DCTMOAS Chapter 52

As the night sky burst into color, the crackling of fireworks grew deafening.

Chu Cheng waited quietly for a while.

Aside from that one slip of a sentence, Yu Siting didn’t say anything else that surprised him.

After the fireworks show ended, the two of them left the teahouse and strolled around that same handmade crafts shop from before. The streets were still buzzing with life.

The crowds in the night market were truly overwhelming. Chu Cheng was a little worn out from all the fun, and his eardrums couldn’t handle the constant noise any longer, so he and Teacher Yu headed back together to Fantian Garden.

After the outing, Yu Siting’s mood seemed to have improved quite a bit. His expression was gentle, and he didn’t bring up the matter of making Lu Yan catch up on homework. He simply bid goodnight as usual and went upstairs.

Chu Cheng washed up and went straight to the bedroom to rest. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his phone lighting up on the pillow as it charged.

It was a WeChat message from Xu Chuan.

[Where are you at?]

[Didn’t you promise to join me for the Lantern Festival event? Standing me up, huh?]

Chu Cheng picked up his phone and replied while leaning against the headboard.

[I just got home. Too tired, don’t feel like playing.]

[Dammit, got a girl now, huh? Abandoning your brother for some chick? Even break a bro’s promise like that!]

Xu Chuan followed that with a “Cut the crap, get online now” panda meme.

[Have you never taken a proper writing class? Why do you have to make something so normal sound so dramatic?]

Not wanting to suffer more verbal jabs, Chu Cheng muttered under his breath while lying down, then reached over and powered on his laptop.

The two of them started a voice call.

Xu Chuan’s playful, roguish tone came through: “Well, how can I not be dramatic? I’ve got no one to spend the Lantern Festival with.”

Chu Cheng ignored him, set the laptop up on his bed desk, and logged into his account.

The moment his character loaded into the map, he saw countless sky lanterns drifting through the air like stars. Even in the game world, the holiday atmosphere was all lit up and festive.

Thinking back to the fireworks show earlier that day, Chu Cheng’s fingers idly rubbed the scroll wheel on his external mouse as he fell into brief contemplation.

“Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s like… if someone says that fireworks look better when you watch them together with someone — what’s going through their mind?” Chu Cheng chose his words carefully in his head and added, “Plus, this person always really looks out for the other one. Work, when they’re sick, renting a place… they handle everything with care.”

“Hah?” Xu Chuan thought for two seconds. “Without knowing their gender, age, personality, or any of that, your question’s basically playing dirty. A senior caring for a junior, a confidant for a close friend, a warm landlord for a tenant…”

Chu Cheng was about to say that all three scenarios more or less fit.

On the other end of the call, Xu Chuan added teasingly, “Might even be a son sticking to his dad, you know.”

Chu Cheng fell silent.
He knew he shouldn’t have asked this guy.

Xu Chuan finished laughing at his own joke and went back to being serious: “So what is it? Imaginary friends scenario, or you’re suspecting someone’s into you but too scared you’ll guess wrong and it’ll get awkward?”

“I’m more afraid of guessing right and then not knowing what to do about it.” Chu Cheng had already teamed up with him and entered the dungeon, but because his mind was somewhere else, his fingers were lazy on the keyboard, half-heartedly hacking away at the boss.

Xu Chuan didn’t keep up his mischief — his analysis was clear and on point. “The fact that you’re thinking this way means you have a pretty good impression of the other person, and there’s real potential for things to develop. Otherwise, even if the emotional investment doesn’t pan out, at most you two would just keep things strictly business on the surface and stay distant in private.”

Getting nailed right on the head by someone else made Chu Cheng’s movements freeze.

Who knew that just one casual line from Brother Chuan — ‘there’s potential for things to develop’ — would hit him like a verdict. And that was exactly the thing that made Chu Cheng both doubtful and startled: because Teacher Yu had never made him feel the slightest bit uncomfortable.

A one-sided crush is agony because the river flows cold and indifferent; a mutual pursuit is sweet because your hearts both know.
“Since you can’t even figure out your own feelings, why waste your time guessing someone else’s?”

“Any kind of affection, once it exists, is bound to find a way out. There’s no way you won’t feel it. Doesn’t matter who’s the one giving or receiving — sooner or later, there’ll be a moment when you know for sure. When that day comes, you won’t need to come asking me anything.”

“……”

While Chu Cheng was spacing out, Brother Chuan on the other side had already rattled off a whole heartfelt monologue. Even though they seemed to be on different wavelengths, Chu Cheng hadn’t interrupted him once.

