17: Chapter 17: Summoned to the Office, Fang Jiming's Confidence

The bell for the last class of the afternoon had just rung. Fang Jiming tucked his lesson plan under his arm and was preparing to head back to the office to brew a cup of tea and rest for a while when his phone vibrated as he reached the stairwell.

It was a text message from Director He of the Academic Affairs Office, consisting of five characters.

"Teacher Fang, come talk."

Fang Jiming glanced at the text and tucked his phone back into his trouser pocket. He wasn't the least bit surprised by this message.

The moment those three Restaurant delivery trucks drove into the gates of No. 19 Middle School at noon, he knew that sooner or later, someone would come to settle accounts with him over this meal.

It was just that he thought he would have to wait until at least tomorrow; he hadn't expected Vice Principal Sun Yaozu's efficiency to be unprecedentedly fast today.

When he reached the corner of the second-floor stairwell, a hand with clear nail polish stretched out from three meters ahead and blocked his path.

Teacher Wen Ruyan.

She emerged from the shadows of the stairwell to block Fang Jiming, her expression as cold as if he owed her three months of unpaid rent.

She was wearing a white shirt paired with dark blue trousers, holding a lesson plan in her left hand, and extending her right hand in front of Fang Jiming's chest, clutching two sheets of paper.

"Stop."

Fang Jiming stopped and glanced at her.

"Teacher Wen, what can I do for you?"

Teacher Wen Ruyan didn't answer and pushed the two sheets of paper in her hand toward his chest.

The papers were printed with densely packed small text, with the header reading "Nanqiao No. 19 Middle School Cafeteria and Campus Food Safety Management Regulations".

Fang Jiming lowered his head and glanced at them without reaching out to take them.

"Look at Chapter 6, Article 23."

"Outside food, without approval from the logistics department, cannot be introduced to campus in any form."

Fang Jiming finished reading the bolded black text and looked up.

"And?"

Teacher Wen Ruyan's eyebrows knitted together.

"And? What you did at noon today fits exactly into this line of fire. Vice Principal Sun Yaozu is currently racking his brain to use food safety issues as an excuse to get rid of you, do you understand?"

"Oh."

Fang Jiming nodded, his tone as flat as if he were listening to a weather forecast.

Teacher Wen Ruyan: (ꐦ°᷄д°᷅)

Her brow was furrowed so tightly it was about to knot.

"Why are you saying 'oh'? I'm talking to you about serious business!"

"Director He from the Academic Affairs Office just came out of Principal Sun's office with a face like he'd just eaten a dead rat. The two of them have already met today; if you go up now, you're walking right into the tiger's den."

"Got it."

"You got it, and you're still going?"

"What else can I do, pretend I didn't see the text?"

Fang Jiming tilted his head and smiled at her.

"Teacher Wen is certainly well-informed. Did you come specifically to tip me off?"

A trace of extremely subtle unnaturalness flashed across Teacher Wen Ruyan's face. She bit her lip and shoved the two pages of regulatory documents into his arms.

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm afraid you'll cause trouble and implicate the class next door. The commotion you caused in Class 18 has already made students in Class 17 start asking me, Teacher Wen, why we didn't get to eat Wagyu."

Fang Jiming lowered his head to look at the two sheets of paper stuffed into his hands, then looked up at Teacher Wen Ruyan again.

She spoke coldly, but the very act of standing at this stairwell corner waiting for him had already exposed everything.

If she were really only afraid of implicating the class next door, she could have just left after work and let whoever be whoever; she didn't need to block someone in the stairwell to hand over regulations.

He swallowed this judgment back into his stomach without saying it out loud.

Saying it out loud would be tantamount to exposing her stubbornness. A strong-willed woman like Teacher Wen Ruyan would only become fiercer if exposed.

"Fine, I understand."

Fang Jiming folded the two pages of regulations twice and stuffed them into his pocket. As he walked past Teacher Wen Ruyan, he reached out and flicked the surface of the paper, making a crisp sound.

"Thanks, Teacher Wen, but I don't intend to admit fault."

Teacher Wen Ruyan turned around to watch his back as he walked up the stairs, her mouth opening and then closing.

Is this person truly fearless, or does he have another trump card?

A substitute teacher with a salary of 3,700, spending 30,000 to treat the whole class to Wagyu, and still looking unconcerned about being summoned by the school administration today.

She didn't believe Fang Jiming was stupid, so there was only one possibility—he had something she didn't know about.

Teacher Wen Ruyan stood at the stairwell corner clutching her lesson plan for a few seconds, let out a breath, and turned to walk in the direction of Class 17.

After walking seven or eight steps, her pace slowed down, and she looked back up the stairs.

Fang Jiming had already reached the third-floor corner, wearing that wrinkled grey shirt and forty-yuan canvas shoes, hands in his trouser pockets, his back as relaxed as if he were going to a convenience store to buy a bottle of water.

