Chapter 11: Teacher Tong is the Best
Ruan Xi bit her lip as she followed behind Long Ting.
The woman wore an expression as if the whole world owed her something. When she turned back, the disdain and contempt in her eyes were as sharp as needles.
“Go back. Get your scratch paper, your homework, and your pens, then come back here.”
Ruan Xi heard her and gave a slight nod, turning to walk back like a puppet.
The classroom was like a city after a tsunami had receded, the students who had survived the ordeal still shaken.
Ruan Xi slipped in quietly through the back door. Near her seat, a few boys and girls were gathered around Jiang Yiming, comforting him.
“Damn, is that crazy hag sick in the head? Her words are so vicious.”
“I know, right? The teachers at No. 1 High are all pretty nice. She’s the only one with such a foul temper.”
The group chattered away, listing all of Long Ting’s faults.
“Damn, what are you guys doing?” Jiang Yiming forced a smile, pretending to be unfazed so the girls wouldn’t see how he really felt. “I’m fine, really. I’m used to being yelled at… Hey, Ruan Xi? You’re back?”
Ruan Xi nodded and began rummaging through her desk for her homework.
“She didn’t give you a hard time, did she?”
“She told me to bring my homework over,” Ruan Xi said, trying to make her voice sound casual so she wouldn’t seem weak. “Who knows what she wants.”
Jiang Yiming was silent for a moment before advising, “Don’t be too headstrong. Don’t confront her directly. It’s better to just back down.”
The Ruan Xi of today seemed different to him. The old Ruan Xi was quiet and timid, like a mounted butterfly specimen—beautiful, fragile, and seemingly dead in her cold silence.
But today, or perhaps more accurately, recently, that specimen had come to life.
Pen and paper in hand, Ruan Xi walked toward the office, one step at a time. As she passed Class Four, she saw Teacher Tong surrounded by a group of students. The classroom was bustling now that class was over, but that didn’t stop Teacher Tong from explaining a problem to the few students at the front of the room.
Anything touched by Teacher Tong’s presence seemed to become beautiful. It was as if the world had split in two: over there, it was vibrant and colorful; over here, it was gray and murky.
A school was supposed to be an ivory tower, a refuge for students from the darkness of the world, not a prison.
Ruan Xi paused for a moment at the office door, then knocked.
**
Long Ting was at her desk drinking tea, the steam from the cup fogging her glasses. She set the cup down, and upon seeing Ruan Xi, she sneered. Stretching out a hand, she tapped her knuckles on the desk.
“Bring your homework here.”
Ruan Xi didn’t dare to refuse. She handed it over, only to be met with Long Ting’s biting sarcasm.
“Tsk, tsk.”
“Look at this mess of mistakes.”
Long Ting flipped through the pages one by one. “This one. Didn’t I go over this in class? Huh? And this one!”
Don’t talk back. Just let her say her piece.
Ruan Xi remained silent, her gaze lowered, accepting it all.
“Ruan Xi, were you even listening in class?” Long Ting’s voice held a hint of laughter, a grating tone that was painful to hear. Cursing without swear words was a more humiliating insult, and every word stung the young girl’s fragile pride.
“I was,” Ruan Xi said softly.
“You were listening and you still got them wrong?!”
As if she had been waiting for just that answer, Long Ting flipped to today’s assignment and slammed it down on the desk. The paper crumpled under the force of the blow, which seemed powerful enough to shatter the table.
“Write! Do it right here! You can go back when you’ve finished today’s assignment!”
Ruan Xi flinched, her whole body trembling.
“But… I have math next…”
“Worry about your chemistry first!” Long Ting roared. “If you don’t finish, you can skip lunch too! I’ll stay right here with you. Now write! I’ll be watching!”
With that, Long Ting leaned to the side, clearing half of the desk.
The implication was clear: Ruan Xi was to do her work standing up.
The bell for the next class rang.
Long Ting glared at Ruan Xi, looking like she could fly into a rage again at any moment.
But what about me? Don’t I get angry? Don’t I… feel hurt and wronged? Why can’t she just talk to me properly?
Head bowed, Ruan Xi walked closer. She gripped her pen silently and bit down hard on her lip. Yielding to the intimidation, she bent over the desk and began to work on the problems.
Teacher Tong will definitely notice I’m not in my seat, won’t she?
Will she think I skipped class?
She wasn’t… a bad kid. She was just a kid with poor grades. It didn’t matter if no one else knew, but she wanted Teacher Tong to know. She was still doing poorly, but she was trying with all her might to get better.
