ARC expiring before contract

Looking for some advice. My ARC ends five days before my contract ends. My school wants to force me to finish my contrat and work illegaly for five days. If I don’t they will take some of my money, including the 20 000 dollars that I had to fork over at the beginning of the contract. They say I should finish my contract and then when I go home, pay the 1 000 dollar fine for overstaying less than 10 days.
Yesterday they said they will renew my ARC for one month, which will also cost me 1000. I dont know if you can renew for only one month.
Anyway, I would like some advice, thanks.

It looks to me that you have two options.

The best one would be to renew your ARC through the school provided that they are willing to wear the costs of this. If the school can get an extension for a month then great. If they need to get a full year renewal well it probably doesn’t matter to you. You will of course leave at the end of your contract regardless. Be wary though, don’t sign anything that they may give you in Chinese as it could be a new contract for a full year in order to get you this extension. If you did sign a new contract then you could theoretically be blacklisted when you do leave at the intended completion of the current contract.

Alternatively, you could just overstay. You have a grace period of 10 days (some say seven days, so go with that if you want to be sure) before you need to leave the country. This will enable you to cover the extra five days work, without incurring any penalty. To get ultimate protection in this case, visit your local foreign affairs police upfront with your outbound ticket booked for within the grace period but after your contract expiry. They will put a small stamp in your passport which says that you need to leave before the date that you have booked the ticket for. This is not an overstay and doesn’t have any further implications.