Wen Chengye himself was unaware that last night, he had been repeatedly discussed in conversations among his football team friends.
For him, this remained an ordinary and boring day.
As usual, he arrived at school at 7 AM. When he entered the classroom, it was already full of people.
The windows and doors were tightly shut, textbooks lay open, and test papers and workbooks were flying everywhere.
Collecting homework, submitting homework, copying homework - the classroom carried an unpleasant odor.
That smell reminded Wen Chengye of when he was very young, standing in front of a pork stall. It was a hot and humid afternoon, and his family's nanny had taken him to the market. A massive pork rib lay spread across the counter.
The vendor chopped down with a cleaver, white bone fragments splattered, and the entire space instantly filled with the pungent smell of raw meat, exactly like now.
Wen Chengye stood aimlessly by his desk for a while until someone patted his shoulder.
Turning around, he saw the group leader's reddish-brown face, the color resembling the meat hanging at the stall.
"Where's your homework?" the group leader asked.
"I forgot to bring it," he said.
"Forgot again?" The face scrunched up. "Why do you always forget your homework? You'll never qualify for honors student recommendations or anything like that in the future."
Wen Chengye put down his backpack, pretending to detach himself from this space, letting the other person chatter incessantly in his ear.
"I don't know how you manage to get good grades. You don't even submit homework. You probably didn't do it at all..."
The foul smell drifted from the upper left. Wen Chengye looked up and saw a mouth constantly opening and closing in his field of vision.
His palm involuntarily pressed against the desk, finally feeling a bit of irritation.
Just as he felt he couldn't control it anymore, the other person suddenly remembered something and said, "Oh right, someone asked me to give you something."
Wen Chengye stopped his motion. "Who?"
"It's a dinosaur. Let me find it." The group leader wiggled his caterpillar-like fingers, rummaging through his bulky school uniform pants pocket.
"I asked, who is it?" Wen Chengye emphasized.
"A woman who said she's our school's football team's lead teacher. Wait a moment, let me find it. Hey, where did it go?"
In Wen Chengye's mind, a smiling face involuntarily appeared.
"Oh, I put it in my desk!"
The other person clomped away and back, slapping the item onto his desk.
"She said there's writing inside and told you 'definitely don't look'!"
Wen Chengye looked at his desk in disbelief. It really was a dinosaur. A paper-folded, green T-rex.
In the sunlight, the dinosaur was only half the size of a palm, lying on his newly distributed test paper as if mocking something.
"Is she crazy? Why would she tell you 'definitely don't look'?" the group leader muttered as he left his seat.
Wen Chengye's mind was filled with the words "definitely don't look." He stared intently at the green dinosaur.
He knew this was a trap and had a very certain premonition.
No matter what was written inside, he knew he couldn't look.
For the entire morning.
Wen Chengye restrained his impulse not to unfold the dinosaur.
At first, he tucked the dinosaur inside his math textbook, his most hated subject. It seemed this detestable thing could also block out the aura emanating from the dinosaur.
She said, "Definitely don't look."
"Definitely don't look!"
That phrase was like magic - the more he wanted to open the math textbook, unfold the dinosaur, and see what was written inside.
After that class, he threw the dinosaur into the trash can.
But throughout the entire Chinese class that followed, he kept thinking this wasn't right either.
Because things in the trash can wouldn't be emptied quickly, and people would keep throwing new things inside.
If he didn't retrieve the dinosaur, then that paper and whatever was inside would remain in the classroom, staying by his side.
Wen Chengye unclenched his fist, deciding not to torment himself.
The moment the class-ending bell rang, he stood up. As the teacher said "class dismissed," he walked to the back of the classroom under everyone's watchful eyes.
Bending down, suppressing his disgust, he picked the green dinosaur out of the trash can.
Wen Chengye walked out of the classroom and stood by the railing.
The wind high up in the teaching building was a bit cold. Looking down, the trees showed bare branches, people came and went, like a desolate pond with oxygen-deprived fish.
The mischievously intended dinosaur was tightly clutched in his hand. Wen Chengye's hand reached over the railing - if he let go, this damned dinosaur would be gone.
He grabbed the dinosaur's head and tore it apart from the middle. But when that hint of green appeared between his fingers, a strange irritation shot from his fingertips to the top of his head.
"Definitely don't look."
If he didn't look, would it be seen as fear?
What would that disgusting female teacher say?
— You still care about us, don't you?
Thinking this, Wen Chengye's hands unfolded the torn dinosaur like jade.
——
With a "smack."
