DCTMOAS Chapter 3

Late August was still oppressively hot.

There wasn’t much content in the new teacher orientation, so Chu Cheng had plenty of time to organize his desk in the air-conditioned office and chat with his new colleagues.

In the senior-year Chinese department of No. 10 High School, there were currently nine teachers, all seasoned veterans. Across the whole school, Chu Cheng was the only new Chinese teacher hired in recent years, and he was only assigned to one class. It really did feel like whoever got him was down on their luck.

Thinking about it that way, Chu Cheng could understand why Yu Siting was so displeased at first.

On the first day students returned, the campus was suddenly filled with people, making it feel much livelier.

The classroom for Senior Year Class 7 was on the fourth floor of the main building, diagonally across from the language department corridor. Chu Cheng saw many young faces through the office window and, on a whim, decided to go check out the only class he’d be teaching. Quietly, he detoured over and peeked in from the back door in the most inconspicuous spot.

In recent years, the school had stopped openly creating elite classes in response to directives from the provincial education bureau. But from what Chu Cheng had heard, Class 7 was still packed with top students—nearly a third of the entire grade’s top 100 rankings were in that class. It was a true academic elite class.

The classroom was filled with dozens of white desks and chairs, each accompanied by a matching floor-standing file rack packed with all sorts of textbooks, notes, and test papers. Students bustled about, busy organizing their things or chatting and laughing.

It was easy to be infected by such vibrant energy. Chu Cheng couldn’t help but recall his own school days.

Suddenly, a tall, slim figure wearing a short-sleeved hoodie squeezed past him into the room.

“Move over.”

The person dropped his backpack at the last row, turned around, and revealed a handsome young face. He glanced curiously at Chu Cheng and casually tossed out a question, “Are you new here?”

Chu Cheng took him for a naturally friendly type and simply smiled in acknowledgment without speaking.

The boy continued, “Did you get held back?”

So he really did mistake him for a classmate—no wonder his tone was so casual.

Chu Cheng was momentarily surprised, then smiled and asked, “Do I look old to you?”

He was already quite young-looking, with clear, smiling eyes and a neat set of small, close-set teeth that made him seem even younger when he grinned. His question only made it harder to tell his true age.

“Not really,” the boy replied, his eyes curving into a bright smile. “I just haven’t seen you around the grade before. And you’ve got this… kind of charm that doesn’t seem to match someone our age.”

Chu Cheng nodded in approval. “You’ve got a way with words.”

“Lu Yan, catch!” a voice suddenly called out, interrupting their conversation.

The boy—Lu Yan—looked in the direction of the voice. With a thud, a basketball came flying straight into his arms.

“Ow, I just changed into this shirt,” Lu Yan said, letting the ball spin on his fingertip before tossing it back hard in a playful return.

The sudden volleyball startled a girl sitting in the front row. Complaints rang out in the classroom.

“Class rep, can you stop messing around the moment you walk in? I’m reporting you to the big boss! Let’s see if he’ll deal with you!”

“Hey—no, no, don’t!” Apparently, the words “big boss” held some weight. Lu Yan immediately stopped messing around, sat down properly, and even pulled out the chair next to him, motioning to Chu Cheng, who was still standing by the doorway. “Take a seat. No one’s sitting here.”

As the class president of Class 7, this boy named Lu Yan seemed quite popular—once he sat down, a bunch of classmates gathered around him.

Chu Cheng managed to blend into the group chat too.

New semester topics were nothing more than homework, holidays, gossip, and games. The interests of teenagers—Chu Cheng had long outgrown them.

Until one male student suddenly said, “Oh right, did you guys hear? Ms. You won’t be teaching us this semester.”

The girl who had joked about reporting earlier turned her head with genuine disappointment. “Huh? Why not?”

“Apparently she has a high risk of miscarriage and needs to rest. I heard the replacement is a newly hired teacher who just graduated this year. Only teaching our class.”

