Qiao Lanshu really hadn’t expected that, before she even turned thirty, she’d be worrying about her son’s early romance issues.
Even though this son wasn’t her biological child.
But she still counted as Han Ye’s guardian.
After all, all the teachers here knew that Han Ye had acknowledged her as his mother.
So whenever anything came up about Han Ye, as long as they couldn’t reach Han Wenlin, they’d come to Qiao Lanshu about it.
Before, they’d only talked to her about schoolwork, and those were minor matters.
But now, out of nowhere, it was straight to a puppy love situation.
Qiao Lanshu reached up and pressed a hand to her forehead, saying with a headache: “I’ll go ask him about it in a bit, see what’s really going on.”
Zhao Yanfang nodded and said in a low voice: “Han Ye’s personality, well, he’s a bit hard to discipline, but he’s very popular at school. He gets love notes passed to him from girls all the time during class. When it comes to early romance, it’s not exactly impossible.”
Hearing this, Qiao Lanshu said: “Even though he won’t be controlled, he’s still sensible and steady. There might be more to this. That girl didn’t come today, did she? Why don’t we wait until she comes and ask her then?”
Zhao Yanfang stood up, gathering her things as she spoke: “Teacher Qiao, since we’re already so familiar with each other, I won’t entertain you as a guest. During the next break, go find Han Ye and ask him. I need to go to that girl’s home for a visit and see what her situation is.”
Zhao Yanfang slung her bag over her shoulder, put on her hat, and added: “Kids at this age care the most about saving face, especially girls. Having her love letter pasted up in public like that, and being mocked by the whole class—that’s really a heavy blow. I won’t feel at ease unless I go check on her.”
Qiao Lanshu said: “Alright, Teacher Zhao, you go ahead then. I’ll go find Han Ye and ask him about it now.”
Actually, Teacher Zhao had already questioned Han Ye earlier.
Han Ye firmly insisted that he wasn’t in a relationship, but when asked about anything else, he refused to say more.
For example—had he written back to the girl?
Had he gone to the hills behind the school with her?
And again—what was that business about the girls saying he’d acted like a hooligan? Had he touched one of them?
Han Ye wouldn’t say a word about any of it. Zhao Yanfang could do nothing with him, so she could only call Qiao Lanshu over.
After Zhao Yanfang left for her home visit, Qiao Lanshu waited until the class bell rang, then went to the door of Han Ye’s classroom.
Han Ye was tall. Walking beside his classmates, he stood out like a crane among chickens.
He was walking out of the classroom with a few male classmates, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, when he notices Qiao Lanshu standing in the hallway in one glance.
Han Ye’s footsteps faltered. Smart as he was, he knew exactly why Qiao Lanshu was here.
The smile on his face instantly vanished. He scratched his head and walked over to Qiao Lanshu with a guilty look: “Qiao, Qiao Teacher, you’re looking for me?”
Qiao Lanshu was almost irritated into laughter.
This kid knew he’d done something wrong, which was why he was suddenly calling her “Teacher Qiao.”
Qiao Lanshu straightened up and looked at him with a stern expression: “Student Han Ye, come with me for a moment.”
Han Ye: “…”
A few of the boys beside him looked at him with puzzled expressions, raising their eyebrows at him.
One of them said: “Han Ye, she’s not even our teacher. Why’re you going with her?”
Han Ye kicked him and muttered a curse: “Scram. She’s my mom!”
The boys: “…”
They were all absolutely stunned.
They all stared at Qiao Lanshu from a distance.
This was Han Ye’s mother?
She didn’t look like it. Saying she was his older sister would have been far more convincing.
Han Ye followed behind Qiao Lanshu until they reached the corner of the staircase.
Qiao Lanshu looked at Han Ye, who was a head taller than she was. She studied him in silence for a few seconds.
His features were striking. He’d inherited some of Han Wenlin’s ruggedness, but his eyes, brows, and mouth didn’t resemble Han Wenlin’s at all—probably they took after his mother.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, long-legged, skilled in a fight, and unbeaten across the entire school.
It was pretty normal for girls to like him.
Qiao Lanshu thought about that, then asked him: “Han Ye, are you in a relationship?”
Han Ye: “…”
His face instantly flushed crimson. He argued loudly: “Of course not! Mom, how could I possibly be in a relationship? All the girls in my class are ugly.”
Qiao Lanshu: “…”
She shot Han Ye a glare and scolded him: “You can’t say things like that about girls. That’s very rude.”
