Under immense pressure, the class monitor handed over that sheet of A4 paper.
The head teacher’s surrounding air pressure grew even heavier upon seeing the contents of the paper, yet his tone instead turned flat, though everyone could sense the suppressed storm about to break within it.
“Yours?” he asked the class monitor.
The class monitor shook his head repeatedly, terrified of being caught up in the impending storm, and pointed toward a corner in the back row: “Theirs.”
The head teacher’s sharp gaze instantly locked onto the group gathered in the back row.
Duan Xiyan had no time to think; he instinctively wanted to step forward and claim that fatal sheet of A4 paper. He had already taken half a step out when he was reeled back by a voice suddenly sounding beside him.
The study commissioner clutched the stack of homework in his arms tightly and stammered, “Teacher, it is… it was dropped from Yu Zhen’s homework booklet.”
The head teacher raised an eyebrow, appearing somewhat surprised, but immediately sank his face again, folded the A4 paper, and said, “Out.” He turned and headed toward the office.
Amidst a silence of collective gazes, Yu Zhen silently stood up, bypassed the group clustered around his seat, and exited through the back door.
The answer key Wu Hu had managed to acquire was for mathematics. Since the head teacher did not teach math and was unfamiliar with the problems on the monthly exam paper, he was temporarily unable to judge the authenticity of the answers.
He led Yu Zhen straight to the office of their class’s math teacher.
“Teacher Xie, take a look at this answer key. Are these the answers for next week’s monthly exam?”
Teacher Xie, the math teacher, was a cheerful and efficient middle-aged female teacher. She still looked somewhat perplexed as she accepted the A4 paper, her gaze pausing on Yu Zhen behind the head teacher for two seconds before shifting to the paper, after which her expression grew solemn.
“It really is. Where did this come from?”
In truth, there was no need for her to speak; her expression had already told the head teacher the answer. With a dark face, the head teacher let out a cold snort: “You will have to ask Yu Zhen from your class about that.”
Teacher Xie glanced at Yu Zhen once more, the teenager silently pressing his lips together.
“Your Teacher Xie is asking you, where did the answer key come from?” The anger in the head teacher’s voice was like a runaway beast, no longer suppressible as it washed over them like a violent storm.
Yet the teenager remained silent for a moment before calmly stating, “I do not know.”
“You do not know?” The head teacher laughed out of anger. “Could it be that it crawled onto you by itself? Or are you trying to say someone else left it with you? Huh?”
Yu Zhen’s expression shifted slightly, but he still said nothing.
“How old are you, huh? Think about it yourself, you are already in the second year of high school, and you will be taking the college entrance exams next year, yet you still pull stunts like this. Aren’t you ashamed? Your father said you frequently engage in petty theft and lack basic integrity, telling me to discipline you properly. I refused to believe it, saying Yu Zhen is a model student in school… I never expected you to actually do something like this! Stealing answer keys!”
The head teacher’s emotions were extremely agitated, and he slammed his desk fiercely, especially when uttering the words “stealing answer keys.”
Yet the teenager standing before him was like a wooden statue, showing not a single reaction, not even the slightest change in expression. The head teacher felt as if he had thrown a punch at cotton, making him even angrier.
Perhaps he might have still harbored the inclination to explain earlier, but upon hearing the sentence structure beginning with “your father,” he lost even the patience to listen further.
Teacher Xie beside them also seemed startled by the head teacher’s sudden outburst. It took her a good moment to recover, and seizing the gap in his heavy breathing, she helped Yu Zhen explain: “Please do not get too excited. There might truly be a misunderstanding here; with Yu Zhen’s caliber, there is simply no need for him to steal an answer key.”
She understood the student she had taught for two years. Yu Zhen was the smartest student she had taught in her decade-plus career, nearly scoring full marks on every single exam. She refused to believe he would ever commit such an act as stealing answers.
