Tap whatever you don't know

After the math teacher had tested the waters, every teacher in the office now knew that Chen Shi'an had a little grounding in Chinese, but was a complete disaster in every other subject.

"Teacher Zhang, you shouldn't lose heart either. Principal Lin has praised Shi'an's intelligence and quick thinking many times. He may be young, but the way he speaks and handles things, his character and manners, are all far beyond those of his peers. He's never attended school, but that doesn't mean he can't be taught. Where there's a will, there's a way. Who's to say he can't get good results on the college entrance exam two years from now..." Teacher Liang repeated what Principal Lin had told him yesterday.

"Liang, that's easy for you to say!" The other teachers were indignant.

"Ahem..."

Principal Lin, who had appeared in the office at some point, coughed twice and said awkwardly, "I think Teacher Liang has a point."

The teachers: "..."

The double math period was followed by a double English period.

The English teacher was named Ye Mingmei. She was thirty-five that year, but looked barely into her twenties. She loved wearing little white leather shoes that left the tops of her feet bare, and wore them all year round. She had a sweet voice and loved to smile, revealing a little dimple whenever she did. Although she was already a mother of two, everyone in the class adored her. After all, Teacher Ye was gentle and kind to everyone. A mother of just two children? She was practically the mother of the whole class.

Unfortunately, Teacher Ye couldn't smile during this lesson. She had seen the English paper Chen Shi'an had completed for his placement assessment-it was even worse than Teacher Zhang's math paper. There weren't even any circles on it. It really was completely blank.

"Shi'an, why didn't you answer the multiple-choice questions?"

"Teacher Ye, I couldn't understand them."

"You could have just guessed."

"I was afraid I might accidentally guess correctly and give both myself and the teacher the wrong impression."

"..."

In all her years, counting both her time as a student and her teaching career, this was the most outrageous answer Teacher Ye had ever heard.

He had actually left them blank because he was afraid he might guess correctly?!

Well... although it was absurd from the standpoint of grades, the boy's honesty and complete refusal to fake anything did make her see him in a new light.

Class was in session, and Teacher Ye wanted to have a proper conversation with Chen Shi'an. The classroom wasn't a convenient place for that, so she called him out into the corridor.

"Shi'an, come outside with me for a moment."

"All right."

Chen Shi'an stood and followed Teacher Ye out in front of the entire class.

Whispers immediately broke out.

"Oh no, Brother An's never been to school. Teacher Ye must be about to scold him for doing so badly!"

"Damn it, the Daoist Master gets to enjoy himself!"

"...You're beyond saving!"

Quite a few students in the class had been scolded by Teacher Ye, but it wasn't unpleasant at all. Even when she scolded someone, her voice stayed soft. They called it scolding, but it was mostly gentle guidance. What came through wasn't reproach, but deep concern. Whenever Teacher Ye finished scolding them, they always felt so moved that they wanted to burst into tears, throw themselves into her arms, and repent.

By now, Chen Shi'an had followed Teacher Ye out into the corridor.

With classes in progress, it was quiet outside the classrooms. Only the voices of teachers delivering their lessons drifted out, echoing along the empty corridor.

It was nearly noon, and sunlight spilled in from beyond the balcony, falling across the feet of the teacher and student standing face-to-face.

Teacher Ye held one arm with her other hand and leaned slightly against the balcony railing. Just as the rumors said, her voice was soft and gentle.

Of course, she wasn't going to scold Chen Shi'an. Whatever else might be true, he was now a student in her class, and Teacher Ye needed to understand his circumstances.

"I heard from Teacher Liang that you're a genuine Taoist, Shi'an, and that you were cultivating up in the mountains before this?"

"Yes. I've been cultivating with my master for as long as I can remember..."

Teacher Ye asked detailed questions about his family, his current progress in his studies, what goals he hoped to achieve, and so on. Chen Shi'an answered everything she asked. He had a very good impression of Teacher Ye too.

Unfortunately, she taught English, a subject he knew almost nothing about, so he couldn't gain much understanding of her through the subject she taught.