She wanted to go to math class. She had just barely managed to keep up with the current pace, and she was terrified that missing even one lesson would make her fall behind again. But right now, she was too scared to say a single word.
Long Ting looked at her phone for a moment before glancing at the girl’s scratch paper. She seemed to notice something and suddenly let out a strange laugh.
“Oh? Still doodling on your scratch paper? So this is what you do in class. No wonder your grades are terrible. You’ll never amount to anything.”
Ruan Xi tried to pretend she hadn’t heard, but the more she bottled it up, the more the injustice of being misunderstood gnawed at her. The hand holding her pen trembled. Gritting her teeth, she tried to explain.
“I drew this after class…”
“That’s enough. You’re just a teenager, trying to play mind games with me? You think I wasn’t a student once? Do you take me for a fool? Just focus on your work!”
The woman’s cruel sneer was practically etched into her very bones.
Tears welled in her eyes. Ruan Xi blinked, forcing them back. Crying was useless. It would only make those who already looked down on her despise her even more.
She would never be defeated by someone like Long Ting.
**
During math class, Tong Yao looked at the empty seat in the back of the room with some concern.
“Where is Ruan Xi?” she asked.
She had noticed at the beginning of class and assumed Ruan Xi was just delayed in the restroom, but ten minutes had passed and she still hadn’t returned.
The students in the class all started talking at once, trying to tell her what happened, which gave her a headache.
Jiang Yiming raised his hand and stood up. “Ruan Xi was called to the office by Teacher Long.”
“The office?” Tong Yao asked, puzzled. “She’s been gone this long? What happened? She can’t miss math class.”
“Well… it was something like talking back. She made Teacher Long angry.”
The situation was complicated, and it wasn’t appropriate for a student to comment on a teacher’s conduct, so Jiang Yiming found it difficult to explain.
In reality, however, the entire class was on Ruan Xi’s side, even those who didn’t know her well.
There was a sense of unity against a common enemy.
Tong Yao pressed a hand to her forehead.
To think something like this would happen…
It had been almost three weeks, so she had a general idea of the personalities of the other teachers in the office. Long Ting was indeed very ill-tempered, but she never expected Ruan Xi to be the one caught in her line of fire.
That child is so well-behaved… How could she talk back to a teacher?
Having spent some time with her, she knew that aside from her poor grades, Ruan Xi was actually a sweet girl. It seemed unlikely she would do something like that.
Besides, no matter what, she had to attend math class.
Tong Yao thought for a moment, then marked a few problems on the blackboard with a piece of chalk.
“Everyone, please work on these problems from the textbook. I’m going to go check on something. Class officers, please keep the class in order.”
She glanced at Ji Chen, who quickly nodded to show he could handle it.
Tong Yao left the room.
And then… the class erupted.
“Holy shit! Teacher Tong went to get Ruan Xi?!”
“They’re not going to get into a fight, are they? I mean Ruan Xi and Long Ting.”
“Who dares to go take a look? I’ll call them the ultimate champion!”
“Quiet!” Ji Chen roared. The class fell silent for a moment before immediately breaking out into whispers again.
Ji Chen was helpless. This kind of scattered whispering was impossible to control, like trying to fight a guerrilla war.
**
In the office.
Long Ting glanced at the problem Ruan Xi had just finished. Rolling her chemistry textbook into a tube, she pointed with it.
“Wrong.”
Ruan Xi froze. The trembling tip of her pen poked a small hole in the paper. She then started to rework the problem on her scratch paper.
“Still wrong. It was wrong from the moment you put pen to paper,” Long Ting sneered, tapping Ruan Xi on the head with the rolled-up book. The tap wasn’t too hard, but it wasn’t light either. “What in the world is going on in that head of yours? Huh?”
Ruan Xi bit her lip, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, look at you, feeling all wronged?” Long Ting laughed. “If I got scores like yours on my exams, I’d just kill myself by running into a wall. What’s the point of even going to school?”
“Teacher Long.”
Just then, a voice cut through the air in the otherwise two-person office.
Long Ting started, only then realizing the door had been opened at some point. Tong Yao stood in the doorway, looking at her, her voice completely devoid of emotion.
No one would have known that this was what Tong Yao looked like when she was angry.
She was suppressing her fury. Her gentle features were offset by a sharp, frosty gaze. She saw every one of her students as a precious, fragile piece of porcelain, yet here was a fellow teacher, trampling the very treasure she cherished into the dust.
A pang of guilt hit Long Ting. She asked awkwardly,
“…Teacher Tong, what brings you here?”
