In October 2023, 19-year-old Yuki was embroiled in a public storm related to sexual harassment. The perpetrator was her high school Chinese language teacher, Chen Yong.

It all started with a sexual harassment-related survey she participated in. Yuki wrote about her experiences and uploaded them to her QQ space album. For her, it was just an ordinary record. But that night, Yuki saw that the number of views on this dynamic was much higher than usual. The next day, people came to her privately. Others saw screenshots from elsewhere, and they asked, is this true? Do you know that girl? “I said I know, it’s me.”

This storm subsided quickly, but at the end of July 2024, 28-year-old Nicole posted about her experience of being sexually harassed at the age of 18. Through the keywords in the article, people realized that the high school Chinese teacher mentioned was the same person who sexually harassed Yuki.

This article revealed a case of sexual harassment and alleged indecent assault of students by a high school teacher. After Nicole, nearly ten other victims came forward to identify this Chinese teacher. The case spanned two schools and more than a decade.

They were underage when they were sexually harassed, but the harm has continued to this day. Before the incident gained public attention, they faced the past alone, but they didn’t know that there were still high school students being harmed at a similar age.

This time, they decided to take the initiative to stand up. For girls who are not yet adults or have just become adults, this is a turmoil in their growth, and this belated rights protection will eventually bring them feedback.

01

Isolated and helpless

The screenshots that were spread recorded the detailed process of Yuki’s sexual harassment. At that time, she was 18 years old and a senior student at the West District of Chengdu Experimental Foreign Languages School.

The incident happened on the evening of April 13, 2022. She was originally attending evening self-study at a tutoring class outside the school. Her high school Chinese teacher sent her a restaurant location, inviting her to dinner. She sat next to the teacher and saw that there was also a sister sitting opposite the teacher, whom he introduced as an “old friend” and called her “September.” During the meal, the teacher repeatedly put his hand on Yuki’s shoulder and brushed it across her chest. Yuki was a little embarrassed and pretended not to feel it. September, who was sitting opposite, didn’t react much either, and the teacher’s behavior gradually became blatant. He held Yuki’s hand under the table, touched her chest several times, and pulled her into his arms.

That night, Yuki told her friend about being sexually harassed by Chen Yong / provided by the interviewee

Yuki did not directly write the other party’s name, but mentioned the male’s “high school Chinese teacher,” which only pointed to Chen Yong.

She could sense that she didn’t gain much trust. Many of her classmates wouldn’t like or forward the relevant information she posted on her Moments. Later, a junior schoolmate told her that someone was analyzing Yuki’s usual “lifestyle” on the school’s confession wall and also questioned her why she brought up this matter after so long.

This is not surprising. At the West District of Chengdu Experimental Foreign Languages School (hereinafter referred to as “Shiwai West District”), Chen Yong has always been a teacher who is liked by many students and colleagues.

In Yuki’s impression, Chen Yong seemed to be good to all the students. He often gave students books, and Yuki received three or four. They had to write weekly journals, and because of the high pressure of high school studies, Yuki would write down her unhappiness in the journals. Chen Yong would always annotate a lot of comments for her, mostly encouraging and caring, “Everyone seems to be pushing you to look at your grades, but this teacher only wants you to grow up healthy and happy.”

Chen Yong’s annotated comments: Today is a very warm day, it happens to be 5·21, remember that the premise of loving the world in this life is to love yourself! / provided by the interviewee

Chen Yong also often mentioned his previous work at the previous school. Yuki remembered that he told the students in class that he used to teach at the Second Middle School of Shihezi City (hereinafter referred to as “Shihezi Second Middle School”) and that the principal of Shiwai West District had hired him at a high price. The students who had a good relationship with him in the past were called “disciples” or “maids.” In Chen Yong’s Weibo, there are also many group photos with his students, as well as letters and poems written to him by the students.

At Shihezi Second Middle School, other teachers and students all called him “Talent,” and this title was also carried over to Shiwai West District. Yuki remembered that Chen Yong didn’t like others calling him “Teacher Chen.”

What impressed Yuki the most was the words that the students wrote to Talent. They talked about their feelings for Chen Yong, and how much Chen Yong had influenced them. Yuki could see the sincere “admiration” in it.

