Chapter 156, exclusively published on Jinjiang Literature City, features classes and a new special department.
On ship number 1.
Everyone gathered in the large lounge on the second floor.
The children, including Lu Chen, who were the main characters today, were brought to the front of the crowd.
The children were unaware of what was happening, their expressions blank. They looked at each other, then back at their parents and grandparents, before finally turning to look at the village chief and Lu Xuan standing opposite them.
The adults didn't really know what the village chief wanted to say when he gathered them together.
Besides the rainy season coming to an end, has anything else important happened recently?
Some people did notice Xu Wenze and Ji Xiuling standing next to the village chief, wondering if it was related to them, but these two people usually had nothing to do with each other.
Li Tie cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention before loudly announcing, "I called everyone here to share some good news: starting today, all the children in the village can go to school and learn to read!"
"What!?" The villagers were in an uproar.
"Village chief, are you serious?"
"Village chief, do you mean we should open a private school in our village?"
"The natural disasters are still ongoing outside, are we still going to run a private school and continue teaching?"
Upon hearing the last question, Li Tie's eyes widened. "Does the end of the cataclysm mean the end of my life? Am I just going to give up? Now that I can read, I can have a good future even after the cataclysm ends, isn't that good enough?"
Is it something to be proud of to be illiterate?
If you have the opportunity to learn, just cheer!
Li Tie said, "Let Ah Xuan tell you what you'll learn in class."
He didn't know much about the course content either, so he just listened along.
Lu Xuan said, "The main courses are divided into four types: Chinese, Mathematics, Survival, and Combat."
"Chinese language is about learning characters, starting with the most basic ones, teaching 3,000 commonly used Chinese characters; mathematics teaches basic arithmetic such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; survival courses teach various wilderness survival skills and first aid knowledge; combat courses are divided into melee, ranged, and special ability courses."
"Xu Wenze is in charge of Chinese, Ji Xiuling is in charge of mathematics, Aunt Miao, Uncle Wu, and Uncle Gao (the new hunter) take turns teaching survival skills, and I will teach them occasionally. I am in full charge of combat skills."
Everyone: !!!
They're teaching so much stuff?!
They thought that teaching literacy meant teaching people to recognize characters.
"In addition to these four compulsory courses, there is also an elective natural science course, which you can choose whether or not to take. I am also responsible for the course."
"The four courses are not taught every day. There are only two classes a day, each lasting half an hour. The schedule is adjusted according to the situation. It may be one class in the morning and one in the afternoon, or both may be scheduled in the morning or afternoon. After five days of classes, you can rest for two days. During holidays, you can have five to seven consecutive days off."
"Studying is mandatory for children aged ten and under, regardless of gender; for children over ten, it is voluntary. The village will provide paper and pens for free."
The villagers were surprised to learn that girls could also attend classes, or rather, were required to attend classes. Wei Xiang, Ye Ping, and Mei Xue, in particular, were overjoyed.
Lu Xuan continued, "The private school holds exams every month, and the top five students in each subject will receive reward materials: 50 jin for first place, 30 jin for second place, 20 jin for third place, and 10 jin for fourth and fifth place."
Everyone: ! So many rewards!
If a child gets first place in all four subjects, wouldn't they be able to earn 200 kilograms of supplies?
Even if you only get fifth place, you'll still weigh forty pounds!
Someone pressed further, asking, "What about the tuition?"
Lu Xuan said, "Ten catties of supplies per month."
Everyone: So little!?
Wouldn't that mean you could earn back your tuition just by getting into the top five in any one of your courses?
Zhang Chengming was a little worried: "Will the tuition fees be enough to cover the teachers' wages?"
Lu Xuan explained, "The teachers' wages are paid from public resources, and the tuition fees from each tutor are mainly used to pay exam rewards."
Even if we give out rewards, it's not enough. The missing part is also the subsidy for public supplies, including paper and pens needed for classes.
Lu Xuan said, "That's about it. Those who are ten years old or older and want to attend classes can register with the village chief. Other families with children should also pay tuition to the village chief. Classes will begin in half an hour."
The villagers, still not quite realizing what was happening, exclaimed: "Oh, class is about to start?"
After a while, they rushed to the village chief, some signing up, others paying tuition.
There are twenty children aged ten and above in the village, including Lu Chen. Ye Jing's son and Ji Xiuling's daughter are still infants and are not included in the count.
All ten boys and girls aged ten and above signed up without exception.
It's not that all villagers are without any preference for sons over daughters and are willing to let their daughters go to school.
