Chapter 17: Fighting in Class Is Wrong
All they heard was the boy’s furious roar, “I’ll f*ck your mother’s XX!” He clenched his fist and swung it at Zhou Wanfeng’s face.
In the astonished gazes of the entire class, all they saw was the short-haired girl standing perfectly still. Just as the fist was about to hit her face, she suddenly turned sideways, just enough to dodge the punch. The next second, she struck.
She also clenched her fist and swung it out. All they saw was her body bend into a half-squat, her left elbow raised to protect her nose, and her right arm swinging out like a whip.
“Ah!”
The punch landed squarely on the boy’s brow. The speed was so fast that the boy cried out instinctively and stumbled backwards.
Zhou Wanfeng’s pupils glinted sharply. She stared into the boy’s eyes and warned coldly, “Keep your mouth clean, or I’ll make it so you can’t open it.”
The boy’s chest heaved, his eyes darting around. He glanced around the classroom and realized that everyone’s attention was now focused on him. A wave of shame washed over him. Even though he was already a little scared, if he didn’t do something to fight back now, he would become the laughingstock of his new classmates.
At this moment, both the boys and girls in the class were looking at Zhou Wanfeng in shock, whispering, “What’s her name? Do you know?”
“Damn, when she threw that punch just now, I got goosebumps. You can feel it if you don’t believe me. I thought the punch was going to land on her face.”
“You can tell she’s practiced kung fu. That was a basic defensive punch just now. The nose is cartilage, and the capillaries are very fragile. A blow can easily cause bleeding, which will hinder breathing and affect the subsequent fight. Plus, it’s extremely insulting.”
“Wow, I didn’t know you knew so much. Zhu Junling, you must have studied how to fight a lot,” the boys in the back row were the most excited, including Zhu Junling and his group.
Zhu Junling looked smug, but he couldn’t help but glance forward a few times. The boy was being comforted by his deskmate, but his expression was still furious. The girl had already turned around and sat down.
“Hey, what’s her name? Which elementary school did she come from?”
“Her name is Zhou Wanfeng. I don’t know which elementary school she came from. But I remember she was the only one who went to the dean’s office to get her books yesterday,” a boy next to him had gotten some information from the front row. “She looks very tough.”
To put it bluntly, a person like her would not be bullied in any class. She was too tough.
Amidst the discussions in the class, the bell for class rang. Many students still stole glances at Zhou Wanfeng from time to time. She had caused a commotion, but now she was calmly taking out her Chinese textbook and notebook, sitting up straight, looking like she was ready to listen attentively in class.
Tang Yuqing was now propping her chin on her hand, staring at Zhou Wanfeng. “Hey, which elementary school did you graduate from? How did you end up at Shuangshu? Are you bad at studying, or did you get into some trouble at school?”
Tang Yuqing was extremely curious. Her new deskmate was clearly not simple. Kicking desks, hitting people without batting an eye. She was incredibly cool.
Zhou Wanfeng frowned and reminded her in a commanding tone, “Class is starting.”
“Oh, oh, okay, class is starting. I won’t ask anymore,” Tang Yuqing said, flipping open her book and laying it flat on the desk, not even on the first page.
Then, a male teacher with thinning hair and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses came in. He looked to be around fifty, was very thin, and walked at a leisurely pace. He only slowly walked into the classroom after the bell had stopped ringing.
He had a Chinese textbook and teaching materials tucked under his arm, and was holding a water cup with both hands, blowing on it as he walked. He stood at the podium, pushed up his glasses, and glanced at the students. He then turned and wrote his name on the blackboard in a flamboyant, cursive script.
It was so messy, and in a cursive style that was hard to distinguish. A group of students were guessing his name. Li? Li what?
“Li Jianbang. From now on, I will be your Chinese teacher,” Li Jianbang’s voice was gentle and soft, not loud, and he spoke at a leisurely pace. After introducing himself, he slowly began to teach the first lesson.