Han Ye looked downcast after being criticized by Qiao Lanshu. He said: “Anyway, I’m not dating anyone. In the future I’m going to join the army anyway. Why would I date anyone now? Wouldn’t that be wasting time?”
Hearing this, Qiao Lanshu felt relieved at once.
So she said: “Then explain to me what happened with that love letter, and what’s going on with that girl.”
Han Ye said with a disgusted look: “Anyway—anyway, it’s not that big a deal. That love letter wasn’t posted by me. Who knows which jerk did it? And besides, she didn’t hide her own love letter properly, leaving it on the desk where people could see it. She’s got some blame in this too, right? Mom, this really isn’t my fault. I’m the victim here.”
Qiao Lanshu: “Then with that being the case, had you received her love letter before?”
Han Ye: “…”
Han Ye rubbed his nose guiltily: “Maybe… probably? I don’t remember clearly.”
Qiao Lanshu stared at him: “Say that again?”
Han Ye quickly explained: “It’s too many. I have way too many love letters in my desk. I threw them all out. How am I supposed to know if it was hers or not?”
Even Qiao Lanshu, who had such a good temper, was getting worked up by him.
She asked: “You just threw them away like that so carelessly? What if someone else picked them up and read them?”
Han Ye scratched his head nervously: “I didn’t think that far ahead at the time. I treated them as trash.”
Qiao Lanshu: “…”
She finally understood why that girl’s love letter had ended up pasted onto the blackboard.
Even if he hadn’t done it himself, he was definitely not unconnected to it.
Qiao Lanshu also felt a bit guilty herself.
Han Ye wasn’t her biological son, nor did he live at her house permanently. He bounced back and forth between the two households.
Because of that, Qiao Lanshu often didn’t discipline him much.
Which naturally meant she’d neglected teaching him about these adolescent issues.
Han Ye had no biological mother. Han Wenlin was busy with work. And Han Ye was far too independent—whenever he hit a problem, he handled it alone.
More often than not, his personality was unruly and arrogant. He came from a well-off family, Han Wenlin spoiled him and would cover things up for him no matter what.
That was what had cultivated this fearlessness in him, this tendency to look down on everyone else.
Qiao Lanshu was silent for a long moment.
Inwardly, Han Ye felt anxious. He asked in a low voice: “Mom, is this really that serious? This isn’t a big deal, right? It’s just that the letter got seen by people. I’m not afraid of being laughed at. Why should she be? Just take it in stride, right?”
Qiao Lanshu shook her head: “You think it’s no big deal, because you’ve got thick skin.”
Han Ye: “…”
Qiao Lanshu went on: “That girl has thin skin, so of course she’s going to feel upset.”
Han Ye muttered, unconvinced: “I think if it were Xiaxia, she wouldn’t care. Xiaxia’s got a heart that’s pretty strong.”
Qiao Lanshu was noncommittal. She said, “You need to understand that people are all different. You have to learn to put yourself in others’ shoes and to respect them. When you receive love letters from others and you don’t want them, you can take them home and put them away, burn them, or tear them up — any of those is fine. But you can’t toss them into the school trash can. Understand? Everyone at school is your peer, and most of them know each other. If someone sees that, it’s really not good.”
Qiao Lanshu sighed and added, “Also, they’re saying you went up to the back hill alone with that girl. Is that true?”
Hearing Qiao Lanshu ask that, Han Ye felt even more dejected.
He nodded and answered honestly, “Yeah, it happened, but only once. She asked me to go — said she had something to tell me. I had nothing better to do at the time, so I went.”
What had actually happened was pretty simple: Han Ye went to the back hill with the girl, they exchanged a few words, all about schoolwork. Han Ye couldn’t even clearly remember what was said — it was all completely trivial.
On the way back down to the classroom, the girl tripped on a rock. Han Ye’s reflexes were faster than his brain. He reached out and pulled her up.
And in other people’s eyes, it looked like they were hugging.
A few classmates who were close to that girl started teasing them about dating and told Han Ye to keep his hands to himself, saying it looked bad.
Han Ye found the whole thing utterly ridiculous.
When Qiao Lanshu heard him explain, she was even more speechless.
She asked in a low voice, “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”
At the time, there was a strict crackdown going on, and they were very strict about male-female relationships. Even students couldn’t mess around. If things got blown out of proportion, it wouldn’t be good for anyone.
Han Ye said with an innocent look, “It’s just a small thing. What was there to say?”
He didn’t think being teased about puppy love was any big deal at all.
What he cared about far more was the fighting with other kids getting back to his family.
So he was constantly on guard against those rivals. He had no time at all for the girls’ romantic little dramas.
