He stiffened his neck and declared, "I said I'm not wrong, so I'm not wrong."
"You... you..." Teacher Xu had thought Zhou Zehan would be a soft, easy-to-push-around target like his brother Zhou Zedong. She never expected him to talk back.
Furious, Teacher Xu pointed at his nose. "Go stand at the back of the classroom."
Zhou Zehan immediately retorted, "Why should I? I didn't do anything wrong!"
Teacher Xu: "...."
The other students also looked at her in confusion, not understanding why Zhou Zehan was being punished.
They didn't think he had done anything wrong either.
These children were all new and hadn't yet experienced Teacher Xu's oppressive ways, unlike the students in Class 4-A, where no one dared contradict her.
Teacher Xu was livid, her face turning a ghastly shade of pale. She jabbed her finger towards Zhou Zehan's face. "Shame on you, calling yourself a student! You don't even listen to your teacher. What kind of student are you?"
Zhou Zehan tilted his head to avoid her annoying finger. "If I have to listen to you when you tell me to stand in the corner, then if you told me to go die, would I have to do that too?"
Teacher Xu's face twisted with rage. "You... you really are a beast, raised without a mother's guidance!"
Zhou Zehan: "I reflect that back at you."
Teacher Xu: "......"
The students: "......"
Teacher Xu nearly fainted from anger. Seeing his defiant, "thick-skinned" attitude only fueled her fury. The book in her hand slapped across his face with a sharp crack.
"How dare you defy me! I'll teach you a lesson, you little brat!"
Being an adult and the book being hard, the blow knocked Zhou Zehan's head to the side.
Seeing his sworn brother hit, Jiang Jiu immediately rushed over and shoved Teacher Xu.
The other students were also angry, feeling this teacher had gone too far.
Since coming to this school, all the other teachers had been kind to them.
They had never encountered such a nasty teacher before.
Some of the more timid children started crying.
Teacher Xu had never dealt with such a rebellious class. Nearly knocked breathless by Jiang Jiu's shove, she trembled with rage.
Drawing on her experience, she grabbed Jiang Jiu and shook him violently. If she'd had a switch in her hand, she would have loved to give them all a good thrashing.
Jiang Jiu was shaken until he saw stars.
But before Teacher Xu could do anything else, Zhou Zehan charged over and bit her hand.
"Ah—!" Teacher Xu let out a pig-slaughtering screech.
She flung both children away from her.
The classroom descended into chaos...
That very afternoon, Teacher Xu went to the principal to complain, playing the victim and saying she refused to teach the first-grade class anymore.
However, before she could even finish, the principal said, "I've just received a complaint from a parent accusing you of corporal punishment. The children don't want you as their teacher anymore either, Teacher Xu. You don't need to say anything; I wouldn't dare let you teach that class now."
Hearing this, Teacher Xu stared at the principal in disbelief. "They have the nerve to complain about me? On what grounds? It was their children who were disobedient. What's wrong with me punishing them a little? Don't you know, 'spare the rod, spoil the child'?"
"We got our palms beaten every day when we were in school. Back then, teachers could at least use pointers in class. Fine, parents objected, so we stopped that. But now we can't even make students stand in the corner? If their children can't handle a little hardship, why are they even in school?"
The principal waved his hand dismissively. "Enough, enough. That old approach is outdated, Teacher Xu. I admit you're a good teacher academically, but you are indeed too harsh with the children. The students here are all carefully selected; none are lacking. There's no need for this. The competition is next month; just focus on teaching Class Four well and don't cause any more trouble."
The school was large, with many classes, but excellent teachers were hard to find.
Every teacher at their school was highly paid. But similarly, the pressure was high, requiring each to teach at least three classes, sometimes even four.
Yet Teacher Xu only had two.
It wasn't that they didn't want to assign her more.
But every time, parents would complain that their child had been punished by Teacher Xu.
Only Class Four was somewhat better.
Since Class Four's grades were good and they were at a crucial stage, the principal had let it slide.
He had thought having her teach first grade instead of other classes might be better.
But look how quickly she got another complaint.
Teacher Xu, however, still smugly believed she was so exceptional that the principal gave her special treatment with a lighter workload for more rest.
The principal had a headache.
Teacher Xu left, seething with suppressed anger.
If they didn't want her to teach, fine! She didn't want to teach them anyway. Those students might think they'd won, but in reality, losing a teacher like her was their loss!
The current fourth-grade students, who were so outstanding today, had come through the same treatment.
If the fourth graders could handle it, why couldn't these ones? And they even had the gall to blame her. It was infuriating.
Zhou Zedong waited at the school gate for quite a while before he finally saw Zhou Zehan and Jiang Jiu arriving late, holding hands.
But the two looked a bit disheveled, and Zhou Zehan's face seemed slightly swollen. Zhou Zedong's expression immediately changed, and he hurried over. "Did you get into a fight?"
Zhou Zehan quickly shook his head. "Brother, I didn't fight. It was an old witch who hit me with a book. But don't worry, I bit her back."
Jiang Jiu wiped his tears and said pitifully, "That old witch was so mean. She hit Second Brother and pushed me. I hate her."
"Your teacher hit you?" Zhou Zedong immediately thought of Teacher Xu.
The other teachers in his class were fine, but Teacher Xu always picked on him.
Could it be that his brother's class had a teacher like that too?
Zhou Zehan puffed out his chest proudly, chin in the air, and recounted his glorious history of "three battles against the old witch" to his brother. He didn't seem very upset; in fact, he said happily, "Our homeroom teacher said the school is getting us a new teacher."
"She hit me, but I bit her back hard! She screamed louder than the pigs Dad slaughters!"
Zhou Zedong was silent for a moment. "Don't do that next time."
"Why not?" Zhou Zehan asked.
"Because you're a child," Zhou Zedong said sternly. "If it really came to a fight, could you win against an adult?"
"But... but you can't just stand there and take a beating," Zhou Zehan pouted.
"I'm not telling you to stand there and take it. If she yells at you, endure it. If she hits you, run. An adult hitting us can always find an excuse, but if we fight back, we're being disrespectful to the teacher and everyone will say we're bad students." Under Zhou Zehan's confused gaze, Zhou Zedong's eyes turned dark. "So, we have to find a way while still being good students..."
"Ah! Potato skewers!" Zhou Zehan, distracted by a vendor at the gate, didn't hear the rest.
He snapped back to attention. "Brother, what did you say?"
Zhou Zedong: "Nothing... let's go home." Zhou Zedong walked out, spotted the vendor calling out by the gate, went over, and bought two bowls of small fried potatoes.
The two little guys, who had just been passionately discussing the incident, immediately forgot all about it.
Zhou Zedong looked at them, his eyes gentle. "I just remembered, I forgot a book. You two go on ahead first."
