The vast universe, the sunshine pouring down, and the air conditioning humming. The entire Class 18 was silent except for the sound of chalk jumping on the blackboard.
Chu Yi's handwriting was very beautiful, full of a kind of arrogant force, pleasing to the eye. Even calligraphers could not find any flaws.
But what really shocked people was that Chu Yi was writing "Tao Te Ching" backwards.
It is already difficult enough to memorize it in order. They never thought that someone would recite it backwards and every word at that.
The handwriting flowed like a stream, as if a gentle breeze brushed across their faces. At this moment, students felt a sense of shock as if they had just met this "honest person" yesterday and were full of disbelief.
Even Dong Guohao was speechless at this point. At his age, he couldn't even recite "Tao Te Ching" forwards let alone backwards.
Chu Yi smiled with shining eyes under the golden sunlight while his old white shirt reflected light from some old scars on him.
"Tao Te Ching," passed down from Tai Chi Sect by celestial beings who brought it to Earth for dissemination.
Chu Yi remembered his days in Tai Chi Sect: his senior brothers and sisters; his master; and that girl who drew pictures in class.
One day he will go back!
His speed became faster and faster with columns of characters flowing from top to bottom like dragons flying around phoenixes. It was enjoyable just looking at them until finally one stroke wrote out a character "Dao", causing white chalk powder to break off with its sound echoing through the classroom floorboards .
A young man like an immortal or god!
Warm applause rang out throughout the classroom with Hu Lai standing up first leading everyone else clapping hands together . He felt an overwhelming sense of pride wanting to burst out of his body. He had not been so shocked or moved in years, but at this moment he discovered that words were also full of charm.
Guo Feifei covered her mouth with her hands and couldn't describe the feeling without seeing it for herself.
"What makes you different?" The more she looked, the more she felt Chu Yi was shrouded in a layer of misty veil, completely different from last semester.
At this moment, Chen Junyu stopped writing on the blackboard behind him as well.
Hearing thunderous applause, an uncontrollable smile appeared on Chen Junyu's face. He had won thoroughly and conquered these students because of this competition. Moreover, he could see Chu Yi making a fool of himself which was like killing two birds with one stone for him.
However when he turned around to look at everyone else's eyes they weren't even looking at him; instead they were all focused on Chu Yi.
His expression froze as he suddenly realized that there were also characters written all over Chu Yi's blackboard - it was actually the original text from "Tao Te Ching".
"Teacher Chen, you lost." Chu Yi threw the chalk into the box calmly and said indifferently .
"Lost?" Chen Junyu stared fiercely at Chu Yi then looked towards everyone else saying: "How could I lose? We both recited the original text by heart. This round should be considered a tie. You can't just say I lost because your handwriting is better than mine."
Although surprised that Chu Yi could recite it too ,Chen Junyu didn't care too much about it either way .
It's a tie, there's still another round.
Hu Lai shook his head and said, "Chu Laoshi wrote it backwards, while you wrote it forwards. If you can write it backwards in the same amount of time, then it will be considered a tie."
"Write it backwards? That's impossible!" Chen Junyu immediately denied this statement upon hearing it.
Unless someone is very bored, they would not recite the 5,000-word Tao Te Ching backwards because that makes no sense at all.
But gradually he felt that something was off in the class atmosphere. Especially Dong Guohao had a bitter expression on his face as he shook his head towards him.
How could this happen?!
Chen Junyu's originally handsome features were twisted like a pretzel.
"I don't believe it unless he writes it again from memory!" Chen Junyu almost shouted out loud. This time was too embarrassing for him. He came here with great confidence but did not expect to end up like this - even more pitiful than when he was with Fan Hong.
Several girls were startled and Hu Lai frowned.
With such quality, does he still want to be their teacher?
Although they are not top-performing students academically speaking, as long as they do not make any major mistakes in the future, they will become important figures in Jiujiang City after graduation.
They cannot allow such teachers to enter their life resumes!
"Teacher Chen, what has been done cannot be undone. Everyone here including Teacher Dong saw what happened just now. You should admit defeat." Chu Yi smiled gently but when the students saw him holding the cup of water from earlier and walking towards Chen Junyu with it; everyone shuddered involuntarily.
