Chapter 18: I’ll Do Everything p2
At this moment, Zhao Shenyu’s parents were already sitting in the conference room. Zhao Shenyu had been to the infirmary and had the blood on his face cleaned up, and had an ointment for swelling and bruising applied.
Zhao Shenyu’s parents had rushed over as soon as they received the call. They were now indignantly demanding that the school give them an explanation, otherwise this matter would not be over.
In the spacious conference room, Zhou Wanfeng sat alone. Diagonally opposite her was Zhao Shenyu’s family. The homeroom teacher, Sun Mulan, had already called the phone number Zhou Wanfeng had given her three times.
Now, she walked over to Zhou Wanfeng with a grim face and pursed lips, and whispered with a frown, “Zhou Wanfeng, is there any other family member who can come?” She then glanced at the unfriendly-looking Zhao Shenyu’s parents.
Zhou Wanfeng’s tone was cold. “No. My mother passed away when I was little, and my grandmother just passed away not long ago. If my father can’t come, then there’s no one.”
Sun Mulan was slightly taken aback. She hadn’t expected to hear such an answer. In other words, Zhou Wanfeng…
The person opposite her seemed to be deliberately speaking loudly. “No wonder. Children raised in single-parent families do have some problems. Honey, I read a report from abroad in the newspaper before. It said that children raised in dysfunctional families all have psychological problems.”
Zhou Wanfeng looked up and sneered. “Are you cursing yourselves for being useless? Your son is a troublemaker. Why don’t you take him to a psychiatrist? With his mouth full of ‘f*ck your mother,’ you’re alive, but you haven’t taught him any better.”
“You little bitch, who are you cursing?” Zhao Shenyu’s mother stood up in anger and was about to rush towards Zhou Wanfeng, gritting her teeth as if she wanted to tear her apart.
Sun Mulan quickly tried to calm both sides down. Fortunately, Zhao Shenyu’s father was still rational. He grabbed his furious wife. “Are you going to hit her in front of the homeroom teacher? Or are you going to have a shouting match with a junior high school student? Wait for her family to come and talk to her parents.”
Zhou Wanfeng frowned and looked at Sun Mulan. “Teacher Sun, who answered the first time you called?”
“It was a woman. She said she was… your father’s secretary. She said he was in a management meeting, but she would help pass on the message.”
“And the second time?”
“She said she had passed on the message, but he was busy with the meeting and couldn’t get away. She said he would come over after the meeting…” Sun Mulan looked at Zhou Wanfeng with a worried expression, thinking she would be sad. After all, Zhao Shenyu’s parents had come as soon as they received the call.
Zhou Wanfeng stood up. “Don’t wait. He’s not coming.”
“What? Not coming? What does that mean? His own child gets into a fight at school, and he wants to hide?” Zhao Shenyu’s mother was immediately unwilling. No matter who tried to pull her back, it was useless. She strode over to Zhou Wanfeng and pointed a finger at her. “Let me tell you, it’s fine if he doesn’t come. The school has its leaders. I don’t believe that they’ll just ignore a case of a student being beaten in class.”
Zhou Wanfeng raised her hand and, smack, slapped the pointing finger away. She sneered, “I’ll take responsibility for my own actions. I don’t need anyone to be responsible for me. And you don’t have to act like a victim and shout at me. I did hit your son, Zhao Shenyu. But if he continues to be a troublemaker in the future, I’ll hit him again.”
Seeing the girl who had hit his son being so arrogant, Zhao Shenyu’s father also got angry. He walked over to Sun Mulan. “Teacher Sun, I hope a school leader can come forward and help us resolve this matter. My son was unilaterally beaten in front of the whole class. This is a very serious matter. It might cause serious psychological trauma to my son. I hope the school leadership can give me a satisfactory resolution.”
“Perfect. I have the same idea,” Zhou Wanfeng said with a sarcastic look. She then looked at the conflicted and inexperienced teacher, Sun Mulan, who was dealing with such a tricky problem for the first time. “Teacher, please report this to the school leadership. Also, when this matter is being handled, I hope Teacher Li Jianbang is also present. After all, if I’m the only one to explain the cause and effect of this incident, they might not believe me.”
With that, Zhou Wanfeng sat back down.
Sun Mulan was indeed inexperienced. She ran to the office and asked Teacher Wang Chenggang, who gave her a suggestion. “Teacher Sun, you need to go to the director of the political and educational affairs office. To be honest, a fight in class can be a big or small matter. But my feeling is that the girl in your class has no intention of downplaying it. She beat him up like that. No parent would let her off the hook.”
Sun Mulan ran to find the director of the political and educational affairs office. After explaining the situation, the director, Du Yong’an, came to the conference room with her. He first pulled Teacher Li Jianbang aside to ask for details. After understanding the cause and effect of the incident, he had everyone sit around the conference table.
