The more he spoke, the louder his voice became, and flecks of spit landed on my face.

“I heard you come from a single-parent family, just living with your mom? No wonder—when a woman’s in charge, everything falls apart! Look how spoiled you are, not a trace of manliness!”

“See? A household without a man to lead is bound to be a mess! On the very first day of school, I noticed the way your mom was dressed…”

I’d had heart problems since I was young. This bracelet was something my mom specifically bought to monitor my health data, to prevent emergencies. I never expected it would bring me this kind of trouble.

Seeing him start to drag my family’s privacy into it, I could no longer hold back and shot back at him:

“Mr. Miller! I’ve already said this is for monitoring my health data, not a decoration!”

“Second, the money spent on it was from my own family. We’ve been trading internationally for decades—how does me buying a bracelet make me some kind of foreign-worshipper?”

“And finally, as a teacher, please mind your words and behavior. Focus on teaching, not on what clothes my mom wears!”

Seeing me talk back, Mr. Miller’s face turned the color of pig liver. If not for a few other teachers restraining him, he probably would have slapped me right then and there.

“You brat, you dare insult a teacher?”

“You think having a bit of money makes you special? I don’t think you’re focused on studying at all! Pretending to be sick—you’re just spoiled rotten.”

“Right now, go stand on the field! You don’t come back until I say so!”

His last sentence was almost a roar, his eyes locked on me, clearly hoping to see me give in.

But I wasn’t afraid in the slightest. I met his stare without flinching.

Veins bulged on his forehead. “You still dare glare at me? Get out, now!”

A kind-hearted female teacher came over to pull me aside. “Classmate, just apologize to your homeroom teacher. He’s only doing this for your own good—he’s just… overly concerned.”

Her voice trailed off by the end, clearly realizing Mr. Miller was being unreasonable.

I ignored the others’ attempts to intervene, keeping my gaze locked on him without backing down.

My defiance made him laugh in disbelief. It was as if he couldn’t imagine a student having the audacity to challenge his authority.

As if searching for an outlet for his anger, he suddenly grabbed my collar and dragged me back to the classroom. Standing on the podium, he barked orders:

“Quiet! Everyone shut up! Alex Carter has ignored class rules, worn accessories, and talked back to a teacher. Do you think what he did was right?”

The class looked at each other in confusion, unsure what he was even going on about. It was only the start of the school year—nobody had ever heard of such a rule. No one knew how to respond.

When nobody spoke, Mr. Miller raised his voice. “Are you all deaf? Didn’t you hear my question? If you think what he did was fine, stand up and take the punishment with him! I’ll ask again—was he right or wrong?!”

This time, all the students reluctantly dragged out the words: “Wroooong.”

A look of satisfaction spread across Mr. Miller’s face. He turned toward me, clearly expecting me to fall in line like everyone else.

He smirked and said venomously, “Hear that, Alex Carter? Everyone says you were wrong. If you don’t apologize, I’ll have the entire class shave their heads—let’s put an end to this obsession with appearances!”

Groans filled the room. My classmates looked at me with either pleading or resentful eyes, clearly not wanting to be punished because of me.

Mr. Miller looked even more pleased, tilting his chin upward as if certain I would now bow my head and apologize to him in front of everyone.

But to his disappointment, I wasn’t afraid in the slightest. I stayed completely calm.

“Mr. Miller, you don’t have the authority to force every student to shave their heads—especially not when you’re clearly acting out of personal spite.”

“If you think wearing a smart bracelet is wrong, you can take it up with the principal and propose adding a rule banning them, instead of threatening to punish other students just to get at me.”

“If you really dare shave the entire class’s heads, I’ll be happy to report it to the principal. And if he doesn’t handle it, I’ll call the education bureau and ask exactly who gave you the power to trample on students’ dignity!”

The smug look on Mr. Miller’s face vanished instantly, replaced by a flush of humiliation and rage. He was breathing heavily, clearly never expecting me to embarrass him in front of the whole class.

“You little brat!”

He raised his hand high, but I quickly said, “If you dare hit me, that’s corporal punishment. Are you sure you want to bet your teaching career on this?”

My words stopped him cold. His hand hung awkwardly in the air before he finally slammed it down on the desk instead.

“Get out! Go! Back to your dorm and reflect on your actions!”

I thought for a moment. With only two self-study periods left in the day, going back to the dorm to relax didn’t sound so bad. I nodded. “Alright, sir, I’ll head back then.”

I packed my things and started for the door. My desk mate kept his head down and whispered, “Alex, that was badass—standing up to the tyrant like that. You don’t know… some graduates said every year he picks someone at the start of the semester to make an example of. Several students ended up transferring because they couldn’t stand it. One girl was even pushed into depression and nearly jumped off a building. Now that you’ve gone against him, he’s definitely going to come after you even harder.”

