When she said those words, Lin Wanxing admitted she was being somewhat impulsive.

After all, standing in front of parents and saying “I was the provincial top liberal arts scorer, entrust your children to me” sounded overly confident and arrogant no matter how you looked at it.

Lin Wanxing had prepared herself to be ridiculed.

But what she hadn’t expected was that after a few seconds of stunned silence, the student’s parents and the teachers beside them all simultaneously took out their phones.

“Is ‘Lin’ written with two wood radicals, and Wanxing the characters for ‘evening star’?” Qi Liang’s mother suddenly asked in a gentle tone.

“Ah, yes.”

After Lin Wanxing answered, the parents began searching intently on their phones.

They carefully examined the search results for a while, then asked somewhat incredulously — “Is this ‘Lin Wanxing’ from Yongchuan Experimental Middle School you?”

“It’s me.”

“Teacher Lin, are you going to tutor our children?” Yu Ming’s mother’s eyes brightened.

“We couldn’t possibly impose like that.” Qi Liang’s mother immediately chimed in.

“I didn’t say tutoring.”

Faced with the parents’ eager gazes, Lin Wanxing was bewildered, unsure why the topic had suddenly changed.

“I understand, I understand. The Ministry of Education strictly prohibits teachers from tutoring students outside of school. You can just pay more attention to them at school.”

Lin Wanxing very much wanted to steer the conversation back on track, but the parents unanimously linked “helping the children get into their ideal universities” with “tutoring.”

Soon, the topic had progressed to the parents unanimously voting in their small group chat that if the students’ monthly exam scores improved, they would agree to let her continue leading them, and wouldn’t object even if they occasionally played in matches.

“Teacher Lin, you said you could help the children get into their ideal universities. We parents need to see some interim results, don’t we?” Qi Liang’s mother said with a tone of finality.

Lin Wanxing couldn’t help but look toward Lin Lu’s homeroom teacher Wang. Being in the senior year teachers’ office with parents pulling her to tutor students looked very much like implying that the teachers weren’t doing their jobs properly.

But Teacher Wang and the other two teachers nearby, after the initial awkwardness, now all wore expressions of calm composure.

“We’ve always been concerned about Lin Lu, Chen Jianghe, and the other children. Since Teacher Lin was once our province’s top liberal arts scorer, she must have her own set of learning methods and is willing to use them to help them. That’s wonderful,” Lin Lu’s homeroom teacher Wang said.

“With a time limit and a sense of purpose, I think it’s excellent,” the middle-aged bespectacled teacher also said.

With all three parties in agreement, the matter was settled.

When Lin Wanxing walked out of the senior year teachers’ office, feeling the breeze against her face, she couldn’t have imagined that her first encounter with her parents would end this way.

“You were too impulsive just now,” Teacher Xiao Xu, who escorted her out, said. “You don’t know how terrible those students are.”

Lin Wanxing looked questioningly at Teacher Xiao Xu.

Teacher Xiao Xu, as if having held back for a long time, complained to her — “Lin Lu and Yu Ming are both in my class, so I know them very well. They’re garbage students that even teachers don’t bother managing. They never submit their homework, and in class, they either sleep or play with their phones. But as long as they don’t disrupt classroom discipline, not a single subject teacher will say a word.”

“Is it that serious?” Lin Wanxing knew they were troublemakers, but hadn’t realized to what extent.

“Chen Jianghe, there’s one called Chen Jianghe, right?” Teacher Xiao Xu said. “He often doesn’t even come to class. Once, for some reason, he stood in front of a math teacher’s desk for an entire day—a whole day—without saying a word or leaving. I don’t know why the school hasn’t expelled him yet.”

Lin Wanxing frowned slightly, but before she could speak, she heard Teacher Xiao Xu say — “The worst is that Fu Xinshu. You must know, right? He’s a thief.”

That day, Lin Wanxing stood in the breeze, listening to Teacher Xiao Xu, who leaned against the railing, telling her about her students for a long time.

The early autumn wind wasn’t particularly cold, but it still roared in her ears. Although yesterday’s soccer match made Lin Wanxing feel like she and her students had gone through a lot together, they all had sides she had never seen before.

