Chapter 56 Finally, I can rest easy.
No lessons were given on the first day of school. While the students were engrossed in practicing calligraphy, the teacher introduced them to the other students and also quietly explained some of the school rules.
It was only at this moment that Guo Baiwen realized that the kind-looking teacher in front of him was also surnamed Guo.
Although his name is still unclear, he only asked his students to call him Master Guo.
After getting to know each other, Master Guo took a brush, dipped it in cinnabar, and dotted a red dot on the forehead of each student, symbolizing the opening of wisdom. He also taught them to write the character "人" (person) on their palms.
Seeing everyone repeatedly gesturing the character for "person" with curious expressions, Master Guo looked around at everyone's expressions, smiled, and said, "Learning begins with learning how to be a person. Have you all remembered the school rules I just told you about?"
On their first day of school, everyone was a little reserved, but they were all obedient.
Upon hearing this, they all nodded, remembering to lower their voices so as not to disturb the students practicing calligraphy earlier. "Got it!"
Master Guo was somewhat gratified.
So far, this batch of newly enrolled short-term students seems to be easy to get along with.
He took the hanging scroll with the five characters '天地君亲师' written on it. Today is the first day of school. As long as he can recognize and remember these five characters before school ends in the afternoon, and can pronounce each character accurately, that's fine.
Although the new students have settled down, Master Guo still needs to take turns testing each student's foundation.
By assessing the students' abilities and arranging their learning progress, we can ensure that the subsequent early childhood education can be tailored to individual needs.
When he got to Guo Baiwen's side, Guo Fuzi found that he not only quickly memorized the five characters, but also pronounced each character very accurately.
There was none of the accent commonly found in Guizhou.
Master Guo couldn't help but ask, "Bawen, have you attended school somewhere before?"
Guo Bawen certainly didn't.
But Guo Baiwen does have it.
He hesitated for a moment, but nodded nonetheless. After all, it was only a short-term program, so there was no need to hide his talents.
Grandma Guo had enrolled him in the program, so she naturally knew whether he had actually studied it or not. Therefore, Guo Baiwen could only make amends by saying, "I bought some introductory books myself and studied some beforehand."
When Master Guo heard that he was self-taught, he became quite interested and asked him, "What did you learn first?"
Seeing that his teacher was going to test him on the spot, Guo Baiwen thought for a moment and simply recited the entire contents of the Three Character Classic.
When he was in cram school in his previous life, he also memorized the simplified Chinese version of the Three Character Classic. Although he had forgotten some of it over time, he can now stumble over it and memorize it again after recognizing all the traditional Chinese characters.
He memorized the Three Character Classic, which contains over a thousand characters, very smoothly.
Master Guo's eyes lit up, and he asked again, "Can you also memorize the Hundred Family Surnames and the Thousand Character Classic?"
Although the number of surnames in the Hundred Family Surnames is relatively large, since they are all four-character surnames, their main function is to help people recognize characters.
"Let the students try it."
Although Guo Baiwen recited two sentences backwards, he still managed to recite the Hundred Family Surnames successfully.
The last Thousand Character Classic was different; it contained some characters that couldn't be guessed from the context. When Guo Baiwen memorized this, he clearly stumbled a lot and even needed the teacher's prompting occasionally to continue memorizing it.
But this already surprised and delighted Master Guo.
The enlightenment sought by short-term students is nothing more than literacy, ethics and etiquette, basic reading and writing, and arithmetic.
Being able to memorize the contents of these three books—the Three Hundred Thousand, the Three Hundred, and the Three Thousand—means that one has already completed the initial stages of learning characters and understanding principles.
Although Master Guo then tested him on some questions from the Three Hundred Classics, he found that he had learned the Three Character Classic best, remembering the characters and their meanings very well.
The Thousand Character Classic was the weakest of the three books, but it was still quite outstanding among the new and old short-term students in this classroom.
So he asked Guo Baiwen to write a few more words. He found that although Guo's pen-holding posture was a bit rusty and the characters were not very good-looking, the stroke order of the characters was correct.
Therefore, although Guo Baiwen said he was self-taught, his learning progress was not much different from that of the previous batch of short-term students.
Master Guo nodded to himself, preparing to increase the difficulty of his lessons in the future.
But now that he has a foundation, he can no longer simply memorize and read characters like a newly enrolled short-term student.
Having learned the Three Character Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames, Master Guo brought over his book, "Explanation of the Thousand Character Classic," saying, "Although you have barely memorized the Thousand Character Classic, you don't understand the meanings of the words. You still need to study the meanings of many of the words more."
"Take a look at this book today, and if there's anything you don't understand, just ask me."
As he spoke, he continued walking toward the next student, only adding a word of advice to Guo Baiwen: "Take good care of the books and never damage them."
"I understand, and I thank you in advance, Master."
Master Guo waved his hand, simply indicating that he should first take a good look at the book.
