The Buggiest System

140 - Zhang Liu

Zhang Liu turned around, opened his marker with a pop, and wrote his name on the whiteboard for everyone to remember. 

"So to start things off, we will be... let's see here..." Zhang Liu opened his lesson plan and adjusted his glasses to read what he wrote. 

"...Since I will be your teacher until the end of the year, we will be introducing ourselves first. We don't want to have an awkward atmosphere until the end of the year, right?"

As he displayed a light smile on his face, he pointed towards the student in the right corner of the classroom. "Let's start with you... What's your name?"

The student stood up, looking visibly startled. "Uh, I am Guo Zhen. I-"

Before Guo Zhen could continue, Zhang Liu interrupted him. "Stop. Now the person beside Mr. Guo, please stand up."

With Zhang Liu's order reaching her ears, the person beside Guo Zhen stood up, acting all stiff. 

"Tell me, how old is Guo Zhen, and what does he aspire to be?"

"Er, umm, uh... He is... 17? And, uh... I don't know his dreams..."

Guo Zhen watched as his seatmate mumbled her way through answering. They weren't really close, and only talked when needed. But only now did he feel that despite the closeness of their seats, the distance between them was farther than he imagined. 

'The only thing she knows about me is my name and age, probably.' Guo Zhen turned his head away. 

Zhang Liu watched as the student had difficulty introducing her seatmate to him. "Stop. Take your seat, both of you."

He cleared his throat before he continued speaking. "Now I'm guessing that the rest of you will do the same thing as she did, with a few exceptions."

"As such, we'll do this again next week. I expect all of you to know your seatmates, enough that you can introduce them to me."

Hearing Zhang Liu, the students groaned. This was such a troublesome teacher.

"Anyways, what topics have your teacher discussed already? At what topic are you currently?"

The students answered Zhang Liu, to which he responded with a sour voice, "Ah, you're still there? How slow were you?"

At this point, the students were starting to get irritated. We aren't slow, okay? The teacher was just really sickly, always absent.