In Teacher Xiao Xu’s words, they were students, but they were also, thoroughly and completely, trouble.

As if to confirm this, on the morning after she had made her promise, the “little troublemakers” who had received notifications from their parents began entering the door of her physical education office one after another.

The first to arrive were Qin Ao and Yu Ming.

Lin Wanxing was carrying tea eggs and sesame balls she’d bought from the school cafeteria when she reached her office door. There she saw Qin Ao sitting in her office chair while Yu Ming was squatting to one side, obviously not fully awake.

Qin Ao was not only eating the gummy worms from her desk but had also taken out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. It looked like if she hadn’t arrived for work, Qin Ao might have lit up right there.

Lin Wanxing glanced at the clock on the wall, suspecting she might be in a dream state where she hadn’t fully woken up yet — “It’s six-thirty now, right? Why are you here?”

“Because my mom said that the ‘provincial top liberal arts scorer’ Teacher Lin said she would tutor us and let me learn ‘standing in the snow outside the gate for teachings.’ So I was kicked out early this morning.”

“Good use of the idiom,” Lin Wanxing smiled. “Then could you please get up from the teacher’s chair and give the teacher her seat?”

Qin Ao reluctantly shifted his rear, eventually standing up and yielding the seat to her.

Lin Wanxing didn’t sit down, following her daily morning work routine instead.

She first brewed herself a cup of tea, then opened the windows of the equipment room, took a dry cloth, and quickly wiped down the shelves. After that, she used another cloth to wipe her desk surface and the surrounding storage racks.

When she took out a feather duster to dust the “Sports Equipment Borrowing Guidelines” on the wall, student Qin Ao finally couldn’t help asking — “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning, of course.”

Qin Ao stood against the wall, pointing to himself and the squatting Yu Ming — “What about us? You’re just leaving us hanging here without teaching?”

“You don’t want to be tutored, do you?” Lin Wanxing was shocked.

Qin Ao and Yu Ming exchanged a glance, with Yu Ming directly saying — “Boss if Teacher Lin won’t tutor us, what about our plan?”

“Are you joking with my mom?” Qin Ao ignored Yu Ming, looking like he was too angry to speak. He mocked, “Didn’t you tell Yu Ming’s mom whatever about wanting to help us get into our ideal universities?”

Qin Ao’s voice was so loud it seemed to make the equipment room windows tremble.

Lin Wanxing put down the feather duster, turned around, and looked at her student carefully for a moment.

“Do you want to go to university?” she asked calmly.

In an instant, Qin Ao was completely stunned.

The boy’s eyes widened in anger, even the scar below his eye looking fierce. But beyond that, there was also a lot of bewilderment.

Lin Wanxing finished dusting the wall, returned the duster to its original place, and finally sat down in her chair.

“I said I would tutor you because your parents didn’t agree to let you participate in the next match. But I felt that whether to participate or not shouldn’t be decided by them, but should depend on yourselves, so I wanted to help you fight for it.”

“And then you said you’d help us get into university to fight for it?” Qin Ao questioned. “Who do you think you are, that it’s your turn to manage us?”

“My mom said that Teacher Lin talked about ‘ideal universities,'” Yu Ming added from the side. “What if my ideal university is just Yongchuan University?”

“Everyone can have such ideals,” Lin Wanxing took a sip of tea from her cup and said very seriously.

But these words, to Qin Ao, perhaps sounded like a joke — “Idiot, she’s mocking you.”

Lin Wanxing shook her head gently, raising her eyes to look outside.

Chen Jianghe, the student who came to borrow a soccer ball every morning, appeared as usual at the door.

However, this time, Fu Xinshu was with him.

Fu Xinshu wore a face full of remorse, while Chen Jianghe appeared very angry.

Seeing this situation, Lin Wanxing guessed that Fu Xinshu had gone to confess to Chen Jianghe the fact that he hadn’t received anything. Fu Xinshu’s confession didn’t surprise Lin Wanxing, but the timing made her feel a bit of a headache.

On one side was the angry little Qin, on the other was the angry little Chen. And then there was little Fu full of worries and little Yu with his shameless face.

“Why don’t we wait until everyone’s here and talk together?” Looking at the students, each with their dissatisfactions, Lin Wanxing could only say this.