Chapter 35: A Way That Hurts No One
Tong Yao had planned to ask the young girl to lunch to help her relax, but as soon as she finished collecting the exam papers and the other proctor said they could leave, Ruan Xi disappeared through the back door. She was like a thief, silent and traceless as if riding the wind. Tong Yao quickly walked out the door but didn’t see her in the hallway either.
Holding the papers, she fell into deep thought.
The hallway was teeming with people. She had to deliver the exam papers to the grade group office. Not being as tall as most of the boys, she could only carefully guard the papers as she navigated against the flow.
“Ah, physics was so hard!”
“I thought physics was okay. My essay for Chinese might have been off-topic.”
“Can you stop comparing answers, you study god!”
The students’ chatter filled her ears.
She delivered the papers and, with an unidentifiable emotion, took the long way to the cafeteria, the one that passed by Class 7. As she walked past the door, she saw a noisy scene inside. Not many people had returned to the classroom. Some were loudly complaining about how difficult the questions were, some top students were gathered together comparing answers with their scratch paper, and some girls were lying on their desks, perhaps sobbing.
No Ruan Ruan.
She stared blankly at the desk that had been moved into the hallway because of the exam. A physics exercise book was open on the desk, probably just having been looked through. A certain problem had been circled several times, and the page was even torn. The cap of the gel pen was off.
If her heart wasn’t truly in turmoil, that meticulous child would not have been so careless.
Tong Yao gently picked up the pen and put the cap on it.
“Sister Yao Yao!”
A cheerful voice sounded. She couldn’t help but turn back and say the person’s name, “Xu Yin.”
“Want to go to lunch together, Sister Yao Yao?” The girl’s smile was sunny, embodying the beauty that this age should have.
“Sure,” she said.
The cafeteria was even more crowded during exam periods.
She used a little privilege, using her teacher’s identity to get a bowl of rice for Xu Yin. The girl’s happiness was palpable.
“Thank you, Sister Yao Yao!”
“It’s nothing,” she smiled. “Was the exam difficult this time?”
“Hmph, talking about the exam right away,” Xu Yin pouted. “Chinese was okay, but the multiple-choice questions for physics were a bit hard.”
“But you had no problem, right?”
“Hehe.”
A smile that was asking for praise.
“Do you guys get nervous during exams?” She added a piece of vegetable to her bowl, holding it in the air. “It feels like you’re under a lot of pressure. Your mentality is still very important.”
“I’m okay…” Xu Yin thought for a moment. “But some people get really nervous. Chen Mo, she’s clearly under a lot of pressure. Her grades are even better than mine, but it seems she can’t sleep before every exam, and her stomach hurts as soon as she enters the exam room.”
Chen Mo, the top student in Class 4, a regular in the top three of the grade. In Tong Yao’s impression, she was a girl who spent all day doing practice problems and didn’t even seem to listen in class.
To be honest, this kind of student didn’t really need her guidance in their studies. It wasn’t that they didn’t listen in class, but they knew what they needed to listen to and what they could learn on their own. They weren’t geniuses; they just did more problems than anyone else.
It was worry-free, but it also made the teacher question their own value. The college entrance exam was a trial that could be passed almost solely by grinding through practice problems. In that case, the role of a teacher should be demonstrated in areas beyond the sea of questions.
In the future, many industries would be replaced by artificial intelligence, but education would not.
“I heard that insomnia and diarrhea are both symptoms of anxiety and nervousness,” Tong Yao sighed. “Psychological fortitude…”
After lunch, Xu Yin didn’t take the path back to the dorm. Tong Yao asked, “Aren’t you going back to sleep?”
“I’m going back to the classroom to review,” Xu Yin waved and smiled. “Good afternoon, Sister Yao Yao!”
Everyone is working so hard, Tong Yao thought as she waved back.
**
The school was quieter at noon than at night.
With the wake-up bell, which sounded the same as a charge horn, the diligent students poured out of their dorms, yawning. They were battle-hardened warriors, ready to fight a life-or-death battle with chemistry and biology in the afternoon. A few were like convicts heading to the execution ground, already knowing their fate. The ones who cared about face were sullen, while the ones who were used to it joked around with their friends.
Ruan Xi walked into the school building with a pessimistic attitude.
In the classroom before the exam, a large group of people were asking the top students for help with problems. She occasionally overheard some and found that she probably couldn’t solve them either, which annoyed her so much she wished she could tell them to shut up.
Time was up. She walked into the exam room and saw Tong Yao at the podium. She quickly lowered her head and stared at her desk in a daze.
Tong Yao, as usual, sat at the podium after sticking on the barcodes.
Only the sound of pens scratching on paper could be heard.
She had thought that proctoring was a very simple job, until she saw a boy occasionally looking under his desk. The desks at No. 1 High all had locks, so it was certain that the drawers couldn’t be opened in the exam room. So, what was that boy doing?
Looking at… a cheat sheet?
She walked down slowly, trying not to disturb the others. When she reached the boy’s side, she glanced a few times. The boy’s body was stiff, his pen unmoving. His clenched left hand was on his thigh. Tong Yao could almost see the cold sweat on his face.
She averted her gaze and turned to the boy’s desk. From the information on the exam paper, she could tell that the boy was from Class 6. The paper was a mess, and there was a rather large iron pencil case.
She suddenly paused.
Changing her angle, she stared at the pencil case and saw densely written chemical reaction formulas in pencil on it.
The ironclad evidence of cheating was right here, yet she hesitated.
