Until the end of PE class, Wang Hai never paid any attention to Zhang Yu again, treating him as if he were a mass of air, no longer providing him with any guidance or instruction.
And with Wang Hai taking the lead in isolating him like this, the other students also subconsciously stopped approaching Zhang Yu, as if an invisible no-man’s zone had been carved out around him.
“This Old Wang really is… how can he be so petty?”
But with things having come to this point, Zhang Yu had no other choice but to quietly lie down on the ground and continue resting.
In the blink of an eye, class was over, and everyone gradually made their way to the cafeteria.
Zhou Tianyi walked over to Zhang Yu’s side after everyone had left, giving him a thumbs up: “Warrior, have you bought accident insurance?”
Zhang Yu slowly got up, patting his pants as he said: “What’s there to be afraid of? Wait until I make great progress in my cultivation in a while, and my grades skyrocket – there’ll be plenty of teachers who’ll protect me.”
He looked at the feather book in his palm with full confidence. His physical strength had already increased from 0.83 to 0.84.
This was without any injections or medicine, and without any dietary supplements, merely through training with the Thirty-Six Body Strengthening Forms.
He imagined that as the level of the Thirty-Six Body Strengthening Forms continued to improve in the future, the rate of physical strength improvement would also become faster and faster.
Just thinking about this, Zhang Yu couldn’t help but marvel once again at his own terrifying potential.
Zhou Tianyi, watching Zhang Yu suddenly become confident, asked curiously: “Did you find a new supply channel for drugs? If you have good stuff, don’t forget your brother.”
Zhang Yu clenched his fist and smiled: “Kid, your brother practices natural body cultivation!”
Outside the training room door, Bai Zhenzhen, after intense physical training, now had rosy cheeks, sweat continuously dripping from her forehead, and hot air rising from her entire body.
Bang bang bang!
She knocked on the door and said indifferently: “Zhang Yu, are you done showing off? I’m really hungry, let’s hurry up and eat.”
The three of them hurriedly joined the cafeteria army. Arriving late, they could see from far away a large crowd of people queuing at the cafeteria entrance.
However, as members of the demonstration class, Zhang Yu and the other two had the privilege of priority cafeteria access, able to enter directly through the VIP channel.
The three of them walked into the cafeteria under the various gazes of students from other classes.
How to describe that feeling?
If Zhang Yu were to describe it, it would be like inner sect prodigies in novels slowly entering the Gathering Immortals Restaurant for a meal under the envious, jealous, or self-righteously substitutable gazes of outer sect menials.
Once inside the cafeteria, Bai Zhenzhen said: “I’m doing dietary supplementation today, going to eat on the second floor.”
So-called dietary supplementation involved cooking with food ingredients full of immortal dao elements along with various medicines, effectively enhancing constitution, compensating for the body’s deficiencies after intense training, and improving the efficiency of body cultivation and breathing techniques.
It could be said that dietary supplementation had countless benefits for immortal dao learning. The only reason Zhang Yu wasn’t eating it right now was that it was too expensive – really too expensive.
One meal cost at least several hundred yuan, and precious ingredients could easily cost thousands. Even when Zhang Yu previously had money from huge loans, he was reluctant to eat it every day, let alone the current Zhang Yu.
Watching Bai Zhenzhen walk up to the second floor alone, Zhang Yu could feel that the second and first floors of the cafeteria represented yet another dividing line, just like the difference between where he stood inside the cafeteria and the queue outside.
But Zhang Yu felt a trace of confusion: “Doesn’t Ah Zhen have no money? How can she afford to go to the second floor?”
…
Not long after lunch, Zhang Yu, who was taking a noon break, was called to the teacher’s office.
A middle-aged man was drinking tea while glancing at Zhang Yu standing in front of the office desk, saying: “Teacher Wang Hai told me about your situation.”
The man was named Su Haifeng, who was both the homeroom teacher of the demonstration class and also the grade director for the first year.
He looked at Zhang Yu with disappointment, saying: “Do you remember what you told me during the interview?”
When the original Zhang Yu participated in Songyang High School’s interview, Su Haifeng was the interviewer sitting in the middle.
Hearing Su Haifeng’s words now, Zhang Yu was slightly stunned. Although he had merged with the original’s memories, many details couldn’t be recalled instantly.
