The bright moon hangs in the night sky, casting a thin halo over the entire oasis base.

The staff dormitory is located on the north side of the base, surrounded by a large pine forest, and is even quieter at night, except for the occasional soft sound of small animals stepping on the thick pine needles.

"Lao Lu, is the path you chose really ok?"

"It should be possible. Just go directly to Master's back door." Lu Zhihao pulled down his hat and whispered.

"What do you think we are like? How come reading a book is the same as being a thief now?"

Huajuan complained quietly, but her expression was very happy and her eyes were bright.

Lu Zhihao knew he was excited because he was the same.

They had been out for two days and came back very late. He had just pretended to go to bed to avoid the dormitory aunt's room inspection, and now he sneaked out again. In order to catch up with this night class, he didn't even go to KFC and insisted on coming back early.

Moonlight filtered through the pine needles, and there were very soft chirping sounds of insects all around.

Not far away, a yellow light shone through the window, which was already very close. Inside stood their teacher and their classmates.

Although he couldn't see their expressions clearly, Lu Zhihao felt that everyone was smiling. People had already gathered together, and after counting carefully, they were almost the last to arrive.

"Hurry, hurry, we can't be late." Huajuan ran away, very happy, his schoolbag bouncing behind him.

Lu Zhihao followed behind, he also ran very fast, the fresh night breeze rushed into the lungs through the mouth, it was extremely sweet.

He didn't know when learning mathematics became something that made people excited whenever they thought about it.

——

When they arrived, they ran into Chen Chengcheng coming from the main road.

"Why...are you coming from there?" Chen Chengcheng asked.

"Didn't you see the security guard on the road?" Lu Zhihao also asked.

“No.”

"Be careful, what if you get caught?"

The door opened, and the room was warm. The master looked over and saw Lin Chaoxi sitting on the floor, waving at them and smiling happily.

There were a lot of small pieces of paper on the ground. Looking closely, they had made a lot of chickens and rabbits. The reason why Lu Zhihao could recognize them was that the word "chicken" and "rabbit" were written on each chick and each rabbit.

"Today we are going to talk about word problems! Chickens and rabbits in the same cage." Lin Chaoxi sat aside to make room for them. "What did you just say you caught?"

The girl's hair pricked his face, and Lu Zhihao stepped back: "We just saw the security guard patrolling on the road."

"You have to be careful." Lin Zhaoxi asked, "What should we say if we are discovered?"

"Sleepwalking!" Huajuan shouted.

Everyone in the room heard their conversation and laughed along.

After a while, without any reminder, the lecture that they had interrupted continued naturally.

The chicken and rabbit cage that Master talked about was a little different from what he had heard before. There were many pieces of paper with rabbits and chickens on the ground. The ones with two legs were chickens, and the ones with four legs were rabbits.

Lao Lin asked: "What do we know now?"

"Chickens and rabbits have 12 heads and 34 legs.

Lao Lin asked: "What is it going to be?"

"There are so many chickens and rabbits in total, and they only have one head. Counting the number of their heads is the same as counting the number of them."

"Great. Now we need to see if the number of heads is related to anything else."

The students lowered their heads and broke off one chicken leg and two rabbit legs.

It can be clearly seen that the chicken only has one head and one leg left, and the number of heads is exactly the same as the number of legs.

Lu Zhihao looked at everyone's actions in amazement.

"How many legs are left in this cage of chickens and rabbits?"

"34/2=17, there are 17 legs left in total." An Beibei answered quickly.

"Now?"

"After the reduction by half, the number of heads in the chicken is now equal to the number of legs. If we subtract the total number of heads (12) from the total number of legs (17), all the heads have been reduced for the chickens. The number 17-12=5 does not include the chickens."

"Oh, and what about the rabbit?"

"For the remaining rabbits, they have two legs and only one head, so the legs are twice as many as the head." An Beibei said as she broke off one of the rabbit's two remaining legs. "But just now when it was 17-12, each rabbit lost a leg. The number of remaining legs is the total number of rabbits, so there are still 5 rabbits left."

An Beibei finished speaking in one breath. He could calculate before, but he definitely couldn't explain it so clearly.

Lu Zhihao understood immediately. Although he already knew how to solve this problem using a linear equation with two variables and had heard of this clever calculation method before, with the addition of the intuitive paper, the problem-solving process became very clear at a glance.

So clever and awesome!

This was the only feeling he had as he touched the chickens and rabbits on the ground.

Master Lao Lin changed the animals to ask questions. This time it was a turtle with three legs and two eyes and a turtle with six eyes and one leg. The questions were a little more difficult than before.

Some were still drawing, but some were doing mental arithmetic, and Master Lin did not stop them.

There are no rules here, no formula or method to follow, everyone can have their own ideas.

Everyone was very happy and he was very happy too.

It would be great if I could keep learning like this!

When he finally left the dormitory, looking at the starry sky, this was the only thought in his mind.

——

The sun is rising.

Monday, Oasis Base, meeting room.

Xie Ran yawned as he walked into the conference room and shook the instant coffee he had just brewed. He got up at 7am and it was already 8am after a quick breakfast.

The regular meeting that starts at 8 o'clock will last until 8:20, leaving them with 10 minutes to pack up before they have to go to teach the children at 8:30. The children have a hard time, but the teachers don't have it easy either.

The big boss entered the conference room on time at 8 o'clock in the morning, nodded to them briefly, and quickly entered into the meeting process.

"Let the teachers in charge of each group summarize the teaching situation for the next week, starting with the high school group."

The teacher in charge of the Jinbei high school group has been teaching for more than 20 years and has much more experience than him. He directly reported several average scores, indicating that under the elimination competition system, the students' scores have improved significantly.

