Chapter 24: The 1990s Teacher Supporting Character Who Despises the Poor and Favors the Rich (1)

“Ring ring ring——”

At 4:40 in the afternoon, the dismissal bell at Tahe Town Central Primary School rang right on time. The students, like wild horses breaking free from their reins, each carrying a backpack, rushed out of the classroom.

The entrance of the primary school was densely packed with electric scooters and bicycles, all belonging to the parents who came to pick up their children.

Very soon, the teaching building was empty. The students were gradually picked up one after another. Only a few students remained on the playground playing basketball.

Tahe Town Central Primary School did not cover a large area. There was only one three-story teaching building and a small two-story dormitory for teachers. The basketball court and track on the playground were made of hardened yellow dirt, and a tall pole stood in the middle with a red flag hanging from it.

Because the primary schools in the villages around the town gradually merged here due to insufficient enrollment, each grade’s class increased from one to three.

Su Yue was standing on the second floor of the teaching building. She looked at the simple and shabby environment, frowned, and felt powerless to complain, yet she had no choice but to accept the consequences of her willfulness.

She was originally an employee of the “Wish Fulfillment Office”, with the main task of helping the deceased fulfill their wishes and achieve their expectations, thereby gaining their sense of recognition, which was used as performance evaluation and promotion criteria.

Because she was someone with connections and lacked professional ability, she often failed to meet the assessment standards. Still wanting to get promoted to management as soon as possible, her uncle would arrange for her to complete one or two symbolic and simple tasks every year.

Just to brush up her recognition score.

“Conquer the male protagonist with luck” was originally a task with extremely low difficulty. Su Yue appeared as the female lead and would always take away the supporting character’s luck. She had her own halo, and in the end, everyone would like her.

Su Yue liked doing these kinds of tasks very much because she could enjoy being surrounded by admiration and also gain the undying love of both the male lead and the second male lead.

This time, when doing the task, the first few were completed very well, but carrying memories inevitably caused her to break character. In the last task, Su Yue simply hid the system and blocked her memory before entering the task.

This way, the sense of immersion could be multiplied several times. She could fully devote herself to love and enjoy a sweet and nearly perfect life.

Unexpectedly, a task with extremely low difficulty actually went wrong. Clearly supposed to gain everyone’s favor, she ended up receiving negative scores from everyone. She directly set the record for the lowest score and would now be forced to carry out multiple tasks until her average score increased.

Su Yue looked at the follow-up of the last world. After Cheng Wenfeng went to the capital, he began to shine. Chain stores opened one after another.

It happened to be a period of rapid real estate development. Catching the wave, Cheng Wenfeng quickly accumulated assets. The following year, he owned his own professional renovation company. At the end of that same year, he bought a villa within the Third Ring Road in the capital.

The year Su Qin graduated, she founded her own magazine. That same year, Cheng Wenfeng entered the internet industry and succeeded in going public in the fifth year.

Two years later, they got married. After the marriage, they only had a daughter. Su Qin, who according to the plot should have died miserably on the street, became a distinguished representative of women in China and an expert in the field of children’s education.

Cheng Wenfeng, at the age of thirty, squeezed into the top ten richest people in the country. At thirty-three, he entered the top five nationwide. At thirty-eight, he made it to the top three. By the age of forty, his total assets ranked first in the country. He became the richest man in China, far surpassing the achievements in the original plot by several times.

As for Zhou Zhiyuan, after the magazine agency reformed, he was laid off and lived in depression, muddling through his days at home.

Su Yue’s own ending was not good either. She was also laid off due to the reform and had no new prospects. She never married and died of old age in a care home for the elderly who were disabled and without support.

Seeing this ending, Su Yue even suspected that the plot had gone haywire and randomly assigned her a storyline. This time when she returned, she must complain to her uncle. She had no idea what the developers were doing.

Originally, she was about to finish her task and return to the system headquarters to live a leisurely life of coasting along. But now, Su Yue was once again forced to live in this backward 1990s era.

