58: Chapter 61: This reverse brainwashing tactic is brilliant!

Director Su Nianwei came out of the back door of the classroom and stood against the wall outside. Her flat shoes made her presence much less noticeable, but that bland, cold face of hers remained highly recognizable.

"Teacher Fang."

"Director Su Nianwei."

Fang Jiming unscrewed his thermos.

"How come you aren't wearing high heels? I'm not used to it."

Director Su Nianwei didn't take the bait.

"Did you see what happened with those girls during the break?"

Fang Jiming took a sip of water.

"Which ones?"

Director Su Nianwei's temples throbbed.

"Xia Rui, Liu Ya, and another one whose name I didn't catch. They threw Su Xiaoxiao's workbook on the floor and stepped on it."

Fang Jiming tightened the lid of his thermos.

"And then?"

"And then you came up with this game of anonymously writing down good qualities."

Director Su Nianwei pushed up her glasses, her gaze carrying a shrewdness that wasn't easy to fool.

"You did it on purpose."

Fang Jiming leaned against the wall and looked at her.

"Director Su Nianwei, are you here to audit or to study teaching methods?"

"I'm observing how you handle classroom management issues."

"Are you done observing?"

"No."

Director Su Nianwei clutched her tablet.

"Your method is effective but not lasting. The collective emotion created by the anonymous game can only maintain short-term effects. In three days, those three girls will go right back to bullying as usual."

Fang Jiming looked at her for two seconds.

"You're right."

Director Su Nianwei didn't expect him to admit it directly, and her prepared three-part rebuttal got stuck in her throat.

Fang Jiming: ( ᵕ ̤ ᴗ ᵕ ̤ )

"Today's round was just the first step."

Fang Jiming tucked his thermos under his arm.

"Just wait and see the second step."

"What's the second step?"

"You'll know when you see it."

After saying that, Fang Jiming turned and walked toward the office.

Director Su Nianwei stood there, scratching her nails against the protective case of her tablet.

This man always said half and left the other half out; he was better at keeping people in suspense than a mystery novelist.

Director Su Nianwei: ( ꐦ ⍸ ꐦ )

The second period in the afternoon.

When Fang Jiming walked into the Class 18 classroom, he had a stack of things in his hand. This time, it was small slips of paper cut from printer paper into quarters, with a line of text printed on each one.

He handed out the slips of paper in stacks, four to each person.

"The game this morning was played well; let's upgrade it this afternoon."

Zhao Dazhuang picked up a slip and looked at it.

"Teacher Fang, what is printed on this?"

The slip only had one sentence printed on it: "The thing you did makes me think you are very impressive."

Fang Jiming twirled a piece of chalk on the podium.

"The rules are about the same as this morning—still anonymous, and still about writing about a classmate."

"But this time, change the direction. Write about something you've seen with your own eyes that made you think the other person was impressive."

"Don't make things up; I'll see through fabrications at a glance."

Qian Duoduo raised his hand.

"Teacher Fang, I think I'm very impressive. Can I write about myself?"

"Where are you impressive?"

"I'm late on time every day and never absent."

"Get out, write about someone else."

Qian Duoduo: ( ꐦ ° ᷄ д ° ᷅ )

The atmosphere in the classroom was much more relaxed than in the morning, and the students lowered their heads to start writing.

Director Su Nianwei sat in the last row, her gaze moving back and forth between Fang Jiming and Su Xiaoxiao.

Su Xiaoxiao was still in that curled-up posture, holding a pen in her hand but unable to put it to the paper.

Her gaze lingered on the line of text on the slip for a long time; she bit her lip and slowly wrote a line.

After finishing, she paused for a long time again, and then wrote another line on the second slip.

Five minutes later, Fang Jiming collected the slips, changed his method, mixed all the slips up, laid them out flat on the podium, and asked the students whose names were written to come up and claim them.

"If you hear your name, come up and get it."

He started flipping through them.

"Wang Tiezhu."

Wang Tiezhu walked up, took three slips, returned to his seat, glanced at them, and his ears turned red again.

"Lu Zihao."

Lu Zihao walked up lazily, took four slips, came back, scanned them, and the corners of his mouth twitched, but he didn't show any expression.

"Zhao Dazhuang."

Zhao Dazhuang hopped up, took two slips, and after reading them, he was so happy he kept slapping the desk.

"Who wrote this? It says my team fight commands in the game are very impressive. That's the truth!"

Fang Jiming stopped him.

"Sit down and stop making a scene."

As he read them out one by one, the atmosphere in the classroom became more and more lively.

When everyone received the slips with their names on them, there were visible changes on their faces—some smiled, some pretended not to care but couldn't help the corners of their mouths twitching, and some stuffed the slips directly into their pockets.

Then Fang Jiming flipped to a name.

"Su Xiaoxiao."

The girl in the corner tensed up, her movement of standing up was very slow, and her steps to the podium were very heavy.

Fang Jiming handed her two slips, and Su Xiaoxiao took them with her head down and returned to her seat.

She flipped the slips over; the handwriting on them was crooked, and it looked like a boy had written it.

The first slip said: "The thing you did makes me think you are especially impressive. You are a person who does things seriously. You are very active in cleaning duty and never lazy. I often see that even when it's not your turn, you help clean up. As long as you are here, the classroom is always clean."

The second slip wrote: "You are the first one to arrive in the classroom every day and have never been late, you are even more punctual than Teacher Fang."