The head teacher calmed down slightly and began questioning Teacher Xie’s explanation: “His caliber? If he is capable of doing something like stealing answers, there is no guarantee how he got those high scores in the first place!”
Teacher Xie was rendered speechless.
The head teacher’s emotions were far too stirred up; he seemed to have firmly slapped the label of “answer thief” onto Yu Zhen.
Yet Teacher Xie still trusted her own judgment, attempting to help the head teacher sort out the logic.
“Yu Zhen, tell Teacher Xie, did you steal this answer key?” Teacher Xie’s voice was gentle yet firm.
The teenager met her gaze for a moment before finally opening his mouth to deny it: “No.”
“If you did not steal it, then explain to me why this answer key appeared inside your homework booklet?” The head teacher raised his voice.
“I do not know.”
Seeing the head teacher about to flare up again, Teacher Xie chimed in, “Director Yu, please calm down first. If Yu Zhen did not steal this answer key, then naturally he would not know why it appeared there.”
The head teacher’s surname was also Yu. Come to think of it, he could even be considered a distant cousin of Yu Zhen.
When Yu Zhen first entered this school to study, Mr. Yu had given him a warning, stating that the boy’s hands were not clean, he was full of malicious intentions, had run away from home since childhood, and was notoriously rebellious, asking him to teach the boy a harsh lesson.
Parents understand their children best, and he already knew a thing or two about Yu Zhen’s family situation, thus cultivating a preconceived negative impression of Yu Zhen.
Prompted by Teacher Xie’s reminder, instead of realizing any flaws in his own logic, the head teacher sneered, “Teacher Xie, I almost let you lead me astray. Now the answer key was found in Yu Zhen’s possession; this is the evidence of his answer theft.”
He turned back to face Yu Zhen: “If you claim you did not steal the answers, then produce the evidence.”
“You need to think carefully. Our school maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward cheating—at best it is disciplinary probation, and at worst direct expulsion!”
The situation reached a stalemate.
Yu Zhen fell silent for a moment, parting his lips to say something, when he was interrupted by an abrupt knock on the door.
Duan Xiyan dragged a bewildered Wu Hu, panting heavily as he appeared at the office doorway.
“Teacher, Yu Zhen did not steal the answer key.” Duan Xiyan practically shouted it out, his eager voice mixed with unpacified breaths.
“What do you mean?”
Duan Xiyan pushed Wu Hu forward: “Ask him, he knows where the answer key came from.”
Wu Hu: Is this something that can just be said?
A few minutes prior, Duan Xiyan had rushed into the classroom of Class 3, Year 5 where Wu Hu was located, and without a word grabbed him and bolted outside. When subjected to the reflex question of “Where are we going?”
The other had replied: “To surrender.”
Only at this moment did Wu Hu understand what his Xiyan bro meant by “surrendering.”
The bewildered look on Wu Hu’s face instantly morphed into shock. Rising from the dead like a startled carp, he cast a panicked, disbelieving look back at Duan Xiyan, unable to fathom how he had just been sold out so easily by his Xiyan bro.
He wanted to shrink back on the spot, but was pinned in place by the head teacher’s piercing gaze, the implication crystal clear: either confess honestly, or wait for ruin.
“I, I…” Wu Hu stammered for a long while. “Actually I am not quite sure either…”
“You are sure,” Duan Xiyan asserted.
Wu Hu’s expression looking back at him was almost tearful. Weren’t they supposed to be best brothers for life? This was shoving a brother straight into a fire pit.
Seeing a clue to the situation, Teacher Xie asked, “Duan Xiyan, why are you so certain he knows?”
“Because this answer key is”
“Fine, fine, I will talk!” Wu Hu felt like crying without tears. He finally saw it clearly; his Xiyan bro was determined to screw him over today.
“I got the answers from Zhang Yu in our class, and then I put them inside Yu Zhen’s math homework booklet.”
