14: Chapter 14: Group Chat Explodes! The Psychological Defenses of the Skippers Collapse

In the Class 18 classroom, when 26 pairs of eyes watched six waiters in formal wear and white gloves file in, the entire classroom became so quiet that one could hear the cicadas chirping in the trees outside the window.

The waiters moved with the crisp efficiency of hotel banquet staff trained thousands of times. First, they laid disposable white tablecloths on the empty desks in the front two rows. The material of the tablecloths wasn't the thin plastic that tears at a touch like in the Cafeteria, but a thick cotton fabric with a subtle pattern, spread out so flat there wasn't a single wrinkle.

Then the insulated boxes were brought in one by one. The moment the lids were opened, heat wrapped in aroma hit the faces of everyone in the class like a wall.

Qian Duoduo was the first to stand up.

His 160-jin frame catapulted from his seat, his neck stretched out as long as a goose's, and his eyes were wide round as he stared at the contents of the insulated box.

Silver insulated boxes, one for each person, with the Restaurant brand logo printed on the matte brushed metal surface, and a handwritten card stuck on the lid.

The waiters distributed the insulated boxes to each student's desk one by one, their movements so gentle it was like placing works of art.

Fang Jiming stood beside the podium, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall.

"Open it and eat."

That was all he said.

Qian Duoduo was the first person to lift the lid.

The insulated box was divided into four compartments. In the largest one lay two strips of Australian M9 Wagyu steak.

The surface was seared into a caramel-colored crispy crust, and the cut revealed a pink, tender inner texture. The marbling was so evenly distributed it looked like a picture from a textbook. Beside it was a small spoonful of black truffle sauce, and the air was filled with the complex aroma of butter and seared beef fat.

The second compartment contained black pepper abalone nuggets—three small abalones cut into cubes, coated in black pepper sauce, each one plump and glossy.

The third compartment was handmade pasta coated in a thick creamy mushroom sauce, and the fourth was a piece of Basque cheesecake with an even, beautiful caramel color, with a small chocolate ball decorated with gold leaf placed beside it.

Qian Duoduo stared at this meal for a full five seconds.

Then he turned his head to look at Fang Jiming, the expression on his face as if he had seen a ghost.

Qian Duoduo: (⊙Д⊙)

"Teacher, Teacher Fang, is, is this for us to eat?"

"Otherwise? For the class next door?"

The silence in the classroom lasted for about three seconds, then a girl in the front row let out a scream.

"Ahhhhhhh, is this Wagyu? Is this real Wagyu?!"

"Holy crap! Abalone! This is abalone, right?!"

"Damn, damn, damn, this beef marbling, I've seen it on Douyin, this kind of Wagyu costs several hundred yuan per jin!"

The classroom exploded.

26 students let out exclamations of various frequencies at the same time, the wave of sound so loud that even Class 17 next door could hear it.

The moment Qian Duoduo picked up a piece of Wagyu with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth, his expression underwent a complete soul baptism.

The beef melted in his mouth, the fat dissolving on his tongue, and the rich aroma of the black truffle sauce rushed from his mouth straight to his nasal cavity. He even felt the back of his head tingling.

"The steak my dad spent two thousand yuan to treat guests to at the Nanqiao Hotel during the New Year was like a shoe sole compared to this!"

Qian Duoduo shouted incoherently with his mouth full of Wagyu, and the three boys around him listened and immediately started shoveling food into their mouths like madmen.

Zhao Dazhuang also opened his lid.

He looked at the two Wagyu steaks in the insulated box, the hot air from his nose hitting the surface of the beef, stirring up a thin layer of steam. He poked the beef with his chopsticks, and the texture was so soft that the chopsticks sank in with almost no effort.

Zhao Dazhuang looked up at Fang Jiming.

Fang Jiming looked back at him.

Neither of them spoke.

Zhao Dazhuang lowered his head and started eating.

Ma Xiaotiao huddled next to Zhao Dazhuang, using an almost devout speed to put the Wagyu into his mouth in small bites. Every time he chewed, his eyes lit up. The scene was like a stray cat eating canned food for the first time.

Ma Xiaotiao: (; ᴗ ;)

Fang Jiming scanned the whole class and found that everyone was lowering their heads and eating seriously, including the few troublemakers who never looked up during class. At this moment, they were all quietly buried in front of their insulated boxes. In the classroom, there was only the crisp sound of chopsticks hitting the metal box walls and the sound of chewing.

Quiet.

Since the first day he came to Class 18, this was the first time the classroom had been this quiet.

The corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up, and then he turned to look at the door.

Teacher Wen Ruyan was standing in the corridor outside the classroom, looking in through the crack in the door frame.

She saw the desks covered with white tablecloths, saw the heat rising from the silver insulated boxes, and saw 26 high school students, who usually couldn't even be bothered to flip through their textbooks, now burying their heads and shoveling food like a pack of little wolves that hadn't eaten for three days.

