They looked at him — Mr. Diāo Sīyán.
With his death stare, a straight flying ticket to hell, he stared at Li Wei while squeezing her chest so hard...
The teacher let her go and stood looking at Li Wei. Li Wei wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move. He was standing just like some old Greece statue, frozen with an open mouth.
His eyes opened as if they were pulled out, his hands shaking, his legs trembling... He cleared his throat, thoughts rumbling inside, his heartbeat faster.
Unlike the ethics teacher Mr. Zhang, he told him to get in and close the door. Li Wei, flabbergasted, showed a hint of interest. The books he read were all about survival.
He knew that the ultimate way to learn is by learning from fear. Fear eventually led to pain, success, death, and so on.
People expect luck, but once they put their hope in their merely non-existing luck, they will blame it saying: "Why me?"
He was the same until he finally decided to go for results. We get what we deserve. Ideally, even realistically, that's how things should go for someone like him.
He already thought of this but said it to himself to feel powerful: "Pain is a teacher that no one wants to learn from... I can endure it through the end."
Li Wei, with a horrified look as if he saw a person getting sucked out of their empty shell body, walked in trembling. His legs felt like it was their very first time walking.
He closed the door with a shallow force, shaking to even catch the handle. He tried twice, but the door wouldn't budge. Nervously turning around, he whispered:
"The door won't budge..."
Teacher Diāo Sīyán walked lightly toward him, cracking his fingers.
Li Wei doesn't have a family he can go and cry on. He grew up with his grandfather. His mother died long ago because of an illness, and his father died in a car accident.
His grandfather always worked hard to save some money for him. He always protected him, just like his last duty before his final day on earth. Eventually, his grandfather also died due to poor treatment because of an illness that he kept struggling with but hid. So now that his grandfather isn't here, he lives alone in a rented house.
His grandfather's money and a bit of fortune was enough to make him last long with only a rented house and a single meal per day.
Days may pass, but he still cares and cries over the fact that he lost the one and only family — his grandfather. That's when he began to say to the teachers when they asked him to bring his family...
"I don't have one, they're all dead..."
That's when students considered him weird. He looked way more like a kid haunted by a ghost. He lost taste in life — all he wanted was money and power he never even had in his life. At that time, he was a high schooler who studied hard for scholarships... But once he lost his grandfather, it was more about money and survival than scholarships.
The teacher smiled with that angelic smile he had and told him:
"So you saw the whole thing and somehow managed to make rumors... SPREAD."
While kicking the door hard, the door slammed and closed on its own. Li Wei replied with honesty:
"No, I didn't mean it. Please let me go. Please don't do it. I got jobs, and my owner is so stupid he would use my face as an excuse and fire me. Please don't beat me up — at least not now..."
Holding his head and tilting down, he slowly kneeled on the ground.
The teacher got back to his seat. As soon as he sat down, the director sat on his legs and they laughed.
Li Wei was scared but confused at the same time:
"Why would they laugh? What the hell is wrong with them..."
He was conflicted, confused, and tired of the whole thing... But he knew one thing. One thing could save him.
It was negotiation.
If he negotiates perfectly, he will win.
He had already spent more time reading books than novels for a while. The books he read were dark psychology books.
He now knew and accepted his new motto. From:
"One lucky moment is enough to change everything, good or bad."
To the ultimate way:
"A king never fights a war he didn't plan. Only those who are foolish step in expecting luck is always by their side. I'm not like that. Truth to be told, expecting nothing from anyone — even from luck — is the only success to success. I don't chase expectancy. I only chase consistency and results of my efforts, knowing full well that they won't fail my expectation..."
For the first time in his life, he ground his teeth, stared straight forward, and told them what should happen — and that he didn't care about what they wanted to happen.
"Listen, teacher, president, I have something to tell you. Do you guys want to be together but you don't want Mr. Zhang to be in the middle of that?"
The president, looking down ashamed of all the things she said and did to him, talked to him with a gentle voice.
"Listen, there is something you don't know. I didn't want to harass you or something. I really didn't mean to. Mr. Zhang has my pictures and he is blackmailing me. Remember when all the teachers got out on a trip? That's when he caught me. If I reported him, he would post it on the school website and other platforms. He has a lot of pictures of me when I was changing my clothes into a swimsuit. Some of them have me all naked. So he is forcing me to do this to you with him. I never even liked him. He has a wife, and I heard she is pregnant — he is going to be a father. Besides me and teacher Diāo Sīyán, we never even do such things. He might touch me but yeah, that's because he is my secret boyfriend. Please don't tell anyone about me. Please, Li Wei."
