Chapter 12: If you don't get caught in the act, it's not cheating!

Located on York Avenue in the Upper East Side, the Brearley School (Julia School) is a private, aristocratic academy. Not only are the campus facilities beautiful and luxurious, but the surrounding area also possesses a sense of proximity to a park.

Although the green space in the nearby Carl Schurz Park is less than that of Central Park, it offers a unique space for children to play. The school has a long history; it not only teaches a full-time curriculum but also skillfully and dynamically integrates modern science and technology into the classroom atmosphere. Furthermore, it works closely with local cultural organizations to conduct numerous artistic and creative extracurricular activities, resulting in unprecedentedly excellent teaching resources.

Of course, the exorbitant enrollment fees exclude most children from ordinary income families! The children who attend here are generally either wealthy or noble; others shouldn't dwell on it too much.

And now, this is the school Annie is about to enter; she is arriving as a transfer student. To forge a complete set of identity documents for Annie, a S.H.I.E.L.D. archival team worked through the night, finally forging all her birth certificates, parental details, enrollment records, medical records, insurance records, and all other necessary documentation!

With a professional S.H.I.E.L.D. archival team on the job, Annie's files were flawless. All data, whether paper or electronic, was filed into the federal government's central database! Even the paper files were aged to look authentic; no one could find a single trace of tampering. For the powerful S.H.I.E.L.D., creating a set of identity information for a little girl was simply too easy.

Although it is not currently enrollment season and schools typically do not accept new students under normal circumstances, would the school dare to say "no" under the coercion of S.H.I.E.L.D.? No matter how inconvenient or non-compliant with standard procedures it was, they could only grit their teeth and find a way to squeeze in a spot for Annie.

"Good morning, class! Today I would like to introduce a new student. Let's give her a warm welcome with a round of applause!"

Ms. Sally Carter, the teacher in charge of English Language Arts (ELA), led Annie into the classroom by the hand, introduced her to the fourteen students, and signaled for Annie to walk to the podium to introduce herself.

To ensure high teaching quality, Brearley School generally keeps class sizes under twenty students, or even fewer! This class currently had fourteen students; with Annie, it would make exactly fifteen.

Annie held two books in her arms. She had changed out of her Little Red Riding Hood-style magical dress and into the long-skirted school uniform of the academy. She wore a backpack, though it contained no books—only her teddy bear, Tibers.

In truth, initially, given the powerful deterrent of the teddy bear—a dangerously potent "toy pet"—Coulson and Melinda had both been adamantly opposed to Annie bringing it to school.

However, Annie later argued that if Tibers were too far from her, it might very well break the contract and revert to its shadow-bear form as a Flame Giant Bear, which would be far too dangerous!

Thus, after consideration, Coulson and Melinda eventually agreed to Annie's wish to bring Tibers to school, but they demanded that she keep him inside her backpack and never take him out casually!

If Tibers could speak, he would have wanted to argue back at the time! Annie's words could only fool the magic-ignorant natives of Earth! Was a soul contract really that easy to break?

Just look at those warlocks who enslave demons! Even across countless planes, summoning those contracted demons is as simple as calling a dog. Do you see any of those demons daring to break their contracts? The contract between Tibers and Annie was far more secure than any contract used to enslave a demon!

Led by the teacher to the podium, Annie felt a bit happy as she looked down at the dozen or so pairs of curious eyes staring at her. So this was school? It seemed quite fun!

"Hello, everyone! My name is Annie, Annie Hesta! It's very nice to meet you all." Perhaps this would be a pleasant day, Annie thought.

Annie was very well-behaved during the morning classes. Before she had familiarized herself with the place, she did nothing out of the ordinary! She was still observing—observing this novel school for Earth humans! It turned out they really didn't teach magic, but instead taught all sorts of simple and strange things.

In the afternoon, they were in the school music room. Calling it a classroom was inaccurate; it was more like a small theater, complete with a stage and an auditorium. At that moment, a teacher was playing a piece on the piano on stage with great expression, while Annie sat in a row with her classmates in the audience.

This was the final music class before the end of the school day. The music instructor was a long-haired male teacher named John Philip, who was said to be a famous Hollywood music producer. Next to Annie, a chubby student was looking at him with great admiration, praising how good and amazing he was. However, Annie stated that she had absolutely no idea who this old man was!

"Aha~! I seem to have discovered a new face! Let me check the roster... Very good, Annie, is it?" After finishing a piece, John Philip picked up the attendance sheet and easily found the newly added name: Annie.

"Yes, teacher! It's nice to meet you." Annie stood up and gave a slight bow.

"Oh! Well, it's nice to meet you too, Annie. However..." John Philip closed the roster and thought for a moment. "According to our rules, newcomers must perform a new piece for their classmates!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a chubby student immediately raised his hand. His name was Jack Harper, the son of an entrepreneur, and he was the chubby boy who admired the music teacher. His hobby was eating, which was why he was so stout. Of course, it was also possible that his attribute points had been misallocated entirely into fat, leaving him not very bright and making him appear particularly blunt, honest, and stubborn!

"Teacher, I don't think we have that rule," Jack Harper said, standing up after receiving the teacher's permission to speak.

"Well, we have it now! Alright, please sit down." The teacher impatiently told him to sit and then looked at Annie.

"Annie? What instrument do you play? Piano? Or violin?"

Annie bit her finger and thought. She knew how to play, but piano? Violin? She didn't recognize them! However, she did know how to play the moon lute; her mother had taught her a few tricks!

"I can play that moon lute!" Annie pointed toward the instrument storage room on the right side of the stage, where various instruments were kept. Among them were two exquisite harps, one large and one small. The large one was clearly for adults, likely for the teachers, while the smaller one was perfectly sized for elementary students with small arms and legs.

