Things originally didn't have to be this difficult.
Unfortunately, Shen Tang had wielded the butcher's knife in Longwu Commandery, directly decimating the local gentry. Heads had rolled everywhere, and the one or two tenths who remained had behaved themselves; there wasn't enough dirt on them to warrant a death sentence. Shen Tang wasn't some great villain, so she hadn't deliberately gone after them.
She fancied herself benevolent, but to outsiders—especially those who had dealings with the gentry and landowners, such as their classmates and in-laws—she was practically a god of slaughter reborn! They'd bundled up their belongings and fled overnight, afraid that if they were a step too slow, their heads would hit the ground.
It was common knowledge that studying in this day and age required a solid family background.
And in Longwu Commandery, anyone with enough learning to serve as a teacher was bound to belong to that little circle she had thoroughly offended.
The few who had any renown and hadn't fled refused to come, even when Shen Tang painfully offered high salaries and generous benefits.
Of course, Shen Tang didn't consider them indispensable.
Who knew what kind of people they were?
If they slipped their own agenda into their lessons and fundamentally led her fish-pond seedlings astray, where would Shen Tang go to seek justice?
After much consideration—
She'd better recruit through her own people.
Birds of a feather flock together; people gathered in groups of their own kind.
It was just that the old hands under her command all did whatever they pleased and went their own way. Shen Tang didn't dare meddle with their social circles, afraid she might summon another "immortal." Qi Shan had said a while ago that he'd send a mass message to recruit some friends, but there'd been no word