Normally, the first day of school should be relatively relaxed and lively. Students who haven't seen each other for two months have endless things to talk about with each other, and even if the head teacher is there, he usually won't care. But when Wen Liang walked into the classroom, he found that today was a little unusual. The room full of people was silent. Not only was no one whispering to each other, on the contrary, most of them had heavy faces. Occasionally, the sound of flipping books and coughing could be heard. The atmosphere was very weird.
"Chairman, here, here!" Huang Gang half stood up in the fourth row against the wall, raised his hand and waved in the air, shouting in a low voice.
Wen Liang smiled at her, walked over and sat down inside, and asked quietly: "What's wrong? Did the teacher lose his temper?"
"No!" Huang Gang lowered his voice even lower, like a thief, and said: "It's all because of Master Huang..."
The campus is only the size of a palm, and the noise at the school gate was so loud that it would have reached everyone's ears in less than ten minutes. These seventeen or eighteen-year-old teenagers have never experienced being so close to death, so it is understandable that they feel a little complicated.
"Is that so?" Wen Liang took out the summer homework he hadn't touched since it was handed out from the drawer and said, "What about yours? Give it to me so I can copy it."
Huang Gang flipped through the books, found his own and handed them over, holding his chin with his hand, and said, "Do you think it's true? I heard that Master Huang was killed because he owed money to someone in society..."
Wen Liang didn't expect the rumor to spread so quickly. He opened his math homework and prepared to copy this first. He said, "Who said that? He should have a note on his head: screenwriter, and a third-rate screenwriter at that."
"There's something even scarier," Huang Gang said mysteriously, "Do you know that a woman was hanged in the school decades ago, right next to the guard room... She comes out to roam in the ghost month, and Master Huang is unlucky this time, and she happened to be haunted by the vengeful spirit..."
Wen Liang put down his pen, shook his head and said, "You are so young, it's not right for you to be so superstitious. Don't run around this weekend. I'll take you to a lecture on Marxism-Leninism."
Huang Gang's face suddenly changed color, and he waved his hand and said, "No, no, I'm not superstitious, it's fine."
Wen Liang smiled and ignored her. He copied the homework as fast as he had been single for twenty years. The morning passed quickly. Except for Liu Qing who came to the classroom twice to ask everyone to keep quiet and study, no other teachers showed up. When the fourth class was about to end, Wen Liang finally finished copying the homework. He threw away his pen and breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, it would not be a big problem if he did not hand it in, but some teachers would not give him face and criticize him in class. That would not be good.
"Finished?"
Huang Gang still had her chin supported by her hand. If Wen Liang had not gone out to the bathroom, one would have thought that she had been maintaining this posture since the last conversation.
"Well, I've finished it. There was an equation on the fourth page of your chemistry that was balanced incorrectly, so I corrected it for you."
When Huang Gang heard this, his eyes sparkled with admiration again, and he said, "Chairman, you are really amazing. You can even find mistakes when copying homework."
Wen Liang rolled up his homework book, tapped her on the head, and said, "Stop flattering me. Have you heard some rumors again?"
"Yes, yes, you guessed it, too... Okay, I won't flatter you, I won't flatter you. Now it's being said that Master Huang was fired from his job in retaliation for reporting corruption and bribery by a senior school leader, so he drank pesticide out of frustration..."
Wen Liang was stunned, not because this rumor was too absurd like the previous two, but because it was partially close to the truth. The students would never have known about the drinking of pesticides if someone inside the matter hadn't deliberately spread it. However, the rumors of school leaders' corruption and bribery were fabricated out of thin air, with true and false stories mixed together. It seemed that some people in the school had opinions about Zhang Yihan and were trying to use this incident to smear him.
Wen Liang and Zhang Yihan have an average relationship, but at least they have gotten along well in the past two years. The old fox has good leadership skills and can use tricks and schemes without making people feel disgusted. People often turn a blind eye to his many behaviors of taking leave and skipping classes, but if it were someone else, it might not be so easy.
"Ding-ling-ling!"
When the bell rang, Wen Liang stood up and whispered, "Death is the greatest thing. Let's stop talking behind our backs. The student union may send someone to check in the afternoon. If anyone is found spreading rumors, the school will punish them severely."
"Yeah, got it!" Huang Gang felt how lucky it was to have a student union president as his deskmate. He could know any news in advance. Seeing Wen Liang was about to leave, he quickly pulled him back and took out a bulging envelope from the drawer, saying, "This is for you..."
