Chapter 59: The Classroom Dormitory

No one was there to receive him, and there was no map either.

The messages in the group chat also hadn’t been replied to for a long time.

Yan Hao could only wander around the campus while trying to ask some classmates he passed by, but after wandering for a long time, he still had no results.

After dragging his suitcase around for quite a while longer, the class teacher finally posted an announcement in the group:

“Hello everyone, the Girls’ Dormitory Building is behind the Teaching Building. Go through the hallway in the middle of the Teaching Building and head to the back. The dorm rooms for the girls in our class are 301, 302, 303, and 304. The boys’ dorm is on the first floor of the Teaching Building, all the way to the right. Each student’s bed has their name on it. After you’ve sorted your luggage, you can head to the third classroom on the right on the fourth floor to pick up your student cards and other items. We’ll officially gather at 2:00 PM for the class meeting.”

Following the announcement, the class teacher also sent some photos with directions.

First floor, right side of the Teaching Building?

Yan Hao looked at the announcement, a bit confused.

Compared to the girls’ dorm, the description of the boys’ dorm seemed too brief.

But he couldn’t worry about that too much.

Following the instructions in the announcement, he dragged his suitcase and carried his backpack to the so-called “first floor, right side of the Teaching Building.”

At the far right of the hallway, an iron gate separated an extra classroom.

At the same time, a small path at the end of the hallway led to the back of the Teaching Building, where several connected dormitory buildings stood.

Yan Hao suspected the class teacher might have missed something.

But as soon as he passed through the iron gate and reached the door of the last classroom, he saw through the window that it was filled with beds.

So his dorm… was a classroom in the Teaching Building?

With questions and confusion, he carried his things inside.

The classroom-turned-dorm was fairly spacious.

There were many beds, with eight bunk beds tied together in groups, filling the entire classroom.

He took a look and sure enough, there were names on the beds.

Before long, he found his own name.

Yan Hao had no interest in complaining about this dorm setup.

He tidied up a bit, then headed back to the school gate to start his next round of moving.

Just as Yan Hao stepped out of the dorm, he noticed someone else standing frozen at the entrance of the iron gate.

Yan Hao could only give a wry smile inwardly as he passed by that person and started another trip.

After several trips, all of Yan Hao’s belongings were brought to the dorm.

His bed was on the lower bunk on the far right side of the classroom.

As he moved and organized, his dormmates gradually began to arrive.

Those who came started chatting in the room, and their conversations were mostly complaints and gripes about the dorm.

A few of them seemed to have been middle school classmates and immediately got chummy as soon as they met.

Judging from the number of beds and the class teacher’s announcement, it seemed all the boys in their class were living in this one classroom.

After making his bed and lying down for a while, Yan Hao’s “bunkmate” also arrived at the dorm.

He was a slightly chubby guy wearing black square glasses and a black hat.

Yan Hao wasn’t great at socializing.

He wanted to say hello to his future bunkmate, but he didn’t know how to start, so he pretended not to care and played on his phone.

“Hey there, you’re all done unpacking?”

The roommate with the black hat started talking to him while organizing his own stuff.

His tone was friendly and a bit spacey.

Yan Hao breathed a sigh of relief.

From the first impression, his bunkmate seemed easy to get along with.

So he pretended to be caught off guard by the sudden conversation and said with feigned surprise, “Oh, me? I’ve been here for a while. Almost done.”

Because of his condition, Yan Hao had had few friends since childhood.

Everyone in the village knew about his episodes of demonic possession and madness.

Although no one talked about it openly and treated him normally enough, they did worry about their own children’s safety, so they never let them get too close to Yan Hao.

When he started middle school, someone spread the news that Yan Hao could have a mad fit.

A few skeptical students cornered him and forcibly snatched the chain from his left hand.

Then things spiraled out of control.

Yan Hao didn’t remember much of what happened, but in his mad state, it took several police officers to subdue him.

Against a few middle schoolers, Yan Hao ended up sending them all to the hospital.

Yan Hao’s family wasn’t well off.

His mother worked at a fireworks factory, leaving early and returning late every day.

His father almost never came home, working at a furniture factory and only returning about once every two weeks.

