Chapter 95: The Smoke of Conflict
“I want to know your thoughts,” Tong Yao said, looking at Lu Xia and taking out a chocolate bar from her drawer. “Haven’t eaten yet?”
She thought a little snack might make the student let down her guard.
“Thank you, teacher,” Lu Xia said in a muffled voice.
“Lu Xia, you don’t really want to hand in the photos, do you? If so, then I won’t hand yours in,” Tong Yao said softly. “Tell the teacher what’s on your mind, okay?”
She knew that answering “yes” or “no” was much simpler. She had to peel away at the student’s heart like an onion.
Lu Xia was momentarily stunned, then replied with a voice soft and clear, like the lightest press of a piano key.
“Mhm… but, teacher, you have to hand in thirty…”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Tong Yao smiled. “Okay, I know your thoughts.”
In front of Lu Xia, she deleted the girl’s photos, packaged the few from other students, and sent them to the group.
Lu Xia was stunned for a while, her lips trembling slightly. Before she could speak, Tong Yao smiled at her.
“It’s done. Go eat now.”
Lu Xia gave a “mhm” and silently left the office.
Tong Yao looked at the computer, sighed, and braced herself to reply to the director with a “submitted.”
Let’s just take it one step at a time.
**
Although Tong Yao knew that the photos she submitted would be singled out for criticism, she hadn’t expected it to come so quickly.
At the teacher’s meeting the next afternoon, she was buried in her lesson plan when she suddenly heard the vice principal in front mention the photos.
The new female vice principal’s surname was Lou. Tong Yao remembered her name was Lou Yu. She was nearly forty, and both her name and her temperament had a scholarly air, like a traditional female literary youth. Her first impression was not bad. Then, Principal Lou held the microphone, her expression serious.
“…Although I’ve just arrived, I can see from some small things that some people in our teaching team have improper thoughts, are perfunctory in their work, and are extremely irresponsible. Especially a certain young female teacher, who has just become a homeroom teacher and is already so lax. How can she be responsible for the students, how can she explain to the parents?”
Tong Yao’s pen paused. She felt the gazes of the other homeroom teachers focused on her like spotlights, as if to roast her. This experience of being criticized in public was so rare for her that she had even forgotten how to react.
Just bear with it and it will pass.
Principal Lou continued, “Don’t think that you can get carried away just because you’ve achieved a little. The college entrance examination is what matters. You have no qualifications and you don’t even know how to follow the school’s arrangements. This kind of teacher, I advise you, don’t bring your bad habits from home and university here. No one in society will spoil you like your parents. I don’t care how your parents taught you to stand on your own in society, but now you have to be a role model for others, you have to follow the rules, and at No. 1 High, you have to show…”
Da—
The sound of a chair being folded up suddenly rang out in the meeting hall.
And the reason the chair was folded up was because the person sitting on it had stood up.
The one standing was Tong Yao.
“Teacher Tong, you’re standing up. Do you have something to say?” Lou Yu held the microphone, her voice full of authority without being angry.
Well, she really knows my name.
“Yes,” Tong Yao tilted her head. “The young female teacher you were talking about, is it me?”
Lou Yu smiled. “Are you admitting it without being asked?”
Tong Yao looked at her directly, neither servile nor overbearing.
“Then are you insinuating and pointing fingers?”
The meeting hall was extremely quiet for a moment.
Many of the teachers who didn’t know her were wondering why this newcomer dared to be so confrontational. Some pitied her, thinking that this new teacher’s promotion path was cut off. How could a vice principal who could be parachuted into No. 1 High not have some background?
The fake smile on Lou Yu’s face disappeared. She was here to make an example of someone, not to let the teachers see her being contradicted. At this moment, she was really angry.
“Teacher Tong, you’re so eloquent. Why don’t you go teach Chinese?”
“I applied for math when I entered the school, and my score was the first. I don’t think Chinese can be taught well just by being eloquent, do you?”
“Good, good. Are you arguing with me?” Lou Yu was so angry she laughed. In this meeting hall of over a hundred people, her voice was transmitted through the microphone into everyone’s ears. “Since you’ve stood up yourself, then I’ll make this clear with you today. I asked every homeroom teacher to submit thirty photos. Everyone else did, but what about you?! You submitted six. Are you trying to fool me?”
“The parents only submitted these few. Do you want me to create photos out of thin air?” Tong Yao said calmly.