"What is that?" Wen Liang looked puzzled. He picked it up and saw that there was about a thousand yuan in it. He smiled and said, "Student Huang Gang, it's okay to give you some inside information. Do you need to bribe me?"
Huang Gang was a little embarrassed for a rare time, and said, "It's not because of this... This is given by my godmother, she said it was my salary for working during the summer vacation... I just went to help, I'm clumsy, it's good enough that I didn't cause any trouble, how could I ask for money? But my godmother just didn't agree, she insisted on giving it to me, I put it on the table, I don't know when she secretly put it in my schoolbag, I only found it when I got home yesterday, you can take it back, I really don't want it!"
The godmother is Ding Mei. During the past two months of summer vacation, Huang Gang has been busy at Bi Ya Si. Naturally, she cares more about her own business than outsiders. She works carefully, seriously and diligently, and can do better than two ordinary clerks. Ding Mei feels sorry for her and gives her a little more money, but she is not as good as Bi Ya Si. She regards her as her goddaughter and has to help her when she should. After all, a child without a father or a mother, although her life is not tight due to the arrangements made by Wen Liang before, she still lacks warmth, and every bit of love she can get is appreciated.
"This is the pocket money your mom gave you. How can I take it? If I really take it back, won't I get beaten black and blue?"
Huang Gang burst out laughing and said, "No way, godmother doesn't know how much she loves you."
Wen Liang shook his head and said, "This is a different time. She didn't have a daughter before, so she treated me like a daughter. Now that she has a daughter, why is she not partial to me? Besides, you've seen her pull my ears before..."
Recalling the scene where Chairman Wen, who was so arrogant at school, was grabbed by the ears and yelled at by Ding Mei at home, Huang Gang laughed so hard that his mouth was about to split. He was shocked when he first saw it, but later he got used to it after seeing it so many times.
"But I can't take this money, really!" Huang Gang stopped smiling, his expression firm and solemn, but his eyes were full of gratitude, and he whispered: "I know my godmother is doing this for my own good, worried that I won't have money to spend, but I have a storefront at home, my aunt and the others give me living expenses every month, and my brother also sends money back, which is really enough for me."
"You are just too stubborn. Not to mention working in Bi Ya Si, even if you go somewhere else for a summer job, you will still be paid, right? This is a fair and reasonable way to get paid according to your work. If you don't want it, my mother probably won't dare to ask you to help in the future."
"That's nothing. I'm thick-skinned anyway. If you don't let me go, I'll just pretend I didn't hear it!" Huang Gang laughed and stuffed the envelope into Wen Liang's hand, begging, "Brother, take it back to godmother, and treat it as my filial piety to her, okay?"
Huang Gang always liked to call him Chairman, and rarely called him Brother, especially at school. Wen Liang knew the girl's character, and was afraid that she really would not want the money, but it was not a good idea to take it back, so he touched his nose and said, "How about this, I'm a little tight on money recently, so let's split the money 50-50, 500 for you and 500 for me, how about that?"
Seeing that Huang Gang was still trying to shirk his responsibility, he frowned and said, "You don't want to listen, do you? It's settled!"
Wen Liang has been in a superior position for a long time. If he tries hard, he will have a powerful aura. It was the first time that Huang Gang saw him get angry. He was frightened and nodded obediently. Wen Liang immediately smiled, picked up the envelope and knocked on her head again, then took out two or three old man tickets from it, put the rest back in her drawer, and left the classroom.
"Knock again... If you get knocked silly, it's your fault!" Huang Gang wrinkled his nose at Wen Liang's back and muttered a few words. He opened the envelope and saw that there were still 800 yuan in it. He raised his head and shouted, "You took less... Didn't we agree that each person would get 500 yuan?"
Wen Liang was not there, so of course no one responded. Huang Gang tightened her hand around the envelope, but tears welled up in her eyes. She knew that Wen Liang was just pretending to be angry, but he was actually thinking about her. Although she had lost her parents in the past few years, her only brother was far away, and her relatives were not as close as tigers and wolves, she had never complained about herself, nor did she feel how unfortunate she was. But knowing Wen Liang and his family was her luckiest thing.
Huang Gang touched the envelope with her hand, and tears welled up in her eyes even though she was strong!
Wen Liang went to the office building first and met Ye Yuting at the stairs. She was with Huang Mei, holding textbooks in her arms, and her tight jeans made her legs look straight and long. She glanced at Wen Liang secretly, thinking that he was looking for her. She stretched out her hand to tidy up her hair to suppress her shyness and asked calmly, "School is over, why are you here?"