Teacher Wen Ruyan withdrew her gaze, bit her lip, and continued walking forward.

She cursed in her heart.

Idiot.

Fang Jiming went up to the fourth floor, walked down the long corridor, passed the half-ajar wooden door of the Academic Affairs Office, and stopped at the door of the Vice Principal's office.

The door wasn't closed tightly, and the sound of a teacup lid clinking against the rim of the cup could be faintly heard from inside.

He reached out and knocked twice.

"Come in."

Inside came the voice of Principal Sun, unhurried, carrying the scent of old sandalwood from twenty years in government units.

Fang Jiming pushed the door and walked in.

The Vice Principal's office was not large. An old-fashioned mahogany desk took up one-third of the area, with a tea set, a pen holder, an old-model Lenovo computer, and an opened document on the table.

Principal Sun sat in an old leather chair behind the desk, holding an enamel teacup in his hand, slowly blowing on the heat rising from the tea.

Standing next to him was Director He Rencai of the Academic Affairs Office, holding a folder, with an expression somewhere between constipation and a toothache.

Both of their gazes landed on Fang Jiming at the same time.

Fang Jiming scanned the office, his gaze lingering on that opened document for half a second.

The header of the document read "Disciplinary Notice", and the content that followed was still blank, but those few words were enough to explain the issue.

It was placed on the table before it was even written.

This wasn't called acting according to the law; this was called killing the chicken to scare the monkey.

The corners of Fang Jiming's mouth twitched. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and nodded toward Principal Sun.

"Hello, Principal Sun. Hello, Director He. What is the matter?"

Principal Sun didn't speak immediately. He held the teacup and blew on it again, then slowly took a small sip of tea, letting Fang Jiming stand there waiting for several seconds.

Fang Jiming wasn't nervous at all.

He even felt that the few seconds Principal Sun spent drinking tea were a bit of a waste of time; he had a new furniture plan for his flat waiting for his approval.

Principal Sun finally put down the teacup.

"Mr. Fang."

His voice was as gentle as a kind elder caring for a junior, if one ignored that blank disciplinary notice on the table.

"Sit."

Fang Jiming looked around. Besides Principal Sun's leather chair behind the desk, there were only a row of hard wooden chairs against the wall.

He walked over, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

The seat was hard enough to make his butt hurt; compared to his 82,000 Herman Miller, it was a product from a different dimension.

Fang Jiming made a mental note.

Add one more to his own office later.

"I heard you did a great thing at noon today?"

Principal Sun held the teacup, his gaze looking at Fang Jiming over the rim of the cup.

"Treating the whole class to lunch; young people having this kind of heart is good, worth affirming."

Starting with flattery.

Fang Jiming knew that a "but" would follow.

Sure enough.

"But."

Principal Sun placed the teacup on the table, crossed his hands over his abdomen, and leaned back against the chair.

"Do you know that introducing outside food into the school requires approval from the school's logistics management department?"

Fang Jiming nodded.

"I know, Teacher Wen just told me."

Principal Sun's eyelids twitched.

Teacher Wen Ruyan? When did she get so familiar with Fang Jiming?

He stored this information in his mind without pursuing it, and continued speaking.

"Good that you know. Then you should also know that introducing outside food without approval violates school management regulations and poses serious food safety risks. If something happens, can you take responsibility?"

Director He Rencai beside him opened the folder at the right time, flipped to the marked page, read the full content of Chapter 6, Article 23, and looked up at Fang Jiming after finishing.

"Teacher Fang, the nature of this matter is quite serious. We suggest you write a written self-criticism and suspend your homeroom teacher duties during the disciplinary period."

He bit down hard on the word "suggest".

Combined with the blank disciplinary notice on the table, the weight of this "suggestion" was completely different.

Fang Jiming looked at Director He Rencai, then at Principal Sun, the latter of whom was watching him with a look that said, 'you figure it out'.

The silence in the classroom and the silence in the office were two completely different kinds of silence.

The silence in the classroom was because the students were eating delicious food; that was a sense of satisfaction.

The silence in the office was because someone was waiting for you to bow your head; that was a sense of oppression.

Fang Jiming leaned back in his chair, crossed his right leg over his left, and placed both hands naturally on his knees.

"Writing a self-criticism is no problem."

Principal Sun's eyebrows raised.

Director He Rencai was also stunned; he clearly hadn't expected Fang Jiming to agree so readily.

Then Fang Jiming continued the second half of his sentence.

"But before that, trouble the two leaders to look at something first."

He pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket, clicked on a folder, and turned the screen toward Principal Sun.

The screen displayed a scanned copy of a PDF file.

Principal Sun's gaze landed on the phone screen, his expression still maintaining that unhurried, seasoned look, but Fang Jiming noticed his right hand holding the teacup stopped in mid-air.

It stopped.

The corners of Fang Jiming's mouth curved.

The fish had taken the bait again.