At the very top of the list was an entry highlighted in bold red:
[Reason for Complaint] Students smoking illegally in public areas on campus—including restrooms, rooftops, secluded stairwells, and the athletic equipment room. Some boarding students even smoke in their dormitories. The smell of smoke fills the air, affecting the environment, creating a fire hazard, and encouraging bad habits.
[Number of Complaints] A total of 223 related complaints have been received over the past six months, from students, teachers, custodians, and dorm supervisors.
[Previous Measures] The Office of Student Affairs had organized several surprise inspections, but with very little effect.
Most of the students involved were seasoned offenders, ranging from first-years to third-years.
They were also highly organized, using all sorts of tricks to evade inspections and covering for one another.
Some students’ parents had considerable influence or an especially aggressive attitude, leaving the school reluctant to act for fear of the consequences.
At present, the school had simply chosen to turn a blind eye. No complaint, no investigation.
Even when students were caught, the usual response was little more than criticism and education. There were no particularly serious punishments.
Over time, the students had figured out exactly where the school’s bottom line lay, and the problem had only grown worse.
As Yu Xiaxing read on, the curve of her lips grew wider, and the light in her eyes grew brighter.
More than two hundred complaints in six months. Clearly, this was a serious problem!
Once she dealt with it, she wouldn’t just be offending one or two people. She might offend more than a hundred!
There were even several notorious campus bullies among them, whose parents were important members of the parents’ committee.
Some had even donated equipment to the school! They were the kind of students whose teachers wouldn’t dare say a word even after catching them smoking!
There was no point in offending ordinary parents. If she was going to offend anyone, she might as well offend those with power and status!
Besides, there was no way to handle this without upsetting someone!
If she was strict, the students would hate her and their parents would make trouble.
If she was lenient, the teachers, students, and parents who had complained would accuse her of incompetence.
It was the perfect opportunity to stir up conflict!
She just had to think carefully about how to make the situation as explosive as possible…
She had an idea.
—
At ten that morning, an official document issued by Yu Xiaxing was distributed as quickly as possible to everyone concerned at the school.
Lu Yanzhao had drafted a lofty-sounding explanation about how the school had received a large number of complaints regarding smoking and needed to safeguard the health rights of non-smoking teachers and students, going on for an entire page with plenty of similar nonsense.
Then came Board Director Yu’s proposal:
Convert the storage rooms on every floor of the classroom buildings into “smoking rooms”!
Smoking would be forbidden everywhere except in the designated smoking rooms. Throwing cigarette butts on the ground was also prohibited!
If a cigarette butt was found in a non-smoking area, the Board Director would spare no expense to have it tested for DNA. Whoever it belonged to would be expelled immediately!
…
The school erupted at once!
The students spent the entire lunch break buzzing about it.
“What the hell?! Smoking rooms? DNA testing? What is the Board Director thinking this time?”
“Actually, having a designated place to smoke so you don’t bother anyone else isn’t such a bad idea, is it? As long as it doesn’t affect me, I can’t be bothered to report anyone.”
“DNA testing too? But I heard you have to have someone’s biological information on file before you can match their DNA. Is the Board Director just trying to scare us?”
“Wait—could it be because of the physical exams a few days ago? Every student had one. Maybe the Board Director secretly collected our biological information while she was at it, just so she could identify cigarette butts later?”
“The Board Director is so devious!”
“Brothers, let’s go! Time to hit the smoking room!”
—
The teachers were naturally far less laid-back than the students, and most of them responded with outrage.
A small number had adopted the mentality of ordinary wage earners: as long as it didn’t interfere with their work, Yu Xiaxing could make whatever rules she wanted, and they would simply follow them.
After all, even if Board Director Yu hadn’t come up with such a devious plan, they still had no way to solve the problem of students smoking.
Principal Wang, however, was so furious he could barely eat.
At long last, he summoned the courage to call Yu Zhengrong.
“Old Sir, please do something about your granddaughter!”
“This is a sacred institution of learning! How can she behave so recklessly?”
“Please ask her to restrain herself and turn back before it’s too late. She can’t go on like this!”
In truth, Yu Zhengrong also felt that Yu Xiaxing’s latest idea was somewhat outrageous.
But he didn’t like hearing anyone criticize his precious granddaughter.
