I have a life simulator.

"Fairness, fairness, and more fairness!"

"After all, the reason why the previous chairman, Sakayanagi, stepped down was because everyone felt that he had acted unfairly. Although I personally did not think he had any bias, I even hoped that he could return soon."

After stating his position, Tsukishiro Tsuneaki turned his gaze to Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, and thoughtfully moved on to the next topic:

"The sports festival is fast approaching. Although there is more than a month to prepare, it is really just a matter of one day to decide the winner. I am also looking forward to the performance of the two of you at the sports festival."

"And after the sports festival comes the cultural festival. I don't need to go into details about that, since both Ayanokouji and Kitagawa should have participated in the cultural festival at Tokyo Advanced Educational High School two years ago."

At this point, Yuecheng Changcheng paused again, then spoke in a serious tone:

"This is the second reason why I asked you two to come here today."

"I have already spoken with the teachers in advance about the increased number of guests allowed to enter this cultural festival. In fact, the reason why this situation has come about is essentially due to the tacit approval of the two forces behind you."

"In other words, whether it's Kitagawa or Ayanokouji, someone wants to take this opportunity to come to Tokyo Advanced Educational High School to 'visit' you. But you two should have already guessed that."

Seeing that Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka remained silent and unmoved, Tsukishiro Tsunehira smiled, rubbing his palms together repeatedly, and first turned his gaze towards Ayanokouji Kiyotaka:

“As for Ayanokouji, I must remind you that your father is very likely to come to Tokyo Advanced Educational High School in person.”

Although Kiyotaka Ayanokoji maintained a perfectly poker face, Ryo Kitagawa, with his remarkable insight, still managed to catch the subtle details of a slight frown and pursed lips on his face.

"As for Kitagawa-kun, I must say, President Tsubaki offered a price that I couldn't refuse. It seems he really values ​​his daughter quite a bit, so I'll have to trouble Kitagawa-kun to put in a lot of effort."

Unlike his expression when facing Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, Tsukishiro Tsunehira deliberately winked and made faces when he spoke to Kitagawa Ryo, and his tone was also a bit playful.

"Of course, there is one last important message to pass on to you."

Tsukishiro Tsunehira stood up and pulled a chess set from a cabinet on the wall of the reception room, placing it in front of Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Kitagawa Ryo.

"You two should still remember the selection of personnel before the start of the school year, right? Although I don't know if Kitagawa-kun and Ayanokouji-kun are satisfied with the result back then, the good news is that you two have a second chance."

To be honest, both Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka had already guessed what Tsukishiro Tsunehira had said before, but his current remarks were completely unexpected. The two of them raised their heads and turned their gazes to Tsukishiro Tsunehira, who had taken the black and white kings from the chessboard.

"Unlike the rules last time, this time it's less about selection and more about identification."

Tsukishiro Tsuneshige smiled and explained to Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka:

"During next month's cultural festival, a certain number of current junior high school students who will be entering Tokyo Advanced Educational High School next year will visit the school. Among these students from all over the world, there are those who support Kitagawa-kun and those who are ordered to support Ayanokoji-kun."

"Of course, many of them are unrelated people who know nothing about either of you, but they all possess various talents."

At this point, Tsukishiro Tsuneaki handed the two kings, one black and one white, to Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, and continued explaining:

"What Kitagawa-kun and Ayanokouji-kun have to do is to carefully select and identify the new students who like them or whom they like. Our school will then secretly divide these students into two groups based on your lists after they enroll next year."

"For students favored by Ayanokouji-kun, our school will make a special promise to them privately at the beginning of the semester: as long as Kitagawa-kun withdraws from the school, he will receive a reward of 20 million personal points in one go."

"But Kitagawa-kun's student mission is the opposite. Their goal is to expel Ayanokouji-kun. If they can do that, these students can also get 20 million personal points."

After speaking, Yuecheng put his hands behind his back and revealed a kind smile:

"above."

He bowed slightly in the direction of Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka:

"I hope you two can have a fulfilling and fun sports festival and cultural festival. I personally look forward to your performance."

Chapter 298: Sports Festival Opening

After finishing his explanation, Tsukishiro Tsuneaki noticed Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka's lukewarm attitude towards him, so he didn't try to keep them any longer and quickly had them leave the reception room together.

Just as Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka walked out of the faculty building one after the other, they suddenly heard Ayanokouji, who had been silent the whole way, call out to him:

"Kitagawa, the person that Acting Chairman Tsukishiro mentioned coming to visit you, should be Yuki, the fourth generation member who was eliminated from the White Room, right?"

"Indeed, but that has nothing to do with you. Besides, Ayanokouji, you should be thinking about how to deal with your father right now, right? Remember to take him away from me on the day of the cultural festival, and it would be best if he didn't show up in front of me."

