrifying.
Unlike the two teachers whose eyes were shining, Teacher Han beside them watched coldly.
Yes, her skills were good, but the problem was her name.
Hmm…
Even he started to feel a bit nervous, unsure if what came next would seem too obvious.
After looking for a while, one teacher nodded enthusiastically.
“Very good, really good! I’ll give 90 points!”
“I almost want to give 100,” another teacher said excitedly. “This really has the feeling of the original work! Too bad the original artist was recently said to have had cream poured on him—sigh. But seriously, Lin, you’re very talented. I’ll give 100 points!”
After finishing his excited comments, he turned to Teacher Han and asked politely.
“Teacher Han, what do you think? Please give a score.”
The other two teachers already had a rough idea after seeing the drawing. This was clearly first place. It would be a shame not to let such talent go to the finals.
But…
To everyone’s surprise, Teacher Han suddenly spoke coldly:
“Fifty points.”
“F-Fifty?”
The other two teachers froze and stared at him in disbelief. They thought he must have misspoken and quickly asked,
“Did you say that wrong? This… fifty points?”
Lin Lin also forced a stiff smile, unable to understand why this middle-aged teacher was giving such a low score. The teachers were about the same age, so their skill levels should be similar, right?
But…
That teacher still insisted and even raised his voice:
“It’s fifty points!”
This…
Gao Liang frowned deeply. He could clearly feel that something was wrong.
That teacher always gave his score last and seemed to be deliberately controlling the final result. Han Kui’s score earlier had been raised by him too. Could it be…?
He turned to look at Han Kui, only to see her smiling in satisfaction.
Pfft. Seeing Lin Lin’s nervous expression, Han Kui just wanted to laugh.
Haha, so what if you’re talented?
This time, she had specifically contacted a relative who was a judge in the competition scoring group and arranged for them to evaluate papers in Competition Room 35.
So what if you draw well? The judges are all on my side.
Tsk tsk. Didn’t expect this, did you?
Your journey ends right here, even in the preliminary round.