That cleared every misunderstanding. Now Li Wei knew everything. That included how to execute a plan so perfect that it would end to his benefit. So he sat on the ground, one leg up and the other stretched, his hand on his knee while leaning on the ground with the other. He began to murmur to himself while both of them talked, taking his time thinking.
After a while of thinking, he figured out an interesting plan.
He said:
"Listen to what I'm going to tell you now. The first thing is that Ms. Principal goes on and steals my exam papers from him the next time you meet. Once you steal from him, bring it to me. Then the next day, tell your boyfriend — our teacher — and he will call me out in class and use whatever method as long as no one notices. He may even ask me to clean the board for you or ask me to bring you something from your office and put a message there to do whatever you want to do. That relies on you."
The teacher, with a serious look on his face, mesmerized by the principal's beauty, looked at her eyes while leaning on the seat.
"Got it, got it, continue..."
*"As soon as I get the original test that he actually refused to give us himself, I will go and report him. And of course, they will bring it to your principal so you will have to deal with it. You must act as if it was a minor mistake. Once you send this case to the vice principal, they will bring both me and Mr. Zhang.
We will both defend our own points. What I'm going to advise is that we should take a vote. No matter how much society seems not to value me, they will still defend me, because unlike them I have never done anything. Plus, everyone is talking about how he has been constantly harassing me. Some genius goody-goody characteristic students addressed it as they couldn't hold it anymore. What did they get for that? They got trashed completely, dog-walked by Mr. Zhang's speech.
So even after the vote, he would still deny it. That's when I drop the exam results and my listed results. It's got about 40 points difference — from 98 to 58. Once that happens, he will be punished. But you act as if you are on his side. Say something like:
'But isn't he a teacher, and minor mistakes are expected? Even if we make mistakes, sometimes we even spell others by mistake, so let's not overcomplicate it. Plus, a teacher who is always working hard and deliberately changing toward the better for his students' sake is the kind of teacher we are accusing of a problem that is so simple to fix that it would take about a second. In addition, it might even be a slight mistake in it.'
So Teacher Diāo Sīyán, you will bring the police by telling them what went wrong between our honored principal and the teacher Mr. Zhang. You will assure them of everything so that they could break into his room and take out some pictures.
They will go ahead and check his room before. To be cautious, and don't worry — almost all your pictures, Principal, are in there. If I had to guess, his wife would be near her third trimester. The intense desire for pregnant women to work and clean the house is known as the 'nesting instinct.' I don't think I should be telling you all this since you are teachers too. Anyways, it is a psychological and behavioral response that prepares the home for the new baby and typically intensifies during the third trimester.
Which means that he can't even put his photos in his closet. She will clean the whole closet, which I'm sure is the one and only thing in which he is worrying about. The police, for careful measurements, will check his phone, and so he will get caught up. Just play the victim and make some noise, and make things interesting. That's how it's going to be, and it will be okay."*
Both flabbergasted, their eyes and mouth wide open, even their ears became like an elf's. Just like a dog, straight up ward listening, with a face like a meme from TikTok.
Teacher Diāo Sīyán clapped his hands, saying:
"Brilliant! Perfect kid, perfect kid! You're so smart, so smart..."
The principal was still processing his plans:
"But... hey, what if... they ask you... how you got the exam papers?"
"I will confess, saying I stole them, and they will have to punish me by transferring me to another school. So you are going to be the one who will transfer me, so better choose the best school. I wanna change school. Once everything is done, I will send you the place I wanna go. And don't worry, it's even older and more rural than this..."
He finally decided to get back to his old local area where he grew up. There he doesn't have to pay since he got his grandfather's house as inheritance.
She laughed and smiled a genuine smile:
"That's very good to hear. I feel like you already planned this out... let's meet in the principal's office, putting our masks..."
"Heck yeah, that's it, Principal. Have a good day... oh, and by the way, you two look cute together..."
They all three laughed.
Li Wei, thinking he would celebrate with a lot of money: "I deserve this."
Suddenly, Li Wei's vision glitched. He closed his eyes in agony and bounced off the bed. He saw no one at his door...