Super Electric Eel Avatar

193 The Parents’ Meeting
Seeing the big black guy staggering up the cliff, the white python growled twice, then plunged its head into the water.

”Are you having eggs that you laid in the bottom of the water?” The electric eel lied in a lake, lamely. How dare the python stop him?

He does not know the gender of the python, but Chen Fan was sure that it must have ”neurosis.” At 2:20 p.m., Chen Fan, who cut off a few large cigarette pack-sized pieces of Taisui from its mother’s body, threw them to the electric eel and drove off to Yucai High School to attend a parent’s meeting.

In silence, the bus soon arrived at the high school building, its bright school motto shining in the sun.

”Here!” As soon as Chen Fan got out of the car, Yunmeng waved him over.

”You ought to add an address, reading: dear husband!” Chen Fan covered his chin and walked up to her like a thief.

”Pooh!” when Yunmeng saw Chen Fan trying to cover up, she immediately lightly punched him once. ”What have you touched, as it smells good and sweet?”

”It’s some spices,” Chen Fan said, putting his hand in front of his nose to also smell. The fragrance of the Taisui was too strong, and every time he cut it, the smell on his hand could remain until the next day, and only then disappear.

At 2:50 p.m., the class was already filled with all kinds of middle-aged men and women, of which Chen Fan was the youngest. To sit in his old school, after so many years, Chen Fan felt an indescribable feeling in his heart, as if he had returned to the previous years that he did not want to recall. He remembered things like dragged by the teacher to the office every day just to memorize English vocabulary...

Just as Chen Fan was imagining these things all over again, a young girl with spectacles came in from the door, and she felt very familiar. The same pink gown, the same face—the teacher standing on the platform was unexpectedly the same girl he had met in the pet clinic yesterday.

”Damn, so clever?” Chen Fan rubbed his eyes unbelievably, as he had not expected that she would be a famous high school teacher at such a young age. But, she looked a little haggard today, and her eyes were red.

”Dear parents, thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this parent-teacher meeting. The female teacher picked up the chalk and wrote three beautiful regular script words that spelled out ”Zhang Tiantian” on the blackboard, then forced out a smile and said, ”My name is Zhang Tiantian, but you can call me Miss Zhang.”

”Good afternoon, Miss Zhang,” the parents below the stage said and laughed.

The parents’ meeting was nothing more than the teacher’s report on the children’s performances in school, and then a talk about how to pay attention to the children and how to learn the science of educating children.

”Children nowadays like to go online, which is a big headache for parents and teachers. It not only delays a lot of learning time but also leaves them vulnerable to negative information. Parents, please raise your hands if your children are addicted to the Internet,” Zhang Tiantian said with a smile.

Swish...

There were forty-six of them in total, and forty-three of them had raised their hands.

”Miss Zhang, you say the children like to surf the Internet, so what should we as parents do?” A middle-aged woman in the back row asked. ”The children are all senior grade three, so every night they go home and read novels online, only going to sleep after reading for a few hours.”

”Of course we have to go to the telecommunication bureau to stop broadband, then also, do not give them pocket money!” a fat man said in an experienced manner.

”Sell the computer. If he doesn’t come home on time, I’ll beat him every time he is caught.”

”By the end of the night, I’ll cut the electricity... ”

”Using our will to coerce our children is counterproductive. The children are already big and have their own ways of thinking. They would think that it’s a very authoritarian, disrespectful way of doing things. Then, they will use their every move to resist this behavior on our parts if we treated them as such.”

The teacher shook her head, saying that she disapproved of their statements, ”The children now are at a psychological level that requires respect and approval. Only by respecting their ideas, will that make them want to listen to your opinion from their hearts. This is not to say to encourage children to get to the Internet, but we want to change the way we communicate, to try to use a discussing tone, regarding him as an adult, in order to discuss the negative impact brought by getting addicted to the network. When children are fully respected, they also try to maintain the respect for parents and teachers, us adults.”

Then one of the parents said, ”Miss Zhang, my child is a stubborn donkey. He used to steal my money every day to buy game cards. I was so angry that I beat him up, and if I found him playing games, I would hit him until he said sorry. And now, he doesn’t dare play games anymore.”

The male parents heard this and nodded repeatedly, thinking: If you hit him with a stick, it’s just for his own good, you won’t learn if you’re not beaten up!

”And how is your relationship with your child?” Miss Zhang asked with a smile.

”Er... he sees me just like he’s seeing the devil, hating and fearing me,” he said. ”He will only now tell everything to his mother.”

”Haha...” a lot of parents burst into laughter.

”If there is oppression, there will be resistance, and I think you parents understand that. Children must obey the will of adults without resistance. But it doesn’t mean that the children are in agreement with adults. When they have the ability to resist the will of adults, they will go their own way just to prove that you are wrong or to show that they simply don’t care about you. I think this is all that parents are not willing to see,” pointed out Miss Zhang.

......

”Yunmeng’s parent, or parents?” After about some time, Miss Zhang called Chen Fan with a sweet voice.