All of these constituted Chen Yong in her memory, a Chinese teacher who could be described as “beautiful,” and this beauty was shattered on the day of the sexual harassment.

18-year-old Yuki didn’t know how to understand Chen Yong’s behavior. That night, she asked Chen Yong online why he did this, but only got ambiguous answers. Later, she chose to avoid it, pretending that nothing had happened. In the end, she blocked and deleted all of Chen Yong’s contact information.

That night, Yuki questioned Chen Yong online / provided by the interviewee

She wanted to deceive herself, but the words Chen Yong said in her ear, she could never get past, “very straightforward, and I heard it super clearly, if he was a little further away from me, I would have said I heard it wrong.”

In 2023, 19-year-old Yuki still didn’t really have the courage. At that time, she seemed to be the only victim of Chen Yong’s sexual harassment. She even felt that Chen Yong was good to other students, “Maybe he (to me) didn’t handle the situation well, he really drank a little too much that day.”

In this storm, Yuki was isolated and helpless. For two or three months after the public opinion gradually subsided, she was in pain. She didn’t go to class for many days, but she didn’t know what to do, so she could only “stay” in the dormitory or the coffee shop. “Every day I feel like I’m not living in reality, the world is very strange, a little gray.”

What Yuki didn’t know was that there was a girl who firmly believed in her. She was a junior schoolmate one year younger than Yuki, and Chen Yong was the Chinese teacher of her class, and she was also enduring Chen Yong’s sexual harassment.

Around the second half of 2022, 16-year-old Qingfeng realized that Chen Yong might be sexually harassing her.

At that time, Chen Yong often sent her WeChat messages, asking her what she was doing, where she went, and who she was with. As his student, Qingfeng answered them all obediently. Later, Chen Yong’s messages began to cross the line. During the holidays, he would ask Qingfeng to send him selfies, and also asked her to “let her hair down” and “take pictures when she was sweating after running at night.” On Friday afternoons, he often asked Qingfeng to take selfies with him. Qingfeng didn’t like taking pictures and always found opportunities to escape. Chen Yong secretly took many photos of her at school and then sent them to her privately, saying that she looked so beautiful.

Chen Yong’s verbal harassment in the chat / provided by the interviewee

Every time she received these messages, Qingfeng was very uneasy and didn’t know how to reply.

Qingfeng remembered that in October 2023, almost the entire school knew about Yuki’s case. At first, Qingfeng was a little shocked when she saw Yuki’s article, but after thinking about it carefully, “it did seem like something he (Chen Yong) would do.”

Yuki and Qingfeng didn’t know that they would know each other. Yuki worked hard to get out of the sequelae of that storm, while Qingfeng kept enduring the harassment. Until the end of July 2024, a public post once again triggered the storm. The poster, Nicole, was a student of Shihezi Second Middle School. She wrote in the article that in 2014, when she was 18 years old, she was sexually harassed by a Chinese teacher from Shihezi Second Middle School.

And this Chinese teacher was called “Talent” by everyone.

This post was like a thread, connecting the victims scattered over the decades and distributed in various regions. They are no longer isolated and helpless.

02

Finding each other

Nicole’s post was an accident. That day, she saw a video in which the video creator talked about her childhood experience of being sexually assaulted by a relative. In the comment section, there were many similar experiences. These shares reminded Nicole of herself.

Nicole posted about her experience of being sexually harassed / provided by the interviewee

The sexual harassment happened in 2014, the summer after Nicole graduated from high school. She remembered that Chen Yong was around 30 years old that year. On the day of the incident, Nicole was accidentally invited by a classmate to go to Chen Yong’s house for dinner. After dinner, the classmates were chatting in the living room, and Chen Yong suddenly called Nicole to his room. Nicole went, but only stood at the door. Chen Yong sat on the bed and asked her “if she was a virgin,” and also said that he “hated virgins the most.” Nicole was very surprised, and before she could react, Chen Yong came over and hugged her, and also kissed her face and mouth.

18-year-old Nicole also had self-doubt, but 28-year-old Nicole already understood that this was not her fault. Nicole thought that maybe telling her experience could make more people alert.

