Chapter 157: The Title Is a Bit Unreliable

"This is not about complexity," Zhang Pa said. "Most people in this world are shortsighted, or rather, they don't see far enough ahead. Let alone matters after they are gone, they don't even want to think about tomorrow. Only when a person looks far enough ahead can they achieve great development, much like Long Jianjun."

Liu Xiaomei asked, "What about you? Do you look far ahead?"

Zhang Pa replied, "Not really."

"Why not? Aren't you quite smart?" Liu Xiaomei said.

Zhang Pa smiled. "You never like this topic."

"Of course not," Liu Xiaomei said. "I just want to live a simple and happy life. No troublesome matters should ever find me." With that, she looked at Zhang Pa. "Let's make a pact."

Zhang Pa said you are too polite, just give your orders directly.

"Our pact is that from now on, I can tell you about all the trouble I encounter and come to you for help, and you have to sort it out. Deal?" Liu Xiaomei asked.

Zhang Pa said, "You are confessing to me once again. You must understand that my willpower is extremely weak; if I'm not careful, I might just yield to you..."

"I certainly don't want you to yield. Let's go home," Liu Xiaomei said.

Then it was back to their respective homes, business as usual. Zhang Pa had to hurry up and get to work, toiling away until the small hours of the morning before finally closing his laptop to sleep.

The next day, Monday, representatives from the district government came down to talk with Zhang Pa. It was still because of that fire. Zhang Pa gave the officials zero face, speaking to them right at his doorstep: "I didn't do anything. I'm just a tenant. Go find whoever you want."

Because of his lack of cooperation, the staff sent by the district verified the situation with the neighborhood committee, had another chat, and went back to report on their assignment.

Once they left, Zhang Pa stepped outside to look, and the staff guarding the street corner had vanished, making him realize this matter was finally over.

Zhang Pa was more than eager to be left alone and hurried back to his room to redouble his efforts on his work.

At eleven o'clock, Principal Qin called to say you can come back to work, but with a catch. You won't even be a temporary worker. Although you carry the title of head teacher and will receive a salary, if anyone reports this, we will deny everything completely.

Zhang Pa said thank you.

For him to be allowed back to class, Deputy Bureau Chief Qi must have pulled strings everywhere, begging everyone he could, just to get the leadership cadres at the Education Bureau to tacitly permit Zhang Pa's presence. Put simply: we know nothing, go ahead and do whatever you want, just don't drag us down with you when things go south.

Given how much personal capital Deputy Bureau Chief Qi had expended on this favor, Zhang Pa felt quite bad about it. He resolved to teach well as a way to repay the two soon-to-retire old men.

Principal Qin said, "I don't know who on earth you offended, but you'd better smooth things over so the higher-ups don't come making trouble again. By the time that happens... oh, never mind. Anyway, I'm retiring soon; just push any blame onto me. When are you coming to class?"

Zhang Pa said tomorrow.

Principal Qin instructed him, "Change your clothes!" and hung up the phone.

Zhang Pa smiled. What the principal meant wasn't necessarily just changing clothes, but rather that he should clean himself up properly to cover up his bald head, his scars, and his black eye.

Trouble always comes in waves. In the morning, Principal Qin brought Zhang Pa good news, but in the afternoon, someone brought the principal bad news.

On the day he took Liu Yue to the Women and Children's Hospital for her surgery, Zhang Pa had jinxed it by making an offhand remark: what if another student gets pregnant?

That remark came true.

At a little past two in the afternoon, the principal had gone to the Education Bureau to see Old Qi and ponder over Zhang Pa's situation, partly to gauge the attitude of the leadership and partly to see if there was any better turning point. Suddenly, he received this call and hurried back to the school.

This case was much more severe. Liu Yue was at least a third-year middle school student, but this time, it was a first-year girl who was pregnant. Looking like a gentle, quiet, well-behaved little sister, the child in her belly was actually already more than six months along.

The girl's family lived not far away. She came home for lunch at noon and suddenly had a stomachache. Her mother thought it was just her first period, but after asking, looking, and checking—good grief! She was pregnant?

They rushed her to the hospital. Once the child's stomachache stopped, her mother's heart started aching, and she rushed to the school to demand an explanation of what on earth was going on.

From this incident, one could see just how immensely difficult it is for parents to take good care of a child!

The child simply wouldn't communicate with her family; they lived in entirely separate worlds. Take this matter, for instance: the mother didn't even know the child had ever had her period, and yet she was already pregnant?

The parents came to the school, but the school knew nothing either. Out of more than forty students in the entire class, along with the head teacher, not a single person knew this girl was pregnant.

Principal Qin rushed back immediately. Together with the head of instruction, the head teacher, and the grade head, numerous people surrounded the parents to ask what was happening.

After all, she was just a little first-year middle school girl!

Nothing was extracted from the questioning; neither the school nor the parents understood the situation, so the parents could only go back home and ask the child again. But the child refused to say a single word! The head teacher left work early to accompany the parents in the questioning.

The school side had to wait for definite news.

The definite news was that there was no news. The little girl said nothing at all. Throughout the entire day, the only words she spoke were: "I agree to abort the child."

A first-year student, thirteen years of age—this was grounds to call the police.

The parents did not call the police. After turning it over in their minds, they decided they couldn't call the police! Once the police were involved, the whole world would know, and the child was still young, with a very long road ahead of her in the future.

The head teacher stayed with the student for two hours, but still couldn't get a word out of her, and could only leave temporarily. On the way, she called the principal to explain the situation.