Su Haifeng sighed: “I still remember you saying you wanted to get into a prestigious university.”
“In PE class, you neither buy medicine nor get injections, you lie on the ground being lazy, and you talk back to the teacher. Is this the attitude of someone who wants to get into a prestigious university?”
Listening to the criticism, Zhang Yu didn’t know how to explain for a moment. He couldn’t very well say that he couldn’t afford medicine or injections because he was both poor and useless, and that he was just casually attending PE class because his potential had been awakened.
Sensing Zhang Yu’s silence, Su Haifeng sighed again and said: “Zhang Yu, your performance over the past three months has been quite good. I know you’re a good kid.”
“Has something happened at home recently?”
Zhang Yu looked at him with some surprise, feeling the concern in his eyes, finding it somewhat hard to believe: “There are actually teachers in this crazy school who care about students?”
He thought for a moment and said quietly: “Mm, I had some conflicts with my family.”
“I’ll try to adjust and get back to normal quickly.”
Although he felt the other party’s concern, Zhang Yu could only quickly deflect for now. Once his grades improved after a while, he naturally wouldn’t need to explain these hard-to-explain things to teachers.
But Su Haifeng seemed dissatisfied and frowned, saying irritably: “What’s there that you can’t tell your teacher?”
“Is it that your family’s financial situation has run into problems recently?”
“The debt collection calls from lending platforms have already reached the school.”
“Ah?” Zhang Yu suddenly looked up: “They called you, teacher?”
Su Haifeng nodded gravely: “If they hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have known you owed so much money. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Zhang Yu: “I…”
He really hadn’t thought that telling the school about this would be of any use, especially given Songyang High School’s atmosphere – he estimated that knowing about it would only make his situation worse.
But Su Haifeng sighed deeply, looking at Zhang Yu with a kind expression: “I know the school can be quite strict sometimes, so you don’t dare tell us when something happens.”
“But you must know that we are your teachers after all. How could we not help our own students?”
As he spoke, he pulled out a document from his drawer and handed it to Zhang Yu.
“This is the poverty assistance program I specifically applied for you. Hurry up and sign it.”
Taking the document, Zhang Yu looked at Su Haifeng with some emotion: “Teacher, thank you.”
He discovered that his view of this school’s teachers had been wrong again.
Zhang Yu thought to himself: “Although there are unreliable people like Wang Hai, there are also earnest elders like Teacher Su.”
Su Haifeng smiled and waved his hand, passing over a pen: “Hurry up and sign it.”
Zhang Yu lowered his head, his gaze sweeping across the document, then he froze in place.
Su Haifeng chuckled: “What’s wrong? Hurry up and sign it. I’ll try to submit it before I get off work.”
Zhang Yu’s voice was low: “Teacher, this seems to be a debt restructuring contract? Did you take the wrong one?”
Su Haifeng said with a chuckle: “The reason poor students are poor is because they’re in debt, right? After restructuring the debt, wouldn’t that help the poor students? This is the poverty assistance program.”
Zhang Yu looked at the contract contents. Specifically, it would package and calculate all his debts together, then the school would lend him money to pay off the debts.
From then on, his creditor would become the school.
Zhang Yu calculated the debt after restructuring again. After various messy procedures, various interest rates, principal, processing fees, upfront deductions… added together, it seemed to have grown to over a million yuan.
“What debt restructuring! This is just using loans to feed loans.”
He roared internally: “Even the homeroom teacher is in the lending business?”
“Playing it this way? Are there no normal teachers left in this broken school?”
Suppressing the anger in his heart, Zhang Yu let out a breath and said: “Teacher, I think I’ll pass on this. I can repay this money myself.”
Su Haifeng persuaded earnestly: “How can a kid like you repay such a large sum? Hurry up and sign it. The school will take this burden for you.”
“Don’t worry, the school’s installment plan is very flexible.”
Zhang Yu: “No need, teacher, really no need.”
After Zhang Yu refused repeatedly, he simply threw down the contract and ran out of the office.
Watching his departing figure, Su Haifeng picked up his teacup and gently blew on it.
After a moment, he picked up his vibrating phone and said: “He refused.”
“Mm, I’ll try again in a while.”
“Don’t worry, poor people… in the end, when they can’t withstand the debt collection companies’ methods, they’ll always come to borrow.”
