“Hence, for the competition every year, we would always lose.” Principal Liu shook his head. “And it’s a complete loss. Our intention as principals is not to win the whole competition in the end. It’s for some of our students to at least win some segments, even if it was only one round.
“It could more or less help us earn some pride back,” Principal Liu said. “So that we won’t always be a joke to the other side. Every time, after we send students over to learn and still have to be treated like a joke, it makes us feel terrible also. There were many times when we were so angry we wanted to end the partnership and just develop on our own, but in the end…”
Principal Liu gave a bitter smile and shook his head. “Of course, this is only part of it. There’s also the internal competition between our schools. As the students come from four different schools, we will surely have our own competition between the students from the different schools. Whichever students perform better and get better results, the school which the student came from will have even more pride and can laugh at other schools.”
Lu Man roughly guessed it by now.
These few schools were all not working with team spirit but competing with each other.
In this way, even if 10 teams of students were sent to New York University, they would start to fall apart from within because they were not united.
In the process of preparing for the competition, they would not see eye to eye with each other and compete with each other for scenes and other things.
Their original capability, for which they could have scored 8 points, ended up scoring them 5 points.
The chances of winning could possibly have been 50-50 but ended up becoming 30-70.
It was no wonder that they could not win like this.
When Lu Man thought of this, Principal Liu said, “Lu Man, I really feel that among so many students, you have the biggest chance of winning.”
Even if Lu Man could not win, at least she would not lose too badly.
After all, Lu Man’s acting skills were really yards apart from other students.
If Lu Man could not win, then the others could stop dreaming of winning either.
Lu Man smiled and told him what was on her mind. “If there is no team spirit, there is no use no matter how good their acting is. They act their own part and compete on their own. It’s like a hodgepodge of expensive herbs that are all good individually but conflict each other when they are mixed together. There is no less effort put in, but they ultimately do not mix together, making it a waste of effort.
“It would be of no use even if I went,” Lu Man said. “I don’t think I have such a huge personal charm to make everyone band together. On the contrary, there are many people who hate me. If I am there, everyone might become even more competitive and refuse to admit defeat. Because of my presence, I think this team would probably never work together.
“It’s precisely because we have internal competition that even if everyone puts in 10 marks’ worth of effort, we will only get half the results, making it 5 marks. If the four schools can temporarily cast aside their competition and unite to compete externally, the results should be much better,” Lu Man said.
How would Principal Liu not know this?
It was not just him. He believed the principals of the other three schools also knew this logic.
Everyone knew, but no one was willing to bring up the topic first. No one was willing to compromise first.
No one wanted to admit defeat. Everyone was afraid that they would be on the losing end first.
In the end, the results remained as such for so many years and had never changed.
Ever since they started the partnership with New York University, the students in the country had never once won.
Principal Liu was depressed too.
However, he could not force Lu Man either, mainly because he had no right to!
Principal Liu did not immediately agree to Lu Man’s request. Just like Teacher Liang, he delayed it first and said, “Alright. I understand your matter. Let me think about it. You should reconsider too. On this matter, Teacher Liang has already told you right, it ends before Year 3 starts. Before that, you can change your mind anytime.”