This time, the post spread to a wider area, and thus brought more echoes. Victims from Shihezi Second Middle School and Shiwai West District found each other here and gained support from each other.

Yuki, like many of her high school classmates, immediately recognized that the “Talent” in the article was Chen Yong. She contacted Nicole, and as someone who had also been caught in the storm, Yuki felt that she might be able to help a little.

Trouble did come quickly. The public security organ found Nicole and wanted to call her to understand the situation. But she didn’t dare to answer several calls. Later, Nicole sent messages to Yuki while on the phone, and Yuki forwarded the messages to a friend who studied law, asking her friend how to answer, and then forwarded the answers back. They chatted like this for more than an hour.

In August 2024, the police contacted Yuki to understand the situation after the incident was exposed / provided by the interviewee

The three of them shared the tension. “When she (Nicole) didn’t send us messages, we were also thinking about what the police were saying and what to pay attention to,” Yuki said.

The matter did not stop at the exposure of sexual harassment. On August 1, 2024, the public security organ also contacted Yuki and took a record at her home. The police told her that the matter involved the sexual harassment of minors, and they had to intervene forcibly and conduct an investigation. Yuki and Nicole therefore decided to contact the parties in the northwest and Chengdu respectively, and submit more evidence collected to the police.

Every day after the post was issued, Nicole could receive new clues. Some netizens told her that they had been sexually harassed by Chen Yong, while others provided clues about suspected victims, totaling “at least a dozen or twenty (people).”

Qingfeng was also one of the parties who contacted them proactively. In the past, she didn’t dare to report the case because Chen Yong was her teacher and even knew her home address. She was worried about retaliation. But Nicole’s post and the comments of other victims made her realize that Chen Yong’s sexual harassment may have never stopped for more than a decade. In August 2024, Chen Yong resigned from the school proactively. Qingfeng had no more worries. A few days later, she and Yuki went to report the case together.

It takes even greater courage to stand up and use legal means to protect rights. When communicating with the parties, Yuki found that they had many concerns. They were worried that their information would be recognized by those around them, and they would particularly emphasize erasing the appellations Chen Yong gave them and the relevant keywords. When organizing the case statement, Yuki mentioned that the police might contact them to take notes, and they were also very afraid of receiving calls from the police.

Many people hesitated and chose to refuse. One person sent a private message to Yuki, but said that she still wanted to think about it, and then never replied to her message again. Nicole also repeatedly ran into walls. Some people confided in her about similar experiences, but were unwilling to come out and testify; there were also one or two classmates who sent Nicole Chen Yong’s harassment information, “but they also felt that they were busy now, (or) they were married, and refused me for various reasons.”

They will also hear opposing voices. Nicole remembered that when she was in high school, Chen Yong was very close to a girl, and he would take this girl with him on any occasion. She guessed that this girl might also have been sexually harassed by Chen Yong, but the girl was very angry after listening to Nicole’s words. She said that Chen Yong was the “light in her life,” and also said that Nicole would be punished for doing such things.

In the end, a total of 9 parties were willing to provide their materials. They had a small group called “Justice Prevails.”

The two senior schoolmates from the class of 2022 impressed Qingfeng. After Chen Yong’s sexual harassment was exposed, they said they were very busy and didn’t want to have too much contact with Chen Yong, hoping that the matter would “pass,” but then they still sent detailed self-statements and a lot of evidence, including letters and gifts from Chen Yong, as well as some intimate voice messages.

Screenshot of Chen Yong’s red envelope record / provided by the interviewee

“Every person who contacts us is very likely to say something that will shock us even more.” Communicating with other parties made Yuki repeatedly feel angry and painful.

Driven by this anger, she quickly got involved in the process of organizing evidence materials. Those days, Yuki stayed at home alone every day, facing the computer screen except for eating takeout. She learned the way the police asked questions from the record she had made, and would ask the parties more detailed questions. Her friend who studied law also kept giving her suggestions: the self-statement should be attached with an ID number, a handwritten signature, and a sentence should be added “I hereby promise that all the above content is true, clarify the possible legal consequences of this report, and be willing to bear the corresponding legal responsibility.”

In fact, this was not the first time Yuki “pursued justice.” In April 2022, when the incident happened, and in October 2023, when the storm arose, she could have obtained her own “justice.”

