Right before finals week, a new student transferred into my class. She was a straight-A student, hailed as future Valedictorian material, and she loved to "be reasonable" about everything. During late-night study hall, I took some time to explain wrong answers to a few students. She confronted me on the spot: "Doesn't the Board of Education say extracurricular tutoring is forbidden? How dare you violate the regulations?" Because there was a student in the class whose parent was a fallen firefighter, I had them fill out paperwork for extra credit points. She stood up at the senior parent meeting and publicly questioned me: "Why are you giving that student special treatment? Did you accept a massive bribe?" Parents believed I was violating rules, causing a scene at the Board of Education, accusing me of bribery. I was stripped of my eligibility for the Teacher of the Year award. The day before the SATs, I encouraged a student suffering from depression, telling her she would definitely get into a good college. The class president said in front of everyone: "She can't even hold a pen steady when she has an episode, and she's mentally ill. Why lie to her that she can get into college?" The student suffered a major breakdown and jumped off a building on the day of the exam. Her grieving parent blamed me for bullying their child and ran me over with a truck outside the exam center. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day the new class president questioned how I dared to violate regulations. 1 "Ms. Jiang, doesn't the Board of Education say extracurricular tutoring is forbidden? How dare you violate the regulations?" The moment I heard Bella Lin's voice, my scalp tingled. I stood frozen at the podium, the fluorescent lights blindingly cold. Unfinished math problems lay on the desk. Before me were three or four students waiting for answers; in my ear was Bella's shrill voice. "You're breaking the rules, you know? This is illegal tutoring!" The bell rang. In that second, my heart clenched tight. I had died once. The day before the SATs, I was crushed by a truck outside the exam center. And before I died, this "reasonable" Valedictorian candidate nailed me to the pillar of shame with the sentence: "Why lie to a mentally ill person that she can get into college?" Now, I was back, one month before that nightmare. Seeing no response, Bella stepped closer, enunciating every word: "Ms. Jiang, aren't you going to explain? Why are you ignoring me?" I couldn't be bothered with her. I picked up the test papers on the desk and called the students with questions. "Come on, let's go to the office and continue." She was clearly triggered by my indifference, her face darkening. Did she think I was still the Ms. Jiang she could manipulate and control? She followed me into the office, standing arrogantly in front of my desk. Her eyes swept over the other teachers tutoring students, then fixed dead on me. "Ms. Jiang, you're ignoring me because you're guilty, right? Do you admit you're conducting illegal tutoring?" I lowered my head to explain the paper to the students, pretending not to hear. "You're evading responsibility! As class president, I have an obligation to point out your problems!" She raised her volume, slamming her hand on the test paper I was explaining. Other teachers looked up, annoyance written on their faces as they looked at the "reasonable" Bella. No one spoke; the office fell into a weird silence. "If you don't respond, it means you admit it!" Bella leaned in, her voice so sharp it almost pierced my eardrums. "I am officially reporting you for illegal extracurricular tutoring, violating Board of Education regulations!" I couldn't take it anymore. I slammed my red pen on the table. Slap. The students jumped. Bella froze too; she didn't expect the usually gentle me to fight back. I looked up, suppressing my rage, and stared at her calmly. "If you want to report me, go ahead. No need to notify me in the office! I don't reason with emotionally unstable students." "This is normal school hours, tutoring students at school. I haven't violated any regulations!" "Who are you calling emotionally unstable?!" She flew into a rage out of humiliation, glaring at me viciously: "This is bullying! I'm just helping persecuted students. What right do you have to ignore me?" I sneered. "Stating facts? Last time you threw away three years of notes from the whole class, was that helping students too? You, a transfer student who just arrived, what right do you have to interfere with the class's study plan?" Her eyes flickered, but she remained stubborn. "I was doing it for everyone's good. Exam experts say not to be too anxious before the SATs, not to read too many notes!" "Then shouldn't you be responsible for the consequences of throwing away the whole class's notes?" My voice wasn't loud, but every word hit the mark. "You call yourself a Valedictorian candidate, wandering around the class every day, staring at my top students to change seats and 'progress together'? The result? You make noise in the classroom every day, affecting other students' studies!" Her face started to crack. I pressed on. "You advise them not to read notes, saying to relax before the exam, but I see your own desk piled high with notes!" "Those are study notes accumulated over three years. Behind every notebook is the students' 5:30 AM reading, pulling all-nighters to correct mistakes, the blood and sweat of countless annotations on test papers!" 