What Su Yue actually didn’t know was that, after Su Qin and Cheng Wenfeng got married, Zhou Zhiyuan completely broke free from the system’s control. But it was already too late. After losing the one he liked, he resented his own incompetence and also hated Su Yue. Cheng Wenfeng’s behavior was not due to a plot error either. He had broken away from the system early on by relying on his strong will and was unaffected.

In this life, Su Yue had just passed the exam to become an English teacher at this school.

Because she taught English, had a pleasant personality, and dressed fashionably, her popularity was quite good, and the students liked her too.

However, the troublesome part was that she got married right after graduation. She married a rich second-generation playboy from the city. After giving birth to a daughter, the man divorced her. Fortunately, her target for strategy was also a divorcee.

And he had two sons.

According to the plot, they would also have a daughter later on.

“Chaochao——”

“Yangyang——”

A gentle and clear male voice caught Su Yue’s attention. She looked in the direction of the sound.

Two little boys were running from the teachers’ dormitory toward the teaching building. Behind them was a man wearing a white shirt and jeans, which highlighted his tall figure and long legs.

Looking closely, he had a refined and handsome face. He looked very modest and polite. His simple clothing made him look like a clean and tidy big boy.

The only thing out of place was that he was holding a pink-and-blue rice bowl, patiently following behind the two little ones, trying to feed them.

This was a scene that happened every afternoon.

Ever since his twin sons learned to walk, Lin Yan had been following behind them to feed them. Every time he had to coax and chase them around. One meal took a long time, but he never got tired of it and was always gentle and patient.

Sometimes he had to chase them all over the playground. Fortunately, the playground at this school was not large. Otherwise, it would be exhausting.

“Thud——”

The older son was walking too fast and suddenly fell down.

Lin Yan quickly walked up to him.

The younger son saw his brother fall and cheerfully laid on the ground too.

“Yangyang, get up. Don’t get your clothes dirty.” Lin Yan told the younger son to get up and walked over to help the older one up, checking his injuries.

“I won’t get up.” The younger son was still lying on the ground. He patted the ground with his little hands and looked at Lin Yan. “Dad, lie down too.”

Lin Yan walked over, picked him up with one hand, dusted off the yellow dirt on him, and said gently, “The ground is dirty. You can’t do that next time.”

“Brother did it too.” The younger son pouted and looked at Lin Yan.

Lin Yan said, “Brother fell.”

The child replied without a filter, “Yangyang will fall next time too.”

“Walk properly and you won’t fall. It hurts if you fall.” Lin Yan tidied up his two sons. Then he squatted down and fed each of them a spoonful of rice.

The little kids didn’t eat properly. They kept the rice in their mouths and continued running around.

Lin Yan followed behind them.

From sunset until the sky gradually darkened, the rice in the bowl went from steaming hot to completely cold. Only when the two little boys were tired from playing did they reluctantly finish the meal.

The distance from the playground back to the teachers’ dormitory was not even two hundred meters. The two little boys began to act spoiled.

“Dad, hold me——”

“Dad, hold hold——”

They ran over and hugged Lin Yan’s legs, one on each side. They raised their little heads at the same time, their small brows furrowed, acting all cute.

Lin Yan patiently squatted down and picked them up, one in each arm.

The two of them were held in their father’s arms, happily hugging his neck and lying on his shoulders.

As Lin Yan walked back, he softly said, “You need to be good and eat properly tomorrow. Otherwise, you won’t grow tall.”

“Okay.”

“Eat properly.”

They agreed very quickly every time, but it would be the same again next time.

As they were about to reach the dormitory, they ran into a middle-aged woman with short hair on the way. She was holding a few vegetables in her hand. When she saw Lin Yan walking over, she smiled and said, “Chaochao, Yangyang.”

“Teacher Fu is calling you.” Lin Yan looked down at his two sons and spoke gently.

Fu Xia was the principal’s wife and a kindergarten teacher in the town. The two little boys had just started kindergarten this year.

“Hello, Teacher Fu.” Chaochao called out sweetly.

