64: Chapter 67 Han Bingbing's Empty Seat

The morning study session sunlight slanted across the desks in the Class 18 classroom.

Fang Jiming leaned against the podium, holding his thermos.

He held the class roster in his hand and started calling names from the top.

"Lu Zihao."

"Here."

"Zhao Dazhuang."

"Here, here, here! Brother Fang, I wasn't late today."

"Wang Tiezhu."

"Here."

"Su Xiaoxiao."

"Good morning, Teacher Fang."

The corner of Fang Jiming's mouth twitched slightly.

His finger moved down a line.

"Han Bingbing."

No one answered.

Fang Jiming looked up and scanned the seat by the window in the middle of the classroom.

The seat was empty.

There wasn't even a textbook on the desk.

"Han Bingbing."

He called out again, his volume slightly louder than before.

The answer he received was still silence.

Zhao Dazhuang shrunk his neck in the back row and winked at Qian Duoduo.

Fang Jiming placed the roster on the podium.

His gaze lingered on the empty seat for two seconds.

"Did Han Bingbing take leave today?"

No one spoke.

Fang Jiming picked up his thermos, unscrewed the lid, and took a sip of water.

"I'm asking you all, where is she?"

Zhao Dazhuang raised his hand.

His expression was a bit troubled.

"Brother Fang, she hasn't just been absent today; she hasn't been here for two days already."

Fang Jiming stopped the action of screwing the lid onto the thermos.

"Two days?"

"Yeah, I haven't seen her since Wednesday."

Zhao Dazhuang scratched the back of his head.

He spoke twice as fast as usual.

"I heard from Ma Xiaotiao that she's been hanging out with someone from outside the school named A-Fei lately, and she hasn't been going home at night."

"Her mom called the school over a dozen times yesterday. The Academic Affairs Office answered, and Director He brushed her off."

Fang Jiming tightened the thermos lid and placed it on the edge of the podium.

He didn't respond.

Zhao Dazhuang pulled his hand back, not daring to say anything more.

Fang Jiming opened the thin student file clipped to the back of the class roster.

He found the page for Han Bingbing.

The disciplinary record column was densely packed.

Two warnings for puppy love during the first semester of her sophomore year.

Two demerits for over twenty accumulated absences during the second semester of her sophomore year.

One demerit for staying out all night during the first week of her senior year.

A total of five disciplinary actions.

It was all just the same two things, puppy love and skipping class, over and over again.

Fang Jiming's gaze paused on the emergency contact column for three seconds.

Father, Han Jianguo; the contact number had been crossed out with a black pen.

Next to it, in small print, it said: Long-term business travel, unable to contact.

Mother, Auntie Zhao; under the number, there were three lines of supplementary notes.

All written by previous homeroom teachers.

The first sentence on the paper read strikingly:

"Parent excessively interferes with school teaching; suggest keeping a distance."

A note followed immediately below.

"The parent came to school multiple times demanding to change the student's seat and desk-mate; highly emotional, difficult to communicate with."

The last line was written in a messy, scrawled hand.

It was obvious that the writer had been extremely impatient.

Leaving only three words:

"Given up."

Fang Jiming stared at those three words for five seconds.

He gently closed the file.

A familiar translucent panel popped up in his mind.

"[Core Student: Han Bingbing]"

"[Core Dilemma: Suffocating maternal love, long-term absence of paternal love, using rebellious behavior as a distress signal]"

"[Transformation Difficulty: A Grade]"

"[Estimated Transformation Reward: In addition to the daily one hundred million, an extra reward of twenty million, Teacher Virtue +500]"

"[Transformation Conditions: Resolve the core conflict in family relationships, help the student rebuild a sense of security, and return to a normal growth trajectory.]"

"[Current Transformation Progress: 0%]"

Fang Jiming closed the System Panel.

He opened his account balance and took a look.

Excluding the deposits he had spent, there was still nearly three billion left.

He couldn't spend it all, absolutely couldn't spend it all.

So much money.

And students are just as hard to manage.

He sighed.

His gaze fell once again on that empty seat.

The sunlight outside the window shone on the desk, giving it a warm luster.

But the chair was cold.

No one had sat in it for two days.

He rubbed his temples, opened his lesson plan, and started class.

The whole class, he lectured on quadratic function value problems.

His mouth didn't stop.

But his mind was full of those disciplinary records in the file.

Five disciplinary actions.

Three homeroom teachers.

The last one simply wrote "Given up."

As soon as the bell rang, he put away his lesson plan.