2 Her eyes filled with tears, hands trembling uncontrollably. She didn't expect me to attack her publicly. "I'm the class president. I'm also helping students have a good mindset for the exam." "Does being class president allow you to break into the school during holidays, pry open the classroom, and move all the notes to the dumpster?" I was furious, my tone severe. "Do you know that a student came back that day, couldn't find their notes, and cried squatting at the classroom door for a whole period? A student dug through the dumpster until their hands were cut, saying they were finished, saying they had no face to take the SATs!" The office went silent instantly. Bella's eyes darted around, but she didn't answer. I stood up, staring at her face that claimed innocence, word by word: "Bella Lin, don't play the saint in front of me. You dictate to students, preaching sanctimoniously about rules, discipline, expert advice, but you never bear the consequences. You are just selfish!" She opened her mouth to speak, but I was faster. "You're a Valedictorian candidate? Then shut your mouth and write your own test papers well. Don't use a label of good grades to do things like bullying students and stepping on teachers behind their backs." Scared pale by my sudden change in attitude, she broke down crying in the office, finally slamming the door and leaving. Other teachers were silent for a moment. The head of the senior teaching group looked at me and whispered. "How dare Ms. Jiang go hard on her? Her dad is in the Board of Education." I sighed and shook my head. "If I don't toughen up, she'll ruin the lives of the whole class sooner or later!" In my past life, Bella threw away the whole class's notes. I spent a day and a night retrieving soaked notes from the garbage station and restoring them one by one. In the end, she cried saying she didn't mean it and wouldn't be so impulsive in the future. She cried so pitifully that the school leaders thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill and bullying a student. I was tortured by her "logic" but couldn't speak out. In Bella's eyes, I was probably a soft persimmon easy to pinch. But in this life, I won't tolerate her anymore. The moment Bella slammed the door and left crying, my mind was completely swallowed by memories of my past life. In my past life, at the all-school senior parent meeting. Just because I filled out extra credit paperwork for a student whose parent was a martyr. She ran to the podium and spoke, full of righteousness and "reason." "Ms. Jiang, why are you giving a student a special extra credit channel? Is it because you accepted a large bribe?" With a face full of "upholding justice," the parents below were in an uproar. Before I could explain a word, I was targeted by the Board of Education, and the school leaders immediately cancelled my eligibility for the teacher title evaluation. In the end, the matter was cleared up. That student indeed qualified for the policy. But Bella just said lightly: "I didn't know she was a martyr's child. I didn't see the documents. I was just maintaining the fairness and justice of the SATs." She even wore an innocent expression, the corners of her mouth slightly raised. "I am also a student about to take the exam. I have the right to know if others are competing based on strength." That day, looking at her guilt-free face, I suddenly understood that some people are born bad! Bella was that kind of natural-born evil seed. I was already wary of her then, determined to keep my distance. I thought as long as I sent her safely into the exam hall and ended the critical period of the final month sprint, this would all be over. But on the last day before the SATs, I was encouraging students in the classroom. Bella insisted on standing next to me, saying: "I want to encourage students on behalf of the class officers." That day, I specifically encouraged a girl in the class whose grades had been stable in the city's top three, but whose mother died in the first semester of senior year. She suffered from severe depression, living on the edge. I gently held her hand and said: "You are amazing. As long as you get through this, there will surely be a bright future." 3 Bella stood beside me and suddenly smiled. I'll never forget that smile. She said to the whole class: "She can't even hold a pen steady when she has an episode, and she's mentally ill. Why lie to her that she can get into college?" "And her mom is dead. How could the future possibly get better?" Her sentence "How could the future possibly get better" was like a knife plunged into that child's heart. The next day, the day of the exam, that girl jumped from the 23rd floor of her home. At noon that day, outside the exam center, I was crushed into a pile of bloody mud by her father driving a large truck. When I died, I only heard Bella whispering not far away: "This is all Ms. Jiang's fault. Who told her to always say 'irresponsible' comforting words." "If she had told the truth back then and reasoned with that student, she wouldn't have forced that student to jump." My thoughts returned. The students in the office had already left after getting their questions answered. This time, reborn, I didn't swallow my anger like in my past life. I unhesitatingly retorted to the arrogant Bella. She would definitely not let it go. Sure enough, the next day she brought her Board of Education father to school. She wore a neat uniform, eyes just red enough, voice choking, looking so pitiful. "I just pointed out Ms. Jiang's violation yesterday, and she gave me the silent treatment... I just wanted to follow the rules..." Her dad sat in the office, his tone authoritative without anger. "Ms. Jiang, my daughter has always been reasonable. She came home crying yesterday, saying she was humiliated by you in public. We don't cause trouble, but we won't let others bully us either." Standing in the office, I laughed at this father-daughter duo's ability to invert black and white. "If your daughter followed rules, she wouldn't have soaked the notes of over thirty students and thrown them in the trash!" "Yesterday, I was answering student questions during normal school hours. From beginning to end, I was reasoning with Bella. I did not give her the silent treatment." My tone was neither