Yangyang copied seriously, “Hello, Teacher Fu.” After he finished speaking, he even pouted happily and proudly said, “Dad said we ate well.”

“So great?” Fu Xia smiled with fine wrinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. She then looked at Lin Yan and asked, “The vegetables in the garden are ready to eat. If you need any, just pick some.”

There were quite a few rice fields around the school. She had opened a patch of land on the field ridge to grow vegetables.

“No need. I just bought some today. We still have some at home.” Lin Yan politely declined.

“Alright then. I’ll go back to cook first.”

“Okay.”

They lived on the first floor, while Fu Xia lived on the second floor. The stairs were on the side. Before going upstairs, she turned to look back at the father and sons. She saw Lin Yan squatting at the door, carefully helping his sons take off their shoes.

She had a very good impression of Lin Yan, especially when she saw him appear with two cute little ones. All three of them had the same face. It was hard not to take a few extra looks and marvel at how strong their genes were.

In her memory, Lin Yan had been raising his two sons since they were born. It was hard enough for ordinary people to take care of one child. He managed two. No matter how noisy the children got, he never lost his temper. He was the perfect model of a good father.

Outsiders could only dream of such a blessing, but his own family—

Sigh.

They did not know how fortunate they were.

Lin Yan finished taking off his son’s shoes, gently pushed open the door, and softly said, “Mom is sleeping, keep it quiet.”

The two sons immediately became a little uneasy, closed their mouths, and said nothing.

The teachers’ dormitory had been built for some years. The floor was not tiled but made of cement. The white paint on the walls had started to yellow and peel. Because there were few teachers, the married ones could get a single room, while the unmarried had to squeeze in and live together.

The room was rectangular. There was a window at the entrance, with a desk placed underneath it, piled high with various test papers and textbooks. A bed could fit further in, and at the innermost part were the bathroom and kitchen.

The space was small. With a family of four and lots of belongings, it felt crowded. Only a narrow passage remained between the middle of the room, connecting the kitchen and bathroom.

The bed between the desk and kitchen was separated by a curtain, barely blocking the light. Lin Yan closed and locked the door, creating a small open space near the entrance.

He took a blanket and a box of toys from under the bed, spread the blanket behind the door, placed the toys on it, and let the two sons sit there and play.

“Dad is going to cook. Can you not fight or cry?” Lin Yan negotiated with his sons.

The two little ones picked their favorite toys, nodding their heads nonstop.

Lin Yan watched them for a while before quietly walking to the kitchen in the back. Worried about them, he did not close the kitchen door and peeked out from time to time.

The meal had already been cooked earlier. He only needed to heat the soup and add some vegetables to be ready.

Lin Yan tried his best to keep the noise down, but the clatter of pots and pans could not be avoided. At first, the two little ones remembered what their father had said, but once they got engrossed in playing with toys, they started fighting over one.

They struggled and fought, then began to cry.

On the bed, Fang Yuwei’s eyelashes trembled, and impatience rose on her face. She had stayed up several nights in a row working on a design proposal and finally had a day to catch up on sleep. What were those noisy roommates doing again?

Did they not realize this was a shared living space? Not disturbing others was the most basic courtesy.

Fang Yuwei pulled the blanket over her head. The voices continued, and it even sounded like children crying.

They even brought kids in. Unbelievable.

Clang—

Lin Yan’s hand slipped, and the lid of the pot fell onto the counter. The sound echoed especially sharply in the small dorm room.

Fang Yuwei completely lost it and shouted, “What’s all the noise? If you’re not sleeping, others still want to. If you want to make noise, take it outside. Nobody will care if you make noise out there!”

She had no concept of respecting others in public spaces.

After her outburst, there was finally silence.

Fang Yuwei turned over and went back to sleep.

Lin Yan walked out of the kitchen and saw his two sons sitting on the floor. Their faces were full of grievance. They held back tears, lips trembling, with a mist in their eyes.

Yangyang saw him come out and opened his mouth wide to cry, choking, “Dad—”

Lin Yan raised his index finger and pressed it to his lips, signaling for him to be quiet. He silently mouthed, “Be good. Dad will take you out to play.”

