35: Chapter 35: A Young Gangster Invades the Campus, Brother Long's Arrogance

After being called upon, Zhao Dazhuang jolted up from his slumped position, drool still hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Huh? Brother Fang, what did you say?"

"How do you find the slope of a tangent line?"

"Uh..." Zhao Dazhuang scratched his head. "Do you cut it with a knife?"

The whole class burst into laughter.

Fang Jiming tapped the blackboard with his pointer.

"Zhao Dazhuang, was your math taught by a kitchen knife?"

The laughter grew even louder.

Wang Tiezhu, sitting in his seat, also curled the corner of his mouth; although it was a small movement, it was his first smile in three days.

When the bell rang for the end of class, the students walked out in twos and threes.

Fang Jiming packed up his lesson plans and tucked them under his arm, not pausing as he passed by Wang Tiezhu's desk.

However, a bottle of chilled mineral water had been placed on the corner of Wang Tiezhu's desk at some point.

Wang Tiezhu looked down at the bottle; icy water droplets were still clinging to its surface.

He slowly reached out, picked up the water, unscrewed the cap, and took a big gulp.

It was cold.

But his eyes grew hot again.

As Fang Jiming walked out of the classroom, he almost bumped into Teacher Wen Ruyan, who was leaning against the corridor wall.

Teacher Wen Ruyan was holding a steaming cup of caramel macchiato and raised it when she saw him.

"It's from the Starbucks on Renmin Road, nine kilometers away. I bought it while passing by after getting up early today."

Fang Jiming took it and had a sip, almost getting scalded.

"Teacher Wen, didn't you say the beans from the one in the East District were better?"

Teacher Wen Ruyan pushed up her glasses.

"They are better, but I don't want you riding a shared bike for nine kilometers, getting heatstroke, and collapsing on the road, causing trouble for the school."

Fang Jiming: "..."

Teacher Wen Ruyan: "Don't overthink it, this is called colleague mutual aid."

Fang Jiming held the cup and smiled at her.

"Teacher Wen."

"Huh?"

"This cup of coffee is hot, which proves you arrived at school no more than ten minutes ago."

"Renmin Road is nine kilometers from the school; it takes at least forty minutes by bus."

"You usually arrive at school at seven, and you arrived at seven today, so you must have left at least by six."

"Leaving at six o'clock to go nine kilometers away to buy a caramel macchiato."

"Teacher Wen, is this called colleague mutual aid?"

The tips of Teacher Wen Ruyan's ears turned pink at a visible speed.

Teacher Wen Ruyan: ( ᗒ ᗣ ᗕ )

She snatched the cup from Fang Jiming's hand.

"If you aren't going to drink it, give it back to me!"

Fang Jiming hurriedly protected the cup.

"I'm drinking, I'm drinking, thank you, Teacher Wen."

He turned and slipped away with the coffee, turning back after a few steps to give her a thumbs up.

Teacher Wen Ruyan stood in the corridor, her face blushing so hard it was almost smoking.

She looked down at her empty hand and bit her lower lip.

"Fang Jiming, you just wait."

Her voice was not loud, but it was full of momentum.

Fang Jiming had already turned into the stairwell, his laughter echoing in the empty corridor.

He looked down at the System Panel on his phone.

[Teacher Wen Ruyan favorability change: 45 to 49]

[+4 points (favorability accumulated due to continuous caring behavior)]

Fang Jiming whistled.

"Four points."

"Just one more point to reach the baseline favorability."

He took a sip of the caramel macchiato Teacher Wen Ruyan bought, the corners of his mouth curving up, unable to be suppressed.

During the second class that afternoon, Fang Jiming was writing the vertex form transformation of a quadratic function on the blackboard.

The chalk screeched against the blackboard; his writing was crooked, but at least he could hold his own with the math class content.

The students below were unusually quiet, even Qian Duoduo was bowing his head to copy notes, although his copying speed was as slow as if he were copying calligraphy.

The back door of the classroom was suddenly kicked from the outside.

With a bang, the door panel hit the wall and bounced back, making a jarring noise.

Everyone's gaze turned toward the back door in unison.

Three men stood at the door.

The one in front was about thirty years old, with a crew cut, an excessively thick silver chain around his neck, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, wearing a black leather jacket, hands in his pockets, walking in with his shoulders swaying from side to side.

He was followed by two lackeys with dyed yellow hair; one was thin like a monkey, and the other was burly but had a shifty look in his eyes.

The man with the crew cut looked around the classroom, his gaze sweeping over the students' faces, a smile on his lips that made people feel very uncomfortable.

"Yo, you're all in class."

