CM - 50

At the hospital, after spending days with Teacher Fan, Shen Tingwen finally found some clues.

He had Jing He help him find a list of students Teacher Fan had tutored. He went through the list one by one, and eventually, he zeroed in on a student who had a very close relationship with her.

Teacher Fan was set to be discharged that afternoon. Before she left, Shen Tingwen brought up an unrelated topic: “Teacher Fan, have you heard about the case in the late ‘90s where a female teacher was convicted of statutory rape of an underage male student? How many years did she serve?”

Teacher Fan’s face instantly changed. She was no longer gentle or composed. Her expression was like that of a clown in a play whose secret had been exposed, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

________________________________________

After her punishment of standing at attention, Zhou Shuirong bought a bottle of water and deliberately walked past the arts building, where the art class was held. A male student saw her, chased after her, and called her name.

He walked up to Zhou Shuirong, his head down, too embarrassed to look at her. “Do you have a moment?”

Zhou Shuirong put her hand in her pocket and felt her phone. “Go ahead.”

He looked as if he had wronged Zhou Shuirong, even though they didn’t know each other. He kept his head down and said in a small voice, “I know you didn’t push her. They all blamed the wrong person.”

“Yeah, because you were the one who pushed her.”

He suddenly looked up.

Zhou Shuirong’s face was still sweaty from standing in the sun. She looked at him. “Teacher Fan had an affair with you. She got pregnant with your child, and you were scared, so you pushed her down the stairs.”

He quickly tried to defend himself. “No, she was the one who didn’t want the baby! She didn’t want to get a divorce! Because her husband earns a lot, and I’m broke! It was an accident...”

After he finished, he saw Zhou Shuirong just staring at him and immediately covered his mouth, but it was too late. He had been panicking for days, on the verge of a breakdown, so Zhou Shuirong’s simple statement had easily coaxed the truth out of him.

He squatted down and covered his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would take her to the hospital, and I didn’t think she’d put all the blame on you.”

Of course, Zhou Shuirong wasn’t going to take the blame for nothing. The day Teacher Fan framed her, she started being more careful. There are no secrets in a school, and it was impossible for something to happen without a hint of a rumor.

Sure enough, Zhou Shuirong found out that in the past, Teacher Fan had been confronted by a student’s parents for getting too close to a male student. The school had dismissed it as a misunderstanding.

This gave Zhou Shuirong a direction. From this angle, she privately asked Fu Lin’en about which students Teacher Fan was close with. The one she was closest to recently was the boy in front of her.

Zhou Shuirong pieced all the known information together and came up with a guess:

Teacher Fan couldn’t let people know it was this male student who pushed her. Zhou Shuirong, in her meddling, had taken her to the hospital and had conveniently become his scapegoat. The reason Teacher Fan was covering for the student was probably one of a few things: love, or he had something on her.

Zhou Shuirong had originally planned to confront him directly, but she had heard he was not acting normally lately. She was certain he still had a shred of conscience, so she endured all the blame to make herself look more pitiful.

As expected, she had found him today.

A female teacher in her twenties and a male student of sixteen or seventeen. Or a male teacher and a female student. The lines can be blurry, and things can get out of hand if you’re not careful. Who has the morals and willpower to resist the temptation of a romantic affair?

No one.

No one should claim to be so noble.

From a romantic perspective, they weren’t wrong. But the law and social ethics didn’t see it that way.

Maybe the student was more proactive, or maybe the teacher was. But in the end, the teacher had to bear the consequences. There’s no explanation for it; that’s just how reality is. First, the teacher is an adult. Second, the teacher has a duty to educate and guide, and if they fail, they have to face the consequences.

It might not be fair.

But that’s just the way it is.

Zhou Shuirong got the full truth from the student, recorded it, and then sent a copy to Teacher Fan’s husband. She had no other motive. Teacher Fan made her a target, so she would give Teacher Fan a taste of what it’s like to have her family torn apart.

That was what was fair.

Repaying a bad deed with kindness is for saints. Zhou Shuirong was just an ordinary person.

________________________________________

Teacher Fan resigned, and Zhou Shuirong was cursed even more. They all thought Zhou Shuirong had forced her out.

Zhou Shuirong didn’t care. Even without this incident, they would have found something else to curse her about. They could curse all they wanted. She was satisfied knowing that Teacher Fan’s life was in shambles.

But she didn’t expect the students at school to organize an event to protest against her. The event, held after the morning calisthenics, was themed: Should Zhou Shuirong be expelled?

Those who thought she should be expelled were told to stand on the left, and those who thought she shouldn’t were told to stand behind her.

Zhou Shuirong thought it was pointless and started to leave. But they blocked her, refusing to let her go. They wanted her to face the cold, hard fact that no one was willing to stand behind her.

The girl she had hit before looked smug. “I don’t know how you have the nerve to still be at our school.”

Zhou Shuirong could have slapped her again with a single hand motion, but someone acted before she could. Shen Tingwen, in his school uniform, hands in his pockets, looking a little lazy and weary, but also incredibly resolute, stood directly behind Zhou Shuirong.

Everyone had forgotten that Shen Tingwen had returned to school.

The sarcastic girl was silenced. Many others were silenced too.

Zhao Guqing smiled and slowly walked over, standing behind Shen Tingwen. Zhu Jiayi had no choice; she was with Zhao Guqing, so she also stood there. Liang Jifan owed Shen Tingwen a favor, so he scratched his head and walked over too.

Then came Fu Lin’en, who was on Zhou Shuirong’s side to begin with.

Zhou Xiyou had just arrived at their school with her instrument on her back. When she saw the scene, she ran over without a second thought, hugged Zhou Shuirong, and then stood behind her.

And Li Gun? He listened to his girlfriend! Girlfriends are always right! Wherever his girlfriend was, that’s where he was!

The people who organized this idiotic event were dumbfounded, and so were the onlookers. Someone in the crowd, confused, yelled, “Shen Tingwen, do you even know what you’re doing?”

Shen Tingwen looked at the teacher in charge of the calisthenics, who had tacitly allowed this to happen. In a casual voice, he said, “Can’t you tell? I’m staging a rebellion.”

Zhou Shuirong didn’t turn around, but she had ears, and she heard it all.

“If no one likes you, then live a lonely but brilliant life.” That’s a good saying, but what if you had companionship on your way to the top? Wouldn’t the view from the mountainside be even better?

She had forgotten why she had come back to China.

But it seemed she had found the answer she had been searching for.

The people you can walk with are the ones who will never need you to change yourself. A good relationship should be this:

I know your flaws and your shortcomings, but you don’t have to change. I can accept them.