“Ah—aggro’s off me, aggro’s off—” Right then, Xu Chuan lost focus and got targeted by the boss for a deadly strike.

Xu Chuan’s in-game character lasted only a few seconds before dying on the spot. He immediately blamed him: “Why are you so bad? You can’t even hold the aggro. All that smart brainpower, yet you’re already on the decline before you’ve even suffered the pains of love. I swear, it’s gonna be tough carrying you next time.”

Having finally found an opening, Chu Cheng snapped back: “You died, and it’s my fault for being bad?”

Xu Chuan ignored his retort and arrogantly barked, “Stop fighting already, let’s restart.”

“Just lie there. Makes no difference whether you’re here or not.” Chu Cheng had always been the type to not dwell on yesterday’s worries or tomorrow’s troubles. He snapped right out of it, returned to his usual self, and his fingers flew across the keyboard.

Seeing his teammate suddenly slicing through enemies like a beast — clearly planning to hog the dungeon loot for himself — Xu Chuan cursed with a laugh, “Hey you, burning the bridge after crossing it, huh?”

Chu Cheng laughed heartily: “I’d say it’s more like killing the donkey when the millstone’s done.”

“Ahhh—so that’s it! All that deep talk just now was a trap to distract me, huh? Just you wait — once we’re out, I’m gonna slaughter you…”

Chu Cheng ignored him completely, tapping out a flurry of combos and soloing the boss.

In the heat of the fight, his drowsiness faded away. Before he knew it, he’d pulled another all-nighter.

A few days after the Lantern Festival, No. 10 High School welcomed the start of a new term.

On the first day back, after the students finished cleaning the classroom and sat down, the class reps for each subject went around collecting homework from desk to desk.

After a whole semester of growing pains, Chu Cheng was no longer that green rookie from when he’d first arrived — he could now stand calmly and confidently at the front of the class, handling the students with practiced ease.

It was just that the way the students treated him was still worlds apart from how they behaved with the homeroom teacher. Sometimes, it took him invoking Teacher Yu’s name to really get them to listen.

“Alright, I’ll give you a few minutes to tidy up. Move all those desk shelves down to the floor. With the height of the podium and our ‘big boss’s’ stature, you’d need at least forty or fifty books stacked up if you really wanted to hide behind them. The way you’re doing it now? It’s just making it more obvious you’ve got something to hide.”

“Hey, no way — don’t twist it! I’m only doing this to get Big Bro’s attention, not to pull any sneaky tricks,” came a discordant voice from the middle row.

Chu Cheng shot back at the troublemaker without missing a beat. “Oh really? Well, you don’t have to go through all that effort. If I just write your name on the blackboard on the very first day, he’ll definitely notice you.”

“Duck that, alright? I’ll take it down right now.” The student chuckled sheepishly and ducked his head.

“Good boy.” Chu Cheng’s face didn’t even twitch the whole time — he handled it all with practiced ease.

Laughter broke out in corners of the classroom, as the others jeered at the classmate who’d flopped so spectacularly.

After the simple homeroom meeting for the new term wrapped up, Chu Cheng told the students to get into self-study mode, tossed the job of keeping order to the class monitor, and headed back to the Chinese department office.

He spent half an hour tidying up his desk — everything was lined up neatly, not a pen out of place. Finally, he set the still-green buttercup in the corner of his table.

With everything in its place, Teacher Chu was in great spirits. Though he knew full well that in two days’ time, it’d probably be a mess all over again.

He raised his phone, took a quick selfie that only half showed his face with his workspace in the background, and posted it to his Moments feed.

[New term persona: Patient, kind, no late nights, no temper — Teacher Chu.]

It didn’t take long before the comments stacked up under the post.

[College roommate: Damn! Handsome’s posting selfies now? He actually has a face!]

[Lin Qi: Wake up. Impossible.]

[Xu Chuan: As long as the sun’s not up, it doesn’t count as staying up late.]

[Teacher Yang: The office looks really neat.]

[Mu Yiyang: Big Bro would never make that kind of promise.]

Chu Cheng saw that last student comment and tapped out a reply, smirking at his screen.

[I didn’t block Big Bro from seeing this one. And didn’t I just confiscate your phone?]

A few seconds later, the notification popped up — the comment had been deleted.

Well, mission accomplished — time to actually work.

He put his phone aside and casually picked up the stack of Chinese homework sitting at the corner of his desk. But that small, innocent gesture drained away the satisfaction he’d just built up.

What on earth were these?

The smile faded from Chu Cheng’s face, bit by bit.