What should I do?
According to the rules, should I confiscate this boy’s exam paper and take him to the grade group?
No. 1 High had always had a deep-seated hatred for cheating.
She could imagine what would happen to this boy next. A score of 0, a major demerit, a call to his parents, a public self-criticism under the national flag, ridicule from his classmates, and teachers would also look at him through colored glasses.
This wasn’t just about one exam.
This was something that would affect a child’s life trajectory.
Cheating is shameful; Tong Yao knew this well.
But cheating on a monthly exam was different from cheating on the college entrance exam. Cheating on a monthly exam, in the end, had a negligible impact on the interests of others. It only concerned others’ impression of you, and the damage to fairness was very small. If she handled it according to the rules, would the price be too high?
She stood for a while, then picked up the pencil case from the boy’s desk. The boy gasped in fear and looked at her with trepidation. Tong Yao smiled, said nothing, took out the pens inside and placed them on the desk, then walked back to the podium.
The boy’s face was pale, whether from the fear of a close call or the fear that she would settle the score later.
The male teacher at the back saw her movements and walked over in confusion. He glanced at the boy as he passed and asked in a low voice at the podium, “Teacher Tong, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she smiled, brushing it off.
She would keep an eye on that boy and make sure he had no opportunity to cheat.
Ding-ling—
The harsh bell for the end of the exam was like the grim reaper coming to collect souls.
Tong Yao collected the papers one by one. When she got to the young girl’s paper, the young girl still had her head down. Her soft black hair was a little messy and fluffy, seeming to reflect her owner’s mood.
She continued to collect the papers. The cheating boy watched her nervously. She didn’t have a sadistic streak to intimidate him. She acted as if nothing had happened and finished collecting the papers.
The next biology exam ended without any incident, not a single undercurrent.
Tong Yao left with the papers, delivered them, and when she came out of the office, she found someone waiting for her outside the door.
The boy from Class 6.
He looked awkward, lacking in confidence, and deeply ashamed.
“Teacher…”
“It’s you,” Tong Yao sized him up. “Your pencil case is on the podium. You can go get it yourself.”
The boy lowered his head, his hands behind his back, and said in a hoarse voice, “Thank you, teacher.”
“What’s your name?”
“…Xie Zihan.”
“Don’t cheat again in the future, understand?”
She said, word by word, her voice soft yet heavy.
“Mhm.”
The boy ran back.
The door of the office behind her slowly opened.
Tong Yao turned back and saw the grade group leader, Ye Wei.
“…Teacher Ye.”
“What was Teacher Tong saying just now?” Ye Wei said with a smile. “I heard someone cheated?”
Tong Yao was a little embarrassed, thinking to herself how sharp this person’s ears were.
Ye Wei didn’t pursue the matter and walked toward the cafeteria, humming a song.
“Teacher Ye.”
She suddenly spoke up, asking the question she had been wanting to ask. “Do you handle every student who cheats according to the rules?”
Ye Wei turned around and said with a cheerful smile, “Not necessarily.”
Tong Yao was taken aback. “Then… how do you handle it?”
“Every teacher has their own method, and every student has their own personality. The school rules aren’t the law.”
Ye Wei smiled. “Poor students cheat, and good students cheat too. We are all teachers, and we all want what’s best for the students, to guide them onto the right path, not to have the opposite effect. Some students are psychologically fragile, so of course, we can’t be too rigid and serious. What if they can’t get over it? What if we ruin their whole life?”
Even if they were following the rules, no teacher was willing to bear that responsibility.
Ye Wei’s tone changed. “But some students, you have to be strict with them. The kind who are like dead pigs unafraid of boiling water. I took a walk around the back exam rooms and confiscated two phones. How can I not punish them?”
Tong Yao subconsciously nodded.
After saying goodbye to Ye Wei, she stood there, thinking a lot.
Was her method of handling it correct?
She hoped it was.
But only time could tell.
**
During the exam period, No. 1 High’s schedule was packed, including the evenings.
At 7 o’clock, the usual self-study time, the English listening test was now being played.
The price of the shirt is nine pounds and fifteen pence.
The park is west of the bank, and the bank is east of the restaurant. In the end, I got east and west mixed up. Where is the park?
The difficulty of the questions at No. 1 High was indeed not small.
The exams lasted a whole day, and there was still math the next morning. Tong Yao was worried if these students had enough energy.
English was a very rigid subject.
Your score reflected your level. It was rare for someone to perform abnormally due to nervousness, and it was also rare for someone to perform exceptionally. After all, if you don’t understand, you don’t understand. You can’t suddenly have an epiphany like in math.
During the listening test, a student sneezed several times in a row, disturbing Ruan Xi behind them, who was so anxious she bit her lip until it bled.
Tong Yao felt sorry for her, but also thought… it was quite cute.
If she could, she really wanted to go down and read the listening material to Ruan Ruan again.
Which teacher doesn’t dote on their own students?
When the exam was over, many students let out a sigh of relief. Although they still had to go back to self-study, at least they didn’t have to fight anymore today.
At 9 o’clock, Tong Yao had an evening self-study session in Class 7.
Since the math exam was tomorrow, a circle of people surrounded her to ask questions. There were even people from Class 4 who came over to ask, so she had to move a desk outside to explain.
But Ruan Xi was not among the people who came to ask questions.
She wasn’t surprised.
After a whole day, Tong Yao had clearly realized one thing—
The young girl was avoiding her.