”Hmm, yes! Here!” Chen Fan was lost a few seconds, then looked up and made eye contact with her.

Miss Zhang was stunned for a moment, her eyelash blinking surprisedly, ”You are Yunmeng’s…? ”

”I’m her brother!” Chen Fan said in a casual way, not having the excitement of seeing a pretty lady revealed in his voice.

”Yun... Hello, Mr. Yun!” she said, at first surprised.

She then secretly clenched her teeth. Ever since yesterday, after her sled dog was frightened, the canine’s demeanor had changed totally, as his eyes were now wandering always, and even a little action could scare it, causing it to run to escape. To know that the dog was taken care of by her since it was only a month old and had been raised to the present age of four, the relationship was obviously not normal.

”My name is Chen.”

”Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Chen, you are so young, so you must know more about the inner emotions of children. Can you talk about your views on children’s addictions to the Internet?” Miss Zhang smiled. She would like to praise Yunmeng, but suddenly she changed her mind, ready to refute this guy or to at least let him to be embarrassed.

”Addicted to the Internet?” Chen Fan, sitting in a chair, calmly said, ”I think it’s good for children to have Internet access, as long as it’s not a pathological addiction.”

”Mr. Chen, can you give us more details?” She was secretly happy, as how would he dare to say these kind of dauntless words in the parents meeting. She knew it was absolutely a dead road.

Sure enough, a lot of parents had already turned up their noses at him and looked at him as if he were an idiot.

”The benefits, if I wanted to elaborate, well, I would not be able to finish about them, even by tomorrow morning. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people who like the Internet, so I’ll tell you parents that you made two big mistakes.” Chen Fan put up two fingers. ”First, the negative information of the network affects the children! Second, why do the children become addicted to the Internet?”

He continued, ”Negative information is a problem that we cannot cover, and two dogs fighting for a bone can also be viewed as a negative message. The negative information that really attacks children comes from the real world. Strictly speaking, the Internet is a good tool for reducing the crime rate, because it can relieve the frustration and loneliness of one’s mood.”

”As for indulging in the Internet, and wasting a lot of studying time… Why do children go online? Is it just too much of a temptation? The mistake is that he had all kinds of contradictions and pressures in the real world, so he wanted to relax himself through the Internet. So, who is the source of this tension and stress? It can’t be the children themselves.”

He went on, and on. ”Don’t always attribute the problem to the children, as the children who are addicted to the Internet must have something hidden behind their reality. Only tracing the roots that are the causes of the problems, can one solve the problems of children that do not love to study. Otherwise, they will continue to vent their emotions in other ways. Because the lure of the Internet is great, it is also a slap in the face of reality.”

Dementia, complete dementia was caused by this explosive speech. The atmosphere in the classroom was very strange, as all the parents’ eyes were staring big, and ”confused” and ”lost” expressions were completely written on the faces. Some people were thinking: It’s harder to be a parent than the mayor of Zhongyun...

”Liu... Liu Shuai’s parents…” Miss Zhang swallowed hard and found herself unable to find any reason to contradict him. In particular, the part about ”don’t always attribute the problem to your children!”

The parents were also frustrated by Chen Fan’s involvement, and they continued to discuss the impact of the Internet on their children. After listening to the children’s performance reports in school, they turned around and left.

”Mr. Chen, will you go to the office with me?” After the meeting, Zhang Tiantian hesitated to go to Chen Fan. ”I want to talk with you about the psychological aspects of children.”

”No!” In the hallway, Chen Fan did not hesitate to reject her. I mean, what an international joke, going to the office?! It’s better to go to the police station!

”Mr. Chen... is it that you are too busy?” Miss Zhang asked timidly.

”Well, there are still important things to do this afternoon!” Chen Fan awkwardly touched his nose. ”The child’s psychology is very good to think of, and more communication would be fine.” With that, he quickly disappeared down the stairs.

”Are there any classes at night?” Walking under the orange maple tree, Chen Fan casually dragged a leaf, pinching its thin stem and turning it around.

”Yes, at half past six, we’ll begin the evening self-study.” Nodding, Yunmeng glanced around like a thief, not sure what she was fearing.

”Go eat first. This rotten school, I’m furious just looking at it!” Chen Fan said, as he quickened his pace.

The two turned down the street, and Chen Fan targeted a restaurant that specialized in specialty snacks. The weather was so cold that these streets, which were originally so busy, now only had a sparse number of pedestrians. They were dressed in thick warm attire and were in a hurry.

”Excuse me, do you know if there is a shop near here called ’Old Sea Tea?’”

As Chen Fan was going to push open the glass door, a long haired girl wearing a Yves Saint Laurent brown leather jerkin was coming from the left side. She used her sweet voice, but her mandarin was blunt.

The leather hunting outfit suited the hot girl’s character commonly, because this can reflect that kind of wild and athletic feeling more. But this little girl was a long haired charming sweet girl, who, if she changed the outfit, she absolutely could pretend to be a fairy from an ancient era. As soon as Chen Fan turned his head, he was attracted by her unique temperament.