Zhou Wanfeng’s heart sank. She didn’t know if this Teacher Li was old and deaf, or what. He completely ignored the stifled laughter and chatter in the class.
“This is a prose piece. The author is… Students, please read it a few times to get a feel for it,” he said, then leaned against the podium, holding his cup with both hands and slowly sipping his tea.
Hardly any of the students below were reading. He kept his eyes down and didn’t care, continuing to say, “Everyone, please get a good feel for this prose piece. Feel the author’s intention in every word. Experience the author’s thoughts in that environment, and you will be able to experience and understand the author’s psychology and thoughts when writing.”
Zhou Wanfeng took a deep breath and, ignoring the chaotic noise in the class, began to read the text seriously.
But as she was reading, the chair under her began to shake, tap, tap, tap. She bent down and saw that the boy behind her had stretched his foot under her chair and was kicking her chair leg like he was tapping a wooden fish.
Zhou Wanfeng moved her chair forward, but the next second, she heard the desk and chair behind her scrape forward, and sure enough, the tapping sound started again.
The chair, along with Zhou Wanfeng, started to shake.
The sound seemed to be coming from inside her head, cutting through her concentration like a knife.
Zhou Wanfeng’s lips were pressed into a thin line. She turned her head slightly. The boy in the back row had a smug smirk on his face, and his foot was kicking even harder. The force was just right, not enough to move her chair, but enough to fill her head with the tapping sound.
The tension between the two was quickly noticed by the people around them.
Tang Yuqing looked down more than once, then sat up and looked at her deskmate.
All she saw was Zhou Wanfeng’s lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes filled with a cold fury. Then she saw Zhou Wanfeng move her chair back, leaning against the desk behind her. When her chair rolled over the foot of the boy behind her, he quickly pulled it back.
She hadn’t managed to pin it down, and he even let out a soft, triumphant laugh. “F*ck your mother, serves you right.”
Li Jianbang in the front felt that the reading time was up. He put down his water cup and wrote the new words from the prose on the blackboard, with pinyin.
“Everyone has finished reading. Who can…” Li Jianbang wanted to find someone to interact with, but when he looked down, he saw that everyone had their heads down or were lying on their desks. He then started to explain the core of the text himself.
Zhou Wanfeng listened attentively. The chair below her was finally quiet. She held a pen and circled the sentences that Li Jianbang had said to circle, and made notes on the side.
She had to listen carefully. The old man’s voice was weak and he spoke slowly. A little bit of chatter in the class would drown him out. Zhou Wanfeng pricked up her ears. At this point, she wanted to move her stool to the side of the podium and take notes while she listened.
There was no teacher-student interaction at all. He just went straight to the main points, without even asking questions, just telling you directly. This paragraph was a key point and had to be memorized in its entirety for the dictation test.
This sentence was very important, pointing out the main theme of the text.
Zhou Wanfeng was taking notes when Tang Yuqing next to her leaned over. “Zhou Wanfeng, Zhao Shenyu drew on the back of your clothes with a pen,” she said, helping to pull the back of her clothes over.
Sure enough, there was a patch of black dots and circles on her clothes.
The boy behind her was holding a fountain pen, squeezing the ink cartridge. The ink immediately overflowed from the nib. He deliberately lowered his voice and said sarcastically, “Here’s a drawing of a bastard turtle for you.”
Zhou Wanfeng gritted her teeth on one side and raised her hand, standing up.
Li Jianbang was in the middle of his lecture. He looked up and saw a girl in the middle stand up, her hand pointing behind her. She said coldly, “Teacher, this person behind me has been kicking my chair since the beginning of class, disturbing me. Now, he’s trying to draw a turtle on my clothes with a fountain pen. My clothes are dirty now.”
The students who had been dozing off in the classroom were now awake, rubbing their eyes. Those who didn’t know what was going on were eagerly asking their neighbors for more details.
