8: Chapter 8: Crazy Dropout Rate, Internet Cafe Crackdown

At two in the afternoon, Fang Jiming stood at the entrance of the Class 18 classroom and began taking attendance.

"Lu Zihao."

"Here." A muffled response came from the back row.

"Qian Duoduo."

"Here, here, here." The chubby boy mumbled an answer with half a meat bun stuffed in his mouth.

"Lin Xiaoxi."

Silence.

Fang Jiming looked up and scanned the room; the seat by the window in the third row was empty, and the desk was clean with nothing on it.

He continued reading down the list.

"Zhao Dazhuang."

Silence.

"Ma Xiaotiao."

Still silence.

After calling out the next few names with no response, Fang Jiming put down the roll book, his heart skipping a beat.

He opened his phone and took a look at the System Panel.

[Current class size: 38 students.]

[Students present today: 24.]

[Students absent: 14.]

[Of which, on leave: 8.]

[Unexcused absences: 6.]

[Notification: Students with long-term truancy will be treated by the Academic Affairs Office as automatic dropouts.]

[Dropout red line: 12 students.]

Fang Jiming stared at that number for two seconds.

With six people absent without cause, if the Academic Affairs Office handled it according to custom, and a few of these six were marked as automatic dropouts—plus what Teacher Wen Ruyan said about seven or eight leaving every year—this dropout rate would breach the red line in minutes.

He put away his phone and looked at the sparse group of students sitting in the classroom.

"Does anyone know where Zhao Dazhuang went?"

No one in the front rows answered.

In the middle rows, some people lowered their heads, pretending not to hear.

In the back row, Lu Zihao was lying on his desk without even lifting his eyelids.

Fang Jiming changed his approach.

"What about Ma Xiaotiao? Lin Xiaoxi? What about the ones who were here yesterday?"

Qian Duoduo swallowed the last bite of his bun and wiped his mouth with his greasy hands.

"Teacher Fang, Zhao Dazhuang and the others must have gone to the internet cafe again."

"Which internet cafe?"

"The Interstellar Internet Cafe on Qiaonan Old Street. He booked a VIP room there; he basically spends four days a week soaked in there."

Qian Duoduo's tone was very natural when he said this, as if classmates going to an internet cafe was as commonplace as going to the Cafeteria to get food.

Fang Jiming didn't speak.

He walked to the window and looked out. The dilapidated playground was bald, not even a blade of grass left, and just outside the perimeter wall was the narrow alley leading to Qiaonan Old Street.

He turned around and said to the whole class:

"Study hall, don't make any noise. I'm going out for a bit."

"Teacher Fang, where are you going?" Qian Duoduo asked.

"To catch someone."

When Fang Jiming walked out of the classroom, he ran into Teacher Wen Ruyan in the hallway.

Teacher Wen Ruyan was holding her lesson plans and was about to go to the next-door Class 17 for class. Seeing Fang Jiming walking downstairs in a hurry, she stopped for a moment.

"Where are you going?"

"The internet cafe."

"What for?"

"Three students from my class are at the internet cafe. I'm going to fish them out."

Teacher Wen Ruyan's steps faltered, and she looked up at Fang Jiming's profile.

That expression didn't look like he was joking.

"Teacher Fang, I advise you not to go."

Fang Jiming stopped at the stairwell and turned back to look at her.

"Why?"

"The boss of that Interstellar Internet Cafe on Old Street is named Lao Fei. That man has connections with the hoodlums on Qiaonan Street. The previous homeroom teacher of Class 18, Teacher Li, also went there to find students and was blocked at the internet cafe entrance by Lao Fei and scolded for half the street."

Teacher Wen Ruyan was speaking a little faster than usual, which she might not have even noticed herself.

"As a new teacher, there is no benefit in going to such a place to look for trouble."

Fang Jiming looked at Teacher Wen Ruyan's expression.

There was a faint layer of worry in her eyes, but her choice of words remained in that business-like, cold, and hard style.

She was clearly caring for someone, yet she insisted on packaging it as rational analysis.

Fang Jiming: ╮(╯▽╰)╭

"Teacher Wen, thanks. I know what I'm doing."

He turned and went down the stairs.

Teacher Wen Ruyan stood in the hallway, watching his back disappear around the corner of the stairwell, her grip tightening on the edges of her lesson plans.

She stood for two seconds, then lowered her head and continued walking toward the Class 17 classroom.

Fang Jiming arrived at the school gate, and Old Zhang poked half his head out of the guard room.

"Mr. Fang, going out again?"

"Yeah, taking care of something."

Fang Jiming scanned the code to unlock the shared bike leaning by the roadside, got on, and pedaled in the direction of Qiaonan Old Street.

It was about two kilometers from No. 19 Middle School to Old Street; go through a narrow alley, make two turns, and you're there.

Qiaonan Old Street was the messiest street in the old town area of Nanqiao City. Both sides were lined with low brick houses and utility poles covered in small advertisements. The road was uneven, with dirty water accumulated from the rain a few days ago. Along the way, he passed by a card room and a hardware store, and the air was filled with the oily smoke from breakfast stalls mixed with the stench of the sewer.