"Hello, Teacher Huang, Hello, Teacher Ye!" This was at school, and Huang Mei was present, so Wen Liang didn't dare to be presumptuous. If it had been nothing before, it would have been fine if he had just said a few words, but now that something was really going on, it would be easy for outsiders to see through him if he wasn't careful. He greeted them politely, and then said, "I'm here to see the principal. Did you see him leave?"
Ye Yuting shook her head and said, "I was busy in class this morning and didn't pay attention. Huang Mei, how about you?"
Huang Mei is now a married woman, and is much more aggressive than before. She looked Wen Liang up and down and said with a smile, "Oh, I haven't seen you for a few months. Wen Liang, you are getting more and more handsome!"
Wen Liang used to tease Huang Mei often, and now he knew he was going to be retaliated against, so he blushed and said, "Teacher Huang is married, so her vision and taste are different."
Huang Mei laughed, thinking that he was praising her. Then she turned around and thought, her eyebrows raised, and said, "Okay, so you are saying that I had bad taste before?"
"No, no!" Wen Liang saw a few more male teachers coming over from behind and asked hurriedly, "Stop joking. Have you seen the principal?"
"The principal was not here this morning. I heard he went out. How could he be in school after such a thing happened?" Huang Mei looked depressed and said, "How could such a good person just disappear like that..."
Wen Liang thought for a moment and realized that he was confused. Zhang Yihan must be busy dealing with inquiries from his superiors, or going out to inquire about the progress of the case. What's the point of staying in school
"Goodbye, teachers!" Wen Liang waved his hand and turned to leave. He secretly gave Ye Yuting a wink, which made her heart flutter. She rolled her eyes at him coquettishly, then laughed and left.
Wen Liang found a secluded corner and called Zhang Yihan. After a while, he heard his serious voice: "Hello, who is this?"
"Principal Zhang, I'm Wen Liang."
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Apparently, they had not expected to receive a call from a student. Zhang Yihan smiled and said, "Wen Liang, what's the matter?"
"Principal Zhang, it's like this..." Wen Liang went straight to the point and talked about the rumors that had been circulating in the school that morning. He especially emphasized the sentence "leaders are corrupt and accepting bribes." After that, he said nothing more. He believed that Zhang Yihan, an old fox, would naturally understand what to do.
As expected, Zhang Yihan sneered twice and said, "I know, it's just a small matter, nothing serious."
Wen Liang understood what he meant. It was none of his business how the school's top brass fought for power. Anyway, his purpose of showing goodwill to Zhang Yihan had been achieved. He said, "Principal Zhang, I plan to use the lunch break to hold a student union meeting and have student leaders go to each class to prohibit the spread of similar remarks. If anyone is found talking nonsense again, they will be dealt with seriously. What do you think..."
Zhang Yihan praised, "Okay, that's the role that the student union should play. Just go ahead and do it. I'll let Director Hua know and ask him to assist."
After hanging up the phone, Wen Liang thought, with Zhang Yihan's level and decades of connections in the education system, there are many people who want to defeat him, but not many who really have the strength to challenge him. Several vice-principals in the school have been subdued over the years, and if there is no one behind the scenes, they probably won't take the risk. Could it be that someone in the Education Bureau wants the position of the principal of No. 1 Middle School, so they are taking advantage of this incident to stir up trouble
With this thought in mind, Wen Liang called Zuo Yuxi again and told him what happened at school today. Zuo Yuxi said, "I'm still in Guanshan, planning to visit Professor Han this afternoon. I just heard about what happened in Qingzhou..."
Wen Liang was surprised and asked, "Didn't we agree to go tomorrow? Why did you go today?"
"Didn't Secretary Wen tell you? Professor Han has something urgent to do tomorrow, so we rescheduled the meeting to today." Zuo Yuxi explained, with a hint of sarcasm in her tone, "From what you said, someone must be trying to put a dent in Zhang Yihan's eyes. As for whether it's someone from the Education Bureau, I'm not sure. After all, the principal of No. 1 Middle School has face, power, and money, so there are probably many people who are jealous."
Wen Liang was originally worried about whether Zuo Yuxi was going to attack Zhang Yihan, but now he had no scruples and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter who it is. Zhang Yihan has been around for so many years. If it was so easy to fall, he would have fallen long ago. Just wait and see." (To be continued)