Chapter 155: Seeing Each Other Again
Tong Yao had very few friends, and Lu Bingjie was one of them. Although their work environments had changed, the two still kept in touch and would occasionally go out for a late-night snack.
Some things, if not shared, were hard to keep to oneself. Tong Yao had also told Lu Bingjie about her relationship with the young girl, which had made Lu Bingjie’s jaw drop.
“No way, that child really got you,” Lu Bingjie said in surprise.
“I was the one who conquered her,” Tong Yao repeatedly emphasized.
Lu Bingjie raised an eyebrow. “Come on, I saw it a long time ago. That’s a little wolf dog.” Then she said with a wicked smile, “Didn’t someone say they don’t like younger people and won’t date students? In the end, she ended up with a female student.”
Tong Yao blushed.
She should have known not to speak so full of herself back then.
“How do you two do it?” Lu Bingjie’s thoughts were downright filthy, always prying into those dirty details. “Is it comfortable?”
“Just… like that,” Tong Yao said in a small voice, her fingers fidgeting uncomfortably, her words drifting. “It’s quite comfortable… I guess.”
“How do you do it?” Lu Bingjie continued to pretend to be pure.
Tong Yao was mortified. “Why don’t you try it yourself and find out!”
Lu Bingjie laughed out loud.
The roasted skewers arrived, and the two started to eat. The familiar recipe, the familiar taste. Lu Bingjie asked while eating, “Is a long-distance relationship very hard?”
“It’s okay. It’s mainly that I’m busy,” Tong Yao propped up her chin. “But… I do miss her on the weekends.”
“She’s coming back for the National Day, right?”
“Mhm.”
“It’s better to keep in touch more in a long-distance relationship, so you don’t get used to being without the other person. You can add some fun when you meet. It’s so boring to always do the same thing,” Lu Bingjie advised.
“Fun?” Tong Yao was silent, thinking of herself or Ruan Ruan wearing lingerie or a uniform and posing seductively…
Not quite.
She was a pure love type and didn’t like fancy things.
“How do you know if you don’t try?” Lu Bingjie continued to urge. “Maybe it will just happen to hit one of your kinks.”
“…” She had asked the young girl about kinks. Ruan Xi was sitting on her waist at that time and said that her kink was Teacher Tong.
Tong Yao propped up her slightly red cheek, placed the iron skewer on the table, and said uncertainly, “Then… I’ll give it a try.”
Lu Bingjie gave her a thumbs-up and then asked, “When are you going back to No. 1 High?”
“I want to finish teaching this class,” Tong Yao lowered her eyes, the cumin powder drifting into her nose, a little spicy. “But… Dongyang is still in elementary school. It’s not good for a child to transfer schools. I was thinking, maybe I should just wait until Dongyang finishes elementary school.”
“That’s six years?!” Lu Bingjie lamented. “A woman with a child is really different.”
“What are you talking about?” she chided softly. “Eat.”
**
At night.
After Tong Yao got home, she hesitated to open her computer and entered the search bar.
Hiss—
She drew a sharp breath. So other couples play so wild?
This world is too obscene.
She hesitated for a moment and clicked on a purchase.
—I hope it works.
**
A month after school started, the branch campus gradually learned from the main campus and started to implement home-school communication. Most of the parents at the branch campus were not the elite class common among the parents of No. 1 High. They were mostly blue-collar and unemployed. And from then on, she had another job—to send a message to every parent every week, reporting on their child’s studies and life.
It was like being a spy.
She checked the list and found that the mobile phone number column for Xia Zhi’s parents was not filled in. She looked at the WeChat group again and confirmed that there was no one named “Xia Zhi’s Dad/Mom” in the group.
“Xia Zhi, come out for a second,” she went to the back door of the classroom and called Xia Zhi out.
She poked the list in her hand. “Why didn’t you fill in the mobile phone number?”
Xia Zhi lowered her head, her hands tightly clutching her pants pockets, and said, “They… don’t have a mobile phone.”
Tong Yao was stunned.
She had thought of many possibilities, such as family conflicts, but she had never thought of not having a mobile phone. Can people live without a mobile phone these days? Won’t they be out of touch with society? Even a farmer in a village should have a phone, right? Don’t her family need to contact others?
Her gaze swept over the worn-out white shoes on Xia Zhi’s feet, and she thought of this child working two work-study jobs. She had to reluctantly believe this somewhat heavy fact.
“There’s a scholarship program after the mid-terms. I’ll help you apply for one,” she pursed her lips. “Buy a mobile phone for your family, as long as it works. What if something happens and you can’t contact your family?”
“Mhm,” Xia Zhi said softly. “Thank you, teacher.”
“Alright, it’s nothing,” feeling that she had touched on the girl’s sad story, Tong Yao was a little apologetic. “Go back to the classroom and study hard.”
Xia Zhi lowered her head and returned to the classroom. Tong Yao stood still for a while and suddenly thought that she had the students’ household registration information on her computer.
Although there was no phone number on the household registration book, at least she could know where the child lived.
She quickly returned to the office and checked on the computer. In the end, she found that Xia Zhi’s home address was a remote town in another city that couldn’t be found even after zooming in several times on the map.
She was annoyed when someone added her on WeChat.
[Zhongzheng Education – Xizhu Campus]: Business cooperation, please approve.