Principal Qin desperately wanted to curse. Every single day was filled with nothing but trouble; couldn't they give him a few days of peace? He turned right around and called Zhang Pa: "You little bastard! Your jinxing mouth hit the mark—a first-year girl is pregnant, refuses to say anything, and the parents don't want to call the police. What do you suggest we do?"

Zhang Pa said calmly, "You're overthinking it. The most important thing to do right now is to solve the problem, not to trace the root cause. If the student agrees, terminate the pregnancy; if she doesn't agree, let her keep it. Wait for a while until the student's emotions stabilize, and then ask her slowly."

Principal Qin sighed. "I must owe you in a past life."

Zhang Pa wasn't afraid of scoundrels; he was only afraid of good people like this. He sighed and said, "I promise to take good care of Class Eighteen."

The principal shouted, "You damn well better take good care of them! Otherwise, you'll be letting Old Qi down."

That was true; it would let Deputy Bureau Chief Qi down. Zhang Pa gave a muffled acknowledgement and said, "Hurry up and arrange a few more physiological health classes for the kids. I've been at the school for so long, and I've never seen any class get popular education on that kind of knowledge."

The principal said he understood and hung up the phone.

Late at night, Xun Ruyu called again, saying she had written another rough outline and main characters, and asked Zhang Pa to log onto QQ to receive the file. So he received it, opened it, and read through it. Zhang Pa said, "I'll keep the characters for you, but leave the rest alone. I'll let you see it when it's written."

Xun Ruyu said no, arguing that some of the plots were ones she wanted to highlight and must be included.

Zhang Pa said, "Here's the thing, it doesn't work like that. You can't just highlight whatever you want. To put it bluntly, you're driven by sentimentality, always dwelling on some person or event from the past and wanting to highlight it. Actually, there's no need. Everyone is the protagonist of their own life, and everyone is bound to encounter things they want to highlight. Such plots are too numerous, too similar, and lack brilliance. Before shooting a film, you need to ask yourself clearly: do you want to shoot a slightly decent film, or do you want to shoot your own nostalgia for others to look at?"

Xun Ruyu said, "Can't we unify the two into one?"

"That's impossible. If you really want to unify them into one, a few hundred thousand in investment won't cut it," Zhang Pa said. "Have a little patience; I'll get the script out as fast as possible, and we can talk then."

"You must be as quick as you can," Xun Ruyu urged before ending the call.

After finishing this call, he sat in front of the computer for quite a long time. Suddenly, Zhang Pa didn't feel like typing; he wanted a long, extended break. He should take advantage of the gap left by the end of his previous book to rest for another month or two, instead of rushing into writing a new beginning and a new story like this, hurriedly plunging himself into another round of busyness.

If it were just hurried busyness, he could persevere. But what was the motivation for a person to persevere? What was he persevering for?

Before saving Long Xiaole, Zhang Pa had less than ten thousand yuan in his bank card. But saving Long Xiaole earned him two hundred thousand, and fighting a boxing match with Wang Zhongxing netted him a million.

These two sums of money had come extremely quickly, and also felt entirely unreal. To this day, Zhang Pa still hadn't developed the mindset of a millionaire.

Yet, these two massive sums had indeed come quickly. By comparison, all the effort he had put into writing every single day for the past four plus years—all his combined efforts added together—had not brought in as much money as these two quick windfalls, not even a tenth of it.

With such a contrast, such an intense contrast, he suddenly lost the motivation to type.

He had always claimed, "I don't write stories for money." But without the money from writing stories, how could he have survived? Wasn't writing stories precisely about earning more money?

He dreamed of gaining both fame and fortune.

He got up and walked around to stretch, went to the bathroom, washed his face, poured a cup of tea... After doing a series of small tasks, he felt his mood settle somewhat, and he went back to work, starting to type again.

On Tuesday, Teacher Zhang, who hadn't appeared for a long time, finally arrived. Wearing a hat and sunglasses, dressed in a full set of black formal wear, and carrying a computer bag, he had a strong cinematic character vibe about him.

He hurried all the way through without greeting anyone. Upon entering Class Eighteen, he sat down behind the desk, opened his computer, and set to work.

Teacher Zhang had finally returned, and the students were thrilled. Almost everyone greeted him eagerly: "Welcome back, Teacher Zhang! Are we going to have barbecue to celebrate after school?"

Why were they so eager? The reason lay in that second half of the sentence. Everyone had been waiting for that meal after the midterm exams, but Zhang Pa kept not showing up at school...

To the students' enthusiastic greetings, Zhang Pa smiled and shooed them all away with a single question: "Did you pass?"

These three words possessed immense power, effortlessly crushing the entire class.

Liu Yue and Luo Chengchai had arrived together. Upon entering and seeing Zhang Pa, the two exchanged glances. Liu Yue backed out of the classroom, while Luo Chengchai went over to speak to Zhang Pa in a low voice: "Teacher, could you step outside for a moment?"

Zhang Pa went outside with him. As soon as they stopped, Luo Chengchai and Liu Yue bowed deeply to him. After straightening up, the two whispered their thanks. Liu Yue explained, "It was my ignorance the day before yesterday. I'm sorry."

Zhang Pa was slightly baffled. "How did you two change your tune so fast?"

"It's not a change of tune; we were genuinely in the wrong," Liu Yue said. "Thank you, teacher."

Still not quite grasping the rhythm of it, Zhang Pa said, "Go on inside." He was the first to re-enter the room, picking up his laptop to head to the office. (To be continued.)