Zhao Shenyu’s family sat on the left, Zhou Wanfeng sat alone on the right, and the Chinese teacher, Li Jianbang, and the homeroom teacher, Sun Mulan, sat next to Du Yong’an.
Du Yong’an gestured for Sun Mulan to give her opinion on the matter first.
Sun Mulan took a deep breath and, mustering her courage, looked at both parties. “I have carefully investigated this matter. It is indeed true that Zhao Shenyu first teased his deskmate, Zhou Wanfeng, by kicking her chair, drawing on her clothes, and finally poking her with a fountain pen.”
Zhao Shenyu’s mother, holding her son’s face, was about to speak.
But Sun Mulan stopped her with a gesture. “Mrs. Zhao, please don’t speak yet. Let me finish.” She then looked at Zhou Wanfeng on her right, her brow furrowed even more tightly. “Zhou Wanfeng, what Zhao Shenyu did can only be considered as disturbing or affecting your class. But you, hitting a classmate in class, violated the school’s rules and regulations, and also disrupted the class order. You are both at fault, but what you did is more serious and more egregious.”
Hearing the homeroom teacher say this, Zhao Shenyu’s family was relieved. Zhao Shenyu’s mother, in particular, shot a fierce look at Zhou Wanfeng and muttered “bitch” under her breath.
Hearing the homeroom teacher’s accusation, Zhou Wanfeng, instead of getting angry, sneered, her expression even colder. “Teacher Sun, what is the meaning of First Grade, Class Nine’s existence?”
“…What?” Sun Mulan was taken aback, not understanding why the question had suddenly jumped to this.
Seeing the question go off-topic, Zhao Shenyu’s parents thought she was deliberately avoiding the issue and stood up to argue. But Zhou Wanfeng pointed a finger at them and said loudly, “Don’t be in a hurry. I just have two questions. After I’m done, we can talk about me hitting your son.”
Du Yong’an’s expression was serious. Sun Mulan had only said that a girl in her class had hit a boy, and that the boy had started it. He had originally wanted to let Sun Mulan try to handle it, and then he would step in. This kind of thing was common in school and not difficult to handle. It was just a matter of giving both sides a slap on the wrist, having them write a self-criticism, and then announcing it at the morning assembly tomorrow.
But at this moment, he saw the girl sitting there alone, without a single parent by her side, yet her presence was more imposing than the family of three opposite her.
Her eyes were cold and lonely, her aura sharp.
“What is the meaning of First Grade, Class Nine’s existence?” Zhou Wanfeng repeated. Her gaze first fell on Sun Mulan, then on Li Jianbang, who was sipping his tea.
“You say I violated the school’s rules and regulations. Shouldn’t we first talk about the teacher’s responsibilities, treating everyone equally? If you say I violated the rules, then you must first talk about Teacher Li’s inaction.”
“Teacher Li, judging by your age, you’ve been teaching for many years and can be considered an old teacher. After so many years of teaching, is the only teaching experience you’ve accumulated to just read from the book? There are more than forty students sitting below your podium. How did you ignore them? Are you talking to the air about the key points? Are you simulating a class?”
Sun Mulan lowered her head and said nothing. Zhou Wanfeng had said these things in the homeroom teacher’s office, but she had ignored them. Now that she was bringing them up again, Sun Mulan looked up slightly at Director Du’s expression.
First Grade, Class Nine was a special case. They weren’t even included in the first-grade teaching assessment. Everyone knew that Teacher Li Jianbang taught like that, and even the other subject teachers would follow suit.
But now that it had been pointed out…
Li Jianbang hadn’t expected this student to be so formidable, trying to turn the fire on him. He quickly put down his cup and explained, “You, student, don’t deviate from the topic. We’re talking about you hitting someone.”
“Yes, it was because of your inaction that I ended up hitting someone. You were the cause. I raised my hand and reported that Zhao Shenyu was disturbing me, but you just half-heartedly told him not to disturb his classmate. You didn’t care about the noise in the class, you didn’t care about the students sleeping. You just stood in the front and read from your teaching materials. If that’s your teaching method, the school could have just copied forty copies of the teaching materials from other Chinese teachers for us. Why did you have to come to the classroom to teach? Is it because we can’t read?”
“You… you… you’re twisting words and forcing logic,” Li Jianbang said, so angry that he took a large gulp of tea and even turned his head away, refusing to engage.
Zhou Wanfeng sneered and looked at Du Yong’an. “First Grade, Class Nine is a bad class, so bad that no one cares, no one wants to teach it. The students in this class are difficult to manage, so you don’t want to discipline them, you don’t want to put in any extra effort. From the very beginning, the school leadership has given up on this class. The Chinese teacher is like this, and perhaps the English and math teachers are too.
