No one dared speak. No one dared look up.
Zhu Yun was struck by a certain admiration — in the midst of all this shouting, the graduate students somehow managed to remain completely absorbed in their work, visibly more focused than on any ordinary day. It had the quality of a certain dignified composure, the kind one reads about in historical accounts of great men reading calmly in the face of chaos.
Zhang Xiaobei pointed at Zhu Yun and tore into her without pause:
“Look what you’ve done to a perfectly functioning piece of work! An absolute disaster! I took it to them and you should have seen the look on their faces — I really ought to have dragged you along to witness it yourself! Why are you staring at the floor? Not a single word? Do you have any idea what shame is? You’re still a young woman, for goodness’ sake!”
“The moment my back is turned you produce something like that! I suppose I was too trusting — you walked in here looking so confident, and what do we have to show for it? You tell me how you have the face to set foot in this laboratory!”
“Come on, say something — don’t just stand there. Is this what Professor Lin produces?”
Zhu Yun stood quietly with her head lowered, not looking at Zhang Xiaobei.
Zhang Xiaobei had been going for some time without any reaction from her, which only sharpened her fury.
“Not a flicker of response — do you all see this? Not a flicker!” She addressed the graduate students in the room. “Thick-skinned as a chopping board!”
In her rage, she shoved Zhu Yun.
Her fingertip was sharper than her voice.
Zhu Yun stepped back twice and said quietly, “I’m sorry…”
“Sorry?!” The moment Zhu Yun made a sound, Zhang Xiaobei came back at her with even greater volume. “Do you know this is a government project? Do you think one sorry covers it if something goes wrong? Do you understand that you’re disgracing this school? Can you bear that responsibility?”
Zhu Yun had believed herself to be perfectly composed. It was only when she stepped out of the laboratory that she realized her heart was pounding.
Whatever she felt inside, Zhang Xiaobei was, at the end of the day, a teacher. Between teacher and student, the balance of power had never been equal — not in any era. Zhang Xiaobei held every structural advantage.
Zhu Yun stood at the corridor entrance and fanned herself down. After enduring all that, she felt a genuine sympathy for Han Jiakang and the others, and found herself wondering — what would a person become after spending years working under a supervisor like this?
She walked back to the dormitory, laptop in arms. Zhang Xiaobei had given her two days to revise the code, which she described generously as one final chance.
She had enunciated those words with slow deliberateness, apparently intent on ensuring Zhu Yun fully appreciated the value and gravity of a final chance.
Back in the dormitory, the perpetually busy Fang Shumiao was, for once, present. The weather was growing colder by the day, and the end-of-term examinations were drawing near. Fang Shumiao, ever ahead of schedule, had already begun preparing her materials for the semester’s Outstanding Student Cadre evaluation — two weeks in advance. She greeted Zhu Yun when she came in, then promptly returned to sorting through the relevant paperwork.
Fang Shumiao no longer came to the base much.
A line that Ren Di had once said drifted through Zhu Yun’s mind.
“She won’t last long. Li Xun is the kind of person… most women can’t keep up with him.”
Zhu Yun didn’t linger over what those words implied. She opened her laptop. She still had to deal with the final chance that Zhang Xiaobei had so graciously bestowed upon her.
……
God, I want a cigarette.
If only Fang Shumiao weren’t here.
Although she had been given two days, by the following noon, Zhang Xiaobei had already summoned her.
This time the meeting was not in the laboratory but in Zhang Xiaobei’s private office. Faculty with their own offices were rare at the school; Zhang Xiaobei was probably the youngest among them.
But Zhang Xiaobei was perpetually busy, always moving between the laboratory and various companies, and the office went mostly unused. On the way over, Zhu Yun puzzled over why Zhang Xiaobei would call her somewhere this secluded to take her to task.
Was there any chance of a sudden attack of conscience — a reluctance to humiliate her publicly again?
Probably not…
She turned this over in her mind as she knocked on the door.
Zhang Xiaobei said calmly: “Come in.”
Zhu Yun entered. The office was cold.
Zhang Xiaobei stood beside the desk, on which sat a freshly brewed cup of tea.
“Students these days really are something.” Zhang Xiaobei had entirely abandoned the shouting of before; she spoke now in a soft, measured voice.
Hearing that tone, Zhu Yun almost preferred the shouting.
Zhang Xiaobei stepped toward her. They were of similar height — Zhang Xiaobei had the edge in her heels. She looked down at Zhu Yun and said quietly, “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you.”
On certain counts — yes, actually.
But Zhu Yun wasn’t yet sure what Zhang Xiaobei was referring to, so she stayed silent.
“I’m asking you a question.”
What was the right answer?
“Nothing to say?”
Zhu Yun genuinely did not know how to respond — yes was clearly wrong, and no didn’t seem right either.
She was still weighing her options when Zhang Xiaobei suddenly picked up the cup of tea from the desk and, with a flick of her wrist, threw it in Zhu Yun’s face.
“In all my years of teaching, you are the most contemptible student I have ever encountered!”
Zhang Xiaobei’s composure broke entirely. She returned to the volume she had used in the laboratory — and then some.
“Think you’re clever, do you? You and only you understand — everyone else is just a fool? I truly had no idea students could harbor such malice! You deliberately wrote it badly to make me look incompetent? And you still have the audacity to call yourself a student! Scheming to humiliate your teacher — if you behave like this while still in school, what will you do once you’re out in the world?!”
Zhu Yun finally understood why Zhang Xiaobei had called her to the office rather than the laboratory.
Because in front of her own students, how could she possibly admit that she had been outmaneuvered by a mere undergraduate?