Zhou Wanfeng abruptly took off her jacket, revealing a tight-fitting black short-sleeved shirt underneath. This immediately drew a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” from the students.
The ink stains on the back of her clothes were obvious, as well as an unfinished circle.
Zhao Shenyu in the back row had a nonchalant expression, his tongue rolling around in his mouth, as if that made him look tough and cool.
Li Jianbang cleared his throat and waved for the girl to sit down. He looked at the boy in the back who was tilting his head and shaking it, and scolded, “You should be paying attention in class. Why are you disturbing others? If you don’t want to listen, then get out. You dirtied your classmate’s clothes. Take them home, wash them clean for her, and apologize. Don’t disturb her in class again.”
Zhou Wanfeng sat down, listening to the half-hearted scolding. The deliberately stern yet slow and leisurely pace of his speech was like a bedtime story, making one’s eyelids heavy.
Her heart sank. Zhou Wanfeng basically guessed that it probably wouldn’t just be Chinese, but also math, English, and other subjects. All the teachers would just stand at the podium and finish their prepared lessons. They probably wouldn’t care what the students in this class were doing, whether they were sleeping or reading comics.
Why waste the energy? Who would preach to a pile of dog shit? Not only would it affect their own mood, but they might even get some shit on them.
Zhou Wanfeng’s heart sank to the bottom.
She finally understood what Yang Yijun’s smiling expression meant. It wasn’t just a bad class, but in the eyes of others, this class had no hope. They were just carrying out a simple compulsory education.
In a pile of muck, how was she supposed to move forward? Every step would just sink her deeper. With such a clear line between right and wrong, the teacher had only given a simple verbal scolding, and hadn’t even made the troublemaker stand up.
From yesterday until now, the spark of anger that Zhou Wanfeng had been suppressing suddenly flared up. The reason she had been holding back instantly collapsed.
Anger surged in her heart. Disappointment, complete disappointment.
She hated this unfair treatment, hated being defined before she had even had a chance to do anything.
She hated the present, as if she had been branded again. She also hated the muck and rotten shrimp around her, useless, only emitting a foul stench.
Her hands were clenched into fists, trembling with suppressed rage. The hypnotic voice in her ear was saying, “This text is about a small, interesting family walk. The first part of the article introduces the location and characters, and the subsequent chapters are about the walk itself. If you think this text is just about a harmonious and warm family story, you’re wrong. This text also heavily embodies traditional virtues…”
When she felt a sharp pain in her back, the tip of a pen piercing through her thin short-sleeved shirt, pricking her flesh, once, twice… like a needle, like an ant bite…
Only when she felt the pain did Zhou Wanfeng realize she was wrong. She was wrong to just want to live in peace.
The environment she was in now was actually just as bad as her past life. If she endured and remained quiet, she would be infected by the rotten shrimp and maggots.
Zhao Shenyu in the back row was rolling a fountain pen on the edge of his desk, deliberately poking it forward. The students behind him all saw it and nudged their deskmates to look. Many of them were snickering.
Seeing that many people were looking at him, Zhao Shenyu became even more brazen.
But unexpectedly, Zhou Wanfeng stood up, her face dark. The change was so fast that Zhao Shenyu didn’t even have time to react. Li Jianbang, who was writing on the board with a piece of chalk, was in the middle of his lecture when he suddenly heard a loud shout in the classroom.
A flame ignited in Zhou Wanfeng’s eyes. She reached out and grabbed the person behind her. Amidst the gasps of the entire class, she kicked away the desk and chair, grabbed Zhao Shenyu’s arm, and with some unknown technique, twisted it in a way that made his face contort in pain. He opened his mouth wide and screamed, but still managed to curse “bitch” and “f*ck your mother.”
Zhou Wanfeng dragged him out of his seat and, with a reverse elbow, pushed him towards the back of the classroom.
Zhao Shenyu stumbled and fell forward.
