Jiang Liping, the morality advisor6 in charge of the screenwriting/directing classes one, two, and three, was an infamous eccentric. Supposedly, she had no relevant education or training and had gotten this fluff position in the school simply by sleeping with the board of directors. Jiang-laoshi was ostentatiously beautiful and didn’t feel a bit of shame about using sex to get what she wanted. She spent every day blatantly flirting with the board members in broad daylight and was overtly hostile toward any female student or teacher with decent looks.
When Xie Xue rushed into the classroom for her first lecture with her laptop in her arms, she saw Jiang Liping there in a floor-length red dress, hogging her lectern to discuss important items with the new students.
“I’m sorry, Jiang-laoshi, the first class is starting…” Xie Xue tried to remind her.
But the other woman merely waved her hand. “Just wait a minute, the morning study period was too short. I still have two items to go over.”
Who knew if she was picking on her on purpose, but Jiang Liping stretched out the last two points for fifteen, almost sixteen, minutes before she finally finished. “All right, that’s all I had to cover. I won’t disrupt your class anymore.” She then turned to Xie Xue. “Uhh…I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name earlier. Anyway, stay focused, don’t be nervous.”
Professor Jiang strutted away, her towering scarlet heels clicking against the ground. Her vintage Hong Kong-style dress fluttered in proud crimson waves in her wake, leaving the dejected Xie Xue to shuffle up to the lectern, laptop still in her arms.
She was so fucking screwed.
Maybe things would have been all right if Jiang Liping hadn’t said anything. But now that she had, Xie Xue had to gulp nervously.
Most students in prestigious schools were exceptionally talented and not easily won over. They didn’t trust younger teachers as much as they did older ones in the first place. Now, Jiang Liping’s parting words were nothing short of a vicious kick to Xie Xue’s knees.
This group of prodigies immediately understood that, oh, their instructor was still a teacher-in-training—one whose name their advisor didn’t even know.
What an outrage! No matter how much fiery motivation burned in Xie Xue’s heart, it couldn’t fend off the disparaging comments that this class was spitting at her. It only took ten minutes for the new faculty member Xie-laoshi to devolve from a confident woman to a stuttering mess. She began to feel dizzy and faint.
So caught up was she in her emotions that she didn’t even notice the tall young man who was leaning back in his seat in the last row of the classroom, watching her while spinning his pen idly.
“Hello, everyone. I’m your screenwriting and directing teacher. My name is Xie Xue. Um…”
The students weren’t buying it. “Laoshi, how old are you?”
“Jiejie, why don’t you order milk tea with us too?”
“Ooh, Laoshi, you look even younger than me…”
The situation was spinning out of control. Xie Xue had no choice but to feign sternness like a paper tiger. “Silence! I’m not messing around with you. Don’t waste your precious youth during your university years. You must study hard and gain knowledge. I’ll have you know, I’m a very strict and uncompromising person, and the percentage of students I fail is far higher than my colleagues. So all of you need to be on your toes; don’t you dare brush off my words.”
He Yu couldn’t contain his mirth. He looked down as the corner of his mouth curved carelessly upward.
She was just a fucking dumbass.
The students in the classroom fell silent, staring at her as if she were an animal in a zoo. One student even sighed and picked up his backpack to leave.
“Hey! You there! You—”
“Laoshi, I won’t fail no matter how much you threaten me. I have a date with my girlfriend, so I’ll be leaving now.”
“Fascinating. So Huzhou University actually hires teachers-in-training who threaten to fail us if we don’t attend class? We got into this university after enormous effort—we’re not here to become lab rats for the teachers to experiment with, are we? How come you’re the one teaching us while Professor Shen teaches next door? I’m going to write a letter of complaint to the dean later. Excuse me for not staying.”
Xie Xue was in a terrible predicament.
Although she forced herself to calmly ask for the students’ names and took points off on her tablet, this sequence of events had dealt her such a heavy blow that she wasn’t able to recover for a long while. Her carefully prepared lesson had become a half-forgotten mess. She blathered pointlessly for an age before finally reaching what she had previously thought would be a very interesting interactive activity. However, not a single person was willing to come onstage and participate.
Just as she was on the verge of tears, thinking of running away in defeat, a male voice suddenly came from the last row of the classroom.
“Laoshi, I’ll do it.”
Xie Xue was so miserable that she didn’t even realize how familiar that pleasant voice was. She immediately sought out the source of the sound, looking for her savior through eyes filled with grateful tears.
When she saw the boy she hadn’t seen in three years, Xie Xue was so surprised that she gaped at him without regard for her image. “H-He Yu?!”
The boy sat at his desk. His eyes were bright and clear, the corners of his mouth were upturned, and his lips were strikingly thin. He looked a little haughty, a little mischievous—much like the moment when a young Lau Kin Ming in Infernal Affairs II raised his head and gazed toward a drunk Mary, with some of the smugness of a young man who had discovered his prey and sated his desire.
He arched a brow. “Long time no see, Xie-laoshi.”