“No way, right? Is the school leadership trying to balance things out because our class has too many strong science teachers? We just started high school and already had to deal with a menopausal temperamental teacher. It took a class petition to finally get her replaced, and Ms. You has only been teaching us for a short while—now this again? My already shaky Chinese is officially doomed.”

“Our class was never great at Chinese to begin with, and we’d just started improving under a responsible teacher…”

Chu Cheng recalled what Yu Siting had said earlier outside the Academic Affairs Office. So Class 7 really had been through all that.

“Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Surely the school wouldn’t keep screwing over its star students, right? If the new teacher’s really that bad, you think our Big Bro would stand for it? He’d probably flip the desk at the office!”

“Sure, Chinese does rely a lot on talent and intuition, but I still think the new teacher might lack experience.”

Aside from Chu Cheng and Lu Yan, everyone in the group chimed in with their opinions. Soon, all eyes turned to the two of them.

After a brief pause, Chu Cheng softly said, “But every teacher starts out without experience.”

Lu Yan glanced at him and smiled with narrowed eyes, clearly agreeing. “Exactly. That’s why I never look down on the younger generation—they’ve got passion.”

“The homeroom teacher’s pretty young too, right? You all kept calling him… Big Bro?” Chu Cheng casually brought up Yu Siting, hoping to learn a bit more from the insiders.

“Yup.” Lu Yan raised an eyebrow. “Old enough to be called ‘Big,’ alright. I mean, for someone his age to still be single—don’t you think there’s gotta be a reason?”

His natural and sincere jab made Chu Cheng press his lips together to suppress a laugh.

Lu Yan was about to continue when the very subject of the roast walked in.

“Lu…” Yu Siting poked his head in through the front door, his gaze going straight to the back of the classroom. Upon seeing Chu Cheng, he abruptly paused before continuing, “Come out for a second.”

“You mean me, or him?” Lu Yan, sensing something off in his tone, hesitated and asked.

Yu Siting responded coolly with one word, “You.”

Lu Yan let out an “Oh” and stood up quickly—clearly, he was a bit wary of this “Big Bro.”

As Yu Siting turned to leave, he shot another glance back, still puzzled by why Chu Cheng was sitting in his class, chatting so easily with the kids.

After the class president left, the rest of the students stayed gathered around his seat, continuing their conversation. Chu Cheng managed to pick up more information about the class.

During the recent end-of-year reshuffling of subjects for high school freshmen, Class 7’s lineup had stayed mostly the same. Most of the students were “veterans” personally brought up by Yu Siting, and their grades were exceptional.

Clearly, this “math and science demon king” had earned serious respect from the top students.

As he listened, Chu Cheng suddenly realized something.

Wait a second—why did their stereotype of young teachers suddenly turn into unanimous praise when it came to Yu Siting? That wasn’t what they were saying earlier.

“Which student or parent could resist Big Bro’s legendary buff of ‘producing a top scorer every year’? I remember when we had to pick subjects and classes in the middle of freshman year, 80% of the consultations were from people trying to get into his class. Isn’t our class president the city’s next top scorer in the making?”

“But Big Bro used to only teach graduating seniors. Last year was his first time taking on freshmen.”

“Yeah, probably because of the college entrance exam and the education system reform. A lot of teachers at No. 10 High School have been reassigned.”

“The real reason is actually…”

[Ding—]

Chu Cheng’s phone suddenly chimed with a message notification, interrupting the students’ discussion.

[All Chinese language teachers, please come to the lecture hall for a meeting.]

After reading the notification, Chu Cheng sent a “1” in the group chat to confirm receipt and stood up to leave.

Behind him, a student kindly reminded him, “If you don’t mute your phone, and the big boss finds out, you might lose it.”

“It’s fine. He doesn’t care about me.” Chu Cheng turned his head and waved at them, signaling them to continue chatting.

Except for a few students assigned to clean, the corridor was mostly empty.

At the stairwell landing stood Yu Siting, his tall and upright figure holding a textbook in one hand. The book’s spine was pressed against Lu Yan’s arm as he spoke about something.

