From young, Jia Li's mother had instilled in her the belief that anyone could reach their goals as long as they worked hard enough. And so she did. She toiled tirelessly every night during her school days. Romance had long been disillusioned, thanks to her no-good, deadbeat father, so she poured all her energy into taking first position in every exam.
When she saw the results, she felt a deep sense of gratification. She had topped all her subjects and emerged first in her grade.
"It'll all be worth it in the end," she said, as she stayed up countless nights revising in preparation for her college entrance exam.
Though Jia Li was used to disappearing into the background—overlooked in crowds, passed over in group photos—her grades had always been the one thing she could hold up like a mirror and see something valuable staring back.
She knew she wasn't the kind of girl people noticed. Her features were the kind people politely called "plain." Her skin bore the battle scars of untreated acne. Her nose was round and stubby, and her glasses, too big for her small face, always slid down no matter how tightly she adjusted them. Her uniform clung to her thin frame like it, too, wanted to leave.
And her background? Humble at best. Her mother worked double shifts at a textile factory. Her father had left them with nothing but overdue bills and broken promises. Jia Li knew what it meant to calculate bus fares down to the yuan, to eat plain rice with pickled vegetables for a week straight, and to fake a smile in front of classmates who threw birthday parties with catered cuisines.
She'd seen them, the rich daughters of government officials. Glossy hair, sleek cars, the scent of expensive perfume trailing behind them in the hallways. They carried themselves like they owned the future. Jia Li never hated them. Not really.
Yes, she envied them—but never with bitterness. She understood that they were simply playing the hand they'd been dealt, just as she was. She had no illusions about how the world worked.
But if they were born into privilege, then she would earn her way out of obscurity.
Her grades were her ticket. Her shield. Her one undeniable, unassailable proof that she mattered.
In a world that praised beauty and background, she had carved out her worth in sheer excellence. And with every exam she topped, with every stunned expression from a teacher who hadn't expected much from "the quiet one,"
She built a staircase, one that would take her far beyond this life, far beyond her beginnings.
Eventually, the college exams came. Jia Li smiled the morning of the Gaokao, nerves twisting in her stomach like silk threads pulled too tight. Her school had drilled past questions into her mind like mantras, and now, it was time. She arrived at the testing center early, her ID card clutched in one hand, her black-ink pens in the other. Policemen stood at the gates to ensure order. Parents waited outside the school walls, whispering prayers and good lucks.
Inside, proctors checked ID numbers, exam admission slips, and faces for any sign of mischief. The room was sterile—rows of desks spaced just right, clocks ticking louder than they should. The first paper: Chinese Language. Then Mathematics. Politics. English. Each day brought a new mountain to climb, each subject its own beast.
By the second day, her eyes ached from the strain. The essay prompt that morning asked her to reflect on perseverance in modern society. Jia Li nearly smiled. She poured her soul onto the page, ink flowing like every sleepless night come to life.
By the time it ended, the silence was deafening. Some students cried. Others laughed in relief. Jia Li just stood there, breathing in the thick summer air, knowing she had given it everything.
Whatever happened next, she had earned it.
The wait for results felt like wading through wet cement—slow, suffocating, impossible to escape. Every day, Jia Li refreshed the portal with trembling fingers, hoping to see the confirmation of everything she'd sacrificed for.
On the morning the Gaokao scores were finally released, she bolted upright in bed before the sun even rose. Her heart pounded as she typed in her credentials.
The page loaded. Then froze. Then came crashing down on her like a landslide.
483.
Her eyes blinked. Once. Twice. She refreshed. She logged out. Logged back in.
483.
Her knees buckled.
That number was far too low for Shanghai University. Even Beijing Normal or Fudan was now a ghost. She barely qualified for a third-tier university in a smaller province—a place she hadn't even considered in her backup list.
The walls of her room felt smaller, closer. Her vision blurred with disbelief. All those years. The sleepless nights, the relentless studying, the abandoned friendships, the broken dreams of childhood romance—for this?
When her mother came in, Jia Li didn't even need to say it. The look on her face said it all. Her mother tried to force a smile, to speak optimism into the air, but her eyes betrayed her. The disappointment wasn't loud—it was a quiet, restrained sorrow that cut deeper than any words.
Then the news broke.
The local papers, the school bulletin board, even WeChat threads were all abuzz.
"Top Scorer of the Province: Wang Meilin, daughter of City's Richest Tycoon, Earns Highest Gaokao Score with Full Marks in Math and Chinese."
Jia Li's breath caught in her throat. Meilin?
The same girl who used to copy homework at the last minute, who skipped after-school lessons to flirt behind the gymnasium? The one whose average scores had consistently floated around the bottom 30% of their class?
At first, Jia Li thought it must be a mistake—maybe a different Meilin. But the photo said otherwise. It was her. Smiling beneath the gold banner of academic excellence. University scouts from Tsinghua, Peking, even Ivy League schools were sending her offers.
Jia Li felt sick. Not with envy—but with something darker. A gnawing sense that everything was not as it seemed.
She couldn't let it go.
First, she approached her teachers, asking them gently if there had been a mistake. Then the school administrator. Then the examination bureau. She filed polite inquiries. Then formal complaints. Then desperate letters. But every reply was the same:
"The scores have been verified."
"There is no error."
"Please refrain from further contact."
It was like throwing stones into still water—each effort disappeared without a ripple.
But Jia Li wasn't just smart. She was sharp. She'd been top in every internal exam, the kind where teachers graded their own students. She hadn't hallucinated her success. Something had gone very, very wrong.
Eventually, a friend of her cousin who worked as a low-level assistant in the provincial education office whispered to her one night, "If you really want to know what happened, find Mr. Lu. He's in charge of Gaokao script handling in our district."
She found him one rainy afternoon outside a government archive building, smoking by a rusted bicycle. He looked tired—older than he should've been.
She approached quietly, introduced herself, and asked him if he'd be willing to review the original scripts. Not to accuse—just to verify.
Mr. Lu's eyes darkened. He pulled her aside and spoke in a voice so low she could barely hear.
"Miss Jia… listen to me. You're a good student. But there are forces in this country that are much bigger than you. Much older. Much deeper. You think this is just about marks? These decisions are already made before the ink dries. Quietly go to university. Live your life. Don't poke where you don't belong."
His words fell like bricks in her stomach.
"Are you saying my results were switched?"
He looked away. Said nothing. But silence, sometimes, is louder than confession.
Jia Li walked home in the rain that night, drenched and shaking. Not from the cold, but from the truth she now understood.
Her body went ice cold. Her soul felt like a cracked porcelain vase.
"So all my hard work was for what?"
Her voice barely made a sound in the storm.
She had spent her youth crafting a wedding dress—each stitch sewn with ambition, pain, and purpose—only to watch someone else wear it to the altar of success.