Yangyang’s little shoulders trembled, and he forcibly swallowed back his sobs.

Lin Yan picked up two little jackets, quickly dressed the boys, then carried them and walked out the door.

Fang Yuwei had shouted quite loudly. It was nighttime, the neighbors were close, windows were open, and the soundproofing was poor. Su Yue lived right next door and heard everything clearly.

Through the window, she saw Lin Yan carrying his two sons and walking out.

It was already dark outside. The streetlights were dim. The two boys lay on Lin Yan’s shoulders with tears in their eyes, looking hurt and sad.

Lin Yan’s tall, slender figure appeared especially lonely and desolate.

Su Yue hesitated whether to go after them, but after thinking it over, she gave up.

There was less than a month until Fang Yuwei would cheat and run away. If she approached Lin Yan now, she might just get caught up in the mess.

If Fang Yuwei left, everything would become reasonable and justifiable.

Everyone was already used to Fang Yuwei yelling and shouting every day, quietly sympathizing with Lin Yan and the two children.

Fu Xia was hanging clothes. When she saw Lin Yan carrying the children outside, she sighed, “That Teacher Fang has such a bad temper. She drove Xiao Lin and the kids out again.”

“Why meddle in other people’s business? Mind your own,” Principal Wang adjusted his reading glasses and went back to his newspaper.

“I’m not meddling. It’s just that Xiao Lin is already doing so well, and she’s still not satisfied.” Fu Xia shook her head. “I don’t know what she’s up to. She hasn’t been home lately. Every night she goes to the city to play. People say she gets picked up and dropped off by car. How can this go on?”

Upon hearing this, Principal Wang finally looked up.

He didn’t care much about the private lives of teachers, but if there was a scandal, it would affect the school’s reputation. He didn’t want any drama before retirement.

Seeing that he was listening carefully, Fu Xia sat beside him and said, “Isn’t there a teacher who complained that Teacher Fang doesn’t take class seriously? She’s never there for morning reading.”

“Who told you that?” Principal Wang put down his newspaper.

“I just know about it,” Fu Xia stood up to get the clothes and walked to the bathroom, grumbling angrily, “As a teacher, she’s too irresponsible to the students!”

*

Fang Yuwei’s nap was not restful. She even had a nightmare.

In the dream, the design proposal she poured her heart into was rejected. At the meeting, her boss singled her out and scolded her harshly in front of everyone.

She gritted her teeth at the sight of that fat and greasy boss. Just because she refused to let him take advantage of her, he kept targeting her. She couldn’t stand working in such a rotten job.

Then the company used poor performance as an excuse to cut salaries and increase the workload, all to force employees to quit so they wouldn’t have to pay severance.

Veteran employees like her, with higher pay, were targeted the most. Watching her coworkers resign one after another, Fang Yuwei could not hold out either.

She took a tough stance and fought back against the pig-like boss. He begrudgingly gave her two months’ severance pay. She had no choice but to return to her rental apartment to scrape by, sending out hundreds of resumes with barely any interview opportunities.

She had lived in Beijing for a few years and had experienced such situations several times, especially when the economy declined and complaints and grievances filled the air around her.

The pressure of rent was high, the cost of living was steep, the commute time was long, she worked overtime like crazy, and despite all the effort and hustle, the money in her pocket was still pitifully little.

Fang Yuwei couldn’t fall asleep and slowly woke up but did not open her eyes. Hiding under the blanket, she could not help but feel lost. Once filled with passion and dreams, she had come to the big city only to be battered and bruised by reality. There were endless overtimes, constant scoldings, non-stop takeout and instant noodles, and always missed buses and subways…

A few days ago, the landlord informed her about a rent increase. It was raised by five hundred at once. The landlord even said that this was already the smallest increase in the neighborhood and expected her to be grateful.

Fang Yuwei was annoyed and argued more, and the landlord immediately changed their face and said if she didn’t want to stay, she could move out.

She had moved at least ten times and really did not want to move again.

