A Teacher at the Podium

Chapter 25: A Teacher at the Podium

After Father brought the money home, he grew tense for a while. At the slightest sound, he would scramble up and go outside to check, and even then, just looking outside wasn't enough to reassure him. For several nights in a row, Zi Bofeng saw him dig up the money and bury it again and again. The ground beneath the old locust tree in the courtyard was pocked with holes, as if he were afraid someone wouldn't know where he had hidden it.

Father was like the miser in a storybook. In the middle of the night, he would dig the money up, count it, and bury it again. Only then could he fall asleep. Zi Bofeng even heard him chuckling to himself, "Now I've finally got enough travel money for my boy to go to the capital and sit the imperial examinations."

As time went on, Zi Bofeng genuinely worried Father would make himself sick over that little bit of money. He asked, "Father, why don't you take some of it and prepare a betrothal gift for Auntie, then bring her home as your wife?"

Zi Bofeng's bold suggestion earned him a slap on the forehead from Zi Jian. "What nonsense are you spouting? This money is for you to go to the capital and sit the imperial examinations. No one can touch it for anything else!"

Zi Bofeng wasn't in any hurry to go to the capital and sit the examinations. His greatest asset right now was the Monster Raising Art, and he hadn't managed to raise a monster with it yet. The only monster he had to show for himself was Uncle Blue Rock, who happened to be a huge stone that couldn't move at all, let alone be taken anywhere.

According to Zi Bofeng's memories of his previous life, money was meant to be spent or invested. Keep it in your hands, and you were just waiting for inflation to eat away at its value.

Unfortunately, Zi Jian had been poor for half his life and was terrified of being poor. So no matter what Zi Bofeng said, he refused to spend a copper. He was determined to keep the money until it grew moldy and maggots crawled out of it. Now that they had money, even the food on the table hadn't gotten any better.

"Even I have a salary. Father, why are you so reluctant to spend a little more on good food..." Zi Bofeng really did have a salary, but it was only enough to scrape by. His father glared at him. "What do you know? You'll need money to go to the capital and sit the examinations, and you'll need money to get married, too. There are plenty of things to spend money on! How about this? We have a little extra now, so I'll ask around and find a girl from a good family for you..."

Seeing that the fire was about to turn on him, Zi Bofeng could only retreat. "Father, I'm going to become the top scholar one day. If you find me a poor girl, she won't be fit to receive guests in the main hall. Won't that bring shame on the Zi Family when I take her out?"

"That's true. My son is going to become the top scholar, so he can't just marry anyone... If the Chancellor's daughter wants to marry into the Zi Family one day, we can't slight her... Oh, what if the emperor wants a son-in-law?" Father immediately sank into the blissful troubles of his imaginings and forgot all about everything else.

Zi Bofeng was sweating buckets. His father's imagination was far more powerful than he'd expected. The emperor looking for a son-in-law? Zi Bofeng remembered that few of the emperor's sons-in-law in history had lived comfortable lives. He'd rather not put up with that. If the Chancellor was looking for a son-in-law, though, that might be worth considering. With his exceptional talent, profound learning, and boundless prospects, if he wasn't going to be the Chancellor's son-in-law, he might as well become a great general's!

The more Zi Bofeng thought about it, the happier he got. Humming a tune, he walked out of the house, only to find Yan Lao Wu blocking the doorway. Arms crossed over his chest, he stood there with a scowl.

"Old Sir, what brings you..." Zi Bofeng didn't think he'd offended the old man in the past few days. Why was he blocking the door?

"Xiucai, you sure have a short memory." Yan Lao Wu's words came straight at him.

"Ah, that's right... No, what did I forget?" Zi Bofeng looked completely bewildered.

"Xiucai really has forgotten, huh?" Yan Lao Wu sneered, clearly unhappy with him. "I seem to remember someone saying that in just three months, he could get the kids of Lower Yan Village into the academy. Ten days or half a month have already passed, and I haven't seen you open a classroom and teach a single lesson."

"Old Sir, don't set a trap for me," Zi Bofeng hurriedly clarified. "I said at least three of them. Some of them are so slow-witted that I can't possibly get them all through. Besides, weren't you the one who said we'd talk about this another time?"

The old man blinked, glossing over that part of the conversation. He grabbed Zi Bofeng and said, "Since you said you'd do it, then hurry up. The boys of the Yan Family are waiting at the Private School."

The old man dragged him to the Private School. This time, though, instead of taking him into Zi Bofeng's study, he pulled him straight into the largest room. All the village's children, big and small, were waiting there, standing obediently with their hands behind their backs as they blinked up at Zi Bofeng.

Some of them were older than Zi Bofeng himself.

"Where's the Private School teacher?" Seeing the scene, Zi Bofeng immediately had a bad feeling.

"The Private School teacher? That old pedant? I already sent him packing," Yan Lao Wu said with a wave of his hand. "With Meng City's greatest talent here, why would we need that useless old man?"

Zi Bofeng was speechless. "You just didn't want to pay his teaching fees."