Although the conversation couldn’t be heard, judging from the way the top student bowed his head respectfully, it looked like he was being sternly reprimanded.

As expected from someone being strictly held to the standards of a future top scorer.

Chu Cheng silently sighed in admiration for a couple of seconds, then took a detour down the stairs from the other side.

---

At the beginning of the semester, meetings were frequent, especially for new teachers. Aside from regular lesson prep and evaluations, the academic affairs office assigned Chu Cheng a mentor: Mr. Yang, the head of the 11th-grade Chinese language department.

Mr. Yang was a kind-looking old man, almost at retirement age like the physics teacher from Class 7. He was extremely gentle and always patient with the many quirky questions Chu Cheng asked.

According to No. 10 High School’s tradition, the last week of August was reserved for “re-orientation” classes before the official start of the school year. Students followed the normal schedule and stayed in their classrooms watching online video lessons that reviewed their holiday homework.

All Chinese subject videos for 11th grade were recorded by Mr. Yang alone. Whenever he had time, Chu Cheng would help his mentor out. Mr. Yang was knowledgeable and engaging, with a concise and witty teaching style. Chu Cheng always felt he learned a lot just by watching.

In the multimedia classroom, Mr. Yang had just finished recording a section. He turned off the microphone, unscrewed his tea thermos, and glanced at the young man beside him, who was busy writing a lesson plan.

“How many versions have you gone through now?”

Chu Cheng, deeply focused, looked up when he heard the question and smiled, “Still feels like something’s missing.”

Mr. Yang took the papers and looked them over, praising, “Your calligraphy is impressive.”

Although Chu Cheng had been working on it for a while and had grown impatient by the later pages, the strokes still showed a practiced skill—each lift and press full of character.

After admiring it for a moment, Mr. Yang added, “This doesn’t look like something learned in just a few years. You must have started young?”

“I did, but… what about the content?”

Chu Cheng came from a family steeped in classical Chinese studies, where nearly everyone, young or old, had excellent handwriting. He didn’t see it as anything worth bragging about. At the moment, he looked at Mr. Yang expectantly, hoping for comments on the lesson design itself.

“Hmm…” Mr. Yang, seeing through his thoughts, hesitated and said, “Honestly, your first version was already good. This one is just about the same.”

Chu Cheng got the message: “So I’ve been revising for nothing.”

Mr. Yang chuckled, “Lesson planning is usually for education majors or people doing academic research. You’re not entering competitions or applying for awards—why stress over making it perfect?”

Chu Cheng had no answer to that.

Before he could think more about it, Mr. Yang asked, “Have you ever interned under a public program?”

Chu Cheng nodded, “Yes, but I was placed with a graduating class, and they were doing final review. So…”

So he still hadn’t taught a full new lesson on his own.

“That means you’re better at explaining practice problems?” Mr. Yang asked again.

Even though their conversation was relaxed, Chu Cheng still felt a little guilty if he were to say “yes.”

When Mr. Yang didn’t get a response after a while, he more or less understood. He could sympathize—being the only new teacher in the department, especially in Class 7, was definitely a lot of pressure.

He took off the recording equipment hanging from his collar, untangling the cables as he casually suggested, “If you’ve got time, why don’t you give a lecture on one of the sets?”

“Huh?” Chu Cheng was surprised. “But I haven’t finished my teacher training report.”

“That’s nothing. Real teachers are tested on the podium,” Mr. Yang said, handing over the lesson plan and test papers in a final tone. “You have half a day to prepare. You’ll record in the evening, and I’ll be there listening. No need to write up those materials—you’re giving them to me anyway.”

Sensing the kindness behind the suggestion, Chu Cheng gladly accepted the materials. “Thank you, Teacher!”

Finally, the morning’s work was over.

Chu Cheng was sore from sitting so long. Hugging the stack of materials, he stepped out of the multimedia room. While locking the door with one hand, a gust of wind blew the papers to the ground.

