Star City Tie High School, High School Department Mathematics Research Group Office.
Lan Jie sat at the desk, looking at the skinny boy opposite him, still thinking about what happened at the internet cafe just now.
Clearly, he had no intimidating power over this guy named Qiao Yu.
Even though he learned from Ma Yufei that this guy was a ninth-grade student at the school's middle school, the kid didn't care about him at all, and they almost had a small confrontation!
In the end, Lan Jie resorted to a big threat.
If Qiao Yu didn't behave, he would immediately call the Culture Department to complain about the internet cafe for allowing underage access and would warn all nearby internet cafes not to allow him in, which finally made this skinny-looking kid decide to give in.
For this, he even chose not to immediately report that internet cafe, only taking a photo of its name—Guihua Lane Net Cafe—before leaving with three students.
Thinking about this, he subconsciously recalled when he grabbed this kid and tried to leave, and the kid still remembered to grab the messy stuff on the table.
Then he subconsciously glanced at the boy's pocket where he put things – wow, this kid really isn't afraid of teachers!
...
After a long silence, having given the three students enough pressure, Lan Jie finally turned his gaze from that thin and pale face, calmly looked at Ma Yufei and Lu Jia, and said, "Go on, what happened."
The two sophomore top students exchanged a glance, and the more lively Ma Yufei mumbled, "Well, it was the week before last, after the Olympiad class, you gave us a problem to solve. Lu Jia and I couldn't figure it out, so we thought after self-study, we'd sneak to the internet cafe to see if we could find the answer online. But we couldn't find it online either.
And it turned out the computer we were using was right next to Brother Qiao, oh no, Qiao Yu, and he casually explained it to us, and then we solved the problem. Later we thought if we encountered any questions we didn't understand, we'd go to the internet cafe to ask him for help."
Clearly, calling him Brother Qiao in private held no psychological pressure, but in front of the teacher, the two kids couldn't bring themselves to say it, so they just used his real name.
Lan Jie again focused his gaze on Qiao Yu.
Compared to other kids his age in ninth grade, this guy seemed skinnier. Maybe because he hadn't seen much sunlight, his pale face was calm, even with a hint of disdain, clearly indifferent to their explanation.
"You say something too. Which class in ninth grade are you in, who's your homeroom teacher? Instead of preparing for evening self-study, you're playing games in the internet cafe—does your teacher know about this?"
"Class 13, homeroom teacher is Teacher Yuan, I don't need to attend evening self-study," Qiao Yu said decisively, knowing there was no way to avoid it.
If it weren't for this guy threatening that all nearby internet cafes would ban him from going online, Qiao Yu wouldn't have obediently stood here.
But he had no choice; he knew that once his name was out, even if he ran away, he would certainly be found by school teachers, which was a pain. He should've known not to be greedy for the small living allowance given to high school boarders.
"What? Class 13?" Lan Jie was stunned.
Although he was a teacher at the high school department, the middle school and high school departments were only separated by a sports field, so he knew all kinds of situations.
This year, Tie High School had thirteen classes in ninth grade.
The first three classes were a Rocket Class and two Advanced Classes, each with forty students.
Classes four to twelve were parallel classes, and the single Class 13 was a gathering spot for underachieving students.
Although this type of class division was explicitly prohibited, with increasing pressure from high school entrance exams, all middle schools were streaming students.
Moreover, the middle school department originally did not have evening self-study, but given the academic pressure, the top 120 students of the grade were given the option to voluntarily attend evening self-study. If parallel class students wanted to join, they needed to submit an application to their homeroom teacher, and with the teacher's approval, they could attend as well.
While an application was needed, for students' parents, evening self-study was free, and for teachers, handling one class or another was the same. So it was mandatory for students from classes 1 to 12.
Class 13, however, was simply abandoned and did not need to attend evening self-study, as it was believed these kids wouldn't get into high school anyway.
After all, kids who could fail middle school geography and biology with a total score of 40 points only scored 30 or 50 points even lower in those subjects, basically eliminating the possibility of getting into a regular high school in the current competitive exam environment.
In Star City's high school entrance exam, out of a total score of 700, at least 610 was needed to get into a regular high school, and the geography and biology exam scores took up 80 points…
But what confused Lan Jie was how a ninth-grader who could solve a problem that stumped world-class Olympiad competitors while playing games, ended up in Class 13?
This kid really defied logic!
What, is it now trendy to first go to a vocational school and then make a comeback?
"Yes, Class 13, so I don't have evening self-study. Teacher Lan, if there's nothing more, I'll leave. I won't help those two answer questions next time." Seeing this busybody in a daze, Qiao Yu said and was about to leave.
"Stop right there!" Lan Jie sternly shouted, then glared at the two nervous students and said, "You two go back to class and get ready for evening self-study."
"Goodbye, Teacher Lan." Relieved, the two were about to slip away, when Lan Jie suddenly stopped them, "Wait."
The two paused and looked cautiously at Lan Jie.
"I saw you only had two buns tonight, did all your spending money go into internet fees?" Lan Jie asked.
Seeing the dejected expression on the kids' faces, Lan Jie sighed inwardly and said, "Alright, I'll lend you each a hundred Yuan. Use it to top up your meal cards or as living expenses, remember to eat something tonight, don't miss growing. Don't do such things again."
After speaking, Lan Jie opened the innermost drawer of his desk, took out two red bills, and handed them over.
Since the school didn't allow phones, students couldn't make payments via phone, so Lan Jie always kept some cash in his desk.
"Thank you, Teacher Lan."
"Go on."
...
Seeing the two leave, and then looking at Qiao Yu, who remained expressionless and unresponsive, Lan Jie sighed inwardly. Then he dug out a small yellow booklet from the desk drawer. This booklet contained all the school's department contact numbers and teachers' phone shortcodes.
All new teachers at Tie High School were given a mobile phone card, and after entering the system, would only need to dial the last four digits for free calls. This card needed to be used since teachers, due to the nature of the job, had to be reachable at critical times.
Lan Jie quickly found the phone number for Teacher Yuan of the middle school department—a Chinese language teacher named Yuan Yuan, whom he vaguely remembered had once represented the school in a recitation contest. Her management skills should be decent, but her teaching ability was questionable.
In simpler terms, homeroom teachers in classes like the ones at the bottom had certain skills but also clear weaknesses.
"Hello, Teacher Yuan, I'm Lan Jie from the high school math department."
As the head of the high school math research group, Lan Jie still commanded some respect at the school, quickly receiving an enthusiastic response over the phone.
"Oh, Teacher Lan, hello, is there something you need?"
"It's like this, today I caught a student named Qiao Yu from your class using the internet at Guihua Lane Net Cafe, so I brought him to my office. Could you please come over? I'd like to learn more about this student."
"What? Qiao Yu? His mom texted saying he was sick and had taken a two-day leave! Did you catch him surfing the net at an internet cafe? Hold on, I'll be right over."
After hanging up the phone and looking at the indifferent teen in front of him, Lan Jie was completely speechless.
This was a lot of information; what kind of family situation was this?
The mother helped her son get a sick leave to go play at the internet cafe?
So this guy didn't just go to the internet cafe after school, he'd been there the entire day?
No wonder he was duping high schoolers into paying for his internet; this daily cost couldn't be cheap!