It was either cryptic scrawl like ghost marks, or blank spaces where entire sections were missing — they hadn’t even bothered to copy the answers. One holiday, and everything they’d learned, every stroke of that calligraphy practice, handed right back to him.

By the time he got through most of the pile, it turned out only the few books on top were halfway decent — clearly the class rep had put those there to cushion the blow for the teacher.

The more Chu Cheng flipped through the work, the more furious he got — but he couldn’t actually tear up the students’ homework, so he crumpled up a couple sheets of scrap paper instead to vent his irritation.

Sure enough — the moment you step back on the job, patience and kindness become nothing but drifting clouds.

He snatched up his phone, deleted the Moments post in a fit of petty revenge, and hammered out a new status update:

[It’s fine, I’m not mad. Really.]

Knock knock—

Chu Cheng had barely finished grumbling when he twisted around in his chair to look at the office door.

Yu Siting stood there, tapping the glass and mouthing the words: “Meeting time.”

“Mhm…” Chu Cheng sighed and slumped back against his chair.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing that there were no other teachers around, Yu Siting stepped inside and casually set a confiscated phone down on Chu Cheng’s desk. “Mu Yiyang’s.”

Chu Cheng stared at the phone for a second, then mumbled, “That post was only up for a few minutes… and you already saw it?”

Yu Siting braced one arm casually on the edge of the desk, looking at the very picture of sincerity.
“At the start of a new term — when everyone’s on edge — shouldn’t I be keeping a closer eye on my deputy homeroom teacher’s mental state?”

Then his gaze dropped to the two A4 sheets on the desk, now crumpled into miserable paper balls. The corners of his mouth tugged up in a knowing smile.
“Really fine? Not angry at all? Doesn’t look that way to me.”

“Ah—” Chu Cheng let out a drawn-out groan, feeling utterly exposed. He stuffed Mu Yiyang’s phone into his dedicated confiscation drawer and pulled a face.
“Anyway, that brat wasn’t wrong — I really shouldn’t go around making declarations like that.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Yu Siting didn’t bother letting him whine. He just reached out, grabbed the back of Chu Cheng’s hoodie collar, and dragged him right out of his chair toward the meeting room.

The first homeroom teachers’ meeting of the term brought together the same familiar faces. Everyone settled in, exchanging light chatter before the formalities began.

Nothing much had changed in the agenda — the usual talk of daily class management, key students to watch, parent communication, and how to pass on the school’s shiny new rules and requirements.

Chu Cheng listened with one ear while jotting down the occasional note, but most of the time he was busy checking the group chats on his phone.

Teacher Yang had just posted the new semester’s teaching research schedule in the Chinese department chat. He’d even sent Chu Cheng a private message with extra pointers, gently reminding his junior to pay attention to a few details, and assigning him to handle some of the holiday homework explanations — plus record a demo lesson as practice.

When the principal’s speech finally wound down, Chu Cheng made a show of grabbing his half-empty notebook of ‘meeting minutes’ and left the room with Yu Siting to head back to class.

“My hoodie — what the hell? Did you rip the hood when you yanked me just now?”

“Don’t blame me. It was already like that when it was hanging on the balcony this morning.”

“I swear—”

“Teacher Chu.”

“Director Yang!” Chu Cheng heard the voice calling him from behind and instantly dropped his griping. He fussed with his clothes, composed himself, and turned back around.

Director Yang strode up to him, brows knitted tight, his expression grim as he got right to the point.
“You used to share an apartment with Zhou Jin, right?”

Chu Cheng nodded. “We did before — but not anymore.”

Director Yang’s frown didn’t ease up in the slightest.
“Come with me to the principal’s office for a moment.”

The principal’s office?

Chu Cheng froze for a second, glancing at him in confusion. If this was about a work matter, at most it should involve the Academic Affairs or Student Discipline offices — there was no need to drag him all the way to the top.

Yu Siting had already picked up on the unusual tension in Director Yang’s face. His voice dropped a notch as he asked, “What’s happened?”

Seeing both of them genuinely clueless, Director Yang let out a weary sigh — there was no point delaying it. He leaned closer and said in a low voice,
“Someone reported Teacher Zhou to the Education Bureau for running unauthorized private tutoring. The school’s got to cooperate with the investigation.”

Chu Cheng’s heart gave a sudden jolt. His lips moved, but no words came out.

Yu Siting’s expression darkened, and his voice grew serious. “What does that have to do with him?”

Director Yang replied, “The video evidence provided in the report also captured Teacher Chu.”