Chapter 45: The Exception Clause

Xu Zhou stopped chewing the strawberry in his mouth, his motion frozen mid-bite.

He stared at the cold red text on the screen, brows lifting slightly.

GPA anomaly?

He had ranked third overall in the entrance exam, and since the semester began, his attendance in every course had been perfect.

As for the practical week review, it was still pending.

He clearly held a special approval letter that Ethan had signed personally in the cafeteria last night.

Mateo leaned over to glance at the screen, and fury instantly flared in his dark eyes:

“f*ck! Ethan Hawthorne! That stone-faced bastard is playing dirty in the system backend! He can’t touch my diplomatic immunity, so he went straight to freezing the school’s funding pool?!”

“A clean move. Right at the weak spot.”

Xu Zhou slowly swallowed the strawberry. The lazy smile in his peach-blossom eyes faded, replaced by a sober, helpless awareness forced by life.

“Senior, diplomatic immunity can block Gu Yanli’s chains, but it can’t block next semester’s tuition bill. If I lose my financial aid, I’ll have to wash dishes in the school logistics department for a year. Compared to that, signing at the student council is clearly the better deal.”

“I’ll cover your tuition! You stay right there!”

Mateo pressed Xu Zhou’s shoulder in a fit of rage.

“No. The Reyes family money is a trust fund. Every transaction gets audited.”

Xu Zhou calmly swatted his hand away and grabbed the dark blue hoodie beside him, pulling it on.

“And I don’t want a record as a tuition borrower in your family’s ledger. That would force me to go work for free at your Gulf oil fields later. I’m just a wage earner, senior. Not for sale.”

After speaking, he ignored Mateo’s furious outburst, quickly put on his shoes, picked up the faded old canvas bag, and pushed open the brass door that symbolized absolute safety.

***

Fifteen minutes later.

St. Leicester Student Council Building, top floor, President’s office.

The office was open and grand, decorated throughout in cold gray Nordic fir wood. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the entire school’s French-style courtyard lay below.

There was not a trace of impurity in the air, only the cool scent of cologne and expensive paper.

Ethan Hawthorne sat behind the huge black walnut desk.

His immaculate blond hair gleamed faintly under the cold light. His uniform buttons were still fastened meticulously up to the top.

But on closer inspection, the dark blue striped tie that was usually as precise as a ruler was slightly askew. At his collar, a tiny crease had even been pulled open.

“President, I’m here to verify my ‘anomalous’ GPA record with you.”

Xu Zhou didn’t knock. He pushed the door open and walked in.

He tossed the old canvas bag onto the expensive leather sofa and pulled out a chair, sitting across from Ethan. His tone was as flat as a wage earner checking attendance cards with HR.

Ethan slowly raised his head. His gray-blue eyes held no warmth.

“Junior, you’re five minutes slower than I expected.”

He unhurriedly set the black fountain pen on the inkwell and leaned back slightly. His gray-blue gaze fell on the oversized hoodie Xu Zhou wore, obviously Mateo’s. Deep in his eyes, something darkened almost imperceptibly.

“You like wearing the Reyes family’s clothes and parading around every corner of St. Leicester that much?”

Ethan’s voice was ice-cold, with an unquestionable sense of judgment:

“To avoid the disciplinary office and the student council’s normal review, you’d even make yourself an appendage of royal territory. Xu Zhou, is this the intelligence and dignity you’re so proud of?”

Anyone else, under the overwhelming pressure of this old-money heir, would probably have been unable to stand steady, maybe even start proving their innocence.

But Xu Zhou only leaned against the chair back and slowly fished a thick book from his bag: The St. Leicester Student Council Administrative Charter.

He pushed the book in front of Ethan with a smack. His long, pale fingers tapped a page lightly. His tone held a trace of casual mockery:

“President, Article 12, Chapter 3 of the charter clearly states that freezing a special student’s financial aid fund requires a joint signed ‘Disciplinary Fact Determination’ from the academic affairs office, the finance office, and the student council’s three-party joint meeting before it can be enforced. But my backend shows this freeze order was signed at 3 a.m. today, and the signature field contains only your electronic key, Ethan Hawthorne.”

Xu Zhou tilted his head up slightly. A clear light gathered in his pretty peach-blossom eyes as he met Ethan’s gaze head-on:

“At 3 a.m., the joint meeting was probably still in bed. You bypassed all regulations and procedures and forcibly used the student council’s final pre-review authority to withhold my financial aid.”

The youth leaned in slightly. His cool breath, carrying a faint sweet scent of strawberry lollipop, spread across the desk between them.

“President, you’ve always valued rules and procedural justice above all. But this move of yours, is it really to protect the school’s rules, or to satisfy some shady personal desire?”

Ethan’s fingers tightened unconsciously on the desk. Beneath his blond hair, his eyelids trembled slightly.

Xu Zhou’s jab struck precisely at his hardest and most vulnerable armor.

He had always prided himself on being the maker and guardian of this school’s rules.

But to keep Xu Zhou from disappearing completely under Mateo’s diplomatic protection, he had personally overturned the rules he set in the middle of the night.

“No personal desire.”

Ethan’s voice remained cold and hard, but the fingers at his side curled with a loss of control:

“I am merely exercising the president’s corrective function. You have deviated from the normal growth path, Xu Zhou. I must bring you back to a proper track.”

“Cut the crap, senior.”

Xu Zhou sneered and punctured his dignity with blunt directness:

“You’re just angry that Mateo’s diplomatic immunity cost you control. Angry that I’d rather feed horses at the stable than come sign for you. Your so-called rules are nothing but tools to hold me down.”

Just as the pressure in the president’s office dropped to freezing and the standoff between them tightened to its limit.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A violent, rude pounding suddenly exploded outside in the corridor.

Then Mateo’s signature furious roar came through the door:

“Ethan Hawthorne! Open the damn door! You touch my people, you have a death wish?! If you’ve got guts, stop using the student council’s security system to lock the door and come fight me at the stable one-on-one!”

Outside, the rugby club’s musclemen and Reyes’s bodyguards had already packed the corridor tight, shoving back and forth with the student council’s disciplinary squad. The scene descended into utter chaos.

Xu Zhou turned to glance at the heavy wooden door still shaking, then looked back at Ethan, whose expression had completely darkened. He sighed helplessly and pointed at his canvas bag:

“President, look. Your rules held me here, and they brought that furious wild dog outside too. Before things get uglier, why don’t we sign this exemption application first?”

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