Two cute girls in kindergarten uniforms sat in a cave on the Great Plains of Ephesus. Artemis had picked this spot especially for them; it was cool in summer and offered relief from the heat.
In winter, they would go straight to Hot Spring Ravine for lessons. That was what the two divine rulers had agreed upon.
Dian, the butler, taught them ancient Greek grammar. Dian was a multitalented parrot who knew fifty-six languages, a veritable talking pen in bird form: just tap whatever you didn't know.
Claire handled physical training, while Luota taught them the most basic arithmetic.
Li Jia thought it over and decided this curriculum was reasonable enough: language, math, and PE.
Wasn't there a saying that went, "Master math, physics, and chemistry, and you can go anywhere without fear"?
They didn't need physics or chemistry here, because divine power couldn't be explained through human factors.
Math, though, was still worth learning, if only to avoid getting ripped off while shopping.
Li Jia had been a humanities student in her previous life and was terrible at science. Fortunately, as a salted fish, she took it in stride. It wasn't as if she would need functions to buy groceries anyway. Knowing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division was already pretty impressive.
It was the universal school experience: the teacher lectured at the front, and the students below started zoning out.
Linai started getting sleepy halfway through the lesson. Suddenly, a little note appeared on her desk. She opened it, and the two began passing messages back and forth.
Li Jia: "Did you transmigrate into a book too? What's your mission? Can you go home after finishing the conquest?"
Linai: "Yep, I transmigrated too, but not into a book. I transmigrated as a baby. I had rotten luck in my last life. I was an orphan, and some scumbag driver ran me over while I was helping an old man cross the road. I don't need to conquer anyone. I'm here to repay a kindness. I don't wanna go back."
Great, why was she the only one with a mission? This goddamn system!
Li Jia: "Going by that accent, are you from the Northeast? I'm from Hubei."
Linai: "Oh my gosh, how'd you know? I'm from up around Heilongjiang. Who cares where we're from? Aren't we all fifty-six ethnic groups, fifty-six flowers, fifty-six toads in one big family?"
Li Jia: "All right, birds of a feather really do flock together. I'm claiming you as my bestie."
Linai: "No need to stand on ceremony with me. Come find me if you need anything. No matter what far-flung corner of the world you're in, I'll take a Didi to see you."
Now that's a true bestie. She might as well have "loyalty" carved into her forehead.
Li Jia: "So do you speak with an accent when you talk to your divine ruler too?"
Linai: "Of course not. You've gotta play the pig to eat the tiger. You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. Lure her into the pit first and worry about the rest later. Gotta put on that cutesy voice when it's called for."
Li Jia: "A master really is a master."
Linai: "You bet. I majored in psychology in my last life. Just talking about it makes me mad. After all that work, I was finally about to finish grad school, and bam, I got run over and sent here."
Li Jia: "That's not necessarily a bad thing. With how hard it is to find a job these days, you might as well serve someone tea and water. At least food and lodging are covered, and you don't have to put up with crap. Even if you do, it's only from her."
Linai: "You're right."
The two chatted away merrily. At first, they had kept up appearances by using little notes, but later, finding those too limiting, they started writing directly in the notebooks they had brought, filling several pages with dense writing.
"What are you two chatting about? Eyes on the board!"
Like every teacher, Dian had keenly spotted their little antics. The plan had been to be gentle for their first lesson, but they had only gotten worse, their minds completely off the lesson. Dian had no choice but to lose their temper a little and bring them back to attention.
It was a pure reflex. Who hadn't been afraid of teachers during their school days? The moment Dian bellowed, both girls sat bolt upright and forced themselves to look at the board.
Greek grammar bore some resemblance to mathematical symbols: if it wasn't alpha, α, it was beta, β. Li Jia used Chinese characters as memory aids, copying down the symbols and adding Chinese homophones in parentheses. Just like that, the difficulty resolved itself.
Linai was on the same page, and both of them made their annotations that way.
The whole world should speak Chinese. Li Jia considered teaching Hera some Chinese when she got back. Hera was so smart that she might well learn it much faster than Li Jia learned Greek.
Artemis had also equipped Linai with a phone watch. Hers was a blue bracelet, and only then did Li Jia realize that Ting could take different forms.
They exchanged their Ting numbers, the equivalent of phone numbers.
The bell rang for the end of class. Li Jia had requested a ten-minute break after every hour of lessons, and Hera had agreed.
Hera and Artemis were in complete agreement on raising children: no strict education; preserve their natural instincts and let them grow freely. In plain terms, they wouldn't be tiger parents. Being happy was enough.
Winslow had been waiting anxiously outside the classroom. When she saw Li Jia emerge, she made a point of coming over.
"How was it? Was it hard? Listen if you understand, and sleep if you don't. Don't force yourself."
As Winslow spoke, she pulled two hawthorn lollipops out of her backpack for her.
Li Jia took the lollipops, unwrapped one, and put it in her mouth for a couple of licks. "What's so hard about it? Don't worry. I absolutely won't embarrass Hot Spring Ravine, and I absolutely won't embarrass Her Majesty."
Seeing Li Jia so determined, Winslow was deeply gratified, looking for all the world as though her own best friend had finally grown up.
There was one more matter weighing on Li Jia's mind. "Where are we having lunch?"
"..."
Could this little madam worry about something useful for once?
Still, Winslow swallowed her embarrassment and asked Dian, who assured them that lunch would be provided.
Only then did Li Jia's anxious heart settle. As long as meals were included, all was well. Whatever the job, whether food and lodging were covered was always the top priority. Otherwise, after deducting rent, utilities, and food costs, wouldn't she be earning absolutely nothing, working entirely for someone else's benefit?
She couldn't be blamed for that. It was a fixed way of thinking formed over so many years, and habits weren't something that could be changed overnight.
Being money-minded wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Meals at Artemis's place were primarily vegetarian. Looking at the cabbage stewed with tofu, eggs stir-fried with bean sprouts, blanched broccoli...
Li Jia wilted at once. She didn't want a weight-loss meal. Surely there ought to be at least one meat dish to anchor the spread.
Seeing her dispirited face, Linai sighed and whispered to her, "Everyone here is a little animal. Nobody dares eat their own kind. I eat this stuff every day. My mouth's so bland a bird could hatch in it."
After hearing that, Li Jia expressed her sympathy and invited Linai to come back to Hot Spring Ravine with her next time, offering to treat her to a whole roast lamb.
Li Jia felt that the food in her bowl wasn't quite so hard to swallow anymore. After all, she could still have a good meal when she got home, unlike Linai, who had to eat this stuff three meals a day.
At some point, Li Jia had come to regard Hot Spring Ravine as her home without even realizing it. The word "home" rolled off her tongue so naturally, as though she had lived there since birth, with solid, genuine assurance.
After lunch, the two even took a nap together. Perfectly reasonable, with girls being raised the right way.