Once the topic of children came up, the women immediately found common ground. Madam Xie's hostility towards Ye Qingqing disappeared. Ye Qingqing was a respectable woman, and it was only her own husband's fault for being unworthy. She was a reasonable person.

"How old is your daughter? Is she in high school?" Ye Qingqing asked with concern.

"Yes, she's in her first year of high school and boards at No. 4 Middle School. This silly child is being bullied to death, and she doesn't even tell her family. If someone hadn't told me, my daughter would have just suffered in silence, and who knows how badly she would have been bullied!" Mrs. Zhang was furious as she spoke. She really couldn't believe that kids these days could be so bad.

Everyone says children are kind-hearted and the purest flowers. Pshaw, that's what she used to think, but now she just wants to spit in the face of the person who said that.

Some children are pure flowers, but others are heartless beasts, wielding the silent knife of murder better than a pig butcher. Luckily, someone told her, otherwise she wouldn't even know her daughter had been bullied to death.

Mrs. Zhang sounded quite serious, and she looked very worried. Everyone realized that the matter was not simple and was definitely not just a minor squabble between children, so they asked her with concern.

"Is it a roommate or someone from your class?"

“Yes, there are many. It’s not just one or two people who bully my daughter. Sigh, it’s my daughter’s own fault for not being good enough, but those people are just too much. They spat into my daughter’s cup, put earthworms in her schoolbag, and even threw her homework in the toilet…”

Mrs. Zhang sighed and said angrily, "I heard it from a friend's child. She and my daughter are both in the same school, No. 4 Middle School. She couldn't stand it anymore and came to tell me. I asked my daughter, and it's even worse than this. I don't know what's going on, but those people are deliberately ostracizing my daughter. The whole class is isolating her and no one talks to her. When they do, it's in a sarcastic and mocking way."

"What did the teacher say?"

Mrs. Zhang was even angrier. "I told the homeroom teacher about this. She said that the whole class was targeting my daughter, which means that my daughter must have a problem. She meant that there's no smoke without fire. If my daughter were fine, she wouldn't be isolated by the whole class. Why are they isolating my daughter instead of others? That explains everything. I almost got into a fight with that homeroom teacher."

Ye Qingqing frowned. This homeroom teacher reminded her of the snobbish Teacher He who taught Tang Yuanyuan back then. She felt that both of them were teachers without professional ethics, drawing conclusions without investigating the matter thoroughly. Tang Yuanyuan was also ostracized by the whole class back then. Was it Tang Yuanyuan's fault?

“You absolutely mustn’t argue. Teachers these days are like royalty; you have to treat them like royalty. You might feel good in the moment, but afterwards, they have countless ways to make things difficult for your daughter. I’ve learned that the hard way. You have to put up with it. Why don’t you give the teacher some gifts and ask them to do something about it?” a shopkeeper advised.

“I gave her a gift certificate. I got five thousand yuan from the supermarket and found out the homeroom teacher’s address to deliver it. I also gave gifts to the other teachers, three thousand yuan each. The teachers’ attitudes have improved a lot. They even changed my daughter’s seat so she can sit with a well-behaved student. Her old female deskmate was very fierce and always bullied my daughter. Now she’s much more obedient.”

Mrs. Zhang sighed deeply, feeling no relief whatsoever. Going to school was like a guerrilla war; she wished she could go to school herself and slap those brats so hard they'd be thrown into a latrine.

I just hate that my daughter didn't inherit any of her fierceness; she's so docile!