They unanimously agreed that Chu Laoshi was indeed not a good person!
"What are you trying to do?" Chen Junyu's eyelids twitched as he looked at the unidentified floating object in the cup and instinctively moved back.
Chu Yi smiled and said, "Teacher Chen, you lost the bet. Please drink this holy water. Don't worry, I added some hot water just now so it's easy to swallow."
The students in the class looked strange. This is too much!
Holy water? And he added hot water?
Isn't this torturing people to death?!
This is too cruel!
Chen Junyu was very angry. This would be his lifelong shame; a pit that he dug himself into and now had to jump into with tears in his eyes.
"Cheating! You must have colluded beforehand! They are your students and you deliberately set me up!"
Who can recite Tao Te Ching backwards like that?
Chen Junyu refused to drink it even if he died because once he drinks it, there will be no way for him to survive in Jiujiang City anymore.
Dong Guohao gritted his teeth and tried to persuade him but was rebutted by Chu Yi with one sentence.
"Dong Laoshi, do you want to drink this cup of holy water on behalf of Teacher Chen?"
Dong Guohao knew when not to push further as this was not an ordinary class - each student here has a background that could scare people.
"Teacher Chen, you need to talk about integrity, otherwise it will damage your professional ethics."
"That's right. With this kind of character, he still wants to be our teacher?"
"Are you even a man?" Hu Lai shouted loudly.
Chen Junyu was in a dilemma. He knew that he couldn't escape from these people.
"You wait!" Chen Junyu said with hatred and anger.
He pinched his nose with one hand and grabbed the cup from Chu Yi's hand with the other. He raised his neck and gulped down the "holy water" into his stomach.
Chu Yi suppressed his nausea and added: "Teacher Chen, don't you feel like coughing up phlegm?"
When Chen Junyu thought of Dong Guohao spitting out green sticky phlegm, he couldn't help but feel sick. He rushed to the toilet immediately.
"I can't take it anymore! I'm going to throw up!"
"Chu Teacher, you're not honest at all. You're so bad!"
Several boys gave thumbs up to Chu Yi.
They finally saw Chu Yi's true face today, but their previous dissatisfaction and contempt for him had disappeared a lot.
...
After class, Chu Yi held his textbook and hummed a tune on his way back to the office.
His workload wasn't heavy; he only taught Class 18.
"Principal Qin is looking for you," a female assistant found Chu Yi.
"The principal? Qin Ran?" Chu Yi felt cold behind him as if even the sun had become chilly.
In Principal Qin's office room,she looked expressionless at this guy in front of her. If looks could kill then she would have killed him already many times over by now!
Qin Ran was very helpless; it was only the first day of school when her best friend's younger brother made an advanced teacher drink sputum!
And this matter was still causing a lot of trouble and spreading throughout the school.
"Do you know what you did? Do you know how bad this is affecting us? I can fire you at any time!" Qin Ran got straight to the point.
Chu Yi sat there calmly, pouring himself a cup of tea.
"Isn't it just because I accidentally saw your thing? Principal Qin, are you taking revenge on me?"
"..." Qin Ran felt like she had a mouthful of anger stuck in her chest. She clearly wasn't talking about that matter!
"No, this matter wasn't leaked by me. No one knows about it."
Qin Ran tried to suppress her urge to hit someone and spoke as calmly as possible: "You instigated students to make another teacher drink sputum. How do you explain this?"
Chu Yi was stunned for a moment and seemed somewhat ashamed.
Good, he finally realized his mistake.
Qin Ran sneered inwardly.
But then Chu Yi looked seriously at Qin Ran and said: "Principal Qin, actually there's no need for you to suppress your emotions like this. It's easy for your endocrine system to become unbalanced if so. Last time when I saw you, there were some red dots on your butt which might be due to poor emotional regulation."
Crash!
Qin Ran's last bit of rationality broke down completely; she threw the folder in her hand onto the table with a sharp sound.
"Chu Yi! Get out!"