The main reason is that the tuition fees are too cheap and the scholarships are too attractive.
Older people generally have higher learning abilities than younger people, and they are more likely to get good grades in exams.
To put it bluntly, it's like they're trying to take advantage of someone else.
Furthermore, since other families are sending their daughters to school, if our family doesn't send them, and all the other girls can read and do arithmetic while our daughter can't, won't she fall behind and not be able to find common ground with them?
The chances of finding a good son-in-law after the disaster are over are not as high as for other families.
So why not give it to me?
Ten pounds of supplies in exchange for a daughter who can read—it's worth it!
After registering, the village chief immediately started using the paper and pens he had exchanged with Lu Xuan in advance.
Instead of the traditional "Four Treasures of the Study" (writing brush, ink stick, inkstone, and paper) that are not user-friendly for beginners, we use modern notebooks and ballpoint pens. The styles may differ slightly due to the Star Alliance aesthetic, but they are all pretty much the same in use.
These paper and pens were only exchanged by the village chief and Lu Xuan for keeping accounts of public supplies; the other villagers had not exchanged them.
The main reason is that everyone feels that the opportunity is useless, but when they see their children receive paper and pens and can use them to write in the future, the parents are all very happy.
Some people are even thinking about whether they should stock up on more so that their children can write whatever they want.
Anyway, it's not expensive. One pound of supplies can be exchanged for one set, which is much cheaper than the price of a ream of paper I heard about before.
After receiving paper and pens and paying tuition, the children were taken to the classroom.
It's actually just a smaller lounge next door.
Lu Xuan didn't want all the children in the village to come to Ship No. 1 because he didn't want them to run around and make a fuss, but it was fine for them to attend classes.
The classroom was already equipped with touchscreen desks and ergonomic chairs that Lu Xuan had purchased from the mall.
All Star Alliance books come with an electronic version, which can be directly connected to the touchscreen on the table.
Since it was the first class, Lu Xuan knew that parents would be curious about the content, so he asked everyone to sit in on the class together at the back of the lounge.
The first lesson was Chinese.
When Xu Wenze, who was teaching for the first time, saw a large group of villagers staring intently at him from behind his students, he took a deep breath and, with trembling hands, transferred the courseware given to him by Lu Xuan onto the lectern in front of him.
Soon a chart appeared on the large screen behind him.
Xu Wenze cleared his throat, looked at the children whose eyes were round and their faces were full of curiosity and thirst for knowledge, and said, "Come on, let's learn pinyin first. Repeat after me, bpmf, dtnl—"
Children: ? ? ?
Elders: ? ? ?
What is this? Is it for chanting scriptures?
Zhang Chengming nudged Li Jing in a low voice: "What are they teaching? Isn't it supposed to be the Three Character Classic?" The Three Character Classic isn't exactly a classic text, is it?
Li Jing was also at a loss. "I don't know either."
The bewildered villagers all looked at the village chief, their eyes asking what this was.
Li Tie was also confused.
He brainstormed for a while, and then a thought flashed through his mind: "Could this be the language of immortals?"
Upon hearing this, the villagers suddenly realized that it made sense!
Then his eyes lit up as he looked at the scribbles on the screen.
If they learn the immortals' language, will they also gain the favor of the gods?
Thinking this way, some quick-witted children had already started reciting along with the rest of the children.
bpmf……
...
[Pfft—Even though I knew the content the streamer had planned, watching a bunch of ancient kids reading pinyin still felt really weird.]
[Isn't the funniest part that the villagers mistook it for divine language? Hahaha.]
Lu Xuan didn't give the villagers a chance to fill in the blanks further. He quickly explained the use of pinyin, saying, "I will teach them the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Classic after they learn pinyin."
As an ancient primer that has been passed down for thousands of years, although it contains a lot of feudal dross, after removing the inappropriate parts, the remaining content can still help children distinguish right from wrong and understand knowledge about astronomy, geography, and natural evolution.
When the time comes, Xu Wenze, who is in charge of writing out the two primers from memory, will add the pinyin annotations. Even if the little ones don't learn it at first, they can review it by looking at the pinyin.
All Xu Wenze needed to do was explain the meaning of the sentences and the principles they contained.
The first lesson mainly focused on learning some pinyin, reading, writing, and memorizing.
When class ended, Xu Wenze assigned the students homework as Lu Xuan had instructed.
The homework is to write each of the pinyin characters learned today twenty times and memorize them thoroughly. It will be checked in class tomorrow.
