Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 34

Chapter 34: I’m Not Going to School Anymore

Han Cheng grimaced and twitched in pain, his forehead covered in a cold sweat.

He hadn’t yet recovered from the pain and could only grab Shen Yiyi’s wrist with brute force to fight back.

Han Cheng was strong. After a stalemate, he managed to move the knife away from his neck.

The boys around them were so scared they didn’t dare to breathe. For a moment, they didn’t know whether to stop Han Cheng or Shen Yiyi. They were afraid that if they got too close, the knife would stab them, so they all stayed far away.

Han Cheng’s face was red with anger. He held Shen Yiyi’s wrist tightly, wanting to pin her against the wall. But the intense pain in his crotch made his scalp tingle with every slight movement.

Qin Luo was scared to death at the entrance of the men’s restroom.

She watched Han Cheng with wide eyes, step by step trying to get the knife. If he used a little more force, Shen Yiyi would be overpowered and in a desperate situation.

Her heart was in her throat, her breathing tight.

Just then, a male teacher happened to pass by. In her urgency, Qin Luo shouted a warning, “Han Cheng, don’t do anything stupid! A teacher is coming!”

Han Cheng’s reputation as a troublemaker was well-known in the school. The teacher realized something was wrong and quickly walked toward the men’s restroom.

Some of the male students heard the shout for a teacher and ran, not caring about the struggling Han Cheng in the corner.

But as soon as they went out, they ran into the teacher.

The teacher shouted in a deep voice, “Stop!!”

Then he looked into the restroom and saw Shen Yiyi being pinned against the wall by Han Cheng, who was holding a knife to her ear.

The teacher was horrified and furious. “Han Cheng!! What are you doing!”

The male teacher rushed forward, first grabbing Han Cheng’s wrist and trying to pry the knife from his palm, quickly pulling it away from her ear.

Han Cheng hadn’t come to his senses yet. Fear and anger were tangled in his nerves. His hands were trembling, but he still wouldn’t let go, cursing under his breath.

The male teacher stood between the two of them and grabbed Han Cheng’s school uniform collar with his other hand. “You put down the knife right now.”

Assault with a knife was a serious case of school violence, a safety incident.

Once a student was injured or killed, not only his colleague Old Li, but even he, a deputy subject teacher, would be in trouble.

He threatened seriously, “If you don’t put it down, the school will call the police. Do you want your dad to bail you out of the station?”

The mention of his dad extinguished Han Cheng’s fire.

Han Cheng’s agitated emotions instantly deflated. He relaxed his wrist and dropped the knife. The pain had made him bite the inside of his cheek, and his mouth was filled with the taste of blood.

The male teacher pushed Han Cheng out, picked up the knife from the floor, and scanned everyone inside and outside the restroom, including the stunned Qin Luo.

“You few!! Follow me to the office!!”

***

When Shen Qinwen arrived, Shen Yiyi was standing in the principal’s office. All the supervising leaders, big and small, were there, and even the auxiliary police officer in charge of school safety. On the way, he had heard Principal Wang’s account. Since they were both in the education field, they had spoken to each other with some reservation.

The principal hadn’t made the matter sound too serious, which meant there was still room for maneuver. Shen Qinwen had been a teacher for so many years and had seen no fewer school incidents than the principal.

“What’s going on?!”
“Hmm?”
“How dare you stab someone with a knife at school?!!”
“Shen Yiyi!!”

Shen’s father was furious and was about to raise his hand. The head teacher felt the situation was awkward and stepped forward to stop him. “Mr. Shen, please sit down and talk. Let’s sit down and talk.”

Shen Qinwen was fuming. He said to the teacher with a dark face, “What does she have to say? She doesn’t need to say anything.”

With that, he said to the principal, “Old Wang, just suspend Shen Yiyi. I didn’t teach my child well. She doesn’t need to go to school if she’s so unruly. I’ll take her home and teach her how to be a person first.”

Shen Yiyi didn’t look at her father. She had her hands in her pockets and was looking at the green plant by her feet, carefully observing the veins of the leaves.

The other directors heard Shen’s father call their leader “Old Wang” and didn’t want to interfere.