By the time all the students in the class had been tested, it was almost noon.
Students who live far away can choose to pay to eat at the college canteen, or spend more money to buy food at snack shops. If all else fails, they can bring their own monthly allowance of rice, noodles, and sauces to the college, where cooks will help them steam rice and heat dishes every day.
Guo Baiwen lived close to home, so after greeting the others in the classroom and finding out the afternoon class time, he, like several other people who also lived in the county town, picked up his schoolbag and went home.
When I got to the front of the shop, I found that there were suddenly a lot more people inside.
It's getting hot, and there weren't this many people around at noon before.
He went around to the back gate, put down his schoolbag, washed his hands, ate a few bites of food, and then rushed to the front to help.
It turned out that the people he had attracted a few days ago when he delivered the gifts were bad. The pawnshop owner had bad teeth, and since his grandson already had a share, he gave his share to his family.
Unexpectedly, his daughter really liked the taste of the milk dates. Hearing that the shop would be selling them today, she sent her servants over before the shop even opened, intending to buy half a pound or a pound to eat slowly.
And then there's the crystal bowl cake, which was originally just something to display in the shop. Uncle Zhao from Tongfu Restaurant originally just came to buy some caramel crisps, thinking he'd show his support.
Upon seeing this, one knows that if it were placed in a restaurant, there would be no shortage of customers wanting to eat it.
But when he heard Grandma Guo say that the shop could only make a maximum of six or eight of these things each day, he had no choice but to give up on the idea.
After all, given the name and price of the bowl-shaped rice cake, the only reason people eat it is because of its crystal-like shell, which is something new to them.
Restaurants also serve dishes like rock sugar lily bulbs, so they don't really need this dish.
So he simply said he'd buy all the ones they had and take them back so Manager Li could also try them out.
Zhao, the yamen runner, and Hu Qingshan also brought a lot of people to the shop to buy sweets. Although each person bought a small amount, the sheer number of people made it impossible to keep up with the demand.
Because of the large crowd, passersby and regular customers who were initially observing the sudden shift of the hot pot restaurant to selling sweets also started buying quite a bit.
Therefore, business was particularly booming at noon today.
Guo Baiwen helped pack the items with oil paper, so busy that he didn't even have time to drink a sip of water.
Before he could even finish serving the last few customers at the shop at noon, Grandma Guo was urging him to hurry to the academy.
I was so busy at the shop at noon that I almost missed my afternoon class.
Fortunately, he only sat down at the appointed time. Seeing this, Master Guo could only tap on his table as a reminder.
Guo Baiwen was a little embarrassed and could only nod to indicate that he wouldn't do it again next time.
The afternoon's learning content was similar to that of the morning. For students without a foundation, the main focus was on a gradual process of memorizing and reading characters.
While Guo Baiwen was studying the meanings of words and sentences in the book "Explanation of the Thousand Character Classic", his teacher carefully adjusted his pen-holding posture and began to practice relatively simple characters such as one, two, and three on rough-edged paper.
The tracing paper will have examples written by the teacher at the beginning. The student only needs to practice ten or twenty more characters after each one. After the teacher corrects the student's work, he will circle the better characters.
Then practice and revise again.
Only after repeated practice can one gradually transition to more difficult characters such as heaven, earth, and man.
When it was almost time to leave school in the late afternoon, they would first recite the new material they had learned that day, and then the teacher would assign them the learning tasks for the next day.
The first batch of short-term students occasionally have homework, such as dictation and memorization, most of which are for the exam the next day.
Students can only leave school if they get all the answers right. If they make a mistake in reciting or writing, they have to stay and keep reciting until they get it right before they can leave.
When Master Guo announced the end of get out of class, he also told them that if anyone arrived early the next morning, they could come directly to the classroom to recite what they had learned the previous day, as long as the academy was open.
We'll begin formal instruction once he arrives.
Today was alright; everyone was able to leave school normally.
So, after performing the "dismissal ceremony" in front of the portrait of Confucius once again, the first day at the academy was over.
When Guo Baiwen arrived home, it was already busy time inside and outside the shop.
It has to be said that Yangzhengtang Academy's lunch break and dismissal times are perfectly timed, allowing him to attend school every day while also taking care of his family's business.
But now, he no longer had the strength to help.
Although what I learned today was relatively basic, I didn't eat or rest properly during lunch break, and I spent the whole afternoon practicing calligraphy with my wrist suspended in a proper sitting posture.
—His arm was actually a little sore at that moment.
So after greeting his busy family members from afar outside the shop, he slowly finished the dinner left for him in the kitchen and lay down on the recliner in his room early.
I'm so tired.
This is only the first day and I'm already this tired.
However, the only thing that could give him some comfort today was that his own shop's confectionery business was actually doing quite well.
After worrying for so long, I can finally relax.
He thought this before he drifted off to sleep, and then quickly closed his eyes.
Everything went black, and I simply fell asleep.
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