I just smiled faintly. “I haven’t done anything wrong. If you walk straight, you don’t fear a crooked shadow. The one who should be afraid is someone like him—someone with a bit of power who thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

“The teacher-student relationship is equal. We’re not his slaves. If he really ignores school rules and does something excessive to me, he’ll be the one in trouble.”

I thought the matter would end there.

Even a fool like Mr. Miller should realize I wasn’t someone he could mold at will.

But I was wrong. He really did start his retaliation, just like my desk mate had warned.

This time, though, his methods were subtler and more vicious.

In class, he would deliberately ask me questions far beyond the scope of the curriculum. When I couldn’t answer, he’d mock me and send me to stand in the back for the entire period.

When I turned in homework, he’d claim he never received it, then publicly berate me for being a liar and tell the class to be wary of me.

During exams, he checked every single answer I wrote, and because the crossbar on my “7” was slightly short, he deliberately marked every “7” as a “1,” docking me over thirty points on my math test.

Holding my exam paper, he stood proudly at the front of the class.

“Some students have really disappointed me. You placed in the top three on the entrance exam, yet now you’ve dropped more than twenty places. Makes me wonder how you got those original grades.”

“If our class had taken first place in the grade this time, I would have rewarded everyone with an afternoon off to watch a movie. But no—someone had to drag down the average!”

“Alex Carter, are you spending all your energy on your appearance? I’ve told you before—that’s not what a student should be focusing on. Especially you, a boy. Do you want to end up like a girl and find a man to marry?”

Even the other students could tell that Mr. Miller was deliberately targeting me, but while some felt sorry for me, they still chose to avoid me—afraid of drawing his fire onto themselves.

Even my desk mate, who had once been close to me, began to drift away after a few attempts to comfort me when Mr. Miller retaliated.

Gradually, I was completely isolated by the entire class.

I had to eat alone in the cafeteria, spend breaks without anyone to talk to, and during P.E. when we formed teams, everyone would pair off, leaving me behind.

Sometimes my homework wouldn’t even be collected, which only gave Mr. Miller more excuses to “make an example” of me. Every time he criticized me, his spit flew, his eyes gleamed with excitement, as if he was savoring the moment—hoping I would finally break, beg him for mercy, and admit I was wrong to stand up to him, just to feed his twisted need for control.

But I still refused to submit. Instead, I kept living my school life on my own terms.

Whether my homework was collected or not, I did it carefully. No matter what score I got, knowledge didn’t lie. As for being socially isolated in class—as long as it didn’t turn into physical bullying, I didn’t care.

A few students who couldn’t stand watching this would quietly slip me notes, advising me to just apologize to Mr. Miller. After all, we were just students, powerless to fight back against a teacher, and we’d still have to live under his thumb for the next three years of high school.

I simply thanked them for their concern but didn’t take their advice.

If you want someone to destroy themselves, first let them become overconfident.

My repeated silence made Mr. Miller believe I was afraid of him—that just a little more pressure would make me bow to him. Under that mindset, his actions grew increasingly excessive, and he could no longer control the degree of his punishments like before.

By now, Mr. Miller was addicted to crushing me, unable to stop himself. But his retribution was already on its way.

A few weeks passed, and at the end of the first month of school, per school regulations, the homeroom teacher was to inspect the dormitories.

Mr. Miller practically had his tail in the air, unable to hide his excitement. It seemed he had been drinking quite a bit—he reeked of alcohol as he kicked our dorm door open, his sharp eyes sweeping across our beds.

But we were well prepared. We knew he would be looking for trouble, so we had cleaned everything to perfection.

First, he checked our beds—every single one was folded as neatly as a block of tofu, and even when he pulled out a ruler to measure, he found nothing amiss.

A flicker of disappointment crossed his face, and we all breathed a quiet sigh of relief. One of my roommates even shot me a discreet thumbs-up.

Next, Mr. Miller ran a wet wipe across the floor, looking for dust, but again, he was disappointed.

Before he came, I had personally wiped every inch of the place. Not a single speck of dust remained.

Everything was arranged in perfect order, sunlight reflecting off the spotless floor. Even the most obsessive neat freak couldn’t find a flaw—it looked like something out of a showroom model.

If there had been an award for the cleanest dorm, ours would have taken first place without question.

But this only made Mr. Miller more upset. He had come here specifically to find fault, and now that he couldn’t, his bottled-up anger was looking for a target. His eyes almost seemed to spit fire.

Suddenly, his gaze landed on a corner of the wardrobe—where a small box held a delicate model.