Then she saw Fang Jiming.

That substitute teacher, wearing forty-yuan canvas shoes and earning a monthly salary of 3,700, was leaning against the wall beside the podium, his hands in his pockets, with a smile on his face that she couldn't read.

It wasn't smugness, nor was it showing off; it was more like the sense of confirmation one feels after finally finding the right tool.

Teacher Wen Ruyan bit her lower lip and stood at the door for ten seconds, then turned and walked away.

She walked three steps and stopped again.

When she turned back, she happened to crash into Fang Jiming's line of sight. He didn't know when he had turned his head and was looking at the direction of the door from across half the classroom.

Their gazes crossed for less than a second under the dim lights of the corridor.

Fang Jiming was the first to withdraw his gaze.

Teacher Wen Ruyan also withdrew her gaze, her high heels tapping on the floor as she walked quickly toward the stairwell.

She recorded this image in her mind, but she didn't know how to interpret it yet.

In the classroom, Qian Duoduo had already started making trouble.

He took out his mobile phone, took a picture of the insulated box in front of him that was about to be finished, and then opened the class group chat "Class 18 · Alliance of City-Wide Bottom-Rankers" and sent a message.

[Qian Duoduo: [Image] [Image] [Image] Look at what we had for lunch! M9 Wagyu! Black truffle abalone! Basque cake! Teacher Fang paid for it! 38 portions! At least five or six hundred each! Those who didn't come, go cry! [Image]]

Five seconds after the message was sent, the unread notifications in the group chat popped up like firecrackers.

[Wang Xiaojun: ???? What is this? Photoshopped, right?]

[Chen Xiaohua: Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, is this our school classroom? What's that on the table? A tablecloth???]

[Zhang Ergou: I don't believe it. Take a picture of Teacher Fang and let me see.]

Qian Duoduo held up his phone and took a picture of Fang Jiming leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and threw it into the group.

[Qian Duoduo: [Image] See? Teacher Fang himself. Could I Photoshop a living person?]

The group was silent for three seconds.

Then it exploded.

[Liu Qiang: I'm eating instant noodles at home, and you show me this???]

[Han Bingbing: ??? This insulated box looks so high-end. What brand is that logo on it?]

[Sun Tiedan: Restaurant! I Baidu-ed it. The per-capita cost is at least 680 to start! Six hundred and eighty! For one meal!]

[Wang Xiaojun: Wait, wait, wait, wait, 38 portions at 680, isn't that over twenty-five thousand??? Where does Teacher Fang, a substitute teacher, get twenty thousand-plus yuan to treat the whole class to a meal???]

[Zhang Ergou: Something's not right. This is not right. What exactly is Teacher Fang's background?]

No one answered this message.

The scrolling speed in the group was so fast that Fang Jiming, standing in the back, couldn't finish reading it at all.

Several students who didn't come to class today started @ing Fang Jiming.

[Liu Qiang: @Fang Jiming Teacher Fang! Is there any tomorrow?!]

[Sun Tiedan: @Fang Jiming Teacher, I will definitely come to class tomorrow! I'll be there at eight o'clock sharp! Please!]

Fang Jiming looked at the group messages without replying. He put his phone back in his pocket, glanced at the students who were frantically taking pictures and sending them to the group, and walked out of the classroom with a trace of a curve on his lips.

In the corridor, several students from Class 17 next door were clinging to the windows of Class 18, peering inside, their mouths watering from the aroma of the Wagyu.

"What are they eating in Class 18, why does it smell so good?!"

"I saw silver boxes, it seems like they were delivered by a Restaurant outside!"

"Why do they have it and we don't?!"

Fang Jiming heard these words as he passed them. He didn't stop, and when he reached the stairwell, he hummed a sound.

Thirty thousand yuan, 38 students, 26 who attended got a top-tier lunch.

The 12 who didn't come are drooling at the pictures in the group chat.

The goal of the first step has been achieved.

Let those who attended feel the benefits of coming to class.

Let those who skipped class feel the cost of not coming.

Qian Duoduo's photos are the best promotional material. Fang Jiming doesn't need to say a word; the students will spread the information to every corner for him.

He was planning to go back to the office to sit for a while when his phone vibrated again.

System pop-up.

[Detected a change in student return intention.]

[Liu Qiang (4th day of truancy): Return intention increased from 23% to 61%.]

[Sun Tiedan (6th day of truancy): Return intention increased from 17% to 54%.]

[Han Bingbing (3rd day of truancy): Return intention increased from 41% to 72%.]

Fang Jiming looked at this data, and the tight string in his heart loosened a little.

It works.

Money power, it works.

But money can only trick people into the classroom; the thing that will truly make them stay hasn't been revealed yet.