"Of course I was unwilling. I came to the school to be a Teacher, not to be his nanny. Why should I wash his clothes?"
Hearing this, Lin Yuan raised her hand to cover her mouth and sneaked a smile. She didn’t expect Meng Liangdong to have a bit of a temper after all.
But clearly, his bit of temper was far from enough to deter those who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Meng Liangdong clenched his fists, righteously indignant, "But if I didn’t wash his clothes, he would run to Mr. Steward the very next day, falsely accusing me of stealing his things, and even claimed I spoke ill of Mr. Steward in the middle of the night. How could I have stolen his things or spoken ill of anyone? Although Mr. Steward took my Silver, he was, after all, the one who let me stay at the school, and for that, I was somewhat grateful to him. However, Mr. Steward didn’t see it that way. He believed that person’s words without even asking me and sent me to the place where punished students were made to do labor, there, I had to wash clothes for all the students in the academy. Just like that, I washed clothes there for three days."
Lin Yuan bit her lip, thinking about how someone like Meng Liangdong, who had been brought up reading The Sage Book since childhood, must have coped during those three days. She wondered if he ever regretted coming to the school.
"Why don’t you leave when they bully you ? Isn’t this like paying Silver only to suffer?"
Meng Liangdong gave a bitter smile, "Yes, that’s exactly what I did—spend my own Silver to suffer. But every time I thought about how it wouldn’t be after three days, I felt that I had to persevere. Three days later, perhaps my roommate thought I was stubborn and didn’t bother me anymore, then Mr. Steward assigned me to a class to replace a Teacher who had left due to some reasons. Just thinking about teaching made me so excited that I didn’t sleep the entire night."
"The next day, I put on a clean set of clothes, even made a point of combing my hair, and arrived at class very early. But as soon as I entered, my head, and my body too, were hit by an Inkstone placed on the doorframe by some student."
As he spoke, Meng Liangdong seemed to be back in that moment when he was drenched in thick ink, feeling uncomfortable all over. He scratched his messy hair as if it still retained the foul-smelling black ink.
Lin Yuan sympathetically picked at her fingertips, imagining his awkward state at that time and the students’ raucous laughter after their prank succeeded.
Meng Liangdong shook his head, "I was furious and went to complain to Mr. Steward, but he just waved it off casually, saying that the students in that class all had influential backgrounds, and told me not to take it personally with them. Otherwise, I feared I wouldn’t be able to stay at the school any longer."
So they were all sons and daughters of the rich and powerful. Lin Yuan got the picture—such students were the toughest to handle. Be too strict, and they resent you; be lenient, and their parents disapprove.
Mr. Steward was also quite shrewd, offloading such a burden onto Meng Liangdong, the new Teacher. It was clear bullying, indicating that Mr. Steward had believed that roommate’s words and had taken a dislike to him.
Sure enough, the following days in Meng Liangdong’s life could be described as miserable. After the first incident, the second and third times became much easier. Placing Inkstone on the doorframe, putting snakes on the Teacher’s table, smearing glue on the chairs. There was even a time when a student fell asleep during class and, because Meng Liangdong’s lecturing voice disturbed him, the student picked up his stool and hurled it forward. If Meng Liangdong hadn’t dodged quickly, that stool would have hit him directly.
Such a life was simply unbearable, and even worse, given his nature, he also didn’t get along well with the other Teachers. Not to mention his roommate—the other Teachers, knowing he was new, would trick him into treating them to meals every now and then, and always at extremely high-end places.