Only the auxiliary police officer on the side said with a smile, “Shen Yiyi’s father, the situation is not that serious at the moment. There were no casualties, just a small scuffle. It won’t go as far as suspension.”

Hearing this, Shen Yiyi was not happy.

“Then why don’t you suspend me!” she looked up and said seriously. “I’d rather not go to school than be in the same class with a scumbag.”

“First you fight with a classmate, then you call him a scumbag. I think you really don’t need to go to school.” Shen Qinwen turned and sat down. He rested his hands on his knees and asked the auxiliary police officer, “Officer, will her behavior involve administrative punishment? Or do we just need to mediate with the other party?”

The auxiliary police officer said, “This incident is indeed serious today. It violates the school’s public security management. But… although both of them were irrational, fortunately, no one was hurt. Tonight, you will go to the police station to sign a mediation form. I have already notified the other party’s parents by phone. He will go to the police station tonight.”

Hearing that it didn’t involve any illegal acts, Shen Qinwen was relieved. A smile finally appeared on his stern face. “Then I’ll have to trouble you. I’ll go to the police station in a bit. It’s the one on the east side of the school gate, right?”

“Yes.”

After the auxiliary police officer had finished his notification, the leader in charge of safety left with his people. The people in the office were all old acquaintances of Shen Qinwen.

He couldn’t lose his temper in front of outsiders. He turned and glared at his daughter, then slapped the table. “You tell me, what exactly happened?”

Shen Yiyi’s voice softened. “It’s the girl you saved at the school gate last time. She was harassed again, and she’s been harassed for a year. He was bullying people in class today and disturbing my reading… so I went to stop him, and he ended up harassing me too.”

Harassed?

Shen Qinwen turned around abruptly and looked his daughter up and down.

He didn’t find anything unusual, just that her lips were a little chapped.

He asked nervously, “How did he harass you?”

“It wasn’t harassment. There was no harassment.”

The head teacher, Old Li, quickly explained. The last time Han Cheng had harassed Guo Rui, it was Shen Qinwen who had told Principal Wang. He hadn’t handled it well the first time, which had led to this second incident.

He knew how much Shen Qinwen doted on his daughter. If he got angry and filed a report, the one who would be in trouble would not be Han Cheng, but him, the head teacher.

Old Li was so scared he tried to make excuses. “It was just a verbal argument between the two of them. They got emotional and started fighting.”

Shen Qinwen didn’t want to bother with him and only asked his daughter, “Do you think you can beat a boy with a knife?”

“I just wanted him to stop harassing the female students.”

“Stop telling dirty jokes, stop climbing the wall to go to their dorms, stop following them, stop tearing up other people’s books, spitting in their cups, pulling their bra straps, and stealing their sanitary pads.”

“I just wanted him to stop doing that, but he cursed my mom.”

“He said fck my mom, fck me.”

“Dad, do you think that sounds good?”

“What if the next person he torments is me?”

“So you might as well have the principal expel me. I can still get into college by studying at home. At least it’s safer.”

After Shen Yiyi finished speaking, she took out a tissue from her pocket, wiped her hands, and then wiped the leaves of the green plant. Then she waited for her dad’s response.

“…”

The office fell silent.

The first thing Old Li had done after the incident was to talk to the student witnesses. The class president, Guo Rui, and Qin Luo had told him the whole story of the harassment.

He had heard several versions and had a general grasp of the basic situation of Han Cheng’s bullying and harassment.

He had been a teacher for twenty years and thought that sharp conflicts in group life were inevitable. Fifteen or sixteen was the stage of adolescent restlessness, and emotional fluctuations were normal.

But the more he asked, the colder his back became. He couldn’t even understand how those filthy and dirty methods could come from his own students.

He blamed himself for usually being too focused on teaching and grades, caring about “performance” and ignoring “reason.”

Now, hearing the dirty words come from Shen Yiyi’s mouth, the matter-of-fact retelling of the scene made his throat choke. Old Li’s face was red, and he rubbed his hands anxiously.

Shen Qinwen stood up in the silence, his face stern. “Okay, we’re not going to school here anymore.”

Principal Wang quickly held his shoulder. “Old Shen.”

“What about that boy?” Shen Qinwen asked. “Where is he?”

The principal said, “He’s already been taken away by his parents.”