Creak—

A faint sound of a door opening reached her ears. Fang Yuwei was suddenly startled awake. She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness, vaguely feeling that the room layout was not right.

Click. The desk lamp was turned on, and its light shone through the gap in the curtain. Fang Yuwei saw the surrounding environment and gasped in fright, her whole body tensed up.

Fang Yuwei clearly remembered falling asleep on her apartment bed. The place she was in now was old and rundown. Had she been abducted? The thought alone sent waves of fear through her.

The curtain was gently lifted. Fang Yuwei quickly closed her eyes. In her foggy mind, a rush of memories suddenly surged in like a movie being fast-forwarded.

It turned out that this life’s Fang Yuwei existed inside a novel. The novel was set in the 1990s and was a story about a stepmother.

Fang Yuwei was the ex-wife of the male lead Lin Yan, a woman who despised the poor and favors the rich. She was also a township Chinese teacher. She and the male lead had a pair of twin sons. Later, unable to endure the poverty and the low-paying teaching job, she started to develop disloyal thoughts.

Eventually, she got involved with a so-called businessman from another place, immediately quit her job, abandoned her husband and children, and eloped with the man, dreaming of living a superior life.

Who would have thought that the businessman was already married with a wife and daughter? He only wanted to keep her on the side in a rented small apartment for novelty.

Because she had some looks, the businessman introduced her to others, intending to use her in exchange for resources. In the end, her fate was miserable. With no stable job and no education in the big city, she was reduced to working as a waitress in a roadside food stall and was often harassed by customers.

Unable to make it in the big city, Fang Yuwei returned to seek out Lin Yan. By then, he was already with her colleague Su Yue.

Unable to accept it, she repeatedly caused trouble, even made a scene at school, and used the children’s longing for maternal love to do many morally outrageous things.

Not only did she fail to break up Lin Yan and Su Yue, but because of his guilt, Lin Yan married Su Yue and had a daughter with her.

Fang Yuwei, on the other hand, remained alone. Due to her unrealistic ambitions, she drifted from place to place, only able to become someone’s mistress. Eventually, she was discovered by the original wives and even got caught in a nude photo scandal, losing all dignity and barely surviving at the bottom of society.

Her twin sons lacked maternal love from an early age. Fang Yuwei directed all her resentment toward Lin Yan and contempt for the family onto the children, treating them harshly with constant beatings and scolding.

As a result, Su Yue only needed to show a bit of care, and the two children clung to her, treating her as if she were their real mother and being filial to her when they grew up.

Lin Yan was grateful to Su Yue for this and treated her very well for life.

“Dad—”

The younger son muttered in his sleep, pulling Fang Yuwei out of her thoughts. She still did not open her eyes but could feel Lin Yan placing the child on the bed.

They slept on a 1.5-meter-wide wooden bed. Lin Yan slept on one side and had added a small bed next to it for the two children.

Lin Yan did not respond to the child. He took two sets of pajamas from the wardrobe and changed the kids into them, then gently patted their backs to lull them to sleep.

The two of them were tired from playing today and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Lin Yan turned on a small fan for them, covered them with a light quilt, and after finishing everything, he went quiet.

Fang Yuwei could feel that he was looking at her and tried hard to stay calm.

After a while, Lin Yan lifted the curtain and left. Faint sounds came from the kitchen. He ate dinner, washed the dishes, and then went to the bathroom to take a shower.

While he was doing all these things, Fang Yuwei finally dared to open her eyes. Under the dim light, she quietly looked at the two sleeping children not far away.

They wore identical pajamas, their faces were rosy and fair, with long curled eyelashes, little straight noses, and chubby little hands.

Fang Yuwei was stunned and could not help but smile. So this was what her children looked like.

So beautiful.

Like carved jade.

She gently reached out and grabbed the younger son’s little hand, squeezing it in her own.

So soft.

A smile crept into Fang Yuwei’s eyes. She pinched again, and then again.

“Yangyang wants to eat soup dumplings, eat meat.” The little son pulled back his hand, shoved his little paw into his mouth, and sat up half-asleep.