But she missed “justice” twice. In April 2022, the day after Yuki was sexually harassed, she told a friend about it. The other party was very angry and insisted on calling 12345 to complain to the mayor’s hotline, but because Yuki was unwilling to come forward at the time, there was no new progress later.

In October 2023, after Yuki’s experience was exposed, the vice principal, the head of the grade, and an English female teacher of Shiwai West District found Yuki at the school gate of her university. They said that the school attached great importance to this matter and would carefully investigate and give her an answer within two weeks, but there was no news later. Yuki mustered the courage to ask the female teacher who was present at the time, and the teacher told her that the school had publicly criticized Chen Yong at the general meeting and also canceled his relevant bonuses and evaluation qualifications.

She did not follow up on the written handling results of this matter. And Qingfeng told Southern Window that at the end of the storm in 2023, the school clarified Chen Yong in front of the students. It was an evening self-study, and suddenly seven or eight school leaders came to Qingfeng’s class. They told the students that there were some rumors about Chen Yong recently, which were completely untrue, and asked the students not to believe them and not to worry.

And in 2024, because they found each other, things seemed to have made substantial progress. On August 7, Yuki and her friend handed over the self-statement and evidence that she had organized for seven days to the Public Security Bureau. The material was very thick, and Yuki remembered that there were more than 100 pages.

03

Nightmare and Good Dream

Since reporting the case, Qingfeng has often had nightmares.

In her dream, Chen Yong came back. Sometimes they were in class, and Chen Yong suddenly appeared at the classroom door; in some dreams, he called Qingfeng’s name, and Qingfeng saw him standing in front of her when she looked up; in some dreams, Qingfeng saw him walking in from the school gate or passing by the classroom door.

“I was scared to death, but when I woke up and found it was a dream, I was very fortunate.” Qingfeng said that Chen Yong appeared in her dream more than 20 times. And Yuki told Southern Window: “(Dreaming of Chen Yong), that’s the dream we all have.”

Reporting the case brought Qingfeng a lot of pressure. In the tutoring class, she met a male teacher who looked very similar to Chen Yong, “a little bit of stress.” She was even more worried that her identity would be discovered by the school. In the first week, she couldn’t concentrate on listening to the class at all, and she would suffer from insomnia every night. During the evening self-study, she would start to doubt herself while writing her homework, whether she had made a very impulsive decision? What should she do next? The school might talk to her, or even punish or expel her, and she thought about the worst results.

On September 16, 2024, Yuki and Qingfeng finally received the administrative case filing notice.

Case filing notice / provided by the interviewee

The police told them that there would be a result within two months. And before a definite result truly arrives, their lives are constantly consumed in the long wait and investigation.

As a senior high school student, Qingfeng often only has time on weekends. She has never told her parents about her experience and rights protection. If she has to go to the police station, she can only use the excuse of returning to school on Sunday afternoon to go out a little earlier. In fact, she has to take a bus for more than an hour to go to the police station to take notes, and then rush back to school. At the same time, she also has to take care of the make-up classes in the morning and the exams at school in the evening, “the whole day’s schedule is very tiring.”

Qingfeng tried to find witnesses for herself. She wrote a short article and sent it to her classmates, hoping to let them know that she had made a lot of efforts, and now she was only one step away from success. As long as the other party hadn’t told their parents and was still a little hesitant, Qingfeng would keep trying to persuade them. After two weeks, she finally found two girls and a boy and took them to the police station to take notes.

Qingfeng later asked the police in charge about the results, but the other party did not give a clear answer.

In October 2024, a post on Chen Yong’s Moments made Yuki angry. Since the incident was exposed, Yuki would occasionally see Chen Yong’s news from others, mostly saying that the parties were spreading rumors, saying that he was wronged and had misjudged people. And that day, his Moments was reminiscing about a “little maid” – this girl had passed away due to an accident before, and Yuki remembered that Chen Yong often mentioned that they had a good relationship in class. In the Moments, Chen Yong wrote: “Little maid… I miss you very much, but what you don’t know is that I will also be talked about for calling you ‘little maid.'”