“Then how could the other teachers submit them? You’re the only one being special! And you’re teaching Class 1. Don’t you know how important the photos of Class 1 are? You have no ability, but you’re quite good at finding excuses.”
“I believe you don’t know my ability yet, but I have come to appreciate your ability to give blind commands,” Tong Yao looked up and said, word by word. “This is not a holiday. The students are not at home. Is it reasonable to ask the parents to submit thirty photos of their children doing housework? These two days, the homeroom teachers have to grade papers, grade winter break homework, collect information on poor students, select class officers, and arrange seats. Many teachers are as busy as I am, and haven’t even eaten. Is it appropriate for you to come and cause trouble?”
The meeting hall was silent.
Many homeroom teachers secretly cheered. Everyone resented this damn thing, but no one dared to say it.
“I’m giving blind commands?” The veins on Lou Yu’s hand holding the microphone bulged. “Could I have gotten to this position by giving blind commands? Young lady, I advise you not to be too arrogant.”
Tong Yao smiled. “Then you teach me. What should I do if there aren’t enough photos? Ask the children to go home and take pictures?”
“So many homeroom teachers have submitted them all. Why don’t you ask them?” Lou Yu said angrily. “Which teacher can tell us how their class submitted them all?”
She looked around, but no one answered.
No one wanted to get involved in this mess.
“Teacher Liu Jian!” Lou Yu’s face was hanging. She directly called him out. “How did your class submit them all?”
Liu Jian was sweating profusely, thinking to himself, why am I so unlucky?
Is it because I gave too many gifts, and Principal Lou is familiar with me?
Liu Jian rubbed his hands and stammered, “Uh, this… our class has done similar activities before, so many parents have photos…”
This was a lie.
But Lou Yu believed it, or chose to believe it. She realized her gaffe in her anger, coughed twice, and calmed down.
“Okay, Teacher Liu, please sit down. Everyone has seen it. What is foresight, what is quality education! Everyone should learn from Teacher Liu, hold more such meaningful activities, and respond to the school’s call. Education is not just simply teaching in the classroom. The cramming-style exam-oriented education is destined to be eliminated. I hope that the teachers can understand my good intentions for asking for the photos. There are some misunderstandings between me and Teacher Tong. I won’t take up everyone’s time here. The meeting is dismissed.”
A sparse round of applause came from the meeting hall.
Tong Yao stood there, looking at Lou Yu in front. The vice principal said something to the person beside her and then hurried away. She sneered, as if in self-mockery, and lowered her head to put away her documents. The other teachers all avoided her, making her look like a lonely leopard.
Everyone thought that Tong Yao was a spoiled Ragdoll cat, but in fact, she also had sharp claws and teeth. The princess-syndrome in TV dramas often had the line “I’ve never been wronged like this since I was a child,” but Tong Yao was a real princess. For more than ten years, she had indeed developed a temper of not being willing to be wronged.
She didn’t want to become a sacrifice for others to establish their authority, especially when it came to her upbringing.
She walked out of the meeting room and found that the dean of studies was waiting for her at the door.
“Director,” she stood up straight, without any self-awareness.
“Sigh, Little Tong,” the dean of studies grabbed his sparse hair. “Why are you so impulsive…”
“I can’t stand her.”
“Shh, lower your voice!” The director looked around. “Why did you only submit those few photos? Don’t you girls like to photoshop? If you photoshop one photo a few more times, wouldn’t that be several photos? At the very least, you could just copy them. It’s better than submitting too few.”
“You’re really…” Tong Yao held it in for a long time. Considering that the other party was well-intentioned, she finally said, “experienced.”
Anyway, she didn’t want to spend time studying how to fool others.
“Look, now the relationship is strained. You’re new. How are you going to get by in the school?” the director said earnestly. “Principal Lou doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it. You go and apologize, and this matter will be over.”
“How will I not get by? Can she fire me?” Tong Yao glanced to the side. “I’ll skip the apology. Director, thank you for your concern, but I have to go grade papers.”
She had officially been hired after the last semester. Not to mention a vice principal, even the principal and the party secretary couldn’t fire her. Firing an employee with a permanent position was much more complicated than a company firing an employee. Her salary was given by the state, and she was managed by the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. The school was just a place that arranged her work.
Of course, maybe she would be given a hard time in the future. They could block her projects, hinder her promotion, not allow her to take leave, and even make the teachers isolate her.
So what?
She knew what she had come to the school for.
As long as she was liked and supported by those students, she was not afraid of anything.
