Yu Xiaxing said, “So you spent all your time looking after your daughter back then? No wonder she says what she misses most is the time when your whole family lived in that small county town. She even says that was when you were happiest. How did you go from being a housewife to becoming such a powerhouse in the workplace?”
When Chen Yuru heard that her daughter actually missed those days, her eyes reddened.
After a long silence, she finally came clean. “Happy life in the county town? No. That’s just because she was a child and didn’t understand. She had no idea what kind of nightmare our family was living through there!”
Recalling those days in the county town still made Chen Yuru feel miserable.
“We were practically starving to death!”
“Her father used to be a tenured teacher at a public school. He was honest and mild-tempered, and he never competed with anyone.”
“I don’t know how fierce the competition is among teachers at private schools… But more than ten years ago, competition among public-school teachers in our area was absolutely filthy!”
“The salaries were terribly low to begin with, and there was also a system of dismissal based on ranking.”
“A teacher’s evaluation was based on the leaders’ assessment, the students’ test scores, and peer evaluations. If you scored too low, you’d be transferred to a remote school or demoted to a lower-level school!”
“Positions for professional titles were scarce too, so the teachers formed factions and little cliques.”
“Open classes counted toward their evaluations as well. My husband was denied an opportunity to teach one by another teacher whose performance was worse than his.”
“In the end, they were going to send him to a remote school. He was an honest man and didn’t dare confront anyone.”
“But I’m assertive. I went to the school and made a scene. I reported the teacher who had stolen his opportunity and cursed out the principal!”
“Most benefits in this world go to whoever makes the biggest fuss. I made enough noise to get our family’s benefits back!”
“But he wasn’t grateful to me at all. He only thought I had humiliated him!”
The more Chen Yuru spoke, the more violently her voice trembled.
“He was such an honest man. From beginning to end, he never said a harsh word to me.”
“Because he simply ignored me!”
“At night, I would take the initiative to hug him and try to make peace. He would slap my hand away, turn his back on me, and let out an irritated ‘tsk’!”
“He went two whole months without saying a word to me. He treated me like I was invisible!”
Yu Xiaxing actually felt a little sympathetic as she listened.
What kind of honest man was this? She almost wanted to stab him herself.
No wonder Chen Yuru said life in the county town had been so painful.
It truly had been a nightmare.
Chen Yuru looked at Yu Xiaxing. “You must be wondering why I didn’t get a divorce, right?”
Yu Xiaxing: “…”
No, not really.
But when talking to someone, she couldn’t just sit there without giving any response, so she asked, “Was it because he later gave up his tenured position to take care of your career?”
“Of course not…” Chen Yuru said. “In the beginning, I stopped working after graduating from college, so our family still depended on his job.”
“There wouldn’t have been any problem if he had simply continued working as a teacher… But then someone tricked him into starting a tutoring business.”
“That happened to be around the time the government began reducing students’ academic burdens and cracking down on private tutoring. Another teacher reported him, and in the end, he was not only fined but lost his tenured position as well.”
“Our daughter was still young then. She thought that because both her parents were at home with her, she was happy. That’s why she says she was happy in the county town.”
“But I couldn’t sleep at night. I was so anxious that my hair fell out every day!”
“So I started thinking of a way out. I planned to sell the three traditional gold wedding gifts I’d received when I got married and use the money to open a breakfast shop. We could make a living that way.”
“Now guess what happened?”
“When I took the jewelry to the shop, they told me it was gold-plated silver! There was only a thin outer layer of gold, while the inside was all cheap silver!”
Chen Yuru pulled the corner of her mouth bitterly. “When I got married, my mother even said that asking for the three gold wedding gifts wasn’t meant to make things difficult for my husband.”
“She said gold was always a hard currency. If life ever became difficult, we could sell it and get through the crisis.”
“And he actually deceived me with gold-plated silver!”
“That was the angriest I’d ever been. I went home and demanded a divorce.”
“He still said nothing. He didn’t explain himself.”
“He just held our daughter and sat silently on the sofa… Whenever a man puts on that kind of pose, a lot of people automatically assume he’s an honest man being bullied.”
“Our daughter also thought I was bullying her father. She said that if I divorced him, she would never go with me.”
“That’s why I didn’t get divorced. I couldn’t bear to lose my daughter.”
“Later, I went to the big city to make a living. I worked during the day and took classes at night. Then I happened to catch a few major opportunities, and little by little, I built the life I have today.”
Chen Yuru closed her eyes.
She was already past the age of airing her grievances.
If she hadn’t trusted Board Director Yu, she would never have exposed the pain of her past so openly.
After hearing the story of this family, Yu Xiaxing added, “You really should have a serious talk with your daughter. She’s always believed that her father sacrificed himself for you and gave up his tenured position, so she’s always thought of him as the victim.”
Chen Yuru frowned. So there was more to the story?
She nodded. “All right. When I go home, I’ll confront her father face-to-face. I had no idea he had distorted the truth like that when talking to our daughter. Thank you for telling me.”
Yu Xiaxing asked again, “Is your daughter still planning to drop out?”
Chen Yuru shook her head. “Of course I don’t want her to drop out. My purpose in coming here today was still to ask the school to keep her.”
“Although you gave me a list of schools she could transfer to, I’ve actually evaluated all of them already.”
“Saint Virtue is a reasonable distance from home. Its teaching quality isn’t particularly high, but it still meets some of my expectations for her future applications…”
Yu Xiaxing leaned back in her chair. “Didn’t I already tell you? The teachers and principal have tried to persuade her to stay, but it didn’t work. The real problem lies with your family.”
She tapped the anti-scam guide in front of Chen Yuru. “Breaking Cocoon was able to identify your daughter’s pain and deceive her because those feelings genuinely exist.”
“The first thing you said when you walked through my door was to treat me like one of your subordinates. It’s easy to imagine that you treat your daughter even more unequally.”
“For example, last night—you stood up for her, yes, but when she was upset, the first thing you did was scold her. Of course she would think you were siding with outsiders to bully her.”
Chen Yuru fell silent and began seriously reflecting.
She had clawed her way up from the bottom, and her schedule was always packed. She had no patience for delays, shirking, or excuses.
When dealing with subordinates, she always followed the same process: make a judgment, impose a penalty, and resolve the matter.
She had no tolerance for emotional soothing that wasted time without solving the problem.
That was why the teams she led were so efficient.
And because she had brought benefits to the school as well, the teachers there always placated her. No one had ever told her that her attitude was unpleasant.
Until today, when she met Yu Xiaxing, who refused to indulge her and directly pointed out that she had never treated her daughter as an equal.
Perhaps she really did… scold her daughter first every time she caught her doing something wrong.
After a long silence, Ms. Chen said, “I understand. I’ll change. From now on, I’ll treat my daughter as an equal… But do you have any way to keep her from leaving and bring her to her senses, so she’ll stop listening to those scammers stirring things up online?”