Screenshot of Chen Yong’s Moments / provided by the interviewee

But Yuki knew that the truth was not like this. After Chen Yong’s sexual harassment was exposed, the girl’s two friends found Yuki. They said that the girl had told them a lot about her being sexually harassed by Chen Yong before, and also said that she was very scared.

That day, Yuki was originally shopping with her parents, and Chen Yong’s Moments post disrupted the plan. In front of her parents, Yuki’s face turned red with anger, she didn’t want to go shopping, and she couldn’t eat, so she squatted aside and started typing on her phone, “a little out of control.”. Before that, she had also discussed with her lawyer to write an article and publish the information she had organized on the Internet, but she was worried about the risks and had not yet decided on a specific time. And when she saw Chen Yong’s Moments at that time, she wrote the article in one day and posted it on several social platforms.

“Because I was very angry that day, very angry, I just couldn’t bear it anymore, I couldn’t wait.”

In November 2024, Yuki also published an article on other platforms, and the police also contacted other parties in the case and went to the northwest, Shanghai, and Beijing to take notes from more parties.

Also in November, the police contacted Jiu Yue, the other girl who ate at the same table with Yuki and Chen Yong on the night of the incident in April 2022, through Chen Yong. Lawyer Chen Siqi told Southern Window that Jiu Yue’s testimony was basically consistent with Yuki’s statement and even provided more details of the indecency. Therefore, the public security preliminarily confirmed the facts of Chen Yong’s sexual harassment and indecency towards Yuki.

The police’s active actions always bring new hope to the parties. Every time at this time, Yuki would happily share the progress with other parties in the group, and the originally silent group would briefly become active. They jokingly discussed whether they should go to see Chen Yong if he went to jail, and how to see him, “Every time they (the police) say this kind of thing, I will think a lot.”

Waiting for the results has become the bond between them. On the Sunday afternoon before Qingfeng returned to school, Yuki would often tell her that she hoped that when she got her phone back next week, she would be able to see the news that Chen Yong was imprisoned.

This is the good dream they share.

04

The Feedback of Persistence

About 3 months after the case was filed, on December 20, 2024, the public security organ made a decision to terminate the investigation of the case of Chen Yong harassing others, involving Yuki’s part, on the grounds that the illegal behavior had exceeded the statute of limitations.

About 4 months after the case was filed, on January 22, 2025, the police made a decision not to impose administrative penalties on the case of Chen Yong harassing others, involving Qingfeng’s part, on the grounds that the existing evidence was insufficient to establish the illegal facts.

Qingfeng still remembers the moment she received the results. She secretly brought her phone into the school and watched the news in the toilet in the dormitory at night. The police first asked her to go to the Public Security Bureau to sign, and then said the results after signing. After a long time, the police sent her the decision not to impose penalties.

The decision not to impose administrative penalties and the decision to terminate the investigation of the case received by Qingfeng and Yuki / provided by the interviewee

She stared at the police’s message for a long time, and finally just replied: “Okay, I know.”

This is one of the worst results Qingfeng had expected. In the decision not to impose administrative penalties, the police singled out a sentence Qingfeng had sent to Chen Yong: “I miss you, Talent.”. In the opinion of Chen Siqi, a lawyer from Shanghai Haihua Yongtai (Chengdu) Law Firm, the police may have thought that this was Qingfeng’s response to Chen Yong, thereby proving that the chat between them was “reciprocal.”

The police also asked Qingfeng about this “response.” She explained that before the holidays, Chen Yong would constantly remind the students in class to miss him, and he would also say similar things to Qingfeng privately. Qingfeng knew that if she sent this sentence, she could make Chen Yong “stop.” Compared to bearing the consequences of rejection, what she could do was to minimize Chen Yong’s harassment of herself.

Qingfeng didn’t try to refuse. Once, Qingfeng couldn’t stand it anymore and set Chen Yong to do not disturb, and didn’t reply to his messages for the entire weekend. When she returned to school on Sunday, Chen Yong called Qingfeng to the office and asked her why she didn’t reply to the messages, and also hit her hand with a ruler. Another time, around mid-January 2024, Qingfeng was sitting in the last row of the classroom reviewing, and Chen Yong went around behind her to the table, quickly brushed her face with the back of his hand, and then left. Qingfeng didn’t react at all.

