Xu Weiwei stayed up all night, but her mental state was particularly good when she went to school the next day.
Standing up to her father was something worth celebrating for her.
She attended classes cheerfully, but by the afternoon, she started to feel drowsy.
Her classmates, aware of her heroic feat from the previous night, helped cover for Xu Weiwei as she dozed off during class.
The Class Teacher, considering that she had barely slept the night before and her study efficiency was low, suggested she go home to catch up on sleep and come back refreshed the next day.
Xu Weiwei rejected this proposal, saying there was no need for special treatment.
Of course, the most important reason was that she found her home too noisy and thought she could sleep more comfortably in the classroom.
The day's duty students, aware of Xu Weiwei's special circumstances, didn't deduct points from her for this reason.
After the introduction of the group system in Class 1 of the second year of high school, each small group took turns being on duty, responsible for classroom chores and daily discipline.
A group point system was implemented, where students violating class rules, such as chatting or sleeping during self-study periods, or not completing homework assigned by subject teachers, were serious issues that resulted in point deductions.
The class rules set by the Class Teacher were even longer than the school rules, rivaling the Lin Family Rules of Qianpu Middle School in their extensiveness.
For behaviors such as skipping class without reason, fighting off-campus, or bringing weapons to school, corresponding points would be deducted.
Most of these rules were based on mistakes these kids had made before, written into the class rules to prevent them from happening again.
The Class Teacher, considering that his class was full of troublemakers who would surely come up with all sorts of new mischief not yet covered by the rules, added a final clause:
"For any other actions students shouldn't do, deduct ten points."
To put these five points into perspective, it would take Shi Li winning first place in physics ten times in a row to earn five points.
She would need to place first in the entire school five times to earn five points, just to offset the deduction for one infraction.
While earning points was difficult, losing them happened all too easily.
Students could easily end up in "point debt" for their schooling.
Now, just two days into the school year, Wei Yi's group was already in negative points.
As for the purpose of these points, they were certainly useful.
Knowing these kids were all wealthy and didn't care about monetary rewards or gifts, the Class Teacher, having been a student himself once, could guess what the students really wanted, even though he had been a top student seemingly without worldly desires.
Apart from hacking into the school's computers to physically increase student scores (which would violate ethics and morals), there were many other things that could make the kids happy.
Students wanted things like more holidays and less homework.
So the Class Teacher introduced a policy where points could be exchanged for less homework or more vacation days.
Half a point could cancel out one day's after-school homework or be exchanged for one day of vacation.
It was normal for students with excellent test scores to have high point totals, and giving good students a couple of extra days off didn't have much of an impact.
Conversely, some groups with poor academic performance might have negative points, which meant they needed to use their holidays to pay off the debt.
Although one point could earn one day off, it took two extra school days to make up for negative one point.
When this rule was announced, the classroom, which had been full of applause, suddenly filled with boos.
The Class Teacher remained calm, saying, "Don't you pay interest when you borrow money? Where in the world do you get such a good deal?"
A student whose family owned a bank muttered, "This is usury, it's illegal."
The Class Teacher replied, "I'm not lending money, so it's not illegal."
"You're not lending money, you're lending conscience," retorted the student.
The Class Teacher nodded, acknowledging this statement. "Of course, if you all think it's unreasonable, you don't have to borrow. I don't want everyone to have negative points at the end of the semester. I hope you can all exchange for more holidays to go home for the New Year, rather than having to make dumplings at school on New Year's Eve."
The class thought: What a vicious curse.
The Class Teacher wanted these kids to consider the consequences before acting, to prevent them from causing trouble everywhere.
Being a class teacher meant worrying about everything.
After distributing the thick stack of class rules, all the students wore gloomy expressions, which satisfied the teacher's wicked sense of humor.
With the reward and punishment system in place, the students became notably more disciplined.
In the previous semester, the students had a big carrot dangling in front of them: the possibility of being in the same class as Shi Li for the next few years, which motivated everyone to study hard.
At the end of the last semester, when they learned that the Class Teacher had successfully applied to keep the class together without reshuffling, most of the students lost their motivation and reverted to their previous state of "sunbathing like salted fish" in class.
The Class Teacher had anticipated this situation. On the first day, he announced the point deduction and addition system but didn't mention that the reward and punishment system was linked to holidays.
Some students in the class carelessly allowed their points to be deducted. On the second day, when it was revealed that the system was tied to homework and holidays, the groups that had already accumulated negative points were stunned.
These groups didn't have the top students in the class who could easily earn back points by scoring full marks or first place multiple times. It was likely that their point debt would snowball, making the Class Teacher's scenario of studying at school on New Year's Eve and making dumplings together a very real possibility.
To prevent this from happening, students couldn't doze off or visit the dream world during class, couldn't skip after-school homework, and certainly couldn't do it carelessly, as that would result in even more point deductions.
As for the good students, in order to accumulate more holidays, they were extremely focused during classes and exams. Situations like getting into a fight before an exam and injuring an arm, resulting in being unable to take the test, would absolutely not happen.
Firstly, everyone needed to earn points through exams to add to their group's score.
Secondly, getting into group fights would result in significant point deductions.
This was not a good trade-off. To protect their points, if faced with a pre-exam fight situation, it would be better to call the police instead.