So he replied, “If you think my granddaughter’s solution is no good, then what solution do you have? If you were capable of managing things, we wouldn’t have more than two hundred accumulated complaints about smoking. Since you have no ideas, why don’t you let my Xingxing give it a try first?”
Hearing Yu Zhengrong’s blatant favoritism, Principal Wang’s vision went black, and he nearly fainted.
The problem was, he really didn’t have any better ideas.
They had already tried having students report on one another, deducting points, imposing fines on anyone caught, and every other such measure. None of it had worked.
Principal Wang pressed his fingers to his aching temples.
Was he really supposed to sit back and let her wreak havoc on the school like this?
—
This time, the other members of the Yu family also thought Yu Xiaxing had gone insane.
If this were a gathering place for adults, like a bar, setting aside a separate smoking room would indeed be a good solution. It could satisfy both the people making the complaints and the people being complained about.
But doing this in a school was simply suicidal.
It looked as though she was trying to please both sides, but in reality, she had abandoned all principles!
How could the bottom line of education be compromised?
As for the parents’ group chat, Yu Xiaxing didn’t even need to stir things up herself. The group descended into an uproar all on its own.
Most of the parents were opposed to the idea.
But a small number felt that instead of letting students run to the restrooms—places ordinary students also needed to use and where they could disturb other children—it would be better to gather the smokers in one place and let them deal with one another.
—
Because of how bizarre the whole thing was, it made the trending searches again.
Public opinion online quickly exploded:
“I’m dying. This is what you get from a private school that only cares about money—‘human-centered education.’ Is the next step going to be setting up a nursery for students who want to give birth while they’re still enrolled?”
“A bad school is a bad school. You can’t turn a lump of mud into a wall. A few days ago, people were still calling it an elite academy. Elite, my ass! A high tuition fee doesn’t make a school elite, okay?”
“I’m absolutely sick of this Board Director. Does anyone here know the law? Is allowing students to smoke illegal? Shouldn’t she be shot?”
—
The following two days were the weekend, and Yu Xiaxing once again turned off her phone and went out to have fun.
The second phase of her assignment would continue until next Thursday, so there was no need to rush.
And so she spent the weekend lounging around in comfort until Wednesday.
Only one day remained before the deadline.
The buzz surrounding her bizarre decision had already died down.
That meant it was time for a second round of stimulation.
Yu Xiaxing sat down in her office and turned on the computer.
On the screen were countless surveillance recordings, along with videos casually filmed by custodians and security guards.
Every one of them showed students smoking.
At first, many students had hung back and watched.
But after some students actually went into the smoking rooms and came out without incident, everyone gradually let down their guard.
Eventually, students had to wait for a turn to get inside.
Through the swirling smoke, teenagers in school uniforms gathered together, sharing cigarettes and complaining about their schoolwork.
It was absurd. It looked nothing like a Chinese school at all.
What they didn’t know was that cameras had already been secretly installed inside the air conditioners in the smoking rooms.
Neither the equipment nor the labor had cost the school any extra money.
The cameras had simply been removed from other parts of the school, and security guards had installed them in secret after the students had left for the day.
To make sure no one slipped through the net, Yu Xiaxing had even personally told staff members who were free to move around the campus:
“If you see anything, film it!”
“Get a clear shot of their faces. Get a clear shot of the cigarettes in their hands!”
“No one is getting away!”
Yu Xiaxing gave the video a quick look, then sent the download link to the teachers’ group chat.
Yu Xiaxing: “Pick out the students from your own classes and label all their information clearly.”
At this hour, quite a few teachers were supervising their students’ self-study sessions, with little else to do.
When they saw the message from the board director, some of them suddenly understood.
So that was why the board director had deliberately put them at ease—she was setting a trap for the students!
The hardest part about catching students smoking was that teachers could never catch them red-handed. The students stuck together and covered for one another.
But the board director had gone straight for an entrapment tactic, making them expose themselves!
“Pfft…”
One teacher couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing on the spot.
The students all looked up.
The teacher hurriedly waved his hands. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Keep reading.”
The teachers lowered their heads and watched the videos, identifying the students.
The King of Hell was about to call roll!
—
Yu Xiaxing had nothing else to do, so she opened a few of the videos herself.
Suddenly, her mouse froze. She quickly clicked pause.
She had discovered a huge secret!
