Before anyone could react, Xi Jiayi seized the paperweight from the desk. In one swift motion, she hurled it at Tian Yuren's head.
The air cracked.
The weight missed by barely a centimeter, slamming into the iron bars.
Glass shattered, raining down like needles. The inmates recoiled, flinching in terror.
Tian Yuren collapsed, his face drained of blood, his eyes wide—like a man who had just seen death.
No one noticed the trembling hand that had clutched Jiayi's wrist.
Jun Meiyu's desperate grip had dragged the throw a fraction off course—just enough to spare a life.
The station froze.
Jing Yongwei's jaw tightened, Cheng Wanru's hand stilled mid-note, and the officers held their breath.
"Miss Xi," Jing Yongwei said, his voice low but razor-sharp. "What are you doing?"
A stabbing pain shot through Jiayi's head. Her breath faltered. Her vision blurred—
And then came the flickers.
A woman's voice, hoarse and desperate.
"Stop! Please—please stop! Let me go. Don't touch me."
Children's cries overlapped, trembling with terror.
"Teacher! Teacher, help us!"
"Save us—please!"
"Teacher!"
Their voices echoed like knives, piercing her heart.
Then came the laughter. Not just laughter—words.
Ugly, mocking, inhuman.
"Cry louder! Let's hear you beg!"
"Where's your savior now? Teacher? Hah! She can't save you!"
"This is what happens when you fight back—pathetic!"
The men's jeers mingled with their laughter, vile echoes bouncing in her skull until she could hardly breathe.
"Miss Xi!" Jun Meiyu's voice broke through the haze. She gripped her arm, frantic.
Jiayi's nails dug into her palms, blood welling. The vision shattered.
Her eyes opened—burning red, hollow with fury.
Without warning, she shoved Jun Meiyu aside and strode toward the cell. Officers moved to stop her, but the pressure that radiated from her body pressed them back like an invisible storm.
"Miss Xi!" Jing Yongwei barked. "Enough! Stop this now!"
She didn't hear him. She was ready to tear the bars apart when Jun Meiyu caught her again.
"Please," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Calm down… control yourself, Miss Xi"
The words slipped into Xi Jiayi's heart. Her movements stilled.
And in that stillness, another voice echoed in her memory—her grandmaster's stern lessons.
Control your fury, Xi Jiayi. Do not let rage own you. Calm down.
Xi Jiayi closed her eyes, repeating the words silently. She forced herself to breathe. Slowly, her body obeyed. But when her eyes opened again, the fury burning within them hadn't dimmed.
Jing Yongwei stepped forward, his voice strict and edged with anger. "Miss Xi! Why would you act so recklessly? Do you understand what you just did?"
Jun Meiyu panicked, bowing slightly. "I-I'm sorry! Please, forgive her, she—"
Before she could finish, one of the culprits inside the cell found his courage. He pointed at Xi Jiayi with a trembling finger. "See! We told you! She's the one! She beat us! She's the real—"
"Shut up!" Jing Yongwei roared, slamming his baton against the bars. "One more word, and I will break every bone in your body."
The man froze instantly.
"And Miss Xi!" Jing Yongwei snapped, his patience gone. "Will you speak? Why are you behaving like this?!"
Her head lifted slowly, and her eyes—burning, merciless—locked onto him.
"Why? Because these men are filth. Because they weren't only attacking a woman. They dared to lay hands on a teacher. Mercy? Do they even deserve it?"
The air froze.
"…Teacher?" Jing Yongwei muttered.
Cheng Wanru's voice trembled. "Chief… Miss Jun is a teacher. A high school teacher."
The truth struck Jing like a blade. Still, he tried to stand firm. "Even so—the law will decide. You cannot take it into your own hands."
Xi Jiayi's gaze cut through him, her voice like steel.
"The law punishes crime. But tell me, Chief Jing—who punishes contempt? Who punishes a society that grows blind even when the honor of its teachers is dragged into the dirt?"
Her words hit the room like a storm.
"People love to say, respect teachers. Honor teachers. But it's a lie. Empty words. Because when a teacher is beaten, when she bleeds, when her dignity is torn apart—what does society do? They shake their heads, mutter tragic, and move on. As if the one who carried generations on her shoulders was nothing but another nameless victim."
Her voice rose, sharper, harder.
"Parents give life. But its teachers who give them the direction. They take children who know nothing, who cannot even tell right from wrong, and shape them into human beings. They bleed themselves dry, lesson after lesson, sacrifice after sacrifice, so that someone else's child can stand tall. And this is the reward? To be treated as prey? To be violated, mocked, crushed—and the world shrugs?"
She slammed her fist against the bars. The culprits shrank back in terror.
"To harm a woman is already a crime. But to defile a teacher is to defile the nation itself. It is to spit on the hands that raised you, to trample the soil from which tomorrow grows. If a society allows this, what lesson does it teach its children? That the most sacred can be humiliated and nothing will change? That the ones who shape the future can be broken like ants, and no justice will come?"
Her gaze raked the officers like a blade.
"Tell me—would you even wear that uniform if not for a teacher who once corrected your hand, pushed you forward, made you more than you were? And if that same teacher were dragged into filth, would you stay silent? Would you let vermin like this breathe another day?"
The culprits shrank against the wall, their bravado crushed to dust.
Jing Yongwei opened his mouth to speak—but no words came.
Jun Meiyu's heart trembled. For the first time in her life, she felt something she hadn't even known she longed for—acknowledgment. Respect.
A weight she had carried silently all these years was finally seen, honored, by a girl who wasn't even her student.
Her eyes stung. Tears blurred her vision.
The officers stood frozen, throats tight, their eyes stinging. Memories of their own teachers surged—the voices that once guided them, the hands that once lifted them. They had saluted teachers in words, yes, but never in truth. And Xi Jiayi's fury stripped them bare, left them trembling.
Until a voice shattered it.
From the back, an officer growled, his rage overflowing.
"Chief Jing… open the cell. Let us in—we'll smash every bone in these b*stards."