Chapter 10
Only at this moment, at this place, sixteen-year-old Zhang Xiyu is free and perfect.
There were footsteps approaching and stopped a few meters away from her. The person seemed to hesitate and turned to leave. Zhang Xiyu turned around and saw the person she wanted to see most.
He held a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. When he saw her looking back, he immediately put them back into his trouser pockets, then put on a serious face like a teacher and asked, "Why don't you sleep in the middle of the day and come here?"
His vivid facial expressions and movements softened Zhang Xiyu's heart and made her pout and say, "I can't sleep. I feel uncomfortable."
"What's wrong?"
Zhang Xiyu lowered her head and looked at the tip of her shoe: "My dad beat me. My back is covered with wounds. It hurts a lot."
His expression changed: "Do you want to go to the hospital?"
Zhang Xiyu's heart seemed to be shrouded by the dense and moist mist again, giving rise to some vague hope. She shook her head: "No, he beat me with a ruler, it will go away in a week."
He still had a sullen face, obviously unhappy. After thinking for a while, he said, "Do you need to report this to Teacher Fang? If you don't want more people to know, maybe I can talk to your parents?"
Zhang Xiyu smiled bitterly: "It's useless and not necessary. They are all the same, they only care about grades and don't care what kind of person I am. Do you care?"
He looked at her with eyes as clear as a child's: "Of course I care. You are a very serious student with a pure heart. This is more important than anything else, even more important than grades."
Tears quickly blurred Zhang Xiyu's eyes. God knew how much she wanted to throw herself into his arms regardless of everything. That arms must be dry and warm, and have the tenderness unique to an adult man. Unfortunately she didn't dare.
A gust of wind blew, and she couldn't help but hug her arms tightly, and her exposed thighs rubbed against each other.
He immediately lowered his eyes and turned his face away. She didn’t know if it was Zhang Xiyu’s illusion, but she felt that his face seemed a little red.
It's not that he can't see. He was not indifferent, she thought.
"Don't stay here, be careful of catching a cold. Come down with me and go back to the classroom," he said.
Zhang Xiyu didn't hear these words at all. Her head was buzzing, her face was hot, and her heartbeat was in her chest and in her ears.
"Teacher." She said in a trembling voice, "I like you. I have liked you since my first class in high school. I know this will bother you, but I am sincere. I really like you so much. Can you wait until I graduate from high school and get into college, and then give me a chance to be your girlfriend?"
He was silent for a long time, with neither emotion nor surprise on his face.
Zhang Xiyu's heart sank.
"I'm sorry." He said calmly, "I have no plans to fall in love in the next few years, and even if I do, I won't be with a student, because that would be the end of both of us. I'm almost 10 years older than you, and you're still very young with endless youth. In the future, you should be with a young and lovely boy like you. If you really care about my feelings, don't think about these things anymore, focus on your studies, and fight for a worthy future for yourself. That's what I expect of you."
After saying this, he turned around and went downstairs without any reluctance, leaving Zhang Xiyu standing on the rooftop with tears streaming down her face.
She was still on the roof, but her soul seemed to have fallen off the edge of the roof. She knew that she had lost the most important dream, but she had a vague feeling that it should have been like this.
Finally, she thought, even he was disappointed in her. But every word she said to him was true. He was the best man she had ever met, so gentle, kind, wise and determined. He always looked at her with tolerance and understanding. No matter whether she did well or not in the exams, no matter what she did wrong, he seemed to see not the fool with student number 0, but her unique soul.
Now, is she going to lose even these? Did he already hate her?
Is there even one person in this world who cares about her, pays attention to her, recognizes her, and loves... her?
It’s gone!
Zhang Xiyu suddenly felt that she had no strength left and slowly fell to the ground, crying out of breath.
Zhang Xiyu didn’t know what he looked like in the eyes of the peepers hiding in the dark.
The girl's long hair was as black as ink, but her skin was as white and delicate as snow and jade. She huddled in a corner of the rooftop, her arms and thighs all exposed to the air, long and slender. Because of her emotional breakdown, she didn't even realize that a corner of her skirt was lifted up, revealing her white cotton underwear and her plump outline.
The person in the dark was as silent as a mountain in the night, with only his Adam's apple rolling up and down.
Then he walked out from the darkness, walked behind her without any hesitation, bent down and pulled down the unsightly hem of her skirt, and his ink-stained fingertips slid across the girl's skin like a thin thread.
Zhang Xiyu jumped as if he had been electrocuted. He saw who was coming and stood up hurriedly.
He saw her red eyes and panicked expression, but smiled and said, "Zhang Xiyu, if you encounter any difficulties, you can tell me, don't hide and cry alone. But why are you dressed like this? This is not okay, where is your school uniform?"
——
"Why do you feel guilty towards Zhang Xiyu?" Chen Pu asked.
The clear spring sunshine shone through the window of the conference room and onto Fang Chenyu's nose. The eye sockets behind the lenses were red.
"After that incident... I finally understood what it meant to be a true role model. Before I taught Zhang Xiyu's class, I had been a head teacher for three years. There were more than ten classes in the grade, and every year my class could make it into the top five. I was young and hot-tempered at the time, and I only cared about grades. Only children with good grades were worthy of attention, and children with poor grades were not worth mentioning in my eyes. Zhang Xiyu was one of them. I criticized her many times, but I never tried to understand what she was thinking, why she didn't want to study, and what kind of pressure she was facing. I... never thought that children with poor grades, children who disappoint their parents, don't deserve to live in this world. I just don't pay attention to them.
But she thought so. She, in turn, taught me a lesson with her life. In the past two years, I have thought about this more than once: if I had treated everyone equally and paid more attention to the poor students, would I have been able to discover that her psychological pressure had reached a critical point? Is there a chance to prevent her suicide?
But there is no medicine for regret in the world. I became the only class teacher in our school who had a student jump off the building in the past five years. Although the police investigation later found that the incident had nothing to do with me and the school did not hold me responsible, I knew in my heart that I was not worthy of the title of "class teacher" at that time. As a class teacher, the responsibility of a class is not simply to focus on academic performance or just the best students, but all fifty children. I will reflect on this for the rest of my life. Because Zhang Xiyu no longer has this life. ”
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