21: Chapter 21 Who dares to expel my student!

As Fang Jiming walked toward that old scholar tree, Lu Zihao's back muscles tensed up.

The boy's gaze swept from Fang Jiming's face to his pocket. Inside that pocket was the expulsion notice, and Lu Zihao could see it clearly.

The two of them stared at each other for two seconds from three paces away.

Lu Zihao spoke first.

"What do you want?"

His voice was raspy and fierce.

After Fang Jiming came to a stop in front of him, he sized up the person before him with both hands in his pockets.

"Why didn't you come to class today?"

Lu Zihao let out a scoff.

"I'm about to be expelled, so what's the point of going to class?"

"Who said you're being expelled?"

"It's written right there on that paper in black and white."

"That paper is in my pocket now."

Fang Jiming patted his trouser pocket.

"What's in my pocket is for me to decide."

Confusion flickered in the depths of Lu Zihao's eyes, but he quickly raised his guard even higher.

He didn't believe it.

Teachers wouldn't help him, his relatives wouldn't help him, and his biological father, who had vanished without a trace, certainly wouldn't.

"Can you even control something signed and sealed by the vice principal?"

"Being sealed doesn't mean it's in effect."

Fang Jiming's tone was exceptionally casual as he spoke.

"There are legal procedures for things like expulsion; the signature of a single vice principal doesn't count."

Lu Zihao stared at him for five seconds.

After straightening up from the tree trunk, Lu Zihao still kept his hands in his pockets. He tilted his chin up slightly, revealing a stubbornness and defiance unique to seventeen-year-old boys.

"What right do you have to interfere in my business?"

Fang Jiming countered with a question.

"Do you know how long your mother was standing outside the guardroom just now?"

The corners of Lu Zihao's mouth twitched.

Fang Jiming didn't wait for his answer.

"Forty minutes."

"She came in her work clothes with a band-aid on her hand. She took two hours off and rushed over from the mall, but even the guard wouldn't let her in."

Lu Zihao clenched his fists in his pockets, the bruises on his knuckles pressing into a stinging pain.

Fang Jiming's voice was neither heavy nor light.

"She begged the guard at the gate for forty minutes just to get in and see you, to confirm if you were really being expelled."

Lu Zihao tensed his jaw muscles, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

He didn't say a word.

Fang Jiming didn't continue speaking either; he pulled the expulsion notice out of his pocket.

Lu Zihao's gaze remained fixed on that piece of paper.

Right before his eyes, Fang Jiming applied force with both hands.

The sound of the paper tearing was particularly loud.

The notice was torn in half down the middle.

The few students watching at the school gate were all dumbstruck.

Fang Jiming didn't stop; he repeatedly folded and tore the paper. Fine scraps of paper fell from between his fingers, fluttering onto the concrete road with the evening breeze.

He tossed the final fragments into a trash can and brushed the remaining paper dust off his hands.

Lu Zihao: (⊙д⊙)

The boy's mouth hung open for a long time without closing.

He had expected the new homeroom teacher to use some nonsense about the school's difficulties to persuade him to accept it, or to politely hand the notice to his mother and then turn and leave.

He hadn't expected someone to tear the thing up right in front of him.

After wiping his hands, Fang Jiming laughed at Lu Zihao's dazed face.

"An expulsion notice requires the homeroom teacher's countersignature to be valid. I didn't sign it, so this paper is just scrap paper."

He paused for a moment.

"The best place for scrap paper is the trash can."

He turned his head toward the guardroom, where Shen Qingzhi was still standing, covering her mouth as she trembled and wept.

Ah, mothers in this world are always the ones who ache for and worry about their sons the most.

Fang Jiming withdrew his gaze and looked back at Lu Zihao.

Lu Zihao's expression slowly recovered, a reddish tint appearing around his eyes.

He blinked hard to force back the tears before tilting his chin up again, though his voice was much quieter than before.

"You tore that paper; will Sun Yaozu let you off?"

"It doesn't matter whether he lets me off or not."

Fang Jiming stared into his eyes.

"What matters is, are you coming to class tomorrow?"

Lu Zihao didn't answer immediately.

The two fell into silence under the old scholar tree, the hazy sky blurring their shadows together.

Lu Zihao turned his face away and squeezed out two words from between his teeth.

"We'll see."

Lu Zihao turned and strode away.

Fang Jiming watched his figure disappear into the twilight outside the school gate and didn't chase after him.

The words 'we'll see' meant he would come.

For a boy with Lu Zihao's personality, it already counted as an agreement.

Fang Jiming: (￣ω￣)

No rush, the bait has been cast.

The setting sun made the concrete at the school gate hot. Fang Jiming threw the torn paper scraps into the trash can and walked toward Shen Qingzhi, who was still standing outside the guardroom.

Shen Qingzhi wiped her eyes with her sleeve, still immersed in massive shock.

She looked at the young homeroom teacher before her, her legs feeling weak, unable to move even half an inch.

Fang Jiming: (≖_≖ )

Seeing her look like she was about to collapse, Fang Jiming put his hands back in his pockets and sighed.

"Ms. Shen, what are you still standing here for? If you're not going back, then follow me. We'll get this settled today."

Shen Qingzhi sniffled, her tears streaming down again as she took a small half-step forward.

"Teacher Fang, you tore the notice. If the school leadership blames you, you won't be able to keep your job."

"My job is rock solid. Let alone a vice principal, even if the King of Heaven himself came, he couldn't break it."

Fang Jiming's lips curled into a nonchalant smile.

"Lu Zihao is a student in my class. As long as I, Fang Jiming, am at No. 19 Middle School, no one is kicking anyone out without following the rules."

Hearing this, Shen Qingzhi cried even louder, her fingers with the band-aid tightly clutching the hem of her faded jacket.

Shen Qingzhi: (╥﹏╥)

Fang Jiming took two steps forward and, brooking no refusal, grabbed the sleeve of her work jacket and led her into the school gate.

Uncle Zhang the security guard leaned against the window. Seeing Fang Jiming leading the parent inside, he was so anxious that he banged his enamel mug onto the table, splashing tea over half of it.

"Hey, hey, Teacher Fang, why are you bringing her in? No entry without a slip from the Academic Affairs Office. Those are the rules."

Fang Jiming didn't even turn his head, his canvas shoes stepping briskly over the pitted road.

"Uncle Zhang, go back and check the school rules. A homeroom teacher bringing a parent onto campus is a legitimate official act. If you insist on stopping us, next time students from Class 18 get into a fight at the school gate, you'll have to pull them apart yourself."

Old Zhang the security guard: (´⊙ω⊙`)

Old Zhang was so stifled by those words that he couldn't utter a single syllable, only able to watch as Fang Jiming led Shen Qingzhi into the shadows of the teaching building.

The sensor lights in the first-floor lobby of the teaching building had been broken for two months. The light was dim, and the sound of Fang Jiming's canvas shoes on the terrazzo floor echoed loudly.

Shen Qingzhi was pulled along by him, following breathlessly, her soles slipping constantly.

"Teacher Fang, where are we going?"

"To reason with them. To ask exactly whose rules they're following, and how any random person can just sign off on an expulsion."