”Do you know, Sir?” the long haired girl again smiled and repeated.

”I know,” Chen Fan said, stunned a little. He snapped out of it after seeing Wu Ruoyu and Yunmeng, who could compare in beauty with this girl. He could already very expertly keep his lewd expressions hidden, not like before, when his eyes looked in all the wrong ways when he would see beautiful girls.

”Go straight through the lane on the left, then turn left at the three-way intersection road, and then walk a few hundred meters... ” After directing for a while, even Chen Fan was himself confused! The tea shop was famous for its centuries-old secret tea-making process, but it hid in a location tucked away in the old town, and the roads were complicated.

He asked Yunmeng for a book and pen, which Chen Fan held in his hands, thinking while he drew.

”Thank you so much,” the long haired girl crossed her hands to her waist and bent to bow.

”You... Are you a foreigner?” Chen Fan stopped writing, as only south Korean and Japanese women would make that move. Considering also, the fact that she spoke Mandarin, gave him a slightly awkward feeling, which then made him doubt.

”I’m Japanese!” The long haired girl smiled and nodded.

”Why a little Japanese!?” Chen Fan complained, saying in his heart, ”You can’t buy it, because the tea is so limited, and the original one can only be booked in advance.” However, he took back the sentence that he was about to say...

”There you go,” Chen Fan actually said, as he handed her the ”map” that was drawn abstractly, shaking his head, and then he pulled Yunmeng into the restaurant.

The long haired girl pinched the note and tried to identify it for some time, then turned to the left lane with suspicion in her eyes. But, when her figure disappeared around the corner for ten seconds, she came back in a strange and uncertain way, and not seeming to care about the note that had dropped out of her hand, she clanged open the glass door.

The customers were sparse inside the dining-room, and as the long haired girl glanced half a circle around it, her eyes brightened and she exclaimed, ”Dadada!” as she ran up to the man in her small leather boots. Then, seeing the man’s stunned look, she grabbed his palms.

”Are you insane?” Chen Fan broke free his palm, hurried in, and took his hands and sniffed them, without saying a word. If that girl was a man, he would have slapped him.

Yunmeng, however, was so nervous, that she grabbed Chen Fan’s shirt and stared at the girl with one third of her face out.

”How did you get this smell on your hands?” The long haired girl sat down opposite of the two people, the look in her eyes was rich and strong in expectation.

”Why do you care?” Chen Fan was alert, thinking she must know about the ghost moon incense, or she needed the ghost moon incense urgently. Otherwise, she would not be so disgraceful in her actions.

Indeed, as expected, the long haired girl was asking in an urgent manner, ”Is this the ghost moon incense fragrance? Do you have it? I’m willing to buy it at a high price.”

”Ghost moon incense? What’s that? I don’t know. This fragrance, I picked up a stone at the seaside and its smell was stained on my hand.” Chen Fan secretly patted Yunmeng’s thigh, indicating that she did not need to be nervous.

”And the stone?”

”I threw it away!” Chen Fan’s face was calm.

The long haired girl took a deep breath and said in a gentle voice, ”Sir, would you please sell me that stone for five million yuan?”

Chen Fan crumpled his mouth. ”This stone, Miss Japan, has been thrown by me, no matter if you believe it or not. But, I want to ask you to leave, because you have seriously interfered with my meal.”

Don’t say five million, because even if it was for five billion, Chen Fan would not sell it. Especially now that ghost monon incense already had no remaining stock, and could only be produced by the Taisui, which could be like a virus, self-propagating!

Again, sell to her? When god comes to earth, he would consider it!

”I’m sorry, I’ll wait for you to finish dinner!” The girl with long hair stood up, bowed with her hands on her stomach, and stood beside it, like a lamp post.

”Chen Fan, this woman is very strange, as she is willing to spend five million to buy a stone.” Yunmeng puckered her mouth, this person was too strange, barging in the dining-room unexpectedly, pulling a man’s hand and not letting go. Of course, she did not think of the fact that her own left hand was still holding the same man’s shirt.

In this case, how could two people be in a mood to eat? After a few bites, Chen Fan was ready to leave.

”Sir, sir, shall we find a place to talk?” The long haired girl ran over to him, relentless.

”Yunmeng, take a taxi back to school yourself!” Chen Fan tapped her weak shoulder, as with her here, he couldn’t come out with his scoundrel act, which was making him have a very passive impression.

”But...” How could Yunmeng be trusted to leave him be alone with this long-haired girl? So, she jealousy pulled his arm.

”Be obedient...” Chen Fan hired a taxi, then touched her small nose.

”Then... Then you go home early!” Yunmeng’s tone was quite like a wife instructing husband, but seeing her eyes was like looking at the sexy secretary beside her husband.

After sending off Yunmeng, Chen Fan’s honest man index, immediately fell by about 200 percent. With a hard cough, he turned his face to stare at the long haired girl with an unbridled glare.

”All right, little girl, I’m going home, you should go wherever you want to play.” Chen Fan glared at her and walked toward his car.

As expected, the long haired girl grabbed him by the arm.