When Jie Ran heard this, he realized that those names were all outstanding students who were mentioned at the first meeting, and they might be good candidates for the provincial training team. Mentioning such samples to prove that the students' academic performance has improved significantly is not representative at all.

The junior high school group followed suit. Xie Ran felt sleepy, so he opened his plastic cup, took a sip of coffee, and then was called.

"Where is Teacher Xie's high school group?"

"Let's make it fit?" Jie Ran said.

The office suddenly became quiet. Everyone was chatting animatedly, but because of his words, the atmosphere suddenly became as quiet as an ice cellar.

"I have said before that I hope teachers can use more precise data to describe the children's situation, rather than choosing very vague words, especially - blending."

Xie Ran smiled and didn't care much.

At this time, someone looked at him and shook his head.

That was Mr. Feng, the senior teacher from the high school group, who had previously reminded him to be careful of the difficult boss.

Jie Ran: "It's neither good nor bad. The difficulty of our test papers is not fixed, so the results really can't tell anything."

Vice Principal Zhang was silent for a while, and finally said: "Tell me about the children you think will be able to participate in the final competition and how they are doing."

"Pei Zhi, Lin Chaoxi, Zhang Liang, Wang Feng, and Lu Ming are all very smart and have stable grades, but they don't have good relationships with each other, so it's difficult for them to form a team together to participate in the competition." Xie Ran told the truth.

"Little kids, there's nothing wrong with this relationship," said a teacher.

"We are just participating in a competition together. There is no requirement for teamwork or calculating the average score," said another teacher.

Xie Ran didn't say anything, but just smiled and nodded no matter who spoke.

"Just keep the grades stable." Vice Principal Zhang finished his summary and pointed to the small and medium-sized group.

After everyone finished speaking, it was almost time.

"Finally, I would like to ask all the teachers to reiterate the issue of discipline to the students again."

Vice Principal Zhang looked at the notebook and said, "On Sunday night, the high school team found two students who did not return home overnight. They have been expelled. The base is very large, and it is very unsafe to not return home overnight. You should emphasize this to your classmates again."

Hearing this, Jie Ran continued to smile and said nothing.

After the meeting, he held the plastic cup, yawned, and prepared to go downstairs for class.

Teacher Feng from the junior high school group pulled him over and said, "Why are you confronting the principal again?"

Xie Ran smiled helplessly: "I am so wronged, Teacher Feng."

"The way you said 'match' clearly shows that you have emotional problems. Don't forget, he has to sign your internship report," said Teacher Feng.

"I understand. Thank you."

"I know you have opinions about Vice Principal Zhang, just bear with it." Teacher Feng patted him on the shoulder and hurried away.

Xie Ran thought, what opinion could he have? He was just a college student who needed to have a stamp on his internship report.

Previously, by chance, the Anning City Jinbei Training Camp was recruiting at their school, so he submitted an internship resume and was hired.

It was not this Vice Principal Zhang who recruited him as a teacher. It is said that the leaders of the Municipal Education Bureau attached great importance to this year's Jin Cup Competition and said that they must achieve good results. So they airdropped a well-known teacher from a province with a strong mathematics background to take charge, and that was this Vice Principal Zhang.

In fact, Jie Ran has mixed feelings towards Vice Principal Zhang. On the one hand, he thinks he is too Spartan, but on the other hand, some of his educational philosophies make sense.

He studied mathematics and has no experience in education. He can only do what others tell him to do.

But after spending so much time with the children, it would be a lie to say I have no feelings for them.

In fact, before Vice Principal Zhang asked that question, he really wanted to say that the grades of several children in the class seemed to have improved a lot, but the leaders didn't care about that, so he kept silent.

——

"Do you want to hear the grades first, or do you want to attend the class first?"

In the senior high school classroom, Jie Ran stood in front of the podium and started teasing the students.

Lin Chaoxi yawned and said along with the rest of the class: "Let's go to class first."

Xie Ran smiled: "Then I'd better report my grades first."

It's the same routine again, not surprising at all.

Xie Ran said, "Friday's exam is the easiest one in the past few days. It's mainly to make you feel good when you go home and have fun, so don't take this result too seriously."

"Teacher, you hit us again!" the students complained.

"Okay, let me put it another way. The results of several students surprised me. They have improved a lot. I feel that the battle for the midterm exam will be very close." Xie Ran smiled, "Next, I will focus on praising them..."

Xie Ran opened the paper and began to read out the names.

"Chen Chengcheng, An Beibei, Luo Xiaojuan, Yao Xiaotian, Huajuan..."

The children whose names were announced were very happy and looked at each other in surprise.

When Zhang Liang heard that Chen Chengcheng's grades had improved dramatically, his face turned extremely grim.

Lin Chaoxi no longer had time to feel secretly happy about Zhang Liang's expression. The more she listened, the more horrified she became. Except for Luo Xiaojuan, all the other children were from their generation.

Is it possible that Lao Lin is born with a talent for mathematics and will be good if he can achieve good results?

"Student Lin Zhaoxi, why are you looking at me?" Xie Ran stopped and looked at her, "Do you already know that you are tied for first place with Pei Zhi again?"

"No, no." Lin Zhaoxi shook his head violently, then suddenly stopped, "What?"

"Can I praise you again?"

"No need, teacher!"

"Come up and get your group's papers." Xie Ran said.

She walked over, Jie Ran handed her the second group's paper, and asked casually.

"What did you do last night? Why are you so sleepy?"

Lin Chaoxi was suddenly horrified and looked at Jie Ran in confusion. Did he know?

"Have a good rest at night." Xie Ran instructed.