“He may have paused for two seconds, and I spent a second to react to what was on my face, and then spent a second to react to why he was doing this. After he left, I realized what I had just experienced.” But at this time, Qingfeng was too late to take any action to express her rejection. Since then, Chen Yong has done similar behavior twice.

Liu Ying, a lawyer from Shanghai Hansheng Law Firm, told Southern Window that in many sexual crime cases, very few victims strongly resist when the perpetrator commits the crime, and most victims tend to be silent, or even unconsciously agree. There may be many considerations behind this reaction of the victim: for example, the difference in social status between the other party and themselves, the impact of the other party on their own vital interests, whether the other party will make extreme personal injury behavior, and so on.

“These are understandable, but it does make it difficult to determine whether the victim agreed afterwards, or whether the perpetrator was ‘forced,'” Liu Ying said.

In fact, they already knew the difficulties at the beginning, but they still persisted step by step. For them, persistence itself is a kind of meaning.

Several victims reported to the Education Bureau by their real names / provided by the interviewee

Yuki’s parents also advised her to give up. That time, Yuki was so angry that she couldn’t eat because she saw Chen Yong’s Moments post. Her parents, who originally supported her rights protection, also felt that her emotions were a little abnormal. They advised her that since the matter had passed, she should look forward.

“(But) I feel that there is no way to look forward. Since I know that so many things have happened, I can’t turn a blind eye and look forward.” Since knowing that she was not the only victim, Yuki has not been able to regret it.

At least, their most basic demands have been met – Chen Yong’s teaching qualification certificate has been revoked, which means that there will be no more students who will become victims of his sexual harassment.

After more than half a year of rights protection, Yuki and Qingfeng, who have been following the progress of the case for a long time, have realized that they have changed, becoming more brave and more determined.

Qingfeng felt her own growth. When she went to the Public Security Bureau to file the case for the first time, Yuki, the lawyer, and her friend all accompanied her, and she was still very scared. Yuki could see that she was a little scared at the time, and she was also a little trembling. Later, when Qingfeng took the witnesses she found to the Public Security Bureau, she seemed to play the role of Yuki in the past. She would tell her classmates in advance what questions the police would ask, and comfort them not to be nervous and worried.

And Yuki also has more confidence. Because she finally found that her persistence was not alone.

She found a network where people adhered to a certain “ideal” and supported each other. Every time Yuki published an article, many people would call her and ask her to delete it. For about a week, she was often very scared and didn’t dare to answer the phone. Once, she sent a screenshot of the caller ID to her lawyer, who then invited a few other social worker friends to join her in an online meeting room to keep her company. In the meeting room, everyone talked about the case, sometimes without speaking, and Yuki would feel at ease.

She realized that understanding the pain of others is also a skill, “I believe (empathy) this thing has power.”

The power was passed to her, and Yuki also became brave. Once, the person on the other end of the phone, asking her to delete the post, said that they would feel regretful when they got married in the future. Yuki was very angry: “Is this something to be ashamed of? Shouldn’t we speak out? Should we endure it ourselves?” After saying that, she hung up the phone.

And the scars of the past still need a longer time to heal. Qingfeng still has nightmares, and Chen Yong still suddenly appears in her dreams on a certain day. Looking back on that day in April 2022, Yuki still has a racing heart and feels a little breathless.

Yuki still has things she can’t face to this day. As a Chinese teacher, Chen Yong once left her with beautiful memories of her three years of high school. Her notes still record many poems he taught the students, and her weekly journals still have his comments. But now, these things seem to no longer exist. Yuki doesn’t want to think carefully that Chen Yong used these words to care for her, gain her trust, and then used the so-called literati’s elegance to hurt her and control her. “Maybe I really need to believe that so-called literature is also a kind of sweet talk.”

Yuki’s phone still has Chen Yong’s comments on the weekly journal / Photo provided by the interviewee

She still has photos of the weekly journal on her phone, and she once thought about taking the book out to look at it, even though she didn’t know what she should do with it.

But, the weekly journal is missing. It, like those photos that Yuki doesn’t want to see, is hidden in a deeper place.

Yuki knows that one day, she must find them all out, “to face them completely and very comfortably.”