As soon as Qilixiang said “hello,” before she could explain her reason for calling, Eric Cooper had already started talking on his own: “Teacher Zhang… oh, Teacher Zhang, hello, hello! Look at this, making you go to the trouble of calling me, how inappropriate. Has Brian Cooper gotten into trouble again? Let me tell you, don’t go easy on him for my sake—just give it to him straight! A sapling won’t grow straight if you don’t prune it, right? Well, I’ll call you back in a bit, okay? Sorry, things are a little busy here…”

Having spent so long at school, the teacher didn’t realize that some people in society are full of empty talk like Eric Cooper. So, when he said that, she genuinely waited for Brian Cooper’s parent to call her back. But after waiting the whole day, she didn’t even hear a peep.

Only then did she realize that “I’ll call you back in a bit” was just like “I’ll treat you to dinner another day”—both really meant “goodbye, see you, now get lost!”

It wasn’t until evening approached that a young woman she didn’t know arrived at the school to find her.

The woman claimed to be Brian Cooper’s father’s secretary. Upon meeting Heather, she immediately handed her a jewelry gift box, oozing with flattery: “Our boss said, please, teacher, you must, must look after our child.”

The words “our child” made it all too clear that this secretary harbored grand ambitions of becoming a stepmother.

Heather: “I think it would be best if Brian Cooper’s parent could come to the school in person. You see, he got into a fight with a classmate today…”

The secretary couldn’t care less whether Brian Cooper was fighting or brawling. She absentmindedly picked at her nails as she listened to Heather’s complaints. Then, with a perfunctory glance, she replied with zero sincerity, “Yes, we know, that’s exactly why we’re asking you to look after him.”

Heather: “……”

“Oh, by the way, teacher, there’s a necklace in the box. You can take it to the counter for a free cleaning in the future,” the secretary said, her eyes practically drooling, as if she wished she could just keep it herself. “It’s a designer brand—costs nearly a hundred thousand even at a 40% discount, and the service is top-notch!”

Whether something is high-end or not, ordinary folks can’t really tell, but people like this are definitely not fit for polite company.

Heather was parched from all the talking, and after hearing this, she really wanted to slap “Miss 40% Off” right in the face.

She did accept gifts sometimes, but not just anything. A shopping card worth a few hundred or a thousand yuan, she might take one or two occasionally, but her little bit of greed couldn’t handle a designer necklace. Heather shoved the box back into the secretary’s hands: “My annual salary plus bonuses doesn’t even add up to a hundred thousand. I really can’t accept this. Please, just have the child’s parent come to the school, okay?”

The secretary didn’t catch the sarcasm at all, and with a sweet, shameless smile, she said, “I am the parent.”

Heather found it impossible to communicate with this airheaded secretary, and, exhausted, sent her away. Checking the time, she saw it was already the start of afternoon self-study—at No. 6 High, they emphasized independent learning, so there were only two formal classes in the afternoon, with the rest being self-study or physical activities.

She wandered to the back door of the classroom and looked in through the rear window. She saw the math and English class monitors each taking up half the blackboard, copying down the weekend homework assignments, while the Chinese class monitor was going around collecting weekly journals—those who’d forgotten to write were all hunched over, scribbling furiously.

William Carter was one of them, but he was a bit more brazen, because he had Henry Clark.

Henry Clark was exceptionally talented, able to compose essays on the spot. He improvised a book report full of literary references for William Carter to copy.

Henry Clark: “Duke Ai of Lu once said to Confucius, ‘I was born in the deep palace, raised by women’s hands. I have never known sorrow, never known worry, never known toil, never…’”

But William Carter was a typical science student—when it came to Chinese exams, he just memorized what the teacher taught, and if he hadn’t memorized it, he’d make something up. His extracurricular reading was all fantasy or martial arts novels, so he was getting a headache listening to this: “Wait, wait! How do you write the ‘gua’ in ‘guaren’?”

The Chinese class monitor stomped her foot beside him: “If you can’t write it, just use pinyin! Captain Carter, can you hurry up? You’re the trendiest one at copying homework, and it’s a dictation assignment!”

Heather was about to go in through the back door to catch someone slacking off, but as soon as her hand touched the doorknob, she happened to spot Brian Cooper sitting in the corner.

Brian Cooper was twirling a fountain pen between his fingers, his desk piled high with drafts that no one but him could understand. But instead of focusing on his own work as usual, he was staring absentmindedly at the noisy students in front of him.

He still had bruises on his face, and his expression was a bit odd—at first glance, it looked like disdain, but if you looked closer, there was a hint of envy.

Of course, he wasn’t envious of the person who’d beaten him up that morning, but rather… the whole class was lively, and he was the only one left out in the cold.

But that trace of envy flashed by in an instant. Maybe Brian Cooper was ashamed of his own weakness, because he quickly snapped out of it, his expression turning colder as he lowered his head and put his headphones back on.

Heather sighed, didn’t go into the classroom, and quietly returned to her office.

She had Brian Cooper’s report card in her hand. His grades weren’t just good—they were too good. He’d skipped a grade when he was younger, and when they wanted him to skip again, his homeroom teacher at the time insisted he stay. Because although Brian Cooper was smart, he wasn’t a prodigy in any particular field, which meant his high intelligence was good for showing off, but not much use in practice.