【!! They actually brought up homework, the root of all evil! Announcer, you have no heart!】
I feel sorry for these little brats.
Lu Xuan disagreed.
There's some truth to the saying that a bad pen is worse than a good memory.
At least he didn't give these children any homework that they needed to complete with their parents, which was already showing leniency.
After a 15-minute break following the Chinese class, the second class, math, will begin.
The teaching focuses on Arabic numerals, starting with numbers 0-9 and then moving on to addition up to 10.
Ji Xiuling and Xu Wenze both received emergency training for a few days before starting their jobs, and they also reinforced their skills during the training process.
The villagers were once again bewildered by the worm-like numbers they had never seen before, and then subconsciously followed suit.
To ensure that the villagers could understand the specific content of each subject at once, all four subjects were scheduled for one class on the first day.
The first survival lesson was taught in Wucheng.
Instead of the gradual approach of the first two lessons, the course immediately began teaching survival skills in the mountains, including how to walk more easily on mountain paths, how to identify directions, how to save oneself if lost, and how to find water sources, etc.
I'll give a basic overview first, and then I'll go into detail about each one individually later.
Later episodes will cover topics such as identifying animal footprints, finding prey, and how to save yourself when encountering wild beasts.
Hunter Gao Dalin mainly teaches the children how to make traps; how to make weapons when they have none; how to treat injuries in the wild; and what herbs to find in the mountains to heal themselves.
Lu Xuan is mainly responsible for teaching more advanced first aid methods that the ancients did not know, including but not limited to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Heimlich maneuver, fracture fixation, electric shock, drowning self-rescue, and most importantly, how to save oneself in natural disasters.
Miao Jinfeng mainly taught us to identify wild vegetables, edible wild fruits, and mushrooms.
In short, the survival course was full of very useful practical tips.
Once you learn it and can apply it skillfully in real life, you will not only benefit from it during times of disaster, but you will also benefit immensely for the rest of your life.
The first period in the afternoon is combat training.
The remote training involves teaching children how to properly use a crossbow, including grip and power application.
Close combat was simple. Half the class time was spent practicing horse stance, and the other half, Lu Xuan used the blood-sucking vines to launch an 'attack' on the little cubs, chasing them up and down and making them scream.
Xiong Mao watched his son tremble as he was chased by the blood-sucking vines, and asked in bewilderment, "Wasn't this supposed to be a combat class? Aren't they teaching you how to fight?"
Zhang Chengming, Li Jing, and the others were speechless.
Fighting and brawling are not the same thing.
However, they also found it quite strange, as they had thought they could learn a few tricks from it.
Lu Xuan said calmly, "What's the rush? They're just a bunch of little kids, not even as tall as wild beasts. Do you really think they can solve the problem with their bare hands if they encounter danger?"
Ah, this...
The elders were speechless.
Lu Xuan said, "Compared to learning how to fight head-on, what they need to learn first is how to escape, to be a slippery eel."
"In chaotic times, the most important thing for survival is not how strong your fighting power is, but how well you can survive. If you survive until the end, you will win."
Everyone looked bewildered.
What the heck?
Be a dog?
How could the kids, acting as dogs, win?
Lei Yan, who often heard Lu Xuan use strange words, explained the meaning of '苟' to them, and the others finally understood and comprehended Lu Xuan's actions.
Everyone has the desire for their child to succeed.
But if they had to choose between making their children stronger or living a peaceful old age, they would definitely choose the latter.
The task of getting stronger can be left to the elders; for children, safety is definitely the most important thing.
Because the children in the class were of varying ages, Lu Xuan slightly reduced the intensity of the vampire vines' pursuit.
For example, Li Miao, a boy over thirteen years old, had at least three thick vines chasing him, while Wei Yunyun, who was only three years old, only had one thin vine chasing her.
After all, the child is still young, only eight years old after the disaster ends, so it's enough to treat it as a form of exercise.
The viewers in the live stream were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
They originally wanted to see a bunch of little brats humming and tugging at each other's hair, but the sight of them being chased by the vampire vines and howling as their butts were whipped after being caught seemed quite amusing, hehehe.
Many people couldn't help but grin strangely.
The last course was natural science.
This course covers a wide range of topics, including astronomy, geography, biology, and physics.
Since there were no specific textbooks and the Star Alliance's books were not very suitable, Lu Xuan had to fill in the gaps by trying to recall the natural science and basic biology knowledge he had learned in his childhood.
