Chap­ter 29 of The Choco­late War fol­lows Bri­an Cochran as he becomes deeply involved in the process of tal­ly­ing the sales results for the choco­late cam­paign. The ini­tial excite­ment he feels is intense, as the num­bers climb rapid­ly, and he finds him­self caught in the thrill of the campaign’s suc­cess. With choco­lates rapid­ly becom­ing the newest trend in the school, Bri­an feels a rush of accom­plish­ment as he watch­es the sales fig­ures increase. How­ev­er, the sud­den and inex­plic­a­ble surge in sales doesn’t escape his notice. Rumors about The Vig­ils’ involve­ment in ral­ly­ing stu­dents to sell choco­lates spread through the school, yet Bri­an remains unin­volved with their meth­ods. He does, how­ev­er, observe how cer­tain mem­bers are keep­ing track of the stu­dents who haven’t sold enough choco­lates and warn­ing them, which sug­gests that coer­cion may be at play. This under­ly­ing ten­sion hints at a dark­er force con­trol­ling the excite­ment sur­round­ing the sale, a real­i­ty that Bri­an remains acute­ly aware of but unsure how to chal­lenge.

Through­out the day, Bri­an is con­stant­ly updat­ing the sales fig­ures on the board, respond­ing to the intense atmos­phere in the assem­bly hall. The stu­dents’ enthu­si­asm and ener­gy esca­late as the sales fig­ures are post­ed, with many stu­dents can­vass­ing the local neigh­bor­hood and even approach­ing local busi­ness­es in an attempt to hit their quo­tas. The space becomes filled with antic­i­pa­tion and ener­gy as each stu­dent eager­ly looks at the board to see their progress. Bri­an, while caught up in the fren­zy, begins to feel more uncom­fort­able as the fair­ness of the cred­it dis­tri­b­u­tion becomes increas­ing­ly ques­tion­able. Carter, who is head of The Vig­ils, sub­mits a large sum of mon­ey, claim­ing it’s from sev­en­ty-five box­es sold, though Bri­an knows this isn’t pos­si­ble. Despite Brian’s dis­com­fort, he feels com­pelled to com­ply with Carter’s request to allo­cate cred­its to stu­dents who didn’t make those sales. This action begins to weigh on him, as he real­izes that he is enabling a dis­hon­est sys­tem but ratio­nal­izes that it’s not his place to ques­tion the process. His dis­com­fort with the moral ambi­gu­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion grows, but he con­tin­ues with his task, aware that any resis­tance may come with con­se­quences.

As the day unfolds, Bri­an is stuck in a dilem­ma between his role as a facil­i­ta­tor of the cam­paign and his grow­ing doubts about its integri­ty. Although Bri­an remains silent about his sus­pi­cions, the grow­ing ten­sion he feels shows through in the way he han­dles the sales fig­ures. Carter’s com­men­da­tion of his work, for the moment, pro­vides some relief, lift­ing Brian’s spir­its tem­porar­i­ly, but the lin­ger­ing unease about the unfair­ness of the cred­it allo­ca­tion sticks with him. His inter­nal con­flict inten­si­fies as the day ends, with Bri­an real­iz­ing that the sale has evolved into some­thing more than just a fundrais­ing event; it has become a bat­tle of pow­er, manip­u­la­tion, and con­trol. When the final tal­ly is announced, the total num­ber of choco­lates sold reach­es a stag­ger­ing fif­teen thou­sand and ten box­es, a fig­ure that excites every­one involved. Broth­er Leon, who is over­see­ing the entire cam­paign, shares in Brian’s excite­ment, and for the first time, he address­es Bri­an by his first name, fur­ther cement­ing the strange cama­raderie that has devel­oped. The applause that fol­lows only adds to Brian’s dis­com­fort, as he stands in the cen­ter of the spot­light, a key play­er in a cam­paign built on decep­tion. While the recog­ni­tion feels good, it also serves as a reminder of the moral com­pro­mis­es that have been made for the sake of suc­cess. The chap­ter con­cludes by high­light­ing the toll that manip­u­la­tion, pow­er, and blind ambi­tion take on indi­vid­u­als, as Brian’s moment of tri­umph is over­shad­owed by the eth­i­cal ques­tions sur­round­ing the cam­paign. The nar­ra­tive under­scores the psy­cho­log­i­cal bur­den car­ried by those who will­ing­ly par­tic­i­pate in moral­ly ambigu­ous sit­u­a­tions, and the unset­tling real­i­ty of being com­plic­it in some­thing that doesn’t align with per­son­al val­ues.