The green sticky note was forcefully thrown onto the desk, faintly showing complex fold marks and signs of being crumpled.
In the sports equipment room during autumn, the electric fan wasn't turned on either. The weather was somewhat cool, the windows were tightly shut, so the indoor lighting was somewhat dim and oppressive.
Lin Wanxing sat at the desk, looking up, first meeting Wen Chengye's cold eyes.
Calling it completely cold wasn't quite accurate either. Within Wen Chengye's icy eyes, there were actually two suppressed flames.
In the cultivation novels Lin Wanxing read during her leisure time, this short phrase was often used to describe the protagonist's extremely suppressed resentful gaze.
According to the novel's formula, the protagonist would suddenly erupt in the next moment.
So Lin Wanxing decided to move first.
She raised her hand, pointing to the opposite side of her desk. There stood a stool that Lin Wanxing had prepared long ago.
The chair had waited all morning before the person it was waiting for arrived.
Of course, the male student didn't immediately comply. He stubbornly stared at the crumpled sticky note on the desk.
The pencil marks "19.20." on the sticky note had almost completely faded.
Meanwhile, in the lower right corner of the desk, the same green sticky note pad had only been used a little.
Wen Chengye noticed this too, his gaze becoming more firm and cold, locking onto her face.
Lin Wanxing met the boy's gaze directly and said gently, "Please have a seat."
The boy's fists were pressed against his pants seams, but his body showed no movement.
Lin Wanxing was doing new equipment registration. Seeing he didn't want to sit, she lowered her head to continue her work and casually asked him, "Have you had lunch?"
Of course, this question also received no response.
Lin Wanxing was used to it. She just continued speaking to herself, "Looks like you haven't. That makes sense - after receiving something like this, you'd probably struggle for a long time, too preoccupied to eat or drink, right?"
With a loud "bang."
A great commotion erupted in front of the desk.
Wen Chengye dragged the chair away as if venting, and sat down heavily opposite her.
After the noise, the entire equipment room returned to silence.
The overhead fluorescent light spread its glow, falling from Wen Chengye's head to his shoulders, illuminating every detail of his person.
Lin Wanxing and her student sat on opposite sides of a desk.
This was probably the first time Lin Wanxing had seriously gazed at Wen Chengye.
Wen Chengye looked back at her.
Lin Wanxing didn't speak.
The timeline slowly moved forward. From Wen Chengye's tightly furrowed brows and straight-pulled lips, Lin Wanxing could roughly guess what he was thinking.
Probably lines like "What do you want?" or "What exactly are you trying to do?" but no matter how he shouted them, they wouldn't sound vicious enough.
So Wen Chengye needed to think through his lines properly, and Lin Wanxing was waiting too.
"What does this mean?"
Finally, Wen Chengye's clear, cold voice sounded.
Lin Wanxing savored this sentence, thinking Wen Chengye was quite smart.
But she didn't engage in any hypocritical communication with Wen Chengye, instead getting straight to the point: "Here's the thing - I checked your recent monthly math exam paper." The correct answers for questions 19 and 20 were printed in reverse, and your answer sheet had them written in reverse too."
"Teacher, I calculated them correctly on scratch paper, but when copying to the answer sheet, I just happened to copy them in reverse," Wen Chengye said.
"Hmm, I figured you'd use that excuse." Lin Wanxing twirled the ballpoint pen in her hand, patiently guiding Wen Chengye. "But I called you here to hear the truth."
"I didn't cheat," Wen Chengye repeated. "I just wrote the answers in reverse."
Lin Wanxing stared into her student's eyes and smiled.
She lowered her head, flipped a page in her notebook, and drew a screenshot freehand.
And wrote—
As shown in the figure, the plane where square ABCD lies is mutually perpendicular to the plane where quadrilateral ABEF lies. △ABE is an isosceles right triangle, AB=AE, FA=FE, ∠AEF=45°.
Prove: EF ⊥ plane BCE;
Let the midpoints of line segments CD and AE be P and M respectively. Prove: PM ∥ plane BCE;
Find the size of the dihedral angle F-BD-A.
After writing the questions, she stopped, pushed her notebook in front of Wen Chengye, and rotated it 360 degrees. Finally, she placed her ballpoint pen before Wen Chengye's fingers.
Wen Chengye lifted his eyelids.
"Then solve this problem," Lin Wanxing said.
"Why should I solve a problem you made up?"
"This isn't a problem I made up." Lin Wanxing said calmly. "This is one of the geometry problems you 'copied wrong'."
Hearing this, Wen Chengye's gaze slightly faltered.
