79: Chapter 82 You can mess with anyone, but don't mess with your teacher's students.

It was 1:45 PM on Sunday when Fang Jiming arrived at the school gate.

Coach Wang was already sitting on a bench next to the security guard station, wearing a black athletic compression shirt that looked like it was about to burst, his thick arms crossed over his chest.

He was holding a shaker cup of protein powder in his hand; the cup looked exceptionally tiny clutched in his massive fingers.

Fang Jiming walked over and looked Coach Wang up and down.

"Brother Tiemeng, I said I needed you to back me up, but are you dressed like that because you're planning to enter a bodybuilding competition?"

Coach Wang looked down at his tight clothing and straightened his back.

"Didn't you say just standing there would be enough? Well, I have to stand there with some presence."

Fang Jiming's mouth twitched, but he didn't say anything else. He took out his phone and glanced at the location Chen Jianhua had sent ten minutes ago.

Zhou Yifei had left the hotel twenty minutes ago and was walking along Qiaonan Avenue toward No. 19 Middle School. He was currently about 600 meters from the school gate.

Fang Jiming showed Coach Wang a screenshot of the location and pointed to a convenience store thirty meters diagonally across from the school gate.

"Let's go wait over there. We'll buy some water and sit down. When I talk, you don't need to say anything; just stand next to me."

Coach Wang chugged a mouthful of protein powder and stood up with heavy, thudding footsteps.

The two walked into the convenience store, where Fang Jiming bought two bottles of iced water. They sat at a window seat, where they could see the stretch of road at the entrance of No. 19 Middle School through the glass.

They waited for about ten minutes.

A figure sauntered out from around the corner of Qiaonan Avenue.

The person had yellow hair, wore a silver ear stud, and had a black short-sleeved shirt over a leather jacket, paired with tight pants. His shoulders swayed intentionally or unintentionally as he walked.

Fang Jiming narrowed his eyes.

Zhou Yifei.

The face in the photo was very similar to the person in front of him, though the real person looked even sleazier.

Zhou Yifei walked to the school gate, stopped, took out his phone to check it, and then looked up to examine the walls and gate of No. 19 Middle School.

He circled the gate, peered inside, and scanned the low parts of the wall and the gaps in the iron fence.

Fang Jiming stood up and placed his iced water on the table.

"Let's go."

Coach Wang chugged the last of the water in his bottle and followed.

Fang Jiming walked out of the convenience store with a steady pace. When he was about fifteen meters away from Zhou Yifei, he spoke up.

"Zhou Yifei."

The voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly across the empty street on that Sunday afternoon.

Zhou Yifei stopped and turned his head.

He saw a young man in a gray short-sleeved shirt and jeans walking toward him, accompanied by a tall, burly man.

Zhou Yifei's eyes darted around, and he shuffled half a step backward.

"Who are you?"

Fang Jiming stopped three meters in front of him, his hands tucked into his hoodie pockets.

"Han Bingbing's homeroom teacher."

Zhou Yifei froze for two seconds, then curled his lips into a smile, his shoulders relaxing.

"Oh, a teacher."

Zhou Yifei tilted his head, his tone sounding frivolous.

"Little Bingbing's homeroom teacher? Are you here to have a heart-to-heart with me?"

Zhou Yifei licked his lips.

"Don't worry, Teacher. Little Bingbing and I are in a normal relationship, and we're very close."

Fang Jiming's expression remained blank.

"What kind of relationship you have with her is up to her to decide; I don't care about that."

"I'm here today to tell you one thing."

Zhou Yifei raised an eyebrow, looking indifferent.

Fang Jiming took his phone out of his hoodie pocket, opened a folder, and turned the screen toward Zhou Yifei.

"Take a look."

Zhou Yifei leaned in to glance at it.

The screen displayed screenshots of social media chats. The images included the other party's online accounts, profile pictures, and clear timestamps. The content recorded Zhou Yifei saying inappropriate things to three different girls at the same time.

