Chapter 90: Sorting Out the Problem
When the banner was hung up, Xu Xinghe—who had just taken first place in the midterm Chinese exam—was hopping mad beside it, “Why did I come late! Who writes a slogan like this? At least make it rhyme!”
“Each short phrase has fewer and fewer characters, which means our class ranking is improving,” Jiang Chuchu tried to justify it.
Yu Xin, who had measured the banner’s length and width and helped calculate the font size, felt a bit guilty.
There was nothing she could do—she was good at math, not Chinese.
Xu Xinghe sighed in resignation, accepting his fate.
Chen Zelin, being dragged around by the students, quickly sensed that something was off.
Not just him—the other teachers of Class 3 noticed it too.
The teachers, having once been students themselves, exchanged knowing glances and quietly waited to see the drama unfold.
Chen Zelin didn’t expose anything. He calmly explained a few problems to students who brought him questions, but when he saw Gu Qinghuan being pulled aside by someone and then returning, he immediately sat up straighter.
“Are you all ready?” Chen Zelin asked slowly.
The other teachers in the office perked up their ears—Here it comes!
Gu Qinghuan wasn’t surprised to be found out. She beamed and said, “Homeroom teacher, please step this way~”
Chen Zelin laughed, stood up, and followed Gu Qinghuan to the classroom. On the way out, he winked at the other teachers—If you want to watch the show, better come now.
The teachers hurried after them, a lively crowd heading to enjoy the gossip.
When they reached the classroom door, Chen Zelin immediately saw the banner on the back blackboard. He couldn’t help but feel both amused and touched, “You kept me busy all morning just for this?”
On the bright red banner, golden paint set off the bold cursive writing, making it even more striking and imposing—
“From fifth to third, our goal is still ahead!”
—To our teacher.
The teachers who came to watch blocked the doorway and windows, laughing while snapping photos to post on their social media.
Gu Qinghuan said confidently, “We did so well this time, we have to celebrate!”
“The first and second place classes didn’t celebrate,” Chen Zelin muttered, tempted to cover his face.
“Why compare ourselves to them? We’re celebrating for ourselves. As long as we’re happy, that’s what matters!” Gu Qinghuan said seriously. “For us, it’s progress!”
Chen Zelin was stunned for a moment, then realized—he had been influenced by the rumors.
He didn’t know where the rumors started, but he’d heard people say that although Class 3’s average score ranking was high this time, there weren’t many high scorers, meaning he wasn’t a competent homeroom teacher.
To put it simply, if the college entrance exam passing score was 450 points, even if everyone in Class 3 scored 440, not one person would pass the cutoff.
Originally, Chen Zelin had been pleased with his students’ improvement, but after hearing such words, his joy had vanished.
Seeing him pause, Gu Qinghuan thought he was still bothered, so she added, “It’s not like only first place has meaning. As long as we work hard and get the results we deserve, that’s worth being happy about!”
“Exactly!” Chen Zelin picked up her words, his smile now filled with relief. “I know how hard you’ve worked during this time—you’re amazing!”
Chinese teacher Lu Yezi chimed in, “That praise is as straightforward as the slogan.”
Xu Xinghe immediately agreed, “Right! I told you the slogan was too simple!”
The Chinese teacher and her star student quickly reached a consensus and huddled together to discuss what a better slogan might be.
Chen Zelin awkwardly touched his nose and, under the students’ gaze, coughed once, “Since it’s already hung up, just leave it. But it has to come down next week.”
“Okaaay~” the students replied in drawn-out voices.
After the teachers left, Bao Qingsong secretly lifted one corner of the banner. Seeing the spray paint on the blackboard that hadn’t been fully cleaned, he clicked his tongue, “This stuff is really stubborn…”
Gu Qinghuan let out a long breath. “I was so worried a teacher would come lift it.”
“As long as it gets by, it’s fine,” Song Yi said, wiping away sweat. “During lunch break and after school, I’ll bring some people to wipe it a few more times—it should come off completely.”
“We still have to figure out who did it,” Jiang Chuchu said with arms crossed. “If this keeps happening every now and then, that’ll be a problem.”
Gu Qinghuan turned to Qin Yue. “Did your photography group find any clues?”
“Actually, yes,” Qin Yue nodded. “On the spray paint, there are a few fingerprints.”
As he spoke, he pulled out a photo to show Gu Qinghuan. “Here—see? I think they accidentally touched it after spraying, leaving their fingerprints.”
“We can’t check the fingerprints of the whole school,” Bao Qingsong complained.
“We can narrow down suspects first, then compare their prints,” Ming Xiaolan suggested, pushing up her glasses.
“But narrowing down suspects isn’t easy—we still don’t know why they did it,” Jiang Chuchu said helplessly.
Gu Qinghuan thought for a moment, then went up to the podium, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote down a few questions, “First—why write it on the back blackboard?”
She answered herself, “If they wanted to insult us, they’d write it on the front blackboard where we’d see it immediately. But they wrote it on the back, which means…”
“It means the intended audience isn’t us, but the people who see the back blackboard more often and for longer—teachers!” Yu Xin reacted the fastest.
Gu Qinghuan wrote “Target: Teachers” after the question.
“Second question—what does writing ‘trash’ mean?”
“Exactly! We ranked third in the whole grade this time—how is that trash?” Qin Yue muttered.
“Since it’s aimed at teachers and not students, it’s probably not about us doing badly,” Jiang Chuchu analyzed. “Maybe they think the teachers teach poorly?”
“But some of our teachers also teach other classes—why only target our class?” someone pointed out.
“If that’s the case, we can use elimination—who teaches only our class?”
“All of them do, since there are over ten classes in Grade 1…”
“Wait,” Ming Xiaolan interrupted. “Homeroom teachers! At Mingde High, homeroom teachers don’t teach any class other than their own.”
Gu Qinghuan erased “Teachers” and replaced it with “Homeroom Teacher.”
Jiang Chuchu frowned. “So they think our homeroom teacher is bad?”
“But our English is pretty good, isn’t it?” Xie Xiangxue quickly retorted. Although she didn’t beat Su Lin this time, she was confident in Class 3’s English performance.
“Then it’s not about English—it’s saying he’s bad as a homeroom teacher?” Yu Xin said, then suddenly realized something. She exchanged glances with Gu Qinghuan, Jiang Chuchu, and Qin Yue, but didn’t speak.
Last night’s words from Su Lin still echoed in their ears—another homeroom teacher, one who happened to be present, had spoken badly about Chen Zelin.
“Something’s up,” Ming Xiaolan’s eyes were sharp. “You guys know something, don’t you?”
“We have a lead,” Gu Qinghuan said. “Anyway, let’s start investigating Class 12.”
The class president spoke so decisively that no one objected. They all started discussing it in the class group chat.
They couldn’t all go question people—that would be too obvious.
They reviewed their connections, planning to send two people to separately ask different students, and even discussed how to phrase questions so as not to arouse suspicion.
Seeing the group chat buzzing, Yu Xin thought for a moment, then opened her chat with Yu Yuan—yes, they’d added each other as friends, and sometimes Yu Xin sent her pictures of Sesame.
She typed: [Do you know what happened in our class?]
Yu Xin saw “The other person is typing…” appear at the top of the chat window, but after a while, nothing came through. Yu Yuan didn’t send a message.
She must have typed something and deleted it—definitely suspicious! Yu Xin pocketed her phone.
No problem—tonight, she’d go knock on Yu Yuan’s door herself!