Su Xiaoxiao's fingers gripped the edges of the slips, her whole body frozen in her seat, her lips trembling, but this time it wasn't out of fear.

Fang Jiming stood on the podium, looking at the thin, small figure in the corner. His expression hadn't changed, still that lazy look, but his gaze lingered in Su Xiaoxiao's direction for a full three seconds.

After three seconds, he withdrew his gaze and patted the podium.

"Alright, keep the slips well. These are your personal items, don't take them out to show off. Turn to page 48 of the textbook and continue class."

In the last row, Director Su Nianwei placed her tablet on her lap, staring at the blank evaluation form on the screen. She had deleted the line about the homeroom teacher being inactive this morning, and now she needed to fill in some things again.

Her fingers hovered over the screen for a long time, and finally, she typed a line.

"Supplementary observation: When dealing with potential classroom bullying, homeroom Teacher Fang Jiming abandoned traditional criticism and disciplinary methods, instead rebuilding class cohesion through two rounds of anonymous activities, guiding students to spontaneously generate positive evaluations of each other. Under the premise of not naming names and avoiding conflict, he neutralized the aggression of the three bullying students while simultaneously restoring the victimized student's sense of self-worth."

"The methods are unconventional but the results are significant."

After typing it, she read it over and added four words at the end.

"Worth paying attention to."

Director Su Nianwei: ( ᴗ ̤ . ̫ ᴗ ̤ )

She closed her tablet and looked out the window from the last row.

A few students were playing basketball on the playground; the sun had already tilted to the west, and the light slanted in from the classroom window, landing just right on the side of Fang Jiming's face on the podium.

He was teaching seriously. Those usually cavalier eyes became exceptionally focused when analyzing the properties of functions, like a completely different person from the rogue he was when he retorted to her in the hallway.

Director Su Nianwei moved her gaze away from his face, lowered her head, opened her paper notebook, and slowly added a line below the note she wrote yesterday about the target suspected of having huge hidden assets.

"But this person is truly sincere toward his students."

After writing it, she was stunned herself; she didn't know when she had started writing subjective feelings in the notes about the audit subject.

Director Su Nianwei closed the notebook and stuffed it into the very bottom of her briefcase; she would not take this notebook back to the Education Bureau.

After class, the students began to move around freely, and the classroom became noisy.

The commotion from the hallway spilled in, but Su Xiaoxiao was completely unaffected. She folded the two slips of paper neatly, smoothed out the creases gently, and put them away with great care.

She tucked the slips of paper into the last page of her Chinese Language textbook and moved her schoolbag to the corner of the desk, leaving a clean space on the tabletop. She lowered her head to organize her things, her fingers slightly cold from nervousness.

At this moment, Fang Jiming finished packing up his lesson plans and came down from the podium. He didn't walk straight out of the classroom as usual but turned and walked toward the corner.

Su Xiaoxiao's body tensed up instantly, and she hurriedly pulled up her school uniform sleeves to cover her reddened wrists.

Fang Jiming stopped beside her desk. He didn't speak from a towering position but bent down slightly to bring his line of sight level with Su Xiaoxiao's.

"Su Xiaoxiao."

His voice was kept very low, just enough for the two of them to hear.

Su Xiaoxiao looked up, her eyes still holding moisture that hadn't completely faded, and tiny teardrops clinging to her eyelashes.

She opened her mouth, and a very soft response came from her throat.

"Teacher Fang."

The voice still carried that local accent, but it was no longer a timid tremor; instead, it had a bit more firmness.

Fang Jiming's gaze fell on the workbook at the corner of her desk that had been stepped on, then swept over her open, clean Chinese Language book.

"You've done the things on the slips, right?"

Su Xiaoxiao was stunned for a moment, then immediately understood that he was asking about the two sentences she had just received. She nodded, then felt it wasn't clear enough, and added a sentence with a voice a little louder than before.

"Yes."

She pointed to her seat.

"I come to clean every day, and I've swept the dust in the corners clean."

Fang Jiming looked at her and suddenly smiled. It wasn't the usual smile with a hint of teasing, but rather one that revealed gentleness and affirmation.

"Mm, I also know that you are very attentive in class, and your handwriting is also great, so you are very impressive."

This sentence fell gently into Su Xiaoxiao's heart, stirring up ripple after ripple.

Her eyes became even redder, but this time it wasn't out of grievance. She nodded vigorously, as if cheering herself on and as if making a promise to Fang Jiming.

"In the future, I will clean the classroom even cleaner, and I will write even better."

Fang Jiming gave an "Mm" and reached out to pat her shoulder gently. The action was very light but gave her immense encouragement.

"You don't have to do it just so others will praise you; you do well for yourself."

After saying that, he straightened up, didn't linger, turned around, and walked out of the classroom.

Su Xiaoxiao sat in her seat, her shoulders rising and falling gently, looking down at her own hands.

Those hands had swept floors, wiped desks and chairs, and also written beautiful words.

At this moment, she suddenly felt that those school uniform cuffs, washed until they were faded white, weren't so old anymore.

Her name was Su Xiaoxiao, but she wasn't small at all.

Director Su Nianwei in the last row saw it.

Director Su Nianwei's fingers scratched the tablet's protective case again, and when she looked down, she realized the corners of her own lips had actually curved up slightly.

She immediately pulled her face back into a cold expression.

Director Su Nianwei: ( ꐦ ⌓ ̈ ꐦ )

No.

Keep a professional distance.

This person still hasn't explained the 13 million maybach clearly.