“No need to say more. If this kind of student is not dealt with properly, we will apply for a leave of absence.” Shen Qinwen waved at his daughter. “Let’s go. I’ll take you back.”

Shen Qinwen really had nothing more to say.

He and Wang Shan were friends, and they were also contacts who exchanged information in the education bureau. He had given up the key high school in the city and come to Fengjiang High, not for the grades.

It didn’t matter to him whether his daughter’s studies were good or bad.

What he wanted was his daughter’s mental health.

“Principal Wang, I’ll take Shen Yiyi to the police station first to ask. If that boy is really so rude to his classmates, we will call the police directly.”

“We’re not going to reconcile.”

With that, Shen Qinwen patted his daughter’s shoulder and pushed her forward.

“Old Shen.”
“Shen Qinwen!”

Principal Wang was also anxious. “We also have to handle this reasonably. Yiyi stabbed someone’s throat with a knife in public. The school also has to give an explanation to the other parents.”

Shen Qinwen said calmly, “Then you can handle it as you see fit.”

With that, he took Shen Yiyi’s arm and left.

The father and daughter walked out the door, neither of them speaking.

Shen Qinwen’s heavy breathing was a long sigh. He was both heartbroken and angry.

Of course, he understood his daughter’s pain.

If Han Cheng had dared to say that in front of him, he would have slapped him without hesitation, let alone his daughter who was plagued by nightmares. How could she not be sad and heartbroken when her scars were so rudely torn open and her wounds squeezed?

But he couldn’t easily forgive this matter.

One must abide by the law and discipline. To hurt someone at the slightest disagreement, to cause destruction when things don’t go your way, and even to resort to violence to vent your emotions. How would you conduct yourself in the future, how would you interact with others?

This was not a small matter. It was a matter of the sky falling.

It was a matter that, if Xu Meng had heard, she would have condemned him for not teaching his daughter well.

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

Shen Yiyi apologized, following behind her father. “I was wrong about this.”

Shen Qinwen looked up. His daughter’s apology made his heart ache. It reminded him of his daughter squatting in a pool of blood that day. She was only nine then. On the first night without her mother, she had said sorry to him all night.

He held back his tears and kept walking forward.

“Dad, I didn’t mean to fight. I just wanted to stop him from doing bad things.”

“I just wanted to stop it, to stop the continuation of a nightmare while it could still be saved.”

Shen Qinwen pinched the bridge of his nose and then wiped away the tears hidden in his eyes with his palm. “Okay, I know.”

“I’m sorry, Dad, I’m really—”

“Shen Yiyi!!”

An anxious shout interrupted Shen Yiyi’s words. She stopped and turned at the sound.

Qin Luo and Liu Jia were standing outside the flowerbed at the school gate, waving at her. Then Qin Luo hurried over, her eyes searching for wounds around her neck.

“Are you okay?”

Shen Yiyi shook her head.

Shen Qinwen took a breath and strode forward. “You can chat with your classmates. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“It’s good that Han Cheng didn’t hurt you.” Qin Luo relaxed her shoulders and then asked tentatively, “What did the school say? They won’t make things difficult for you, will they? The head teacher just looked for us. I had Guo Rui tell him everything he did, and I also handed over some of the threatening notes he had written to her. The class president also told him about how he scammed the first-year students.”

Shen Yiyi nodded and naturally took out a tissue from her pocket.

She handed it to Qin Luo. “You should wipe your sweat first.”

Qin Luo was still anxious, but she was stunned by the tissue. The Shen Yiyi in front of her was calm, so calm that it was as if nothing had happened.

Even the ripples from a stone thrown into a lake would be a bigger reaction than hers.

Qin Luo couldn’t figure it out, so she had to take the tissue and wipe her face.

Shen Yiyi looked away and said coolly, “I might not be coming to school for a while. Could you please… help me… with my notes and papers? It would be best if you could copy the homework for me.”

Qin Luo blinked. “…Okay.”

“Do you have a phone?” Shen Yiyi asked again.

Qin Luo shook her head.

Shen Yiyi smiled and said politely, “Then forget it. It’s too much trouble.”

“It’s fine. You can give me your address. I’ll drop it off at your place after school.”