He had wanted to see for himself the legendary Private School teacher who had managed to turn a genius into a dullard.

The old man was shameless enough to own up to it. Why waste money if he could save it? He said matter-of-factly, "You're the Village Chief. It's your duty to contribute to the village's development. Isn't that right?"

Zi Bofeng really had nothing to say. Even if Yan Lao Wu had dug a hole for him to fall into, the trouble was that Zi Bofeng himself had handed him the shovel.

"Don't worry, we won't make you work for free. I'll take care of the farm work in your fields from now on, and I, Yan Lao Wu, will provide lunch every day."

"What about breakfast and dinner?"

Yan Lao Wu silently mouthed, "Get lost."

Zi Bofeng helplessly spread his hands. Yan Lao Wu didn't understand the gesture and thought he was fooling around. "Anyway, all the village youngsters are here. There are thirty-one of them, so you'd better teach them well."

Zi Bofeng took a closer look and was stunned.

All the school-age children in the village were there. Even Little Stone was sitting near the front, hands behind his back, blinking up at Zi Bofeng. He'd been sitting there for quite a while and couldn't keep still, squirming as if he had a cone stuck under him. Xiao Tuozi, sitting beside him, was much better behaved. He sat ramrod straight, staring at Zi Bofeng. His eyes were red, though, and he looked as if he'd been crying.

"Why are there so many?" Zi Bofeng asked in surprise.

Little Stone had even come. That was something he really hadn't expected.

"Who doesn't want their child to make something of themselves?" Yan Lao Wu said with a sigh. Though he, Yan Lao Wu, knew only seventeen characters, he still understood that reading and writing were good things. But the farmers would rather have their children help out in the fields or stay home to look after their younger siblings.

But now that Zi Bofeng had become a Xiucai, returned as Village Chief, helped the village avert a disaster, and earned the Prefect's favor, their thinking had changed. They all hoped their own children could become Village Chiefs, too—not only would they be exempt from taxes, they'd have a bright future ahead of them.

Even Yan Wu Shi had hoped for this. After much persuasion, she had sent Little Stone over as well.

Zi Bofeng could only think, How parents worry for their children.

"Listen, Bofeng. As long as you can make these children succeed, you can do whatever you want with them. If anyone doesn't listen, beat them within an inch of their life. If you kill them, I'll take responsibility." Yan Lao Wu's words were full of murderous intent.

But Zi Bofeng knew that no successful person had ever been beaten into success.

"Since you've entrusted them to me, Old Sir, I won't stand on ceremony," Zi Bofeng said. "Don't worry. Within three months, I guarantee at least three of them will get into the academy."

"Actually, it wouldn't matter if they didn't pass this year..." Truthfully, Yan Lao Wu didn't have much confidence in the boys of his family.

"I keep my word," Zi Bofeng said.

With his hands behind his back, Zi Bofeng walked up to the podium. At a glance, he already had a good sense of things.

Some of them were Zi Bofeng's former classmates. They could recognize the characters, but couldn't make sense of them once they were put together.

Some were adolescent boys who had barely learned a handful of characters.

And some were mischievous children like Little Stone, who couldn't recognize a single character as big as a bucket. Zi Bofeng decided to divide them into three groups, corresponding to kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school.

Zi Bofeng gave them a lecture first, and the children below listened obediently. Seeing that Zi Bofeng seemed to know what he was doing, Yan Lao Wu relaxed. "You get on with things here. I'm going to find a few hunters to make a round of the mountain."

"Hunters?" Zi Bofeng walked him to the door, surprised. "Did something happen?"

"Something big came down the mountain last night. We don't know what it was, but it killed a few livestock," Yan Lao Wu said. "Nothing like this has happened in years. Has it forgotten that I, Yan Lao Wu, am still alive?"

Though Yan Lao Wu sounded proud, he had good reason. He had once led a few hunters in nearly wiping out the mountain wolves, and they hadn't dared come to the village to cause trouble for a long time.

"Something big?" Zi Bofeng grew genuinely worried. Their house was the closest one to the mountain, so if something big came down, they'd be the first in its path. If it had only injured livestock, that was one thing. But if it hurt someone...

Zi Bofeng didn't dare think about it.

Still, nothing like this had happened in the village for years. A good hunter could keep an entire area safe. Yan Lao Wu might have grown old, but he still had his vigor. Every day, he made a round outside the village and took a leak on the back mountain. The wolves would smell him and stay away. In a way, Yan Lao Wu was a ferocious beast himself.

A sudden thought struck Zi Bofeng. He touched a finger to the space between his brows, and the spinning Porcelain Shard appeared in his mind. In the gray world, only Lower Yan Village shone, a speck the size of a needlepoint. Then the light grew, revealing all of Lower Yan Village.

In the past, Lower Yan Village had held nothing but scenery, everything shrouded in a layer of deathly stillness. But now, several points of light were glowing faintly across the map of Lower Yan Village.

The Record of Raising Monsters