27: Chapter 27 System Notification: Congratulations, host, for successfully opening the student's heart.

Time passed second by second, the sky gradually darkened, and the only streetlight in the corner of the back playground lit up, casting a dim yellow halo.

Lu Zihao's physical strength finally reached its limit.

His fists could no longer clench; the lining of the new boxing gloves chafed the unhealed skin on his knuckles, and blood seeped out, staining the white bandages red.

He threw one last limp hook, his whole body sliding down the sandbag to the ground as if he had lost all strength.

He lay on his back on the shock-absorbing mat, gasping for air, his chest heaving violently.

Cold sweat mixed with hot sweat, soaking his hair and plastering it against his forehead.

He felt like his internal organs were burning, his limbs were as heavy as if filled with lead, and he didn't even have the strength to move a finger.

But that evil fire he had been holding in, the one that was driving him crazy, had miraculously vanished.

What remained was a sense of emptiness and tranquility brought about by extreme exhaustion.

He turned his head, looking toward the horizontal bars through his sweat-blurred vision.

Fang Jiming was still there.

That young homeroom teacher, with his sharp tongue and cheap canvas shoes, was still grading those perpetually failing test papers one by one under the dim streetlight.

The night wind blew, causing the papers to rustle on the wooden board.

Fang Jiming sensed his gaze, stuffed his red pen into his pocket, stood up from the stone bench where he had been grading papers, turned toward the horizontal bars, and nimbly hopped down.

He walked over, picked up the short-sleeved school uniform from the edge of the mat, and tossed it onto Lu Zihao's sweat-soaked chest.

"If you've hit enough, put your clothes on and get home."

"Your mom is working a part-time job at the restaurant tonight and gets off at ten. If you go back now, you can still make it in time to cook her a bowl of noodles."

Fang Jiming didn't ask if he was in pain, nor did he ask if he had figured things out.

He rolled the stack of graded test papers into a cylinder, tapped it against his hand, and turned to leave.

Lu Zihao lay on the ground and used the last of his strength to pull the school uniform over his face, blocking out the streetlight's glow and shielding his reddened eyes.

Listening to Fang Jiming's retreating footsteps, he swallowed with difficulty.

In his seventeen years of life, he had met many teachers.

Those teachers would always look down on him and criticize him after seeing him fight, or with expressions of disgust, make him write apology letters.

This was the first teacher who had bought him boxing gloves, spent two hours here with him, and then only told him to go home and cook his mom a bowl of noodles.

Just as Fang Jiming's footsteps were about to fade away, an electronically synthesized voice sounded in his mind.

[Ding]

[Detected a major emotional shift in core student Lu Zihao]

[The first layer of the trust bridge has been established; dropout tendency has dropped to 30%]

[Transformation mission progress updated; Host, please continue to provide guidance.]

Fang Jiming walked along the tree-lined path back to the teaching building, listening to the system's notification sound, and curled the corners of his mouth upward.

Although this kid's mouth was as hard as a rock, he had finally managed to kick a crack open in the door to his heart.

It seemed the 30 million bonus and 120 Teacher Morality Points were already waving at him.

---

The next morning in Nanqiao City, a drizzling autumn rain began to fall.

The temperature plummeted, and the wind carried a chill that seemed to seep into one's bones.

Fang Jiming held a transparent plastic umbrella he'd casually bought at a convenience store, stepping through puddles as he walked into the dilapidated office building of No. 19 Middle School.

He had just sat down in the large office for substitute teachers on the first floor and hadn't even had time to warm his glass cup filled with low-quality tea leaves before trouble came knocking.

Director He Rencai of the Academic Affairs Office pushed open the office door, his round belly protruding, clutching a black briefcase, his face plastered with a fake smile.

He walked straight to Fang Jiming's desk and tapped twice on the surface with his thick, fleshy palm.

Director He Rencai: ( ≖ ᴗ ≖ ✿ ) "Teacher Fang, I'm here to notify you of some not-so-good news."

"Old Liu, who teaches Physics for your Class 18, Grade 12, had a sudden case of high blood pressure last night and was hospitalized. He's taken a week of sick leave."

Fang Jiming leaned back in his chair, holding his glass cup, and slowly blew on the tea dregs floating on the surface of the water.

"If Old Liu is sick, the Academic Affairs Office should hurry up and arrange for another Physics teacher to substitute. What's the point of telling me, the homeroom teacher? I'm not the reincarnation of Hua Tuo; I can't cure him."

The fake smile on Director He Rencai's face grew even brighter, carrying that smugness unique to someone watching another person get thwarted.

"Oh my, this is quite an unfortunate coincidence."

"The other two Physics teachers for Grade 12—Teacher Zhang has to go to the city today to attend a teaching research meeting, and Teacher Li's wife is giving birth to their second child today, so he's also on leave."

"Right now, our school's Physics teaching staff is severely shorthanded, and we really can't spare anyone to take care of your Class 18."

Fang Jiming set down his tea cup and looked at him coldly.

"This excuse is like a weasel paying respects to a chicken—it's definitely not well-intentioned."

"For three Grade 12 Physics teachers to have issues on the same day—if anyone said that old fox Vice Principal Sun Yaozu wasn't pulling the strings behind the scenes, he wouldn't believe it even if he died."

"Vice Principal Sun Yaozu is retaliating against me for my stance on the dropout incident, trying to disgust me with a teaching mishap."

"According to school rules, if a main subject is left without a teacher, leading to large-scale student complaints, the homeroom teacher is held jointly responsible."

Fang Jiming sneered.

"So, Director He, does that mean our class's two consecutive Physics periods today should just be changed to self-study?"

Director He Rencai waved his hands, feigning helplessness.

"How can we do self-study? Grade 12 time is so precious. If parents find out the school is letting Grade 12 students have self-study, they'll tear the school roof off."

"Teacher Fang, you're a university graduate with a solid foundation. Principal Zhou and Principal Sun's intention is for you, as the homeroom teacher, to step in for these two Physics periods and overcome the difficulty."

After saying this, Director He Rencai didn't give Fang Jiming a chance to retort, clutching his briefcase and slipping out of the office in a flash, afraid that Fang Jiming might splash tea in his face.

Watching his fleeing back, Fang Jiming felt his teeth itch with anger.

He was originally a Mathematics teacher, and he could talk eloquently about functions, derivatives, and analytic geometry.

Although Math and Physics are somewhat related, asking him to substitute for a Physics class and teach those complex mechanics problems is purely like asking Zhang Fei to do embroidery.

Just as he was staring at the class schedule on his desk, worrying, the office door was pushed open again.

Teacher Wen Ruyan walked in, wearing a thin khaki trench coat and low-heeled leather shoes.

She threw two thick Physics supplementary textbooks and a densely written lesson plan notebook onto Fang Jiming's desk, making a dull thud.

Teacher Wen Ruyan: ( ￣ ^ ￣ ) She crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Fang Jiming with a cold, pretty face.

"I heard Director He's words in the hallway just now."

"Old Liu doesn't have high blood pressure at all."

"When I came in this morning, I even saw him eating fried dough sticks at the street corner. This is clearly Vice Principal Sun Yaozu making things difficult for you."

Fang Jiming looked at the Physics materials on the desk and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Teacher Wen."

"You teach Chinese Language; where did you get a Physics lesson plan notebook?"