In this lesson, the little ones will learn what photosynthesis is and understand the principle of thermal expansion and contraction;
Learn that the world beneath our feet is round; what is universal gravitation; what is gravity; how are solar and lunar eclipses formed;
What different terrains exist around the world, and how were they formed? The evolutionary process from paramecium to humans, and what mammals were, which Lu Chen had been wondering about before.
In the first lesson, Lu Xuan didn't go into too much detail; he just briefly went over what he was going to teach.
Even so, this previously unheard-of knowledge captivated both adults and children, as if opening the door to a new world.
The children, who were already full of curiosity about the world, were overjoyed, and the adults were even more excited. Many of them decided that they would definitely audit this course as much as possible in the future to hear how wonderful this world, which they had never cared about before, really is.
At this point, all the courses have been completed.
When Lu Xuan announced the end of today's lesson, everyone's faces showed a sense of lingering enjoyment.
The adults suddenly realized that they had been so focused on the lesson that they had missed all their work for the day, except for the person who was in charge of operating the plant protection machine and watering the mushrooms!
But considering how much new knowledge they had absorbed that day, everyone felt that missing a day wasn't a big deal.
On the way back to Ship No. 2 with the children, a group of people had a heated discussion about the five courses.
While the child was doing homework, I was still reciting 'bpmf' and '1234' next to them.
...
Two days after the kids started school, the rain outside completely stopped, the temperature began to rise, the sun shone on the earth again, and the floodwaters began to recede at a rate of at least two or three meters per day.
The villagers, who had been cooped up by the continuous rain, took off their raincoats, which had almost become one with them, and walked and ran freely outside.
Meanwhile, Lu Xuan was busy with another matter.
Dig a lotus pond.
He used his earth-based abilities to dig a shallow pit, only 50 centimeters deep, covering ten acres in the area where the water first surfaced, and then laid the lotus roots he had dug from the wild lotus pond into it.
After covering a little over one-third of the height, the freshly produced mutant lotus seeds were placed into the plant protection machine for sowing.
Previously, Lu Xuan only spent three to five days cultivating other mutant species, but for some reason, it took him half a month to finally cultivate this lotus root.
Fortunately, the mutated lotus root is quite promising.
The longest original lotus root has only six segments, the average is only three or four segments, and the thickest is only as thick as an adult man's wrist.
After the mutation, these lotus roots were like they had been given a growth promoter. They were not only as thick as Lu Xuan's thigh, but each segment had at least nine segments, and the most could grow to 12 segments, completely breaking through the growth limit.
A single 12-section mutated lotus root can weigh over 20 jin (approximately 10 kg), and even a nine-section lotus root can weigh 14 or 15 jin (approximately 7.5-7.5 kg).
In addition, Lu Xuan also addressed the issue of lotus root growth rate.
He didn't know before that not all lotus flowers have lotus roots underneath. It was only during the cultivation process that he discovered that many of them grew lotus roots. The original lotus species they found had only half of them growing lotus roots.
No wonder the yield per mu is only 800 jin!
After his special improvements, although it still cannot reach 100% growth rate, it can basically guarantee 80%.
In this way, as long as the lotus pond receives adequate nutrition, the yield per acre of lotus root should increase by three to five times from the original level, barring any unforeseen circumstances.
After sowing the seeds, spray nutrient solution and fill the pond with water to a depth of about 10 centimeters. The lotus pond is then complete.
Later, once the lotus seedlings have grown, the water level can be gradually increased. According to Lu Xuan's experiments, the most suitable water depth for the original species is more than 20 centimeters, but for the variant species it is different and needs to be increased to 50 centimeters.
The maturation cycle is the same as in the ground, maturing in one month. The first harvest will probably have to wait until the extreme cold season.
After digging the lotus pond, Lu Xuan suddenly had a craving for lotus seeds.
After sending a message to Lu Qing, who was busy in the mushroom house, saying that he wanted to eat lotus seeds, pumpkin and lotus seed porridge and lotus seed, yam and pork rib soup were added to the Lu family's lunch table that day, which were both delicious and nutritious.
Lu Xuan's lotus seeds were accumulated during the process of cultivating the mutant variety. In just half a month, he had accumulated several hundred kilograms, which was enough to eat before the next batch of lotus roots matured.
·
That evening, something wonderful happened that Lu Xuan had been looking forward to for a long time.
After more than a month, new special ability users have finally appeared in the village again, and there are still two of them.
One person experienced side effects for a day less than the other, so despite taking the evolution fluid around the same time, they both awakened on the same day.
These two people are Wei Xiang's man, Jiang Fan, and Su Ying.
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