“If one teacher is inactive, I can report it to the school leadership. But if the school treats a class differently, and even discriminates against the students in a class, who should I report it to? The Yunhai City complaint hotline? The mayor’s mailbox? The Education Bureau? A class full of poor students, a teacher who doesn’t care about maintaining order in class, and doesn’t act when a student is disturbed or even bullied after reporting it to you? Today, it was me who was poked by Zhao Shenyu with a fountain pen. If it were a normal girl, how would she fight back? Should she just silently endure it until the end of class? The teacher doesn’t even care about bullying happening right under his nose. Now that I’ve fought back, what’s wrong with that?”
Zhou Wanfeng stood up, her face dark as she looked at Zhao Shenyu’s parents. “You heard what I just said. Your son and I are in a bad class that even the teachers don’t want to manage. The school’s attitude towards this class is the teacher’s attitude in class. Do you still want them to handle a fight in a bad class? Compared to me hitting your son, your son’s three years of junior high are about to be wasted.”
“Zhou Wanfeng, the school does not treat any class, or any student, differently. Your thoughts are just subjective speculation. I will talk to Teacher Li Jianbang about his teaching problem later…” Hearing Zhou Wanfeng first talk about the teacher’s inaction, and then about the school’s discrimination, Du Yong’an couldn’t sit still.
He suddenly felt that the girl standing straight before him, her eyes fearless, was so tricky. At the same time, he vaguely sensed that she was using the fight to test the school.
If they wanted to punish her, to declare that she had violated the school’s rules and regulations, they couldn’t ignore what she had said before about Teacher Li’s inaction and the school’s placement of all the poor students in one class.
The entire class could testify for her that Teacher Li had not maintained order in class and had just lectured on his own.
Zhou Wanfeng sneered. “Teacher, how do you explain the fact that all the students of First Grade, Class Nine just happen to be in one class? Is the class placement so coincidental? Your words won’t stand up to an investigation by the Education Bureau.”
“And I will not accept any form of punishment. Zhao Shenyu bullied me first, he was the one who started the trouble. I was acting in self-defense. If you publicly announce any punishment for me, I will call the police,” Zhou Wanfeng said, her eyes cold, her presence imposing.
Zhao Shenyu’s family was a little dazed. Zhao Shenyu’s mother, in particular, looked at the homeroom teacher, Sun Mulan, and Director Du Yong’an, and asked with a puzzled expression, “Teacher, isn’t my son in a regular class? Why do you say it’s a bad class? And what’s going on with the Chinese teacher’s class? Even though you’re a private school, you still have to teach the students.” She then glared at Zhou Wanfeng. “You’re the one who’s wrong for hitting him like that. If anyone is calling the police, it should be us.”
“Classmate Zhou Wanfeng, not all the students in First Grade, Class Nine are poor students. That’s a misunderstanding on your part,” Du Yong’an said. He had never expected a first-grade student who had just enrolled this year to be so bold, to even threaten him to his face. And it seemed she knew exactly how to handle it.
“The school’s teachers will not treat any class or any student differently. They will all be proactive and responsible. I will represent the school and talk to some of the teachers about the problems you have raised. This misunderstanding will not happen again.”
Zhao Shenyu’s family realized that something was not right and quickly asked, “That’s not right. She hit someone. Look at how she beat my son’s face until it’s swollen. Why isn’t the school doing anything about it?”
“Zhao Shenyu poked my back with a fountain pen, piercing the flesh. The ink, and the rust from the pen, could increase the risk of infection. I might even have to get a tetanus shot and an IV. You can accompany me to the hospital later.”
“What kind of injury can a fountain pen cause? You broke my son’s nose and made it bleed. The bone might even be broken. And you’re the one who’s accusing me? You shameless…”
But Zhou Wanfeng ignored what Zhao Shenyu’s mother was saying and walked straight to the homeroom teacher, Sun Mulan, and Director Du Yong’an, her expression serious. “Teacher, you knew what kind of class Class Nine was on the first day of school. It’s true that they’re a bunch of students who need to be disciplined. But please report to the school that they shouldn’t just assume we’re a lost cause, that we have no hope, without even trying.
“I want to study hard. I can’t accept Teacher Li Jianbang’s teaching method. If the other subject teachers treat our class like this, I will complain. I’m sorry for how the students treated you on the first day of school, because I didn’t stand up then.
“Now I want to tell you, whether it’s the class president, the class representatives for each subject, the sanitation monitor, or the sports monitor, any class committee position or group leader that no one wants to do, I’ll do it all. If there’s no student interaction in class, no one raises their hand to answer, I’ll do it all.
“I don’t want to be considered a poor student just because I’m in First Grade, Class Nine.”