When Kitagawa Ryo heard Ayanokouji Kiyotaka mention Yuki, his eyes softened, but he immediately retorted, because from his perspective, he really didn't want Yuki to face Ayanokouji Atsuomi at this time.

"……Yeah?"

Seemingly not expecting Kitagawa Ryo's dislike for Ayanokouji Atsuomi to be so obvious, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka himself lowered his eyes, head down, seemingly lost in thought.

Since the other person didn't speak, Kitagawa Ryo also didn't intend to say anything more. The two of them walked back to the dormitory building, and only after they entered the elevator and were back in the small, enclosed space where they were alone, did Ayanokouji Kiyotaka speak again:

"Perhaps we will still have the opportunity to cooperate in the future."

"perhaps."

Faced with Ayanokouji Kiyotaka's somewhat nonsensical statement, Kitagawa Ryo simply uttered two words before stepping out of the elevator.

His room was on the fourth floor, and taking the elevator would only take a short while.

However, in the last moment before the elevator doors slowly closed, Kitagawa Ryo still turned his head slightly, as if sensing something.

In the last gap as the elevator doors opened and closed, he saw Kiyotaka Ayanokoji standing silently alone in this small, silvery-white space.

In another second, the elevator doors closed completely.

And so, in the end, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji's figure, along with his last glance, completely disappeared from Ryo Kitagawa's sight.

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The last days always seem to pass exceptionally quickly; three or four days flew by in the blink of an eye.

Amidst mutual scheming and secret plotting, the most unique sports festival in the history of Tokyo Advanced Educational High School finally kicked off amidst the anticipation, tension, and excitement of the many students.

As we officially entered the first ten days of October, the weather finally cooled down a bit. The occasional sight of a few yellowing leaves fluttering in the wind while walking on the street seemed to be a reminder to the students that the hot summer had completely passed and the chapter was over.

The day of the sports festival was also a sunny day. In fact, to ensure the smooth running of the sports festival, the school does not hold the sports festival on the same day every year, but chooses the day with the most suitable temperature and weather within a week.

In keeping with the sunny weather, most students were in good spirits. Before the opening ceremony began, students from each class, who had already changed into their sports shirts and sneakers, were chatting and laughing on the field, doing some warm-up exercises, or discussing things related to the quiz.

"Ah, to be honest, when Hirata from Class D and Shibata from Class A got into trouble one after the other, I was terrified for a while. I was so worried that our school would turn into a high school of hot blood. After all, it's too scary to think about people hurting each other directly or indirectly."

"Indeed, thankfully, no similar incidents of targeting athletes have occurred since Hirata and Shibata, and both of them have almost fully recovered, so it can be considered a happy ending for everyone."

Sakayanagi Arisu stood quietly in the corner, listening to the girls in her class chatting. Next to her, Amasawa Ichika was idly playing with her fingers and hair. If it weren't for the requirement that boys and girls enter in separate groups, she probably would have already gone to chat with Kitagawa Ryo by now.

In fact, unlike most of the apparent disappearance of black-market shootings and the apparent silence of evil forces, this alliance, composed of some students from Class 1-C and the second and third years, never intended to stop after taking action against Hirata Yosuke and Shibata Hayate. They simply prevented all subsequent actions from happening in secret.

Ryuen Sho was mainly in charge of Class C in the first year, while she and Sakayanagi Arisu were dealing with the second and third-year students.

Just like what Katsuragi Kohei suddenly realized after training that day, these people did indeed set their next target on the girls' group of Class 1B in horseback combat. After all, the benefit of taking down one person is equivalent to taking down a group, and if Class 1B loses a group, the strength of the White Group composed of Classes B and C will also decline significantly. There is simply no reason not to take action.

However, the result was that they were beaten up by Sakayanagi Arisu and Amasawa Ichika, who were prepared in advance. This even left a terrifying legend among the third-year students: "There is a muscular, strong, twin-tailed guy among the first-year students." This directly made Class 3-B, who originally wanted to interfere in the affairs of the first-year students, shrink back. From then on, they focused on dealing with Class 3-A according to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's instructions.

Just like that, the mixed alliance of the three grades was instantly split in two. The second-year students were only going through the motions to appease Nanyun, and when they saw that there was no profit to be made, they also became much more restrained, which led to the current situation where nothing happened.

"Speaking of which, Arisu, have you investigated which projects and which players Fanbo and Hui have invested the five million in?"

After admiring her neatly trimmed nails under the direct sunlight, Tianze Yixia casually asked a question.

"We have suspected a few, but we haven't caught them yet. It's likely that both of them used multiple accounts to place small bets in batches."

Sakayanagi Arisu shook her head upon hearing this, but Amasawa Ichika responded with a rather amused smile, clearly not quite believing the other party's current explanation.

"Alright, I'm going to warm up too. Even if it's just to earn some pocket money, I have to win as many games as possible."

