70: Chapter 73 Teacher Fang's "Senior" Teachings, Old Liu's Past

The next morning.

The teachers' office at Nanqiao No. 19 Middle School.

When Fang Jiming pushed the door open to enter, there were dark circles under his eyes; he had slept slumped on the sofa last night, and his neck was still stiff.

The air conditioner was broken and no one had come to fix it yet. The electric fan on the desk hummed as it whirred, blowing the corners of the Physics test papers on Old Liu's desk up and down.

Old Liu was picking a goji berry off the lid of his thermos and stuffing it back into the cup.

"Brother Liu, do you have that blue mechanics exercise book? A few students in my class are doing terribly with acceleration, and I want to find some basic problems for them to practice."

Old Liu rummaged through a cardboard box under his desk and pulled out a blue exercise book with curled edges on the cover.

"Take it. The problems from chapters three to five are better suited for your group's level. Don't let them start with the comprehensive problems at the back; they'll have a breakdown."

Fang Jiming took it and flipped through it, discovering many handwritten pencil annotations between the pages; the handwriting was neat but had already yellowed.

"Did you write these?"

"I marked them over a decade ago. I was still leading a class back then, and I made a note of where students were prone to making mistakes on every problem."

Old Liu picked up his thermos and took a sip, the goji berries swirling in the tea.

Fang Jiming sat on the empty chair opposite him, flipping through the exercise book. After a moment of silence, he looked up.

"Brother Liu, you've been teaching for thirty years. How many students have you dealt with regarding puppy love?"

Old Liu paused mid-sip.

He put down the thermos and glanced at Fang Jiming.

"What's wrong? Are you still having a headache over that Han Bingbing situation?"

"A little."

Fang Jiming closed the exercise book and placed it on his lap, stretching his legs out and resting them on the crossbar of an empty chair nearby.

"That guy from outside the school will be in Nanqiao in five days. Han Bingbing has already promised me she won't see him anymore, but once he arrives, I have to figure out how to handle it."

Old Liu was silent for a few seconds.

He held his thermos and turned it, the tea sloshing around twice inside the cup.

Then he spoke, his voice half a beat slower than usual.

"Mr. Fang, regarding this puppy love business, let me tell you about something from the past."

Fang Jiming looked up at him.

Old Liu's expression was completely different from the laid-back uncle who usually just said "run two laps and dismiss." The corners of his mouth were pressed down, and his gaze had darkened.

"Thirty years ago, when I first became a teacher, I also encountered a female student involved in puppy love."

Fang Jiming sat up a bit straighter.

"I was young and hot-blooded back then. I thought that being a teacher meant being swift and decisive, that things like puppy love had to be uprooted entirely."

"I found that guy, grabbed him by the collar in front of a group of people at the school gate, scolded him, and then threatened to call the police if he ever appeared near the school again."

Old Liu paused. A bit of the goji berry tea from his thermos spilled out, soaking into his pant leg, but he didn't notice.

"That female student jumped from the third floor of the teaching building during the third period that afternoon."

Fang Jiming's hand tightened on the cover of the exercise book.

The office was so quiet that only the humming of the electric fan remained.

Old Liu took another sip of tea, his throat bobbing.

"She didn't die. She kept her legs, but she never walked properly again."

Fang Jiming didn't speak.

Old Liu's fingers rested on the thermos, trembling slightly.

"Mr. Fang, remember this one piece of advice when dealing with puppy love."

Old Liu looked at him.

"The more you try to break them apart, the more she'll throw herself into his arms."

Fang Jiming turned this sentence over in his mind, then nodded.

Old Liu put down his thermos, bent over, and dug out a notebook from the bottom drawer of his desk.

The notebook was very old. Its cover was made of cardboard, faded to a dusty olive color, with the edges curled up in layers, all held together by a rubber band.

Old Liu undid the rubber band and flipped to a page in the middle.

Tucked inside was a black-and-white photograph.

In the photo, a group of students in old-fashioned school uniforms stood in two rows. In the middle stood a young man in a white shirt, tall and thin, smiling to reveal a row of white teeth.

On the far right of the front row, a girl with braided hair was leaning on a metal crutch, also smiling.

Fang Jiming recognized that the young man was Old Liu, deducing it purely from the position of his hairline.

"She forgave me later."

Old Liu pulled the photo out from the lesson plan book and rubbed the edge of the photo with his thumb.

"At the graduation ceremony, she took the initiative to ask for a photo with me and said, 'Teacher Liu, you were doing it for my own good back then. I don't blame you.'"

Old Liu put the photo back and tucked it in securely.

"But I never forgave myself for the rest of my life."

Fang Jiming looked at the lesson plan book and reached out to take it.

He flipped through a few pages.

Then his speed slowed down.

Every page was densely packed with writing.

The formula derivation steps were written in blue ink.

Common student errors were marked in red ballpoint pen on the side, and in some places, arrows were drawn pointing to the margins.

It had annotations like, "Zhang San always loses the plus or minus sign in the second step of this problem," or "Li Si needs more practice on decomposition."

The handwriting was strong, with straight horizontal and vertical strokes.

Fang Jiming finished flipping to the last page and closed the notebook.

He glanced at the old man opposite him who never let go of his thermos, whose hair was so thin it could reflect light, and who only knew how to shout "run two laps and dismiss" during class.

Then he looked down at the thirty-year-old lesson plan book in his hand again.

He didn't speak, just handed the lesson plan book back.

"Thanks, Brother Liu."

Old Liu took it back, rebound it with the rubber band, and stuffed it back into the bottom drawer.

"Don't thank me. This is the only experience I have left in my life that's worth anything."

Old Liu locked the drawer, picked up his thermos, and took another big gulp of goji berry tea.

Fang Jiming stood up, tucked the blue exercise book under his arm, and walked out.

When he reached the door, Old Liu added a sentence from behind.

"Mr. Fang."

"Hm?"

"About that Han Bingbing situation, don't be hasty. If you're hasty, something will go wrong."

Fang Jiming stood at the door for a second, turned back, and looked at Old Liu.

"I understand."

He pushed the door open and left, his footsteps fading in the hallway.

Old Liu sat in front of the electric fan, staring at the locked drawer for a long time.

The goji berry tea had gone cold, but he didn't drink it.

When Fang Jiming reached the corner of the stairs, Zhang Huifang's voice chased after him from behind.

"Teacher Fang! Teacher Fang, wait!"

Fang Jiming stopped and turned back.

Zhang Huifang ran over, her high heels clicking, looking as if she was holding back words she wanted to say but didn't know how to start.

"What's the matter, Sister Zhang?"

Zhang Huifang caught her breath and lowered her voice.

"Han Bingbing's mother has come to the school again."

Fang Jiming's brow furrowed.

"This time she's not waiting at the gate; she brought bedding and said she wants to stay in the Academic Affairs Office to wait for her daughter to come home."

The exercise book in Fang Jiming's hand nearly fell to the ground.

"Stay in the Academic Affairs Office?"

"Indeed! Director He Rencai is almost driven crazy by her and asked me to come find you immediately."

Fang Jiming tucked the exercise book under his arm and changed direction.

"Let's go take a look."

He walked toward the Academic Affairs Office.

The sentence Old Liu had just said spun around in his mind.

"The more you try to break them apart, the more she'll throw herself into his arms."

But Han Bingbing's situation was different.

It wasn't Zhou Yifei who was pushing her away.

It was Auntie Zhao.

Fang Jiming paused.

"How is this to be broken apart?"