His voice wasn't loud, but that drawling tone made the temperature of the entire classroom drop by two degrees.

The chalk in Fang Jiming's hand stopped.

He did not rush to turn around but finished writing the last formula, then slowly and methodically put down the chalk, dusted off his hands, and turned to look at the back door.

"Who are you?"

The man with the crew cut tilted his head, the silver chain swaying at his collar.

"My surname is Long, and friends in Qiaonan Old Street all call me Brother Long."

He took the unlit cigarette from his mouth, held it between his fingers, and pointed in two directions in the classroom.

"Ma Xiaotiao, Zhang Chi."

"Come out and take a trip with me."

In the middle-left position of the classroom, a boy wearing an ear stud shuddered.

In the second-to-last row by the window, another boy with a streak of dyed red hair gripped the corner of his desk tightly.

Ma Xiaotiao and Zhang Chi.

Both of their faces turned deathly pale at the same time.

Fang Jiming glanced at Ma Xiaotiao, then at Zhang Chi, and then shifted his gaze back to Brother Long, who was standing at the back door.

The classroom was so quiet that even breathing could be heard.

Most students lowered their heads, afraid to look, and a few girls' hands began to tremble under the desks.

Qian Duoduo's phone screen went dark; he stuffed the phone into his pocket, his eyes darting back and forth between Fang Jiming and Brother Long.

Fang Jiming: ( ¬ _ ¬ )

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, slowly walked around the podium, and walked step by step along the aisle in the middle of the classroom toward the back door.

His pace was neither fast nor slow, his leather shoes making a clear clacking sound on the concrete floor.

He stopped when he was about two meters away from Brother Long.

"I don't care if you are Brother Long or Brother Worm on Qiaonan Old Street."

His tone was flat, as if he were saying the stir-fried cabbage in the Cafeteria today didn't taste good.

"This is a school, this is my classroom, and my students are in class."

"The old security guard might be blind, but I'm not."

"You kicked my classroom door without apologizing to me, and you still want to take away my students?"

He reached out and pointed toward the back door.

"School premises, get out."

The thin yellow-haired monkey behind Brother Long grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"Yo, the teacher is actually quite tough."

The burly yellow-haired one took half a step forward, the veins on his neck throbbing.

Brother Long, however, didn't get angry.

He put the unlit cigarette back into his mouth, looked Fang Jiming up and down, as if looking at a joke that didn't know whether to live or die.

"Teacher, you don't understand the business between me and your students, I advise you not to meddle in other people's business."

He took a step forward, his leather jacket creaking.

"Ma Xiaotiao borrowed two thousand yuan from me last week to play games, it was agreed to be paid back in three days, and now it's almost a week, it's not too much for me to come to collect the debt, right?"

"Zhang Chi promised to help me watch the venue for two days last month but stood me up, can't I come to talk to him?"

He tilted his head and looked at Fang Jiming, smiling.

"Teacher, you are here to teach, you can't manage other matters."

Fang Jiming looked at him without taking a step back.

His expression was calm, but those who knew him would notice his right index finger gently tapping against his pant seam; that was the sign that he was truly angry.

"Those shitty things you mentioned, you can solve them yourselves after you leave the school gate, I don't care."

"But you are standing at the door of my classroom now, kicked my door, and broke in to take people while I'm in class."

"This is no longer a matter between you and the students."

"This is a matter between you and me."

Fang Jiming's voice was not high, but every word was articulated clearly.

"I'll say it again, get out."

Brother Long's smile faded halfway.

He took the cigarette from his mouth, flicked the non-existent ash off the cigarette with his finger, and squinted at Fang Jiming.

"Teacher, you better think it through, I call the shots in the business on Qiaonan Old Street."

"You ride a shared bike around this street every day, and once you leave this school gate, you have to walk on my turf."

"If you give me face, I'll respect you as a teacher; if you don't..."

He threw the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his shoe.

"Then don't blame me for being unreasonable."

The atmosphere in the classroom dropped to freezing point.

Ma Xiaotiao's face was as white as paper, his fingernails digging into his palms.

Zhang Chi lowered his head, his ears burning red, but it was unclear if it was from fear or shame.

Su Xiaoxiao huddled in her seat, arms hugging her schoolbag tightly, her body trembling slightly.

Fang Jiming stood where he was, not moving.

Brother Long didn't move either.

The two stood in a standoff like this, the air filled with a suffocating smell of gunpowder.

Fang Jiming: ( ╬ ⓪ _ ⓪ )

Just as Brother Long reached out to push Fang Jiming's shoulder, a loud noise came from the last row of the classroom.