He looked down for a while, then obediently picked up the pen and pressed the button.
Just as he was about to start writing, he suddenly let go.
The ballpoint pen slipped from between his fingers and fell to the ground with a "clatter."
Wen Chengye lifted his foot and stepped on the pen.
The plastic and floor made a teeth-grating squeaking sound.
"Sorry teacher, the pen fell," Wen Chengye said.
Lin Wanxing said seriously, "Wen Chengye, this level won't anger me. I could easily take you to the academic affairs office, place an identical blank exam paper from your last monthly test in front of you, and you'd have exactly one pen by your hand. At that time, would you still throw away the pen like now?"
Wen Chengye still looked at her. The mocking tone in the young man's eyes had faded, but he hadn't reached the point of being at a loss yet.
The timeline continued slowly forward. The laughter and noise of students on the playground sounded as distant as if from another space.
The equipment room was particularly cold and silent.
"Then why don't you do that?" Wen Chengye retorted.
"Yes, why don't I do that? Logically speaking, I should report you to the school. Because cheating on exams is essentially unfair to all other students who study hard."
"So I'm asking you, why aren't you taking me to the academic affairs office?" he repeated.
"I said, before I make a decision, I want to talk with you," Lin Wanxing said.
"You're not going to be so disgusting as to try to reform me, are you?"Wen Chengye suddenly leaned forward, full of a sense of oppression."
"First, I want to know - why did you cheat?" Lin Wanxing asked.
Wen Chengye froze, suddenly leaning back in his chair without answering.
Lin Wanxing examined the young man before her: "You show an attitude of not caring about anything, but cheating shows you care very much about exam results. Why do you care so much about grades?"
"Is it me who cares? Obviously it's you all who care," Wen Chengye said.
"We?" Lin Wanxing paused. "You mean us teachers, parents?"
"Who else?"
"So you get good grades to satisfy our demands." Lin Wanxing said slowly. "Then you care quite a lot about 'us', don't you?"Sure enough, this phrase touched Wen Chengye's reverse scale again." He once more showed suppressed violent expressions. "Teacher, so you still haven't answered - why aren't you sending me to the academic affairs office? Do you really want to reform me?"
"Saying 'reform' isn't quite right either." Lin Wanxing leaned back and said, "I was just thinking - for a student like you, even if I took you to the academic affairs office, it doesn't seem very meaningful?A sarcastic expression appeared on Wen Chengye's face.
"Imagine that scene: your parents, family, teachers all called into one office, everyone surrounding you. In that situation, what would you do?"
The young man across the desk turned cold. Lin Wanxing continued speaking to herself, "I think you probably wouldn't speak from start to finish, because silence is the best self-protection. You've cheated so many times - you must have thought about what to do if caught long ago, right?" Lin Wanxing paused and asked him, "Then do you want to know what I would recommend the school to do?"
Hearing this, Wen Chengye's brows furrowed.
"You could keep your mouth shut and not write a single answer. But I would recommend the school put you in a separate room for every subsequent exam, with different test papers than others. I can guarantee that no matter what your cheating method is, or who provides you with exam answers, they won't be able to get these. At that time, what would you do then?"
Lin Wanxing kept speaking while constantly observing Wen Chengye's expression.
Wen Chengye finally showed some panic.
"Please continue imagining that scene. Until you're expelled from school for cheating, you'll have to sit blankly before one exam paper after another. 90 minutes after 90 minutes, you can't do anything, can't say anything. Can you imagine such a scene too?"
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Wen Chengye finally couldn't endure it, pushing back his chair and standing up.
"I want to say, this seems quite torturous. Do you want to experience it once?" Lin Wanxing asked.
"You're threatening me? You're using my cheating to threaten me?!"Wen Chengye suddenly revealed a mocking smile, as if he were occupying the moral high ground in everything." "Actually, to put it bluntly, you just want me to go back to playing football, don't you?"
"You can certainly understand it that way too." Lin Wanxing said very calmly. "We do need a player right now.The young man in front of the desk showed a triumphant expression, but Lin Wanxing didn't look at him anymore. Instead, she tore off another green sticky note, wrote an address on it, and pushed it before him.
"Originally I was very hesitant. But after talking with you until now, I suddenly realized - for a student like you, school punishment doesn't really amount to much. None of those would make you too uncomfortable." Lin Wanxing said.
"So what do you want to do? Torture me personally?"Wen Chengye sneered."
"How could that be?" Lin Wanxing laughed. "I always use 'education through love and reform'."
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