Zhou Wanfeng grabbed his arm and, with a deft pull, sent him stumbling backwards. The next second, she slammed a heavy punch into his face.
With that one pull and twist, Zhao Shenyu became a toy in Zhou Wanfeng’s hands, to be slapped at will. Zhou Wanfeng’s blows were not heavy, like she was playing with a rubber ball, slapping him across the face.
For a few seconds, the entire classroom was completely still. The next second, it exploded.
The sound of slapping stimulated the students to shout and scream.
Li Jianbang’s expression was horrified. He held his glasses with one hand and gestured for the students in the back row to quickly pull them apart. “What are you doing? Stop it, stop fighting! Students in the back row, quickly pull them apart! What does it look like, fighting in class?”
Zhao Shenyu’s nose was bleeding. Many students gasped, “He’s bleeding!” Zhou Wanfeng’s gaze was icy. She pushed him into the corner by the back door. Ignoring the teacher’s shouts, she grabbed Zhao Shenyu’s jaw with one hand, her eyes filled with a deep coldness. “When I said it the first time, you should have stopped. With me, there’s no ‘third time’s the charm.’ If you don’t have the ability to fight back, don’t provoke people. I can take care of someone like you with one hand.”
Zhu Junling, Chen Yisen, Ding Gaoming, and Chen Hao from the back row came over to pull them apart.
Zhou Wanfeng didn’t even turn her head. With one hand, she pushed and used their momentum to throw Chen Hao aside.
Chen Yisen had it worse. He was thrown onto his back and was grimacing in pain for a long time before he could get up, and even then, he had to be helped up by the boy next to him.
By the time Ding Gaoming was kicked down, Zhu Junling’s mouth was agape. He obediently sat back down in his seat and shouted to Li Jianbang in the front, “Teacher, we can’t pull them apart, we can’t pull them apart!”
Zhao Shenyu’s head was spinning from the blows, but he was still stubbornly cursing, “F*ck your mother, bitch.”
Zhou Wanfeng pushed away everyone who came to break up the fight, grabbed the back of his collar, and dragged him out of the classroom through the back door.
All the students in the classroom stood up, left their seats, and ran to the front and back doors, exclaiming as they watched, “My god, where are they going?”
“Holy shit, this is so exciting.”
“Zhu Junling, didn’t you say you’ve practiced? Why were you so cowardly just now? You didn’t even go up,” Chen Yisen said, rubbing his lower back, which was still aching.
Zhu Junling scoffed. “She’s in a rage. Whoever goes up is asking for a beating. Besides, with her technique, my amateur skills would just end up with me on the floor like you.”
Zhu Junling’s deskmate, Jiang Yi, hadn’t said a word from beginning to end. His dark eyes, however, had glanced out the door.
“Where are they going?”
“Hey, where’s the old Chinese teacher?”
“He’s gone. He left a while ago.”
“My god, Zhou Wanfeng is so tough. But it’s Zhao Shenyu’s fault for starting trouble. He should have stopped after one time, but he had to provoke her. Look at this. It scared me to death. The sound of those slaps made my heart pound like a drum.”
“Exactly. I saw it all. First, he stretched his leg under her chair and kicked it. I even saw Zhou Wanfeng move forward, but he still kept at it. Then he drew on her clothes with a fountain pen and even poked her back with the nib. He deserved it.”
“The first class was so exciting, so thrilling. Do you think there will be an announcement about this at the morning assembly tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. They’ll probably have to call both their parents. Zhao Shenyu’s face is swollen, and his nose is covered in blood. It’s hard to say.”
The students who had been dozing off in class were now all extremely excited.
Zhou Wanfeng dragged Zhao Shenyu straight to the homeroom teacher, Sun Mulan. All the first-grade homeroom teachers were in one large office.
Sun Mulan was getting advice from the homeroom teacher of Class Eight, Teacher Wang Chenggang. There was a knock on the office door. A homeroom teacher near the door called out, “Come in.”
