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.