humble nor arrogant. But Bella suddenly burst into tears. "I was just kindly helping classmates relieve stress. Those notes aren't important anyway. Why are you so fierce to me?" "...Sob... Ms. Jiang, you're just unreasonable. You clearly humiliated me with cold violence last night... I know you hate me... but I was just reasoning with you, you can't tutor illegally..." Bella was an expert crier. She cried like pear blossoms bathed in rain, as if she suffered a great injustice. Some teachers nearby started to waver, especially those not in the office yesterday. "Ms. Jiang, are you being a bit too emotional?" "Bella is such a sensible child, why did you make her cry?" "Yeah, Bella is a city Valedictorian candidate. It's wrong of you to scold a student." Especially the head teacher of Class 2, the elite class, who had always been dissatisfied with me. He fawned over the Lin father and daughter. "Student Lin, our Class 2 has several top science students. If you don't fit the atmosphere here, you are welcome to our class anytime. No one in our class will bully you." Bella shook her head on the spot: "I don't want to transfer classes..." My heart tightened! In this life, I really didn't want to keep Bella, this ticking time bomb, in my class. The Class 2 head teacher continued: "We also have a student named Zhou Qian, who won first prize in the National Chemistry Olympiad and might get priority admission to top universities like Harvard or MIT. Maybe you two can aim for Valedictorian together." I noticed Bella's eyes change. Just for a second, then she switched back to the aggrieved look. "Then... if I can really progress with excellent students, I'm willing to try." The suspicion buried in my heart in the past life surfaced again. Bella, this Valedictorian candidate, seemed to always want to destroy students who had hopes of entering top universities. 4 Once Bella transferred, I thought I could relax. She went to Class 2 and became the "Valedictorian seed" in Mr. Yang's eyes. He praised her in front of everyone in the office: "Student Lin is disciplined, sensible, responsible, and very reasonable." I sneered. He would soon know how terrifying the "reasonable" Bella was. Sure enough, less than a week later, Bella caused trouble. That day, I was verifying the signatures for the martyr's child's extra credit paperwork when the office door was slammed open with a bang. Mr. Yang rushed in, face livid with rage, pointing at Bella behind him and almost shouting: "Zhou Qian's competition bonus points were specially approved by the Ministry of Education! What right do you have to publicly report me for violation at the all-school parent meeting?" I was stunned, looking back to see Bella standing in the office, holding a folder, face full of justice. "Mr. Yang, I'm just exercising my rights." She looked innocent. "I am also an exam candidate. I have the right to know if people around me are competing fairly." Mr. Yang was so angry his chest heaved. "You said 'Why can Zhou Qian add fifty points just for a competition? Did you take benefits from his family?' Do you know how many parents stood up on the spot saying they wanted to report me?!" Bella blinked innocently, not feeling she was wrong at all. "Just because they got emotional doesn't mean I have a problem." "You're roasting me on the fire!" Mr. Yang coughed violently, clutching his chest, hands shaking with anger. "I've led over a dozen graduating classes and never violated regulations to give extra points to any student! What exactly do you want!" "I just want fairness." She stood up, righteous. "You yelling at me in exasperation doesn't change the fact that you didn't publicly display Zhou Qian's bonus qualifications on the spot. Since you can't explain clearly, I can only report it." "I don't want to hear your explanation. I just want you to be reasonable." When she said this, the corners of her mouth even carried a gentle smile. I clearly saw a flash of triumph in her eyes. Mr. Yang sat down angrily, sighing heavily. Standing aside, looking at her familiar face, I felt cold all over. I was absolutely certain now, Bella did it on purpose! As long as she was in this school, she would find opportunities to completely destroy the chances of all students who belonged in top universities! That night she left the office "crying." She was always good at positioning herself as the "victim," making everyone who didn't know the truth pity her, protect her, and stand up for her. But what I didn't expect was that the next morning, the city news exploded. [City High School No. 1 Suspected of Violation in Exam Bonus Points, Student Claims Threats to Silence Truth] [Senior Head Teacher Forces Student to Silence? Education Fairness Questioned] The voiceover in the news was that edited recording: "...Reporting is useless... Board of Education gave... Zhou Qian points... passed his documents, no problem..." The voice was Mr. Yang's, but edited beyond recognition. My scalp tingled on the spot. In this life, Bella failed to report to the Board of Education smoothly, so she sent the recording directly to the media. All senior classes were suspended. The City Board of Education immediately sent people to the school to review all bonus point documents. I was also called for questioning. Because she added a sentence in the news interview. "My former head teacher, Ms. Jiang, also violated regulations to give extra points to a certain student in class. I'm just a student; I can only turn to the media to tell the truth." I watched her red-eyed and trembling voice in front of the camera. "I've always been afraid of Ms. Jiang. She always scolded me... and because I reported her for illegal tutoring, she bullied and gave me the silent treatment many times. Later I had no choice but to transfer classes in the last month before the exam..."
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