What? Aren't these just a few strange, tadpole-like symbols?

"Today we're covering the basics of language arts. Have you learned pinyin?"

Early that morning, after changing the gauze and medicine over his eyes, Su Xian sat cross-legged in the wooden cabin and formally began the day's lesson.

Now that Niulai Village's primary school had its full complement of pupils, Su Xian had ten students.

After his previous popular science lesson on the universe had shattered their worldviews, today marked the official start of regular teaching, with a lesson in the most basic language arts.

Feeling his way along the shoddy little blackboard, half a stick of chalk in hand, Su Xian asked whether any of them had learned pinyin.

Primary school language arts started with little more than pinyin, recognizing characters, and forming words and sentences.

Considering that these children from deep in Daliang Mountain might never even have visited the county seat, and that their foundations would vary, his question was not really the start of teaching, but an assessment.

A whole chorus of clear, childish voices rang out below him, drawing out their answer: "Noooo."

"All right."

Su Xian sighed. He had not expected education in Daliang Mountain to lag so far behind that even the most basic pinyin had yet to become widespread.

What had the previous volunteer teachers been doing? Had they taught a few common Chinese characters and then run off?

"Then today, let's start with the simple finals in pinyin."

Feeling his way across the blackboard, he wrote a crooked "a, o, e" in chalk, then pointed at them and said, "Read after me. Open your mouth wide, a-"

"A-"

Ma Xiaotao, Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, and the other peerless geniuses could only huddle on their little folding stools in frustration, dutifully opening their mouths wide and making those childish sounds.

"Round your lips, o-"

"O-"

"Flatten your lips, e-"

"E-"

Although these geniuses possessed terrifying memories and powers of comprehension, the strange, tadpole-like Latin letters on the board still gave them a headache.

Although the Douluo Continent's writing system resembled the Chinese characters of his previous life, it had no strange phonetic symbols called "pinyin."

Su Xian wrote "b, p, m, f" on the blackboard and explained how to blend initials and finals.

Simply put, it was "b-a-ba (dad)."

Yet even with blending this simple, these geniuses, accustomed to using their spiritual power to memorize cultivation methods and secret manuals, stumbled at first when confronted with this completely unfamiliar system of logic. Several times, Xu Sanshi mixed up the sounds of "f" and "t."

After a whole busy lesson, Su Xian's blood pressure was nearly through the roof.

He currently faced two difficulties.

First, the children had never encountered this alphabetic system before. Some understood quickly and others slowly, so he had to accommodate the slower children and teach it over and over.

Second, he was blind.

He had to feel his way even when writing. Sometimes his chalk strayed beyond the edge of the blackboard, or several letters crowded together, forcing him to erase them and start again.

As a result, even a very simple point often took him several minutes to get across, leaving him exhausted in body and mind.

No wonder everyone said volunteer teaching in the mountains was a grueling job. Luckily, he was teaching pinyin. If he had to teach geometric drawing, he really would go mad.

After class, Su Xian lay on the bed to rest, inwardly counting his blessings.

He had been assigned to volunteer in Daliang Mountain because the previous batch of teachers had left, while the next batch had yet to arrive.

The organization had sent him ahead to establish a foothold and settle the students down, before sending new teachers over in batches.

That was how volunteer teaching worked. There were no permanent teachers, and quite a few arrived bursting with enthusiasm, only to complain bitterly within days, give up halfway, and sneak off.

If completing two years of volunteer teaching did not come with substantial preferential treatment when applying for a public-sector post, Su Xian would not have wanted to endure this hardship either.

Right now, I'm the only teacher in the whole school, and I'm blind to boot. This teaching assignment is a tough one.

Su Xian thought, For now, I can only teach them slowly. I hope the road up the mountain gets cleared as soon as possible, so I can go down to the county hospital and have my eyes treated. I also hope the new teachers arrive soon and take some of the pressure off me.

Meanwhile, just as he finished his lesson, Mu En and the others outside the door turned and headed toward the Sea God Pavilion.

It was already past their usual morning meeting time.

They were sometimes late on ordinary days too, but today they had intended not to be late, planning only to take a look from the doorway before heading straight back for the meeting.

Instead, they had stayed and listened to an entire pinyin lesson, losing quite a bit of time.

None of them minded, however. Mist wreathed the Shrek Inner Court in the early morning, and the air was fresh.

Mu En and his companions strolled along the woodland path.

As they walked, Yan Shaozhe frowned and said, "Teacher Su once said that civilization in his era flourished, and education was extremely widespread! I thought he would teach something profound and unfathomable today, but all he taught were a few strange, tadpole-like symbols, supposedly for marking the pronunciation of characters. Our Douluo Continent already has dictionaries and pronunciation notation. This doesn't seem like anything remarkable, does it?"

"Dean Yan, if that's what you think, you're being far too shortsighted."

Following behind them, Zhang Lexuan shook her head and offered a serious analysis. "I don't think the clever part is how simple these symbols are, but how they work. The 'pinyin system' Teacher Su just taught has only a few dozen basic symbols, yet they can combine to produce the pronunciations of every character we have!"

"Oh?" Yan Shaozhe paused slightly.

"Think about it carefully," Zhang Lexuan continued. "For ordinary commoners' children to learn to read, they have to memorize characters one by one through sheer rote learning! But if they master this 'pinyin,' they only need to learn the rules for blending a few dozen symbols, and they can look through books themselves and pronounce every unfamiliar character! For making basic education widespread, that's revolutionary!"

"Hmm..."

Leaning on his cane, Mu En nodded thoughtfully. "Lexuan has a point! What the 'industrialization' Teacher Su mentioned before needs most is large numbers of literate commoners! This pinyin was probably the cornerstone his world used to rapidly eliminate illiteracy and enlighten the populace."

"And that's not all!"

Qian Duoduo chimed in as well. "Pavilion Master, I think this strange set of symbols has another brilliant use!"

"What use?" Everyone looked at him.

"Encryption!" Qian Duoduo said excitedly. "When our Soul Tool Department sends military blueprints to the front lines, our greatest fear is interception by Sun Moon Empire spies! If we use these 'pinyin' letters, which have never appeared anywhere on the continent, instead of ordinary writing to compose secret messages..."

"Even if a letter falls into the hands of those Level 9 Soul Engineers from the Sun Moon Empire, looking at that pile of 'a, o, e, b, p, m' will be like trying to read a heavenly script. They won't be able to decipher it at all!"

After hearing this, Yan Shaozhe could not help drawing in a sharp breath.

A seemingly simple set of symbols for teaching young children could, on a grand scale, spread education among the common people and enlighten the populace!

On a smaller scale, it could become Shrek Academy's unique military cipher!

"Indeed."

Mu En sighed and said feelingly, "Teacher Su's world truly cannot be underestimated! Even a casually produced tool for basic childhood education contains immense practical value! We old fellows really have become somewhat rigid in our thinking."

"This pinyin system is certainly a good thing, but there's no hurry to spread it yet! Once we gradually compile it into a book, let's try it out in our Inner Court's classified records first." Mu En made his decision.

"A wise decision, Pavilion Master!" everyone answered in unison.