Chapter 29— Ms. Zhuang, Please Don’t Come Again
Monday morning, Class 7 of Grade 11 felt dead on its feet. After a single weekend, the early birds were either cramming weekend homework or face-planted on their desks catching up on sleep.
When Chen Jingshen arrived there were still only a few people. He glanced at the empty seat beside him and hung his bag over the back of his chair.
Wang Lu’an’s backpack was on his seat, but the person was missing. Chen Jingshen went to the back to fill his water and returned just as Wang Lu’an wandered in, yawning.
Seeing Chen Jingshen, Wang Lu’an scrubbed his hair and called out as Chen Jingshen turned.
“Top student, uh… Ms. Fangqin wants you in her office.”
Chen Jingshen set the cup down. “Okay.”
“It’s about the weekend. She knows we went to the KTV.” Wang Lu’an grimaced. “Some clown took pictures and posted them in a small school group with forty-something people, thought it wouldn’t spread. Now the photos are already in her hands.”
Chen Jingshen stayed quiet. Wang Lu’an clapped his shoulder at once. “Relax, it isn’t serious. Worst case she scolds you a couple lines…”
It was still early. Only a few teachers were in the office.
“Report.”
Zhuang Fangqin glanced at the door and put her half-eaten bread aside. “Come in.”
Chen Jingshen was as neat as ever, posture straight. It was hard to reconcile him with the boy in those pictures calmly downing drinks through a haze of smoke.
“You know why I asked you here. Wang Lu’an told you, right?”
A soft “mm.”
“I am not against a bit of entertainment after school, but you are still high school students. Smoking and drinking are not things you should be doing. Understood?”
“Mm.”
Zhuang Fangqin nodded, then changed tack. “How is it, sitting with Yu Fan?”
Chen Jingshen’s lowered lashes lifted a fraction. “Good.”
Zhuang Fangqin had never quite figured out why Chen Jingshen insisted on being Yu Fan’s deskmate. At first she thought he wanted peace and quiet. Yu Fan could sleep seven periods out of eight and never bothered anyone else, but after watching for a while, she realized that was not it.
“Your mother spoke with me,” Zhuang said carefully. “She hopes I will assign you a more suitable seat.”
Apparently a previous homeroom teacher had hinted at something to Chen Jingshen’s family, because the call came straight in with a request.
Chen Jingshen’s brows twitched. A flash of disgust passed through his eyes. He was about to speak when Zhuang continued.
“In my class, unless there is nearsightedness or some other genuine physical issue, parents do not get to reshuffle seats at will. I arrange by two criteria. One: whether the pairing benefits both students. Two: the students’ own wishes. The second counts for less.”
“To be frank, the results so far have not been great. But I still want to observe until the midterms before I change anything, so I pushed any adjustments until then.” She lifted her phone. On the screen were the KTV photos. “At least before that, nothing like this again. All right?”
Chen Jingshen’s face was as cool as ever. Whether he took it in or not was hard to tell. “All right.”
She sighed. “Go on then.”
He turned to leave. At the doorway, Zhuang could not help calling him back. “Wait.”
He looked back, expressionless.
“Yu Fan looks fierce and the things he does can be frightening,” she said. “But he is not bad at heart. If you can, without hurting your own work, I hope you will help him where you can.”
When he was gone, Zhuang picked up her bread again and bent over her lesson plan.
The homeroom teacher from Class 8 had been listening and finally could not hold it in. “Ms. Zhuang, I know you mean well, but do you really think a student like Yu Fan can still be saved?”
Zhuang smiled and said nothing.
Her eyes drifted to the phone again. In the KTV photo, Yu Fan looked lazy, head bowed over his phone, but his eyes were fixed on Chen Jingshen, brows knit with an almost angry impatience. In the next photo, the dice cup was already in Yu Fan’s hand.
A spring breeze slipped through the half-open window. Zhuang put the phone down, memory tugging her somewhere old.
She had been a teacher many years and thought she had seen every sort of student. She could say with certainty that Yu Fan was the most headache-inducing of them all.
When sophomore year first started, groups filed past their classroom door regularly. They were there for one person: Yu Fan. Some had heard a very handsome new transfer had landed in Class 7 and came to look. Others had heard a kid with a reputation for being cocky in middle school had arrived and came to put him in his place.
The latter were mostly Grade 11s and 12s who called themselves “year boss,” “school boss.” At first they only threatened, childish little warnings like “watch yourself,” “quit acting tough,” “do what we say later.” Any other student would have nodded and backed off, and that would be the end of it.
Yu Fan did not. He had only one response: “A**holes.”
He had no friends early on and fought groups of upperclassmen alone, showing up to class with bruises and cuts. Of course, the ones bullying him never got off lightly. They always ended worse than he did.