Zhou Yifei's mouth twitched, and he said loudly, "What is this garbage? This is such a fake Photoshop job."

Fang Jiming didn't respond and kept scrolling down with his finger.

The next image was a record of public security administrative penalties. Although key information was redacted, the name was fully visible, the last digits of the ID number matched, and the specific reasons for the violations were clearly written.

"July 2021: Luring a minor to leave home without guardianship, seven days of administrative detention."

"November 2022: Indecent assault on a minor, fifteen days of administrative detention."

Fang Jiming's tone was flat, reading each sentence clearly.

The color drained from Zhou Yifei's face.

Fang Jiming pulled up the next record, which was chat content captured just this morning.

Zhou Yifei was using a burner account on another platform to contact a ninth-grade girl, arranging to meet up over the weekend.

"This girl is fourteen years old and lives in Jiangbei City. You arranged to meet her at the mall next Saturday. The chat log is timestamped at 9:22 AM today."

Zhou Yifei's lips couldn't stop trembling.

Zhou Yifei took a step back, his eyes darting around, his gaze constantly drifting toward the street corners on either side.

Fang Jiming took back his phone and put it in his pocket.

"You have two choices."

Fang Jiming took a step forward, lowering his voice, his pace of speech steady.

"First, turn around right now, go back to your hotel, pack your things, and take the next bus back to where you came from."

Fang Jiming paused.

"From now on, don't even think about the name Han Bingbing. Delete every contact on your phone related to minors, right in front of me."

"Second."

Fang Jiming tilted his head slightly.

"I'll have the people from the Qiaonan Police Station come over to pick you up right now."

"With your two prior records, plus this new evidence, and this ninth-grade girl, you'll have enough to reflect on your actions inside for a few years."

Sweat began to bead on Zhou Yifei's forehead.

Zhou Yifei's gaze shifted from Fang Jiming to Coach Wang, then back again.

Coach Wang stood half a step behind Fang Jiming to his right, his arms hanging naturally, the muscles in his forearms bulging against his compression shirt.

The burly man wasn't looking at Zhou Yifei; his gaze was fixed on a tree in the distance.

Zhou Yifei opened his mouth, his voice much quieter.

"You—what right do you have to investigate my background? This is an invasion of privacy."

Fang Jiming curled his lips.

"You have a criminal record in the public security system; that's called public safety information, not privacy."

"You've been luring minors on social media. The chat logs are sitting on the platform's servers and can be extracted as digital evidence at any time."

"You want to talk to me about the law?"

Fang Jiming's pace of speech hadn't changed from the beginning.

"As a homeroom teacher, I just happened to memorize the entire 'Law on the Protection of Minors' recently."

Zhou Yifei swallowed hard, his mouth moving several times, but he couldn't get any words out.

Zhou Yifei tried to defend himself.

"I—I was just chatting with her, I didn't do anything."

As he spoke, Zhou Yifei tried to step to the side to get around Fang Jiming.

Coach Wang didn't turn his head, but he extended his right hand to the side and gripped Zhou Yifei's shoulder.

With his shoulder pressed down, Zhou Yifei's body shrank, his knees buckled, and his face twisted in pain.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!"

Coach Wang glanced at Fang Jiming.

Fang Jiming nodded.

Coach Wang let go.

Zhou Yifei rubbed his shoulder and took two steps back, his face pale, his body trembling slightly.

Fang Jiming squatted down to look him in the eye.

"Kid, you don't understand the rules of the adult world, so I'll teach you one today."

"You can mess with anyone, but don't mess with a teacher's student."

"Because you don't know who is standing behind her teacher."

Zhou Yifei looked at Fang Jiming, who was speaking calmly, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Zhou Yifei nodded.

Fang Jiming stood up and brushed off his pant legs.

"Take out your phone."

Zhou Yifei pulled out his phone with trembling hands.