The door was pushed open.
Hearing the sound of dragging, the homeroom teacher who was close by looked up in confusion and immediately screamed, throwing the pen she was holding in her hand.
This startled the other teachers. They turned around or looked up.
All they saw was a female student with a blank expression, dragging a male student by the back of his collar. The boy’s nose was bleeding down to his chin, neck, and clothes. At first glance, it was indeed a frightening sight. On closer inspection, his nose had stopped bleeding, and the blood on his face and chin had dried.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with you two?” a teacher asked anxiously, thinking the student was having a medical emergency.
But Zhou Wanfeng dragged the person to Sun Mulan’s desk. Sun Mulan’s mouth was agape, her eyes filled with panic. She had completely forgotten what she was supposed to do at this moment. It was the homeroom teacher of Class Eight next to her who reminded her.
“Teacher Sun, Teacher Sun, are these your students?”
Seeing Zhou Wanfeng’s face, Sun Mulan remembered and nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, they’re my students.”
“Zhou… Zhou Wanfeng, what’s wrong with you and this classmate? Isn’t the first period Chinese class?” The first period wasn’t even over yet.
Sun Mulan composed herself and was about to ask what had happened when the Chinese teacher, Li Jianbang, came in behind them. He looked like he had been walking fast and was now out of breath.
He pointed a trembling finger at Zhou Wanfeng and Zhao Shenyu. “…Fighting. They were fighting in the middle of class.” Li Jianbang didn’t forget to mention that the boy had started it.
“I’ve been teaching for decades, and this is the first time I’ve seen a fight in class get this out of hand. Teacher Sun, the students in your class are really… really… I don’t even know how to describe them,” Li Jianbang said, taking a sip of water to calm himself down.
Now all the teachers in the office understood. The male student had started the trouble, the female student had reported it to the teacher, the male student had not restrained himself and had become even more brazen, and the female student had completely lost her temper.
Immediately, they all looked at the female student with strange expressions. The male student who had been beaten was now sitting on the floor in a daze, his face bruised and swollen.
Under Sun Mulan’s shocked gaze, Zhou Wanfeng said, “Teacher, how should this be handled? Should we call their parents?”
Sun Mulan’s mouth was agape, speechless for a moment. Her mind was blank. How should this be handled?
It was the homeroom teacher of Class Eight, Wang Chenggang, who interjected, “Fighting in class is a serious violation of school rules and has also caused a serious impact. The school will definitely…”
“There was no impact,” Zhou Wanfeng said, standing up straight, her expression fearless, her gaze sharp as she looked at the stern-faced Teacher Wang Chenggang.
Her voice was calm and unhurried, her pace just right, with no hint of mockery. “I didn’t affect anyone, and I don’t think I did anything wrong.” She then pointed at Teacher Li Jianbang. “I was the one who was disturbed and affected. If the teacher had taken it seriously from the beginning and made him stand in the corner to completely stop his behavior, he wouldn’t have provoked me further. It was you who didn’t correct him from the beginning. I didn’t affect the other students either. They were either sleeping or chatting. You didn’t restrain or stop them either, teacher. Instead, you continued to indulge them. The sound of their chatting was louder than your lecture. Weren’t you affected?”
As Zhou Wanfeng’s words fell, Li Jianbang’s mouth was agape, holding his breath. The other homeroom teachers looked at each other, their eyes meeting. They all probably had the same thought: this girl was a tough nut to crack. It was a good thing she wasn’t in their class.
Hearing this roundabout complaint, and seeing the color drain from Teacher Li Jianbang’s face, Sun Mulan immediately put on a stern expression. “Zhou Wanfeng, no matter what, fighting in class is wrong.”
“Then what is right? The teacher doesn’t maintain order in the class, but wants the affected student to continue to endure, to grit their teeth and endure the pain of being poked in the back with a fountain pen for a whole class period? Is that right?” Zhou Wanfeng frowned and retorted.