Just as Fang Yuwei was hesitating about how to react, Xiao Yangyang suddenly fell toward her.

He landed headfirst, sticking up his little butt in his sleep.

Fang Yuwei could not help but laugh. Being so close, she could smell the milky scent on him. So children really do smell sweet.

She reached out to touch his little fingers. So small and soft, she felt an urge to take a bite.

When Lin Yan came out, Fang Yuwei pretended to be asleep again.

He lifted the curtain and came in. Seeing the younger son’s sleeping posture, he bent down and carried him back to the small bed, tucking him in again.

Sensing that the child was moved away from her, Fang Yuwei frowned slightly, feeling a bit displeased.

Lin Yan saw that she was still asleep and was about to wake her up for dinner. But thinking of what had just happened, he was afraid she would start yelling again and scare the children.

Fang Yuwei knew he was looking at her again and continued pretending to sleep.

Suddenly, she sensed Lin Yan approaching. Her heart grew tense. Even though Lin Yan had a gentle personality and she was not afraid, her heartbeat kept speeding up.

Lin Yan gently covered her with the blanket, then turned off the light and lay down next to the children.

The bed was one meter and five wide. The two of them slept on each side with a gap in between. At this time, it was the “final stage” of their marital relationship.

*

The sky had not yet brightened when Fang Yuwei naturally woke up.

She had gone to bed early the previous night. After waking up, she felt refreshed, just a little hungry. Lin Yan woke up even earlier than her. He put on his shoes and went out. He asked her, “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Noodle soup.”

Fang Yuwei saw his face clearly for the first time. He looked like a larger version of her two sons.

The three of them looked as if they were made from the same mold. It was amazing.

Lin Yan nodded and gently closed the door.

Fang Yuwei had just finished washing up when Lin Yan returned with the packed noodle soup. He placed it on her desk. Then he called the two children to wake up to send them to kindergarten.

The children had not eaten dinner the night before. They had fallen asleep on the way back. Now that they were awake, they were starving. Their round eyes kept staring at Fang Yuwei eating the noodle soup.

They swallowed hard.

“Dad brought you cake and soy milk.” Lin Yan handed them the cake, then inserted straws into the soy milk cups, giving them each one.

The two of them held their cake and soy milk and took small bites at the same time, but they could not help glancing at Fang Yuwei, who was eating the noodle soup. Attracted by the aroma, they continued swallowing hard.

Fang Yuwei picked up a piece of egg from the soup. Just as she was about to eat it, she turned her head and saw the two little ones standing beside her. Their big round eyes were fixed on her without moving. But they did not come any closer.

Looking at the two delicate and exquisite little faces, Fang Yuwei hesitated for a moment and stretched out the chopsticks holding the egg toward them. “Do you want to eat it?”

Xiao Yangyang looked at his brother. Xiao Chaochao stood still and did not dare to move. He instinctively looked at his father.

Lin Yan was in the kitchen filling their water cups and had not seen this.

When Lin Yan finished pouring the water and came out, he stopped in his tracks and tightened his grip on the cups. Emotions surged in his eyes.

The two children were gathered around Fang Yuwei. Their little heads raised, their big adorable eyes blinking at her.

And Fang Yuwei was feeding her two sons bite by bite. She stirred the noodles in the bowl. “”There are no eggs left.. I’ll give you a piece of meat instead.”

*

Today was Thursday. Class 3(1) had a Chinese morning reading session, but Su Yue got up early.

Because Fang Yuwei would slack off and would not come for the morning reading class. She remembered that Principal Wang would come to inspect today after hearing about Fang Yuwei’s laziness.

Su Yue calculated the time and walked toward Class 3(1)’s classroom. When she saw Fang Yuwei standing at the door, the smile on her face gradually faded.

Not only Su Yue saw her. A few boys from Class 3(1) who were often late also saw Fang Yuwei from a distance. Their expressions changed drastically and they turned around, wanting to run back.

“Still trying to run? You’re already late and you’re not hurrying up?”