Tong Yao’s gaze flickered to Ruan Xi before returning to Long Ting.
“What do you think? I’m here to take my student to class.”
The moment she saw Tong Yao, Ruan Xi felt her composure crumble, and she was on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Ruan Xi, come here.”
Tong Yao held out a hand, a reassuring smile on her face.
The girl sniffled and answered with a sob in her voice. Grabbing her homework, she walked over and clutched Tong Yao’s hand tightly.
Tong Yao squeezed her hand in return and looked calmly at Long Ting.
“Teacher Long, what did Ruan Xi do to make you so angry?”
“She…” Long Ting’s face darkened. “She talked back to me, she was talking to her deskmate during class, and her homework is a complete mess.”
“I didn’t!” Ruan Xi cried out, not knowing where she found the courage.
Considering their respective personalities and Long Ting’s obvious lack of conviction, it wasn’t hard for Tong Yao to figure out what had happened.
More importantly, she had seen and heard it all with her own eyes.
“Teacher Long,” Tong Yao said, staring at Long Ting while shielding the girl behind her. She spoke each word deliberately. “I respect you as my senior, and I originally had no intention, nor the right, to say anything. But as teachers, we graduated with an oath. We are supposed to uphold a code of conduct, to care for our students as if they were our own children. That is the most basic requirement of being a teacher. If you search your heart, would even a non-teacher use such hurtful words to attack a child? A textbook is not a tool for corporal punishment. I believe that character is more important than academics. These children are at a critical stage in their lives. Don’t you think you ought to be more patient?”
She wouldn’t have said so much in one breath if she weren’t truly furious.
Long Ting’s face was sullen and grim, but she didn’t offer a single word in rebuttal. Only after Tong Yao had led Ruan Xi away did she slam the book down on her desk. The creased textbook fell open, its curled corners like scattered petals on the floor.
**
“T-Teacher Tong…”
The girl followed behind her, sniffling as tears streamed uncontrollably down her tear-stained face.
After leading the young girl a few steps, Tong Yao sighed. She turned around with a helpless smile and pulled out a tissue to wipe away her tears.
“There, there, don’t cry. Why did you start crying the moment I showed up? Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was the one bullying you.”
It’s because you came that I’m crying.
Ruan Xi wiped at her tears, sobbing with little hiccups.
If no one cared about her, her tears would be a joke. People would either mock her or pity her as if watching a play. But when someone did care, when someone was concerned for her, she could finally let go and cry like a child.
Tong Yao patted Ruan Xi’s back. It was still class time, so they were alone in the hallway. She rubbed her temples, feeling a bit conflicted. After all, a classroom full of students was waiting for her. After a moment of internal struggle, she relented and decided to let the young girl have her moment.
“There, there, don’t cry,” she coaxed softly. They were about the same height, but her heels gave her just enough of an advantage to pull the young girl into an embrace. At that, Ruan Xi cried even harder, wrapping her arms around Tong Yao’s waist and sobbing uncontrollably in the empty hallway.
“She… she said I’ll never amount to anything… She accused me unfairly…” Ruan Xi choked out between sobs, her tears threatening to soak Tong Yao’s blouse. “I really did try… I listened in class, but… I’m so stupid… I’ve been doing poorly since my first year of high school…”
“Mm, I know,” Tong Yao said gently, soothingly stroking her hair. “I, more than anyone, know how hard you’ve been trying. You’re not stupid at all.”
Though they sounded like words meant to comfort, Tong Yao meant every one of them. She couldn’t speak for other subjects, but at least in mathematics, she knew Ruan Xi had poured her heart and soul into her studies these past few weeks.
“No one can decide your future but you,” Tong Yao said, gently pushing the girl back to look at her, her hands on her shoulders. She smiled. “When you cry like this, it breaks the hearts of those who care about you. Let’s not listen to what other people say. As long as we work hard and can be proud of ourselves, that’s all that matters, right?”
The young girl closed her eyes and nodded forcefully. “Mhm!”
“So… should we get back to class now? Would you like to have lunch with me later?”
“…I would.”
The corners of Ruan Xi’s eyes were still red. She felt like she was being spoiled, and a blush crept onto her tear-streaked face.
“Teacher Tong… can I hug you one more time?”
Tong Yao smiled. “Of course you can.”
She opened her arms slightly, and the young girl threw herself into the embrace as if afraid she might run away.
“Teacher Tong, thank you.”
When she was falling into darkness, helpless and despairing—
Teacher Tong was her light.