Footsteps approached.

“Whose errands are you running? Looks like you’re moving houses,” said Lu Yan, who happened to be passing by. He quickly stepped on the scattered papers to keep them from blowing away. “Need a hand?”

“Yeah, to the Chinese office on the fifth floor,” Chu Cheng said with a grateful smile.

Though they hadn’t interacted much, Chu Cheng had a good first impression of this student—cheerful, smart, and well-mannered. He thought it’d be nice to assign him as class representative in the future.

Lu Yan picked up the papers and walked beside him, asking casually, “Haven’t seen you these past couple days. Where’ve you been?”

Chu Cheng answered honestly, “There’s nothing for me to do during re-orientation classes. Once school officially starts, you’ll see me more.”

“True. Repeating students don’t have to turn in summer homework,” Lu Yan said without suspicion, then grumbled, “But with you gone, the seat next to me is empty again. They keep pulling me for seat checks—I don’t even dare move my neck in class.”

“Shows your class monitor is doing his job.”

To be honest, Chu Cheng’s words of comfort had a hint of “easy for you to say.”

Putting himself in the student’s shoes, just imagining Yu Siting’s cold face back when he was in high school already made it hard for him to breathe.

“But… are all of you actually kind of scared of him?”

“Well, how do I put it… people with such terrible personalities like his are usually only—uh—” Lu Yan had just turned the corridor when he looked up and suddenly swallowed his words.

Chu Cheng followed his gaze—and ended up locking eyes with Yu Siting, who was standing at the door of the math office. It was clear he’d seen the two of them talking and getting along quite well just now.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Yu,” Chu Cheng was the first to speak.

Yu Siting’s expression softened slightly as he gave a nod, then turned to the student and resumed his usual chilly tone: “I was just looking for you. Come in for a minute.”

Lu Yan knew all too well that nothing good ever came from being called into the office by “Big Bro.” He raised the materials in his arms as an excuse and tested the waters: “I’m delivering something for a new classmate… And the bell’s about to ring.”

A new classmate…?

Yu Siting raised an eyebrow, clearly chewing over those last three words.

Soon, his gaze returned to Chu Cheng with a meaningful “Oh? Mr. Chu.”

But to Chu Cheng’s ears, it didn’t sound like surprise—it sounded like a sharp and deliberate call-out.

“Admin’s finalized the assignments. You’ll be handling our class’s Chinese this term.”

“Of course. Just doing my job.” Chu Cheng kept a polite smile, though he was already sneaking a glance to his side.

“Mr. Ch—” Lu Yan echoed in shock, barely uttering one syllable before falling silent. He instinctively stepped back half a pace.

He looked up at the nameplates beside the Chinese and Math offices, eyes full of disbelief and inner turmoil. How had he ended up in this nightmare of being stuck between a wolf and a tiger?

The brain of the star student froze momentarily. Then, like a machine on autopilot, he handed the stack of papers back to Chu Cheng. “Mr. Chu… Big Bro wants to talk to me, so I can’t walk you to the office.”

Chu Cheng awkwardly took the handoff. Before he could say anything, he saw Lu Yan duck his head and retreat into the math office, frustration written all over the back of it.

So much for the promising pick for class rep.

Yu Siting was still leaning against the wall, expression unreadable. This outcome seemed to match exactly what he had in mind.

Seeing Chu Cheng still standing there, he said coolly, “Is there something else?”

“You’ve worked hard, Mr. Yu. See you later.” Chu Cheng forced a polite smile for the farewell—and the moment he turned around, his face dropped. Between his teeth: “Merit -1.”

Damn, this was clearly something that could’ve been overlooked, but he just had to make it annoying.

No wonder the students complained that his personality sucked.

Author’s Note:

Yu Siting: If I close one more eye, you’ll probably become a top-tier member of our class’s intel network.

Chu Cheng: Mm, the top student Genmiao said you’re not young anymore and still single.

Lu Yan: 6^[1]