Wu Hu spoke softer and softer, yet the few individuals present clearly heard the contents of his words.
Prompted by some unknown impulse, Duan Xiyan secretly glanced at Yu Zhen, only to find the other looking right back at him with a puzzled expression. Their gazes touched for merely a fraction of a second before both instinctively averted their eyes elsewhere.
“You got the answers, put them into Yu Zhen’s homework booklet, what were you trying to pull?”
Wu Hu tangled himself in a knot. He certainly couldn’t say it was to frame Yu Zhen, or else his crimes would become even more severe.
At the crucial moment, Duan Xiyan finally seemed to remember Wu Hu was his brother, fabricating an excuse for him: “He originally wanted to put them into my homework booklet, but I asked for leave this morning and did not come, so I didn’t submit a homework booklet. He probably mistook it.”
The head teacher scrutinized the two of them with skepticism for a few seconds before waving a hand: “Go call the person who gave you the answers down here.”
“Uh, right.”
Wu Hu trotted off to “invite” Zhang Yu down to the office. This fellow was a member of the school bully clique, pulling up the radish brought up the dirt, and before long, the regular visitors of the grade office had all gathered.
The head teacher threw a massive fit, ordering them on the spot to summon their parents. During the waiting period, the evening self-study bell rang. Yu Zhen was sent back, and Duan Xiyan, the uninformed bystander, was also acquitted and released.
Leaving the office, Wu Hu gave him a resentful look, one that made Duan Xiyan feel somewhat guilty.
He inexplicably felt as though he resembled a heartless scumbag who abandoned his wife and child.
Yet there was no helping it; doing wrong required bearing the consequences. Even if he hadn’t dragged Wu Hu to surrender, the truth would have eventually led back to him anyway.
After all, that homework booklet had traveled from the teacher’s office to the study commissioner’s hands, and then been wrestled over by him and Lu Qifei; Yu Zhen hadn’t even touched it once throughout the entire process—the loophole was far too obvious.
Yu Zhen wasn’t a fool; he wouldn’t just let himself be wrongfully accused.
In the corridor, Yu Zhen and Duan Xiyan walked one after the other toward the classroom.
Morning self-study was already underway, and reading aloud echoed from the classrooms they passed. The two of them were the only ones in the hallway.
Duan Xiyan watched Yu Zhen walking ahead of him. The teenager’s spine was straight, his silent silhouette exuding a resilience that transcended his age.
This was probably not the first time he had been maliciously framed, allowing him to remain calmer from start to finish than any bystander.
Yet only Duan Xiyan knew what turbulent waves were quietly gathering beneath that calm facade.
Hesitating for a moment, Duan Xiyan quickened his pace, reaching out with the intention of patting Yu Zhen’s shoulder, only to have the other alertly dodge away.
The instant those amber eyes turned back to look at him, the restless irritation and aversion that hadn’t time to be concealed clashed straight into Duan Xiyan’s field of vision.
Duan Xiyan froze. In a flash, Yu Zhen’s expression had already recovered its cold composure, as if that fleeting aversion from just moments ago had merely been an illusion.
Yet Duan Xiyan knew very well in his heart that the degree of aversion Yu Zhen harbored toward him ran vastly deeper than what he had accidentally revealed just then.
Duan Xiyan drew a breath, turning serious: “I am sorry about what happened today. I promise this kind of thing will not happen again.”
“It has nothing to do with you.” Yu Zhen’s words were not intended to comfort Duan Xiyan, but merely a straightforward statement of fact.
“It does have to do with me. If I hadn’t always bullied you, Wu Hu wouldn’t have done such a thing. But you can rest assured, I won’t bully you anymore from now on.”
Yu Zhen’s footsteps paused. He gave Duan Xiyan a rare, direct look, though his gaze carried undisguised mockery.
He seemed as if he wanted to say something, but ultimately said nothing, coldly leaving Duan Xiyan behind as he quickened his pace away.