Zhuang lost count of how many times she stepped in. She pulled security footage, pushed for the older boys to be disciplined or withdrawn, and tried again and again to talk to Yu Fan.
He gave her silence.
On the fourth disciplinary notice, she decided to pay a home visit.
It was a Saturday. The choice was sudden; she had not warned him, and no one answered the parent’s phone. She did not even know if anyone was home, but she went to try.
She still remembered the day perfectly. There was a ring of neighbors outside a shabby wooden door, whispering anxiously. Inside came crashes and a torrent of vile curses.
She finally understood why Yu Fan always won.
The police the neighbors had called broke down the door. The room was wrecked. Yu Fan was gripping a snapped broom handle, locked in a life-or-death struggle with a man twice his size, his face smeared with blood.
Zhuang ignored all of Yu Fan’s refusals. She stayed with him at the station, saw him through the process, took him to the hospital, then contacted the neighborhood committee and women’s federation.
While she made calls, Yu Fan sat on a bench with bandages on his face. His dark eyes, the only thing visible, stared at her and he said, “Ms. Zhuang, please don’t come again.”
“You ask me, if that kid can finish high school without getting into trouble, that would already be great… Ms. Zhuang?”
Zhuang came back to herself and looked up. A second later she smiled and nodded. “Yes. Smooth and safe would be good.”
When Chen Jingshen got back to class, his deskmate was already facedown. One hand pressed at his neck, the other dangled off the front of the desk. Same as always.
Chen Jingshen glanced at the back of his head, sat down, and pulled out his English book to start morning reading.
Wang Lu’an had his orders early. Seeing Chen Jingshen, he craned over. “Top student, what did Ms. Fangqin want? Did she scold you? No punishment, right?”
The fingers dangling off the desk twitched, just barely.
Chen Jingshen pretended not to notice. His page-turning paused. The corners of his mouth pressed a shade lower.
“Sh***, what kind of face is that? Don’t scare me,” Wang Lu’an said. “She chewed you out?”
Chen Jingshen pursed his lips and did not answer.
Zhuang Xianjing in front turned around. “Obviously she did.”
“She barely scolded me!” Wang Lu’an protested.
“Her expectations for you and for the top student are the same? As long as you don’t break the law, she cannot be bothered to scold you.”
“…”
She thought of something and asked, curious, “Top student, is this the first time a teacher has criticized you?”
“Mm.”
Zhuang Xianjing clicked her tongue. “Wang Lu’an, your sin is grave.”
“Getting scolded is fine,” Wang Lu’an tried again. “But there’s no punishment, right?”
The ears of the boy lying beside them twitched.
Chen Jingshen pinched his pen and, after a few seconds, threw out, “It is fine.”
Just that one heavy line was enough for everyone to invent a melodrama where Ms. Fangqin ranted like a street shrew and the top student nobly took it in silence to avoid burdening his classmates.
Out of guilt, Wang Lu’an read so loudly during morning reading that the English teacher nearly jumped.
Chen Jingshen’s voice was low and weak as he followed along for a bit. At last the person beside him squirmed and lifted his head off his arm.
“Hey.” Under the desk, Yu Fan nudged him with a knee. “Go back to her office after class.”
Chen Jingshen stopped reading and turned his head.
Staring at the English text, Yu Fan drawled, “Tell her I forced you. I forced you to drink too.”
“No.”
Yu Fan ground his teeth. “Suit yourself. Getting chewed out is your problem.”
“Mm.”
“…”
The English teacher passed by just then and heard Yu Fan squeezing his book so hard it crackled. She flicked her ponytail and pretended not to see, drifting to another aisle.
Two minutes later, the whisper came again, all grit. “What exactly did she say? Did she punish you?”
“No.” Chen Jingshen’s lashes lowered. After a quiet moment he added, “She did not call me in about the KTV.”
“Then what?”
“About you sleeping in class.”
Yu Fan blinked. “What does that have to do with you?”
“When I applied to change seats, I promised I would keep an eye on your class behavior,” Chen Jingshen said mildly. “I did not do it. The criticism is deserved.”
He looked down. “It is nothing. Only a few words.”
“…”
“I am fine.”
“…”
Third period, math.
Zhuang Fangqin walked in with her lesson plan, as usual glancing to the back row. As expected, there was a head down.
She plucked a piece of chalk from the box, snapped it in one hand, and raised her arm to throw.
The head moved.
The boy who could sleep through ten sticks of chalk pushed up on one arm and, eyes shut, unwillingly sat up inch by inch.
Two seconds later, Yu Fan dragged his lids open and, scowling, met her gaze.
Zhuang Fangqin: “...?”
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