"Who on earth has the guts to punish you?"
The old janitor was quite dissatisfied. How could anyone dare to lay a finger on the daughter of Teacher Yun?
"Doesn't your dad know about this? Why didn't he come to help you?"
"My dad knows," Yun Que'er replied. "But it was my first day at school, and I was punished because I made a mistake. Although my dad wanted to help, this wasn't the right time."
The old janitor shook his head, clearly disapproving.
"Your dad is just too kind. But at a time like this, what's he waiting for? He should step in when necessary!"
"No!"
Yun Que'er shook her head vigorously.
"My dad said that there have been quite a few new teachers at school recently. They've never seen me before, so of course they don't know who I am. And since they're all new colleagues, if he were to say something now, the other teachers would lose face."
Hearing this, the old janitor understood.
"Alas, there's nothing we can do. If you help your own child, people will say you're abusing your privileges. If you don't, your dad will feel bad. Well, it doesn't look like there's much left. I'll help you finish the work, and then you can go home quickly. Don't worry. Since you're all at the same school, everyone will get to know you sooner or later, and they'll take care of you to some extent."
The old janitor picked up the mop lying beside him and walked towards the classrooms at the back.
"However, you need to be careful. I heard that there's a teacher who transferred from the city. She's quite mean, and her daughter is also at our school. Make sure you don't provoke them, or you'll be the one to suffer."
Yun Que'er and Ji Chengxuan exchanged a look. Wasn't he talking about Shen Qingqing and her mother?
"Grandpa, is the teacher you're talking about an English teacher? Her daughter is Shen Qingqing. She's about ten years old and repeated the first grade."
The old janitor looked at them and understood.
"Are you in the same class as her?"
"Yes," Yun Que'er nodded. "To be honest, our punishment today was related to Shen Qingqing. Then that teacher came and scolded us again. Otherwise, we would have finished the work and gone home earlier. But it's also our fault. If we hadn't made a mistake, this wouldn't have happened."
The old janitor shook his head and sighed. "Kids, you don't understand. Maybe you were indeed in the wrong, but that mother and daughter are always looking for trouble."
Just talking about them made the old janitor angry.
"You don't know this, but they also have a son at home. He's a bit older than the daughter, but he was born with cerebral palsy and can't take care of himself. I heard that when they were in the city, the parents were too busy with work to take care of him, so the daughter had to take care of her brother. That's why she never went to school."
Yun Que'er was surprised. "I thought she was a student from the city who had to transfer and repeat a grade because her parents moved here."
"Come on, that's not the case at all," the old janitor waved his hand. "If she had gone to school before, she would have been placed in the appropriate grade even after transferring. There's no reason to make her repeat a grade."
The old janitor seemed so sure of himself that it must be true.
Yun Que'er didn't know what to say for a moment. After a while, she gave a proper evaluation.
"She is indeed a pitiful girl."
The old janitor let out an ambiguous laugh. "Pitiful? I don't know who's more pitiful."
He grunted twice. "If anyone is pitiful, it's our school principal. Normally, there's a fixed enrollment process, and the higher-ups didn't specifically assign that girl to our school. She was supposed to go to a school in the county. But that teacher wasn't happy. She said her daughter had never been away from her since she was a child and that she couldn't let her live on campus alone at such a young age. She insisted on getting her into our school. When the principal refused, she started crying, making a scene, and even threatening to kill herself."
This was really outrageous...
However, considering their family situation, it probably wasn't just to keep Shen Qingqing by her side that the teacher insisted on her going to school in the town. It was probably so that she could take care of her brother with cerebral palsy more conveniently.
Yun Que'er didn't know how to evaluate them for a moment.
"What happened then?"
"Then our principal had no choice but to go and handle the matter himself. It was almost time for school to start, and the county was also busy. They really didn't have the time to deal with it, so they said they would let the girl enroll first and sort things out later. Whether it was a transfer or something else, it wasn't urgent."
At this point, the old janitor's expression changed.
"The principal came back and told the truth. But that girl really showed her true colors. She went straight to the county school and caused a scene, saying they weren't doing their jobs properly. After all the commotion, the matter was finally taken care of. Fortunately, everyone knows what kind of person our principal is. Otherwise, they might have thought the principal had done something to that mother and daughter."
Yun Que'er was extremely shocked.
She never would have thought that there were so many things hidden behind what seemed like an ordinary situation.
That saying was right: there's always something hateful about a pitiable person.
So was she pitiable or hateful? Yun Que'er couldn't make an evaluation.
While they were talking, they had finished all the work, and Yun Que'er and Ji Chengxuan finally got a chance to catch their breath.
They sat down to rest for a while. After thanking the old janitor, they went home.
On the way home, Yun Que'er was preoccupied and didn't say much.
Ji Chengxuan looked at her for a while and suddenly spoke up.
"You're thinking about Shen Qingqing, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Yun Que'er nodded. "I never would have thought there were all these backstories. Now I really don't know what to say about that mother and daughter."
"Don't think too much about it," Ji Chengxuan advised. "Human nature is complex. But no matter what, remember one thing. It's not our job to pity them. We don't need to care about these things at all. We just need to do our own thing."
Thinking about it, he was really right.
Yun Que'er listened to Ji Chengxuan's words and stopped overthinking. She gave him a smile.
"You're right. Let's go home quickly. I'm hungry."
Doctor Ji and Zheng Ying were busy with something today and hadn't come back yet. They didn't know that Ji Chengxuan had also been punished.
The Yun family had prepared dinner for the two children, and Yun Fujin was waiting for them at the door early.
When he saw them, Yun Fujin quickly greeted them.
"You're finally back. Yun Jianzhou was really worried. He just said he was going to the school to look for you."
It was already getting a bit cold, so Yun Fujin had prepared clothes for them. He quickly put them on as soon as he saw them.
"I thought you were just supposed to sweep the playground and clean the flag-raising platform. Why did it take so long?"
"Don't even mention it," Yun Que'er complained. "The two of us were playing around when the mother of a classmate in our class saw us. She's also a teacher at our school. She scolded us again and gave us a lot more work to do."
Just then, Yun Jianzhou came out of the house. When he heard this, he rushed forward impatiently.
"What? They gave you more work?"