The homeroom teacher knocked on the door.

“It’s me, Zhang Zhu.”

A voice that commanded respect without needing to sound angry came from the other side of the door.

“Come in.”

Zhang Zhu, the homeroom teacher, pushed open the door and walked inside.

Zhou Heng took a deep breath.

If it was meant to happen, there was no escaping it. The young man steeled himself and followed his homeroom teacher inside.

As soon as Zhou Heng entered, he saw two old friends.

No—“old friends” wasn’t quite right. They’d barely known each other when they fought yesterday. This was only their second time meeting.

Those two who’d surrounded Zhou Heng yesterday—the two thugs Wang Ping had brought along.

As soon as the two bandage-wrapped thugs saw Zhou Heng, their faces twisted. They bared their teeth like they were about to pounce on someone at any moment.

Zhou Heng suddenly understood why he’d been summoned to the principal’s office.

“Teacher Zhang Zhu, have a seat.”

The principal, seated at the front, nodded to Zhang Zhu. His gaze moved down and swept over Zhou Heng’s face. There was no disgust or anger in his eyes, only a calm as still as water.

“Mr. Wang, Mr. Xu, this is Zhou Heng, the person you’re looking for.”

Wang Yang, the skinny thug Zhou Heng had knocked down first, stood up, pulled a medical report from his jacket, and tossed it onto the principal’s desk.

“Good. Now that the person himself is here, I won’t beat around the bush. You’d better give me an explanation.”

The principal flipped through the papers the thugs had brought and looked troubled.

It was just a fight. The thugs had come prepared with a ridiculous amount of paperwork.

The principal looked at Zhou Heng and asked calmly,

“Zhou Heng, Mr. Wang and Mr. Xu say you got into an argument with them outside school, and it turned into a violent confrontation. You beat them both. Is that true?”

“It is.”

The principal pushed the medical report aside, clasped his hands together, rested his chin on them, and stared at Zhou Heng.

“Why?”

Zhou Heng lifted his chin and answered calmly.

“They were bullying my classmate. I couldn’t just stand by, so I went over to argue with them. They threw the first punch. I was only acting in self-defense.”

That was a good reason.

The principal’s expression softened a little, and he turned to them.

“Mr. Wang, Mr. Xu, is what Zhou Heng said true?”

“No. We’re respectable citizens. Why would we bully a bunch of kids?”

The two thugs pointed at Zhou Heng and shouted angrily,

“You little bastard, lying through your teeth! You beat us up and now you’re making excuses. Let me make this clear: you beat us so badly we ended up in the hospital, and it cost tens of thousands. You’d better pay back every last cent, or we’re not letting this go!”

Xu Jin, a burly-looking thug with tattoos, stepped forward, slapped the principal’s desk, and said nastily,

“This kid’s your student. You have to give us an explanation.”

Zhou Heng sneered.

Just as he’d thought. They were here to shake him down.

There was no need to ask about their injuries. The thugs had definitely hurt themselves somehow.

And there was no need to question the tens of thousands in medical expenses, either. They could just go to some private hospital, ask a shady doctor they knew to prescribe a few mysterious but ridiculously expensive medicines, and pad out the bill. The paperwork and receipts would all be in order. Even the police wouldn’t find anything wrong if they investigated.

There was no point arguing over the injuries or the medical bills.

“Principal Yang, I won’t waste time explaining. The student these two brothers were bullying is Wang Ping, from Class Four, Grade One. Bring him here and ask him what happened. That’ll clear everything up.”

The principal sighed.

Anyone with eyes could see who was right and who was wrong. But people who came looking for a shake-down hadn’t come to reason. Even if he brought Wang Ping in and laid out the whole story, the two thugs could still kick up a fuss, demand compensation, get the security guards to drag them out, and then hang a banner outside the school or something.

What a headache.

By comparison, if a few tens of thousands could make these freeloading thugs go away, the principal would be quite happy to pay and shut them up.

Of course, he’d only pay if it meant the matter would be settled for good. In reality, too many thugs saw that the person they’d shaken down was an easy target. After the first time, they’d come back for a second, then a third.

That was why people tended to follow the same playbook when dealing with this sort of thing.

“Teacher Zhang Zhu, would you mind bringing Wang Ping here?”

The principal said this to Zhang Zhu.

Zhang Zhu stood up at once and left the principal’s office.

He’d been in this position long enough to have seen every kind of scoundrel. He had no idea what had gotten into these two thugs, but they’d sure found the nerve to try shaking him down.

Once Wang Ping arrived and they had the facts straight, the principal would call the nearest police station. Its chief was one of his college classmates, and they got along well.

Once the two thugs were taken in, he’d have a word with his old classmate and ask him for one tiny favor.

The officers who dealt with these low-level thugs every day would surely give the pair the full-service treatment and make sure everything was arranged just right.

At that thought, the principal felt much more at ease. He even had the presence of mind to point to a few empty seats nearby and say to Zhou Heng,

“It must be tiring to stand. Go sit over there.”

Zhou Heng obediently sat down to one side.

The two delinquents sat across from Zhou Heng and whispered to each other.

Zhou Heng could just make out snatches of what they were saying.

“We’ve got the right guy, haven’t we?”

“Did this kid dress up? Why does he look like a girl?”

“Quit talking. You know what to do in a minute, right?”