32: Chapter 32: The family is destitute; the boy prepares to drop out of school to shoulder the burden of the entire family.

Fang Jiming parked his electric scooter at the mouth of the alley; the alley before his eyes was so narrow that even the sunlight couldn't squeeze in.

The walls of the self-built houses on both sides were covered with various privately run, haphazardly connected electrical wires, and the crisscrossing cables shrouded the entire alley tightly.

The stagnant water on the ground from yesterday's rain hadn't dried, and mixed with the domestic sewage discharged from various households, it emitted a nauseating stench.

Fang Jiming glanced at the house number on his phone and walked into the alley.

No. 23-4, Qiaonan Road.

He stopped in front of a wooden door that was on the verge of falling apart.

The door panel of the wooden door had split, leaving a gap wide enough to insert a finger, and the plaster above the door frame had peeled off in large patches, revealing the red bricks inside.

Fang Jiming adjusted his breathing and raised his hand to knock on the door.

"Is Wang Tiezhu home?" He leaned close to the crack in the door. "I am his homeroom teacher, Fang Jiming."

There was no response from Wang Tiezhu inside.

What came from inside was the panicked footsteps of a middle-aged woman and the harsh sound of a chair being dragged across the floor.

The door creaked open a crack.

A haggard-looking middle-aged woman poked her head out.

She was wearing a cotton blouse washed to the point where its original color was unrecognizable, her fingers were wrapped in several Band-Aids, and her hair was tied back carelessly with a rubber band, revealing several strands of gray hair.

After seeing Fang Jiming, a flash of nervousness and panic crossed her eyes.

"Are, are you Tiezhu's teacher?"

Fang Jiming squeezed out a smile that was as non-threatening as possible.

"You must be Auntie Li. I am Fang Jiming, the homeroom teacher of Class 18, Grade 12."

"Tiezhu didn't come to class today, so I came for a home visit to see how things are."

Li Xiulan hesitated for a moment before pulling the door open to let him in.

The moment Fang Jiming crossed the threshold, his expression froze.

This couldn't even be called a home; it was absolutely nothing more than a cave.

In the rental room of less than twenty square meters, the living room and bedroom were only separated by a tattered floral cloth curtain.

A three-legged dining table stood against the corner, with the fourth leg propped up by two red bricks.

The springs of the only sofa poked out high from beneath the cushion, covered by a patched towel quilt.

In the corner were stacked a few bags of cheap dried noodles and pickled vegetables.

The room was filled with the heavy smell of traditional Chinese medicine mixed with the scent of damp and mold.

From behind the floral cloth curtain came the creaking sound of a wheelchair rolling.

A middle-aged man wearing an old gray cotton jacket came out from behind the curtain, maneuvering a rusty manual wheelchair.

His lower body was covered with a thin blanket, his legs showing absolutely no signs of movement, and the skin on his face was the waxy yellow color of someone who hadn't seen the sun for a long time.

There were dried mud stains on the back of his hands, and black grime remained in the crevices of his fingernails; these were traces left from his past labor on construction sites that could never be washed away.

Wang Jianjun, this was Wang Tiezhu's father.

Fang Jiming: ( ˊ _ ＞ ˋ )

He felt his own breathing become heavy.

Wang Jianjun maneuvered his wheelchair to Fang Jiming and lifted his head with great effort to look at him.

This man, who had once carried two-hundred-jin cement bags on construction sites, now needed to strain just to lift his head.

He looked at Fang Jiming's young face, his lips moving as if he were organizing his words.

"Teacher Fang."

His voice was hoarse and dry, as if he hadn't spoken a complete sentence to anyone in a long time.

"Tiezhu... he isn't going to school anymore."

When these six words were spat out from his mouth, his eye sockets reddened, and his Adam's apple rolled up and down several times.

Fang Jiming squatted down beside the sofa with exposed springs, aligning his line of sight with Wang Jianjun in the wheelchair.

"Uncle Wang, why is Tiezhu not going to school anymore?"

Wang Jianjun lowered his head to look at his legs that would never move again, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Last year, I fell from a scaffold at a construction site and broke my spine. The boss ran away, and I didn't get a single cent in compensation."

"My life is basically ruined; I can only sit in this wheelchair for the rest of my life."

"His mother goes to stock shelves at the supermarket during the day and washes dishes at the night market in the evening. By the end of the month, even after working herself to the bone, she only earns a little over three thousand."

"Just the traditional Chinese medicine I take costs over two thousand every month."

"Tiezhu also has a younger sister in her second year of junior high school; daily expenses and tuition all depend on his mother to support them alone."

"This family can no longer even put food on the table, Teacher Fang."

When Wang Jianjun said this, his knuckles turned white as he gripped the wheelchair armrests tightly.

He lifted his bloodshot eyes to look at Fang Jiming.

"Tiezhu told me yesterday that he wants to go move goods at that building materials market east of the bridge. It pays one hundred twenty a day; he can earn thirty-six hundred a month."

"I can't stop him."

"I don't even have the qualification to stand up and stop him anymore."

Li Xiulan stood to the side, turned her back, covered her mouth with her Band-Aid-wrapped hand, and her shoulders began to tremble.

Fang Jiming squatted where he was, looking at this shattered family before him, his chest burning uncomfortably.

Two hundred million lay in his phone.

As long as he was willing to take out a drop in the bucket, this family could be freed from their desperate situation.

But the system stated clearly that he could not directly use money to replace a student's core growth.

He could not walk up to Wang Tiezhu and throw money at him.

Because doing so would only turn Wang Tiezhu into a good-for-nothing who lived on handouts from others, rather than a man who stood up on his own.

But he could change his approach.

He could spend the money where it really counted.

Spend it in places that Wang Tiezhu wouldn't directly perceive, places that could pull out the thorn of this family's suffering at its root.

Fang Jiming stood up, patted the dust off his pants, and smoothed out the knees that had wrinkled when he squatted down in front of Wang Jianjun.

"Uncle Wang."

"Tiezhu cannot drop out of school."

Wang Jianjun shook his head with a bitter smile.

"Teacher Fang, I know you have good intentions, but this isn't a question of whether he wants to or not; it's a question of not being able to survive."

"I am a useless father; I can't even support myself, let alone provide for two children to go to school."

"Tiezhu has been sensible since he was a child; he is being forced into this."

Fang Jiming looked at him.

"Uncle Wang, trust me this once."

"Give me three days, and I will find a way to persuade Tiezhu to come back."

"I will help you find a way to solve your family's difficulties; there is no need for Tiezhu, a seventeen-year-old child, to shoulder it."

Wang Jianjun lifted his head to look at this overly young teacher before him, and the tears in his eye sockets finally couldn't be held back and rolled down.

He reached out with those hands, covered in calluses but already lacking strength, and gripped Fang Jiming's wrist tightly.

"Teacher Fang..." he choked out, "Of all the teachers Tiezhu has encountered since he was little, not one has ever been willing to come to a place like ours to even take a look."

"You are the first."

Fang Jiming's wrist hurt from being gripped, but he didn't pull his hand back.

He looked down at Wang Jianjun's palms, which had developed thick calluses from long-term use of the wheelchair, and that burning sensation in his heart surged again.

He didn't dare stay here any longer.

If he stayed any longer, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to hold it together.

"Uncle Wang, don't worry. Within three days, Tiezhu will definitely return to school."

He let go of his hand, stood up, nodded at Li Xiulan, and walked quickly out of that broken wooden door.

The door slammed shut behind him with a bang.