The Interstellar Internet Cafe was in the middle section of Old Street. The storefront wasn't big, but the sign was quite flashy, with blue LED tubes arranged into the shape of a rocket. It looked grey and dull in the daytime, probably only showing its effect at night.

Fang Jiming parked the shared bike at the entrance of the internet cafe and pushed the door open to enter.

A thick smell of smoke and instant noodles rushed at him, stinging his eyes and making him squint.

The light inside the internet cafe was very dim; only the blue light from the computer screens illuminated faces that were either excited or numb.

Behind the front desk directly facing the door sat a burly middle-aged man wearing a black polo shirt stained with oil, a string of Buddhist beads hanging around his neck, looking down at his phone.

This person was probably the internet cafe owner Lao Fei that Qian Duoduo mentioned.

Fang Jiming walked to the front desk and tapped on the counter.

Lao Fei looked up, his heavy eyelids sweeping over him.

"Surf the net?"

"Not surfing, I'm looking for someone."

"Looking for whom?"

"I am a teacher from No. 19 Middle School. We have a few students from our school here, and I've come to take them back to class."

Lao Fei's expression changed, from nonchalant to a kind of wary scrutiny.

He sized Fang Jiming up and down.

A wrinkled white short-sleeved shirt, black sweatpants, and forty-yuan canvas shoes; the whole person looked even shabbier than the high school students soaking in his internet cafe.

Lao Fei put down his phone, leaned back against the chair, and crossed his legs.

"Teacher? Do you have identification?"

"I brought my work ID." Fang Jiming took out the laminated work ID issued by No. 19 Middle School from his pocket and flashed it.

Lao Fei glanced at it and tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"From No. 19 Middle School, huh."

When he said these three words, his tone carried a subtle contempt, as if he were mentioning a place he didn't put in his eyes at all.

Lao Fei: (´_ゝ`)

"Teacher, this is a legally operated internet cafe. You have to swipe your ID card to get in."

"Your 'legally operated' internet cafe has a bunch of minors sitting here surfing the net during class hours. You call this legal?"

Fang Jiming's speaking speed wasn't fast, but he enunciated every word clearly.

Lao Fei's smile faded.

He stood up from behind the counter, his bulk growing a size larger than when he was sitting, easily over 180-jin.

"Little teacher, listen well. These students came here themselves. Whether they go to school or not is their own business. I'm just running an internet cafe, I can't control that."

"You can look for people, but you cannot cause trouble in my shop and affect my normal business."

When he said the words "normal business," he lowered his voice by half a degree, adding a layer of threat.

Fang Jiming didn't respond.

He turned to the side and looked deep into the internet cafe. In the very back, there was a VIP room separated by frosted glass. Through the glass, he could vaguely see a few silhouettes and the game screens flickering.

"Are they in there?" Fang Jiming pointed at that room.

Lao Fei didn't speak, but he moved half a step toward the edge of the counter, blocking Fang Jiming's path inward.

Fang Jiming looked at Lao Fei's face, which was written all over with "you'd better not cause trouble," and cursed coldly in his heart.

Getting addicted to earning students' money from running an internet cafe, he really thinks of himself as the big boss of this street.

But he wasn't here today to argue with this big guy.

He had more important things to do.

Fang Jiming took a step to the left, and Lao Fei followed. Fang Jiming changed his footing and shifted half a body's width to the right. Taking advantage of the moment Lao Fei's center of gravity shifted, he squeezed through the gap between his arm and the counter. His shoulder brushed against Lao Fei's arm, and he stumbled from the impact of that 180-jin weight, but he didn't stop.

By the time Lao Fei reacted and turned around, Fang Jiming had already pushed open the door to the room.

The room was filled with smoke. Three boys in school uniforms were crowded in front of two computers, and the screen displayed the battle interface of some MOBA game.

The sturdiest boy in the middle was wearing a yellowed headset, his hands typing rapidly on the keyboard, shouting non-stop.

"Hit him, hit him! Support, follow up! What are you crouching in the back for?!"

This was Zhao Dazhuang.

The tall, thin boy sitting next to him was Ma Xiaotiao, and the girl with black-rimmed glasses huddled against the wall on the other side was Lin Xiaoxi.

Lin Xiaoxi wasn't playing the game. On the computer screen in front of her was a drawing program, and she was holding a digital pen connected to the computer, drawing a character Sketching with extremely complex lines.

Fang Jiming stood at the entrance of the room, looking at these three students who should have been sitting in the classroom, breathing in nothing but the smell of secondhand smoke.

Zhao Dazhuang hadn't noticed that there was an extra person behind him.

His game was at a critical team fight, and the character on the screen was moving frantically in the melee.

Fang Jiming didn't open his mouth to call him.

He pulled over an empty chair from the side, sat down behind Zhao Dazhuang, and stared at the screen.

Lao Fei followed over, his fat body blocking the entrance to the room, arms crossed over his chest, with the posture of watching a show.