After saying that, Amazuchi Kazuka also left Sakayanagi Arisu's side.

Sakayanagi Arisu didn't care whether the other person was really warming up or meeting someone, since the two of them were only cooperating to a certain extent at this sports festival.

Although the opening ceremony is still some time away, a number of adult spectators can already be seen gathered around the playground. Most of these people are staff members of convenience stores and shopping malls throughout the school. Since the school is holding a sports festival today, all kinds of shops will be closed for a day, so they are essentially getting a rare holiday.

In addition, because of the predictions, although these staff members could not participate, they still felt that this year's sports festival looked much more interesting than in previous years, so most of the staff members chose to come to the scene as spectators to watch today's sports festival games.

Among them, Arisu Sakayanagi also discovered her father, who, despite his disguise with a hat and glasses, was still easily recognized by her.

Although Sakayanagi Narimori has been temporarily relieved of his position as chairman, he still chose to come to the sports festival, which was his daughter Sakayanagi Arisu's first time attending since starting school. Judging from the camera he brought, he was determined to record everything that happened today with photographs.

After giving a brief, raised-hand greeting to her father in the distance, Sakayanagi Arisu turned her gaze to Sakura Airi, who looked quite worried, a few steps away.

It's understandable that she had mixed feelings about this sports festival.

After all, on one hand, Sakura Airi really wanted to support her good friend and best friend Karuizawa Megumi's relationship, and on the other hand, she was worried about whether Kitagawa Ryo would really transfer to another class and leave. Moreover, she had ten million personal points that were enough to change the situation.

However, when the sports festival officially started today, Sakura Airi still chose to keep her original promise to Karuizawa Megumi and firmly sealed the ten million personal points in her account. Neither Sakayanagi Arisu nor Ichinose Honami could persuade her to use the points.

However, Sakura Airi could actually understand their thoughts, so she did not refuse Sakayanagi Arisu's private request for her to send her a screenshot of her personal points balance every day to show that she had not used the points for anyone.

Thinking of this, Sakayanagi Arisu smiled again.

Because in fact, she never expected to borrow that huge amount of personal points from Sakura Airi, after all, she didn't have the same old friendship with Karuizawa Megumi that she had with her since elementary school.

What she was pursuing from the very beginning was actually that seemingly helpless request she made after being rejected.

That is, the screenshot showing a balance of ten million personal points.

This alone is enough for Sakayanagi Arisu to do many more things.

For example——

She fooled and deceived the group of students who had fallen for her tricks, paid to join the group, and naively believed that there were official school officials behind the sports festival, and actually placed bets based on some of the predictions she released.

-------------------------------------

As the opening ceremony bell rang from the loudspeakers around the playground, students from each grade and class entered the venue in lines, led by their respective class teachers. The staff members who had been led to their seats in the audience waved and shouted a few words, creating a lively atmosphere.

The two speakers at the opening ceremony were a faculty and staff representative and a student representative. The former was Tsukishiro, the acting chairman of the board, but the latter was not Horikita Manabu as many people imagined. Instead, it was another student from Class 3-A named Fujimaki who gave the speech. It is unknown whether this is because Horikita Manabu is about to step down as student council president.

As Kitagawa Ryo listened to Fujimaki's speech on the podium, he glanced around the surroundings of the sports field. The school was indeed taking this sports festival very seriously, with a complete medical team and treatment facilities ready. It seemed that they had made ample preparations and countermeasures for any possible emergencies.

As Fujimaki finished speaking, the first event of today's sports festival, the 100-meter race, began with athletes registering and entering the arena, announced loudly over the sports field's loudspeaker.

After receiving his race bib from school staff and wearing it, Kenzo Sudo, representing Class 1-B in the first group, quickly reached the starting line, glanced towards the finish line, and remarked:

"The school really went to great lengths; they even installed a camera to determine the outcome."

Kitagawa Ryo, who was not in the first group to compete and was resting on the sidelines, followed Sudo Ken's gaze and saw a camera near the finish line used to record the moment the students crossed the finish line.

"After all, this time there is a guessing game involved, and each round is related to the students' individual points. In order to ensure the fairness as much as possible, the school should also avoid misjudgments or vague conclusions."

"Well, it's okay, I'll make a clear gap between myself and the second place that you won't even need this to tell you."

After Kitagawa Ryo gave his explanation, Sudo Ken also stretched out his leg forward, wiggled his ankle, and spoke with considerable confidence.

His classmate Akito Miyake, who was in the same group as him, seemed more relaxed. After all, with Yosuke Hirata, Ken Sudo, and Hayate Shibata in the same group, the rest of them had basically lost the possibility of competing for the top three, so they felt no pressure at all.

Standing next to Miyake Akito, Ishizaki Daichi and Komiya Yogo from Class 1-C seemed to share the same thought, both wearing laughing and joking expressions, highlighting that not being last in the group was considered a success in terms of participation.