Under Fang Jiming's gaze, he first removed Han Bingbing from his friends list, then cleared their past chat history, and finally deleted her number from his contacts.

Fang Jiming pointed to the burner account.

"Do the same for that one."

Zhou Yifei deleted the conversations related to minors on the burner account one by one. Only after Fang Jiming checked and confirmed did he let him put the phone away.

"Let's go. My people are waiting for you at the intersection to take you to the train station."

Zhou Yifei looked up, eyes wide.

"Your people?"

Over at the intersection, two men in dark suits walked over from a black business van. The two approached with uniform steps and expressionless faces.

Zhou Yifei's legs felt like jelly.

Zhou Yifei was escorted by the two men in suits toward a taxi. After walking a few steps, he looked back at Fang Jiming, his expression full of confusion.

How could a teacher have such resources at his disposal?

Fang Jiming stood where he was, watching the taxi turn onto Qiaonan Avenue until it drove far away.

His phone vibrated; a message from Chen Jianhua arrived.

"I've arranged for someone to follow the car to the train station. They will report in real-time once they confirm he has boarded."

"The materials have been submitted to Captain Zhao at the Qiaonan Police Station, and the formal investigation process will follow."

Fang Jiming typed two characters and sent them back.

"Received."

Fang Jiming then turned around and saw Coach Wang working his wrists, his brow slightly furrowed.

"That's it?"

Coach Wang circled his wrists twice and sighed.

"I thought we were going to have a fight. I even finished my warm-up. My four sets of barbell work from yesterday were for nothing."

Fang Jiming reached out and patted Coach Wang's rock-hard shoulder.

"Brother Tiemeng, I'll treat you to barbecue tonight."

Coach Wang stopped what he was doing and was about to speak when Fang Jiming's phone vibrated again.

It wasn't Chen Jianhua.

It was a message Zhao Dazhuang sent in the class group chat.

A photo.

The angle was from a second-story window of a residential building next to No. 19 Middle School, aimed from afar at the street outside the school gate. The image was a bit blurry.

In the photo, one could see Fang Jiming standing on the side of the road, accompanied by the massive Coach Wang, while two other men in suits were escorting the yellow-haired youth.

The caption read: "Holy crap! Why does Teacher Fang have bodyguards with him?! That yellow-haired guy was escorted away by Teacher Fang's people, right?! What on earth is his background?!"

Messages in the group chat started scrolling rapidly.

Qian Duoduo replied with four words: "I told you so."

Fang Jiming looked at the constantly increasing messages on the screen, his mouth twitched, and he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

Just as Fang Jiming was about to head to the barbecue place with Coach Wang, the System Panel appeared in his mind.

[Ding. External threat to core student Han Bingbing has been eliminated.]

[Transformation Progress: 38% → 52%]

[Bonus Reward: Teacher Virtue Points +50]

Fang Jiming was about to close the panel when another one popped up.

The text was red.

[Warning: Countdown to the first city-wide mock exam is fifteen days.]

[Current predicted average score for Grade 12 Class 18 across all subjects: 187.3 points.]

[Predicted city-wide ranking: Last place.]

Fang Jiming's footsteps faltered.

Coach Wang walked two steps ahead, noticed Fang Jiming hadn't followed, and looked back.

"What's wrong? Not eating anymore?"

Fang Jiming stood on the side of the road, looking at the red numbers in his mind, and slowly let out a breath.

187.3.

Fifteen days.

Last place.

Fang Jiming put his hands back into his pockets and stepped forward to catch up with Coach Wang.

"Eat, we're definitely eating. After we eat, I'm going back to work overtime."

"What kind of overtime?"

"Lesson planning."

Fang Jiming looked at the street ahead and spoke in a low voice.

"Fifteen days, 187 points, last place in the city."

"I have to think of a way. Otherwise, while it felt good for a moment, when the mock exam results come out, the kids are going to be the ones losing face."