She was full of question marks. Who would have a business cooperation with her?
Could it be that they were interested in her online class brand? But she hadn’t left any contact information.
Out of curiosity, she clicked approve.
[Tong Yao]: Are you an educational institution?
[Zhongzheng Education – Xizhu Campus]: Hello, yes. Our Zhongzheng Education mainly provides tutoring for middle school students, and we have educational bases near various middle schools in Changsha.
[Tong Yao]: What do you mean by business cooperation?
[Zhongzheng Education – Xizhu Campus]: It’s like this. We want to obtain the grades and parents’ contact information of the students in your class, and we will provide you with a considerable remuneration. What do you think?
Tong Yao understood. They were looking for a teacher to sell the students’ personal information.
She replied with a “not for sale” and quickly blocked them.
But after calming down, she was again filled with a helpless annoyance—how did the educational institution know her WeChat?
“Has that Zhongzheng Education contacted you?” she asked her colleagues around her. “I don’t know how they got my WeChat…”
“Zhongzheng Education?” a teacher said with a cheerful smile. “They’ve contacted me.”
“An old friend,” another person said.
Seeing them enjoying it, she was momentarily taken aback.
“Did they also ask you to buy student information?”
“Hey, what’s the big deal?” that teacher said. “Those with poor grades really can’t do without tutoring.”
“You sold it?” Her brows furrowed tightly.
“No, no, no,” that person quickly explained. “I just recommended the students I thought needed tutoring. The final decision is still in the parents’ hands, right? It’s not harming anyone.”
Tong Yao forced a smile and ended the conversation.
Not harming anyone.
Those parents are so easily swayed. A few words from the institution’s teacher, “fierce competition,” “affects the college entrance examination,” “crucial to the child’s life,” and they would be worried, gritting their teeth and paying a lot of money for a tutoring class for their child. If the child is unwilling, they say it’s for their own good, and they are not sure if the child is really suitable or needs it.
After changing her work environment, the atmosphere around her was completely different.
**
“This Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are combined, a total of seven days. I hope everyone has a good time, but don’t neglect your studies.”
At the end of the month, after school at night, Tong Yao sent the math homework to the group chat and also repeated it out loud. The amount was not large, and the students cheered. But then, the physics representative came in with a large stack of test papers and announced that everyone had seven.
“Huh? That’s too much!”
“Math only has three papers. Why does physics have seven?”
The class was almost about to rebel. The physics representative had a scared look on his face, but he was helpless. He shivered and added in a small voice, “The teacher said there’s also the first and second units of Five-Three.”
The physics volume of Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulation. The physics teacher required the whole class to buy it because he would assign problems from it.
“Huh???” The questioning voices from below the podium were even louder.
Even Tong Yao couldn’t help but frown. This was indeed… too much.
It was almost like wanting the students to treat the holiday as a school day.
She advocated for a balance between work and rest. After all, the students were not really on holiday for seven days. They had to make up for two weekends later.
And the physics teacher, Mr. Chen, was not very likable. She had overheard students giving him insulting nicknames several times.
But, she also couldn’t reduce other teachers’ homework.
After school, she went directly to pick up Dongyang. The little girl was obediently reading a Chinese book at the school gate. She held Dongyang’s small hand and the first thing she asked was, “What holiday homework did the teacher assign?”
“The teacher asked us to memorize ‘Quiet Night Thoughts,’ ‘Pity the Farmer,’ and ‘Ode to the Goose,’ and we need a parent’s signature,” Dongyang said, looking up. “I’ve already memorized them.”
“Oh? Let me hear you recite them. After you’re done, Little Aunt will sign for you,” Tong Yao smiled.
On the way, Dongyang fluently recited these few poems. Tong Yao was amazed at the child’s talent and hard work. She stopped, turned around, bent down, and her forehead touched Dongyang’s. She said with a beaming smile, “We won’t eat the school’s food today. Little Aunt will make you something delicious.”
The little girl blinked and asked, “When is Ruan Xi coming back?”
“You only know Ruan Xi, don’t you?” she pinched Dongyang’s nose. “Her train is tonight. She should be here tomorrow.”
“Yay!”
“You like her that much?”
“No,” Dongyang’s face was red. “I like it when the three of us are together. Little Aunt is also very happy at that time.”
Tong Yao tilted her head, was dazed for a while, and suddenly, she held Dongyang’s face, lowered her head, and kissed the child’s forehead.
“You child… how can you be so cute?”
This was her treasure.
In the stairwell, she and Dongyang were discussing dinner. In front of the door of their house, she stopped—a girl was sitting on the steps of the stairs, her two hands propping up her face, a smile blooming on her face the moment she saw her.
She stood there in a daze and parted her lips: “How…” did you get back today?
“Ruan Xi!” Dongyang shouted in surprise.
“I wanted to give you a surprise,” Ruan Xi stood up, a little embarrassed. “I didn’t bring my key…” But then, she moved closer to Tong Yao and said in a small voice, “surprise~”
Sweet but not cloying.
“So silly,” Tong Yao said in a low voice.
The young girl’s hair was loose, and she had changed a lot. They hadn’t seen each other for forty or fifty days. She seemed to have more vitality and was more sunny. She had a kind of youthful flamboyance, and also exuded an alluring confidence, and… she was still so cute.
This was her girl, who had never changed.