It was his parents’ hard work that supported the family.

But after Yan Hao’s mad outburst, more than a month of their labor was likely wasted.

When Yan Hao came to, he was already at the town’s police station.

His mother stood outside, flustered, talking to someone on the phone.

Since Yan Hao was a minor and had hospital records, the police officer asked him a couple of simple questions and let him go.

When he got home, his mother asked roughly what happened.

Yan Hao told her everything.

She just let out a long sigh and muttered to herself, “What are we going to do?”

Then she prepared some food, told Yan Hao to eat and go to school tomorrow.

Yan Hao didn’t want to go back to school, but he didn’t dare say that to his parents.

The next day, as soon as Yan Hao entered the classroom, he noticed some strange looks.

Before the morning classes ended, the parents of the injured students showed up at the classroom door, interrupting the lesson and calling for Yan Hao to come out.

Yan Hao just trembled in his seat.

When they saw he wasn’t coming out, one of the parents walked in, intending to drag him out of the classroom.

The teacher for that class was an intern who had just graduated from university and started working there.

He had never seen anything like this, so he ran to the office to inform Yan Hao’s class teacher and parents.

Yan Hao’s mother, who was at work at the fireworks factory, heard the news and was both anxious and lost.

She quickly called Yan Hao’s father to tell him what had happened.

At first, Yan Hao tried to stay glued to his seat, but he was too weak to resist a strong adult.

Soon, he was dragged out of the classroom.

The parents surrounded him, berating him and demanding he go home to get his parents to pay compensation, threatening to come find him every day if he didn’t.

Even the teachers and class teacher’s pleas couldn’t stop them from encircling Yan Hao.

After what felt like a long time, Yan Hao’s father drove to his middle school, holding an electrician saw he had taken from the furniture factory.

He charged from the school gate all the way to the teaching building.

Seeing a group of adults on the balcony outside the classroom pointing at his son and yelling, he immediately started the electrician saw and moved it toward the stainless steel railing on the balcony.

The loud noise interrupted their accusations.

Under the shocked gazes of the students, teachers, and those parents, he stopped the now-smoking hand saw and said slowly, “Which parents are asking for compensation? If you have something to discuss… come talk to me.”

Seeing the smoking hand saw in Yan Hao’s father’s hand, those parents didn’t dare say a word.

They wisely moved away from Yan Hao.

For the first time, Yan Hao thought his dad was so cool—cooler than Marvel’s superheroes.

He had never really liked his father much growing up.

His dad was always strict with him: making him rewrite homework that wasn’t done well, strictly limiting his TV time, forbidding him from playing video games, complaining that he wasn’t as good as other kids, and sometimes even taking his bad mood out on Yan Hao.

But from that moment on, Yan Hao was certain of one thing—he was loved, even if that love wasn’t perfect.

In the end, the situation still escalated to the police station.

Not only was compensation involved, but Yan Hao’s father’s actions might have led to detention.

Fortunately, the intern teacher, the surveillance footage, and Yan Hao’s classmates helped corroborate his father’s side of the story.

In the end, Yan Hao’s family only paid half of the hospital bills.

Yan Hao still remembered what the intern teacher said in his statement: “I don’t know if he was too extreme. All I know is that we all have families, and he was just a father trying to protect his son.”

After that incident, the intern teacher—who was only a third-year university student who had just arrived at the school—became untouchable in Yan Hao’s heart.

No other teacher could ever replace that status.

Although she left the school six months later, Yan Hao believed that a good teacher like her deserved a better future.

After that, the story of Yan Hao’s father spread throughout the school.

Everyone knew Yan Hao had a loving and cool dad, but they also knew that Yan Hao really could have a mad fit.

No one bothered him again, but no one wanted to get too close either.

Throughout middle school, his only companions were all kinds of books, TV shows, games, anime, and daydreaming.

No.13 Middle School, Teaching Building, fourth floor, third classroom on the right.

Yan Hao and Tao Feng—that is, Yan Hao’s “bunkmate” with the black hat—finally found the classroom tucked away in a corner of the teaching building.

They were ready to pick up their student cards and other items.