If Chen Shi'an's math was only at the level of an elementary school graduate, then his English was roughly equivalent to knowing only Arabic numerals-he could recognize and recite the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

When Chen Shi'an said that he had no parents and that his master had found him and taken him back to the mountains to raise him, concern naturally showed on Teacher Ye's face. She was a mother of two herself, and when she put herself in his shoes-It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to go to school. He was simply a poor, unfortunate child! He hadn't even received the compulsory education everyone else was entitled to. What a hard life!

Chen Shi'an didn't dare say anything.

"Hmm..."

Whatever his past had been like, what mattered now was how to help improve his grades. Teacher Ye pondered the problem.

She wasn't actually as despairing as Teacher Zhang and the others. As an English teacher, she understood the subject better than anyone. At the end of the day, it was just a foreign language. Learning English from scratch was fundamentally no different from learning French, Russian, Japanese, or any other language from scratch. Unlike math, physics, and chemistry, it didn't require a foundation of closely interlocking concepts. Even someone who had never encountered English could improve enormously in less than a year, provided they read, listened, memorized, spoke, and practiced enough.

"Shi'an, wait here a moment."

"All right."

Chen Shi'an didn't know what Teacher Ye was going to do. He only saw her hurry back to the office.

Before long, she returned with a "pen."

"Shi'an, take this."

"Teacher Ye, what is it?"

Chen Shi'an accepted the "pen" from her and examined it carefully. Calling it a pen wasn't quite accurate. It was actually an electronic device, vaguely pen-shaped, but much wider and thicker than a pen. Its U-shaped tip held a sensor, its body had an LCD screen, and there were buttons and switches on both sides.

The young Taoist from the mountains had no idea what this thing was, but a student from the city would recognize it at a glance-"Tap whatever you don't know!" This was exactly what that slogan referred to.

"This is a reading pen. Whenever you come across a word or sentence you don't know, just scan it like this, and it can quickly look up words, translate them, and teach you how to pronounce them..."

Teacher Ye brought over a test paper and demonstrated it for Chen Shi'an. Once she scanned those foreign words he couldn't understand at all, their translation appeared on the reading pen's screen. It even gave a clear, standard pronunciation to show him how to read the sentence.

Chen Shi'an was very surprised. Although

he went online too and knew that technology was developing rapidly, he really didn't know as much as young people today about many of its practical applications.

Before this, he had felt that the hardest part of learning English wasn't memorization, but not knowing what the words and sentences meant or how to pronounce them. Looking everything up himself or asking someone else was a hassle. Now that problem was solved. With this thing, wouldn't learning English be a breeze for him?

"Well? You know how to use it now, right?"

"Yes. This reading pen really is excellent. It feels like it'll be a huge help."

"Good. Then take it and use it for now, Shi'an. I know your foundation is very weak, but I have my regular teaching duties, and I have to go home and look after my children in the evenings. I may not be able to set aside much time to teach you, so you'll have to work hard at studying on your own. Whenever there's something you don't understand, though, like grammar or pronunciation, you can come find me in the office."

After a pause, she added, "Learning English really isn't difficult. You just have to put in the hard work. Hmm... if it feels difficult at first, let's start with memorizing ten words a day, then gradually increase the workload. High school English only requires a vocabulary of a little over three thousand words, and you still have almost two years before the college entrance exam. If you learn ten words a day, you'll have most of them down by next year. Vocabulary is the foundation of everything. Once you have that, you can't do too badly."

"So that's how it works... Don't worry, Teacher Ye. I understand. But this reading pen must be pretty expensive, right? You should take it back. I can buy one myself later." As Chen Shi'an spoke, he held the reading pen out to Teacher Ye.

Teacher Ye only smiled and pushed it back toward him.

"It's all right. It wasn't expensive. I already feel bad that I don't have time to teach you personally. Just think of it as a little help from your teacher."

"Then, thank you, Teacher Ye."

"Keep at it. I believe in you, and you need to believe in yourself too!"

"All right."

Chen Shi'an was very confident. With an amazing tool like this reading pen, he figured he could sweep through all the vocabulary in just a few days...

(I made a small revision to the end of the previous chapter, switching to Meng Qiu's perspective. I felt it made the writing flow better and made it a little more interesting~)