Wang Qin — Prototype

This character is based on a real incident in Shaanxi Province. A teacher at a middle school repeatedly engaged in improper conduct toward female students over a period of years. Complaints filed by students and parents were processed by the school's internal disciplinary system and returned without action. The teacher was transferred to a different campus within the same district following the accumulation of unresolved complaints — a common administrative response that relocated the problem rather than addressing it. The transfer was not disclosed to the receiving school. Further incidents occurred. A formal criminal investigation was eventually opened only after media coverage made internal suppression untenable.

The character of Wang Qin is not intended as a direct representation of any individual involved in that case. She is a composite drawn from the documented pattern: the administrator who receives complaints, processes them according to institutional logic, and returns decisions that protect the institution over the complainant. The logic is self-sustaining and does not require malice. It requires only a priority ordering in which reputational risk outweighs individual harm.

The real case remains partially unresolved. Some of the transferred teacher's former colleagues were administratively sanctioned. The teacher himself served a sentence significantly shorter than prosecutors had sought.