But while the runners from Class A, B, and C of the first year were already preparing at the starting line, Hirata Yosuke from Class D of the first year and another student were nowhere to be seen. Then, as if suddenly receiving a message through his earpiece, a nearby referee stood up and shouted loudly through a megaphone:

"Class 1D XX (a random person, too lazy to make up a name) is unable to participate due to a sudden physical condition. According to the sports festival rules, Class 1D has chosen to spend 100,000 personal points to have substitute player Kiyotaka Ayanokoji take the stage in this group's competition."

"Oh, here it comes."

Unsurprised, Kitagawa Ryo stepped onto the court, while Miyake Akito, who had been slacking off, immediately put on a dramatic performance, lying down on the ground and crying out to the referee with a pained expression:

"Teacher, I sprained my ankle! Class 1-B requests a replacement player!"

Chapter 299: The Finish Line Is Here

As one of the most anticipated events of the entire sports festival, the unexpected situation in the first group of the first-year boys' 100-meter race naturally attracted everyone's attention.

However, the school seemed to have prepared a complete response plan in advance. Just one minute later, the two substitute athletes, Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, were led to the starting position of the track.

Although many students who were far away had no idea what exactly had happened, the appearance of Kiyotaka Ayanokouji and Ryo Kitagawa was a fact that had definitely happened before their eyes, and the students who had bet that Class B or Class D would win the group competition were overjoyed.

After all, both of them had proven themselves in the special exam on the deserted island, and were regarded as the No.1 seed players in their respective classes before the start of this sports festival. Moreover, the various training match information that had been revealed overtly and covertly in recent days had been intentionally or unintentionally promoting the idea that these two were the athletes standing at the top of the entire first year and even the whole school. Now that they were competing against each other in the first match, the enthusiasm of the audience naturally soared.

Compared to the students who had bet on Class B or Class D, the students who placed their trust in Shibata Hayate felt a chill in their hearts.

On the surface, the addition of Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka only seems to have turned the original three-way standoff between Sudo Ken, Hirata Yosuke, and Shibata Hayate into a five-way battle. However, considering that the betting was about which class would ultimately win, Kitagawa Ryo and Ayanokouji Kiyotaka's substitute appearances were essentially an extra layer of insurance for Class B and Class D, which made Class 1-B's situation suddenly awkward.

Among these people, several had cold hands and feet and were covered in cold sweat. They subconsciously took out their phones from their pockets, wanting to log back into the group where they had been discussing current affairs and exchanging passionate words for the past two weeks, only to receive a cold message: "This group has been disbanded."

They had finally made up their minds on the day the betting ended to gamble with that mysterious guy who claimed to be the school's special agent, after all, he had said that the betting odds would definitely change in the last second before the end, and had shown them an account balance of more than ten million personal points, which was supposedly a special fund allocated by the school.

Because the incident involving Sakura Airi was covered up, almost no one knew about it except for the student council president, vice president, and the parties involved. Therefore, the vast majority of students were completely unaware of the existence of this sum of ten million.

These people were also fooled by greed. After all, in their opinion, the only person who could have such a large number of points at this time was either Nan Yun, a second-year student, or someone from the school. But Nan Yun had no reason to go to such lengths to deceive them, which led them to step into a trap.

The insider information that Sakayanagi Arisu gave them was to bet on Shibata Hayate, and he gave a whole set of reasons, saying that the anonymous post was made to raise Shibata's odds, and that Sudo and Hirata would both cause problems on the field, and everyone could just wait to fill sacks with money, etc.

But looking at the situation on the field now, Shibata Hayate himself probably thinks that 'making it into the top three would be a success,' and the students who bet on him are naturally dejected.

However, with their individual points already deducted, clinging to the last sliver of unrealistic hope and the expectation of a miracle, they still turned their attention to the track over there, determined to see what would happen.

Two male runners from each class, a total of eight, are ready at the starting line. There will be ten groups of runners in the 100-meter race, but the most attention will naturally be focused on this first group.

As the referee fired the starting gun, the surrounding spectators held their breath, their eyes following the runners as they sped towards the finish line from right to left.

Unlike the 400-meter and 1000-meter races, the 100-meter race is actually only a dozen seconds long at most. However, many students only blinked and lost focus for a moment. The eight people who were originally neck and neck at the starting line had already formed a clear gap in the middle of the race, which was less than 50 meters away. Ishizaki Daichi and Komiya Yogo from Class 1-C and another student from Class 1-A were directly left at the back.

Although it was a doomed match, the last-place team would be punished, so even though they were at the back, Ishizaki Daichi and the others still had no intention of giving up. They tried their best to move their legs, but even so, they could clearly see that the distance between them and the five students in front of them was visibly widening.