Han Ye frowned, a little impatiently, and said, “Women are just trouble! Oh no — not you, and not Xiaxia. Every other woman is a bundle of trouble.”
Qiao Lanshu: “…”
Han Ye felt like he was developing a fear of women. From now on, if he saw any girls, he’d stay far away from them.
Otherwise, this kind of thing would happen again, and it would just be a total headache.
With all the questions asked and answered, Qiao Lanshu felt relieved.
As long as Han Ye hadn’t actually been in a relationship and broken some girl’s heart, everything was fine.
She trusted Han Ye quite a bit. He had no reason to lie to her.
That had always been his personality since he was little. If he couldn’t do something or didn’t want to admit something, he’d just keep his mouth shut and refuse to speak.
But the moment he did speak, then what he said was definitely the truth.
Just then, the bell for class rang, so Qiao Lanshu said to him, “Alright, go back to class. I’ll come by this afternoon and talk to Teacher Zhao about this. This isn’t entirely your fault. I’ll explain things to her.”
Hearing that, Han Ye immediately cheered up. “Thanks, Mom. I’m off.”
With that, he ran back to his classroom.
Qiao Lanshu also left the middle school section and returned to the high school next door to work.
After she became a department head, her teaching load had lightened. She only had a few classes a week now, spending most of her time in the office. When she got back to work, her colleagues in the office asked where she’d been, and she mentioned Han Ye’s situation to them.
She said helplessly, “The kid’s growing up. I’m going to have to give him some education about adolescence soon.”
A female colleague sitting in front of her said, “Oh dear, you’d better be careful about this kind of thing. What if that girl took an interest in your son’s family background and deliberately tried to get close to him?”
Qiao Lanshu paused. She set down her fountain pen and said hesitantly, “That shouldn’t be the case, right? Around here, these are all dormitories for various work units. There are plenty of cadre kids…”
The colleague held her water cup, shook her head, and said gossipily, “You know it’s plenty, not all of them! Over the last few years, there have been a lot of migrants. In our school, there are still some kids from really poor families — they rent rooms, or live in makeshift sheds they built themselves.”
Students like that were still quite rare.
Because in this era, if a family couldn’t even afford a proper house and couldn’t put food on the table, the parents wouldn’t even consider their children’s education.
That’s why everyone wanted to be a college professor or a high school teacher — because starting from high school, the students’ overall quality was already quite high. Most of them came from decent families, and they were polite and sensible.
But the children of poor families mostly finished middle school and then went off to work.
Or, some couldn’t even finish middle school — a few dropped out after elementary school and went to earn money.
Still, starting in ’86, after the country introduced nine-year compulsory education, more and more kids were able to attend middle school.
Qiao Lanshu fell into thought and said, “Han Ye comes from a single-parent family, and his temper isn’t great either. If things really were like that, then that girl would have picked the wrong person.”
Qiao Lanshu’s colleague lowered her voice and said to her:
“Last year, a relative’s kid was dating someone in middle school. He started in eighth grade, and in ninth grade, he kissed the girl, and someone saw them. Then guess what happened? The girl said his family had to arrange a job for her, or she’d report him for hooliganism and make sure he couldn’t get into high school. The boy’s family was afraid the whole thing would blow up and ruin his future, so in the end, they arranged a job for the girl! Every year during the New Year, the old folks in my family bring this story up again, teaching the kids to find partners of equal family standing — not to go after girls from the countryside, or else the whole family would be dragged into trouble.”
When Qiao Lanshu heard that, she was somewhat shocked.
She had spent half a year training in the capital, her head full of work and study, rarely gossiping with colleagues.
When Han Ye’s issue came up, she hadn’t thought about it from that angle.
But her female colleague was right. Han Ye came from a single-parent family and had a bad temper, but his father was the director of the provincial public security bureau, and he was the only child.
If some girl got tangled up with him and then came to cause a scene, then knowing Han Wenlin’s personality, he’d probably find it annoying and also worry about Han Ye’s reputation being affected.
After all, Han Ye was going to join the military in the future — he was set on that path.
His reputation mattered a great deal.
But in the end, Han Wenlin would probably also end up finding that girl a job.
For someone like Han Wenlin, that really was a small matter.
Qiao Lanshu thought it over and said with a serious expression, “Sister Lan, you make a good point. I’ll keep an eye out over the next couple of days. If that really is the situation, I’ll make plans early to deal with it.”
Sister Lan reassured her, saying, “Don’t worry. As long as they didn’t actually hug or kiss, then it’s not a big deal.”
Qiao Lanshu: “…”
The thing was, it did sound like they had hugged?