The phone on the desk vibrated slightly. Fang Jiming picked it up and saw a message from Su Nianwei.

"[Teacher Fang, regarding the issues that appeared at No. 19 Middle School, I have to go back for a meeting these next two days. I will continue to follow up on your audit report when I return.]"

Fang Jiming looked at the message and shook his head slightly.

This Su Nianwei is really interesting; she even had to specifically tell him about such a small matter.

What does this mean?

It was obvious that the scales had started to tip in his favor.

He immediately replied:

"[Waiting for your return.]"

Just as he walked out of the classroom door.

Teacher Wen Ruyan walked over quickly from the other end of the corridor.

She was wearing a light gray knitted cardigan today.

Her ponytail was tied very high.

The wisps of hair on her forehead were slightly scattered by the breeze.

She held half a cup of cold caramel macchiato in her hand.

"Teacher Fang, do you have a moment?"

"Depends, what is it?"

Teacher Wen Ruyan leaned against the wall.

Her voice was very low.

"Han Bingbing's mother came to school again this morning."

Fang Jiming stopped walking.

"She came again?"

"She cried in the Academic Affairs Office for over half an hour, saying she wanted the school to catch the hooligan who seduced her daughter, begging the teachers to help her."

Teacher Wen Ruyan's tone carried a hint of troublesome helplessness.

"Director He Rencai brushed her off with a few words and sent her away. You know what kind of person he is; he says he'll handle it, but the moment she walked out the door, he went straight to Vice Principal Sun Yaozu to snitch."

Fang Jiming didn't speak; he tucked the thermos under his arm.

Teacher Wen Ruyan glanced at him.

"Do you intend to get involved?"

"She is my student; if I don't manage it, who will?"

"Fang Jiming, Han Bingbing's situation is more complex than Lu Zihao's and Su Xiaoxiao's. The root of her problem lies at home. As an outsider interfering with a parent's way of disciplining, you might end up offending both sides."

Fang Jiming unscrewed the thermos and took a sip of water.

"Teacher Wen, when did you become so good at persuading people?"

Teacher Wen Ruyan was choked up for a moment.

She brought the coffee cup to her mouth, stirred it with the straw, but didn't drink.

"I'm giving you a heads-up; whether you listen or not is up to you."

"I heard it, thanks."

Fang Jiming took his phone out of his pants pocket.

He flipped to Auntie Zhao's number on the roster.

"I'll see the parent first, then find the student; the order cannot be reversed."

Teacher Wen Ruyan was taken aback.

"You're calling the parent directly?"

"Otherwise what? Wait for Director He Rencai to handle it? What can he handle? He'd struggle even dealing with whether the staff weight scale is accurate."

Teacher Wen Ruyan's mouth twitched, and she couldn't help it, turning her head away to avoid looking at him.

Fang Jiming pressed the dial button and held the phone to his ear; it rang four times.

The other end connected.

First, there was silence.

Then a woman's voice came through.

The volume was extremely low.

Every word was filled with a tremor.

"Teacher, I can't control her anymore; she didn't come home again last night."

Fang Jiming's fingers gripping the phone tightened slightly.

He glanced at the daylight shining in from the end of the corridor.

He spoke.

"Hello, Han Bingbing's mother. I am her current homeroom teacher, Fang Jiming. Are you free this afternoon? I would like to talk to you in person about Bingbing's situation."

The crying on the other end of the phone suddenly stopped.

It was replaced by rapid breathing.

"Okay, okay, Teacher. You say where; I am free anytime."

Fang Jiming gave a location and hung up the phone.

He put the phone back in his pocket.

Teacher Wen Ruyan was still leaning against the wall, watching him.

"You don't look very good."

"Facing a child who has a parent like this, it would be a miracle if I looked good."

Fang Jiming picked up his thermos and walked toward the office.

He walked two steps and turned back.

"Teacher Wen."

"Hmm?"

"I might have to go out this afternoon. Help me keep an eye on the other classes; don't let Zhao Dazhuang sleep at his desk."

Teacher Wen Ruyan raised her coffee cup to signal him.

"I haven't finished writing the tutoring plan I owe you yet; stop bossing me around."

Fang Jiming turned around with a smile.

Teacher Wen Ruyan watched his back disappear around the corner of the corridor.

She slowly drank the last bit of caramel at the bottom of her coffee cup.

Her gaze fell on the old message Fang Jiming had sent on her phone screen.

It said he had saved a red bean pancake for her.

Teacher Wen Ruyan turned the phone screen face down in her palm.

She pushed up her non-existent glasses.

She turned and walked toward the Class 17 classroom.