"Wow! That's surprising. Even I don't know how to play that! This is actually called a harp, Annie, not a moon lute. Are you sure you can play it?"

John Philip immediately felt that this new little girl had an unusual background! The harp is a relatively rare instrument, a large stringed instrument and one of the oldest plucked instruments in the world, originating from ancient Persia.

The modern harp was designed by the French piano maker Sébastien Erard in 1810, featuring forty-seven strings of different lengths and seven pedals to change the pitch, allowing it to play in all keys. The harp is exquisite, beautiful, and highly artistic—elegant and pure like fine jade, possessing a tone as clear as morning dew.

Of course, the harp has one most important attribute: it is expensive! Extremely expensive! Especially a harp from a master maker; it is certainly not something an ordinary family could dream of owning. If Brearley School weren't an aristocratic private academy, they probably couldn't afford these two beautifully crafted harps.

John Philip walked over, pretentiously plucked a few strings on the grand harp, and then stopped awkwardly, not daring to continue for fear of making a fool of himself.

"Alright! Annie, you may come up and perform." He moved the small harp to the front of the stage, placed a small stool down, and signaled for Annie to begin.

"Then, I will play a short piece for everyone called: 'The Embrace of the Moon Goddess'."

Annie skipped onto the stage, stood before the harp, and gave an elegant Valoran-style princess curtsy to her classmates and teacher. She then sat on the small stool, plucked a few strings to tune them, and adjusted the pedals to get used to the harp, which was slightly different from the Valoran moon lute. Her small hands paused, and she took a deep breath.

Teacher John Philip and the students immediately fell silent, knowing that Annie was about to begin her formal performance. They had never heard a performance on such an instrument; every face was filled with either curiosity or anticipation.

Just as Annie was about to begin, her cunning eyes darted around. She suddenly remembered a little trick her mother had taught her, and the corners of her mouth curled up triumphantly, like a little fox that had stolen a bunch of grapes.

A wisp of magic flowed to her fingertips. As her fingers plucked the strings, an invisible ripple of magic vibrated along with the sound waves.

One note, two, three... as the beautiful music flowed continuously, it was as if a wisp of soft moonlight had pierced through a window and spilled over Annie on the stage. The moonlight was like moon elves dancing upon the strings, flying out from the harp one by one. Sometimes the music was like flowing clouds and water, sometimes a passionate leap, sometimes weeping like a song, and sometimes soul-shakingly haunting.

The listeners in the classroom felt as though they had dissolved into the world and cast themselves into the infinite universe. Everything around them vanished, leaving only the vast, white moon before their eyes! And the notes drifting in their ears...

The short piece, lasting less than five minutes, ended! The audience sat there dazed, their eyes unfocused, as if they were still staring into the void.

The music teacher, John Philip, was the first to react. He looked at Annie with a face full of shock and cried out, "My God, what did I just hear? I just embraced the moon!"

That was right! He had been immersed in the music, drifting with the notes, and as he reached the end of the piece, he had actually embraced the moon in the void!

"A genius performance! Oh! No! Annie, you must be an angel sent by God! I have had the honor of hearing the sound of heaven! This course of mine will definitely give you an A+!"

"Wow! Waaaaah~!" The young audience members finally reacted, though one blonde little girl suddenly burst into loud tears. Teacher John hurried over to comfort her.

"What's wrong, Angelina?"

"Waaah~! I... I saw my mommy... *sob*!" It turned out the little girl was crying from joy. John remembered from the student files that this girl was Angelina Roberts, from a single-parent household; her father was a CEO, and her mother had reportedly passed away from cancer two years ago.

Annie sheepishly stuck out her tongue and made a face before jumping off the stage. She wasn't about to tell them that she hadn't actually played that well; rather, she had secretly used magic to weave a charm into the music. This spell would guide people to become irresistibly immersed in the melody, sometimes even evoking their strongest memories or allowing them to see their most missed loved ones.

*(Master, is this really okay? Using charm magic on a musical performance isn't quite appropriate, is it? If I remember correctly, the Valoran Performance Convention strictly prohibits this! I think you really should seriously learn how to play the piano. Even if you can't play as well as that Sona person, you shouldn't play this poorly. To be honest, your performance just now, if you strip away the magical charm effect, was actually quite terrible! You missed several syllables, played several notes wrong, and the rhythm seemed off...)*

"Shut up! Tibers, you know too much!"

After walking off the stage and returning to her seat, Annie punched her backpack hard twice! How dare he say she played poorly? She decided to double her bath time tonight; lately, the teddy bear seemed a bit too dirty and needed a good soak in the water!

Coulson and Melinda had a very pleasant day. After dropping Annie off at school in the morning, they had been drinking coffee at a cafe near the school, chatting about life, until they saw Annie walking out of the school gates after dismissal.

They had taken a great risk with Annie's schooling this time. Although they had repeatedly warned her not to use magic at school and not to let the teddy bear out casually, and Annie had given her word, worries remained! They were afraid that if Annie lost her temper and burned some unlucky soul to ashes, the situation would be impossible to resolve easily.

It seemed that everything had gone well, and Annie had kept her promises, which allowed Coulson and Melinda to breathe a secret sigh of relief!

"Annie, how was your day?"

Coulson pulled the car up beside Annie and opened the door. While Brearley School did have a school bus service, Annie lived in the seaside suburbs, which was outside the bus route, so he had to drive her himself.

"It was great! I had several classes today. Although they were a bit boring, I played a piece this afternoon, and the teacher said I could get an A+ in music class!" Annie scrambled into the back seat, pulled the door shut, and took Tibers out of her backpack, smiling triumphantly at the two in the front.

"Is that so? That's wonderful!"

(End of Chapter)