Chapter 125: A Great Future

It wasn’t their first time here, and although they were still shocked, the Dai couple quickly regained their composure and looked at the small square in front of the teaching building’s main hall. Rows of men, women, old, and young stood there, with expressions of surprise or pride on their faces. They were all parents waiting to visit their children.

“Hello, please show me your visitor’s pass.”

The teacher in charge of reception was a female Chief of about thirty years old. She wore a beige blazer over a black pencil skirt, with silk stockings, jade-like legs, and black high heels.

Although it wasn’t the first time Dai Dehou had seen this, his old face still flushed red, and he didn’t dare to look at her directly. Mrs. Dai, however, was quite calm. She nudged his elbow, and he remembered to hand over the visitor’s pass.

“First grade, first class of high primary school, Dai Yan,” the female Chief smiled slightly when she saw the name. “This child is very smart and learns very quickly. She has a great future ahead of her.”

Dai Dehou hadn’t thought about how a girl could have a “great future.” Could it be that a Yuanlao has taken a fancy to my daughter? At this thought, his heart leaped with joy. If a Yuanlao really took a fancy to her, it would be not only her own fortune but also the fortune of the whole family.

Before he could react, the female Yuanlao had already turned her head and called out, “Teacher Xu, your first class.”

The scale of the National School was expanding rapidly, and there was a great need for student management personnel. The first batch of B-level diploma graduates this year were not yet qualified to be official teachers, but they were competent enough to be life teachers.

Teacher Xu was a girl who had just turned eighteen. She was an orphan bought by the Yuanlao from Guangdong. After two years of primary school, she had no potential to continue to high primary school, but she had a gentle and careful personality, so she was recruited into the teacher-training class and worked as a life teacher in her spare time.

Currently, although the main goal of the National School’s education was popularization, the elite of the Yuanlao’s cause could not be lacking. Therefore, those students who excelled in all aspects and had the potential to skip grades would be given special education. Each semester, according to the selection ranking, the top 64 students in the selection group would be assigned to classes one, two, and three during class adjustments. These three classes had the best resources invested in them. The teaching content of each school year was compressed into one semester. They were expected to reduce their study time and learn more knowledge faster, so they were privately nicknamed the “genius classes” and could be said to be the seed classes for the future elite of the Yuanlao.

Since the genius classes were not based on quantity and the teaching quality requirements were very high, they were a rare example of small-class education at the National School. The parents of the first class in front of Teacher Xu numbered only about twenty, much shorter than the queues of hundreds of relatives for some other classes. At this moment, they all turned to look. When she saw the couple, she remembered the clever and lovely girl and waved for Dai’s father and mother to come over.

Dai Dehou made an awkward bow, which counted as a greeting to the female Chief, and hurried over with Mrs. Dai.

He had a total of two sons and three daughters. The other children had unfortunately died young. Now, he only had his nine-year-old daughter, Dai Sanniang, and his seven-year-old second son, Dai Yu.

A year ago, when the whole family had just arrived in Lingao, the eight-year-old Dai Sanniang got lost in the East Gate Market. Just when the whole family thought she had been abducted by human traffickers and were extremely anxious, a male Chief came with their daughter in his arms, praised her for being smart and cute, and asked Dai Dehou if he was willing to let his daughter enroll in the National School.

It was originally just a casual remark, but when his whole family arrived at Daijia Village and his third cousin, Dai Degao, found out about it, he persuaded him by all means to send his daughter to school. At that time, he was seeking refuge with his third cousin and had to agree. Soon, his daughter and his third cousin’s daughter, Dai Xiu, were admitted to the National School with the recommendation quota of that male Chief, and from then on, she had the name Dai Yan.

However, his daughter was indeed a credit to him. Dai Yan showed outstanding performance in her first semester of enrollment. There were several thousand students in the first grade of the primary school of the National School, and her general assessment score in the first semester had already entered the top three hundred, receiving key attention from the teachers. Her ranking continued to rise, and by the second grade of primary school, she had reached the subtle position of the top twenty-one. She successfully entered the fast-track class.

Since the first semester of the selection ranking at Fangcao, no girl in any grade had been able to break into the top twenty-one. Dai Yan became the first girl to break into this ranking.

After learning a year’s worth of curriculum in one semester in the fast-track class, she entered the first grade of high primary school and took first place in the first general assessment of high primary school. It immediately became a sensation throughout Fangcao.

For the Yuanlao teachers, this was not surprising. For young students, the traditional cramming-style education model was actually more suitable for the female learning model. As long as the conditions were right, girls had a considerable advantage in the compulsory education stage. Dai Yan’s emergence was just a direct reflection of the new education model gradually showing its results.

However, for the naturalized citizens and the local people, a female student standing at the top of the grade’s general assessment was a subversive shock to their emotions, reason, and concepts. For them, for a woman to be able to read and write was already a great honor bestowed upon them by the Chiefs. And someone could actually get first place! The novel “Flowers in the Mirror” did have female top scholars and female Jinshi, but that was just a novelist’s tale and couldn’t be taken seriously. Even if it were true, it was a “female examination.” How could it be like now, with men and women competing in a real competition for ranking?

Ding-ling-ling, the bell for the end of the second period in the afternoon rang. The teaching building instantly became lively. Next was the labor class. Most of the students would be led by their teachers to various places for practical labor. Only the grades with public classes would be specially left behind.

Lingao’s educational history was too shallow. The highest level for ordinary students at the National School was currently only the first grade of high primary school, but the students in the fast-track class were the future elite and naturally received different treatment.

Dai Dehou and Mrs. Dai, along with other parents, were led towards the Study Courtyard. This was a school within a school at Fangcao, with separate school buildings. Only the classrooms of the first, second, and third classes of each grade were located here. The “Chuhao Class” (Initial Class), the Yuanlao’s children’s class, was also located here.

Due to the limited number of students in the children’s class, a multi-grade classroom teaching method was adopted. “Principal Qian,” that is, Lu Yang’s mother, a veteran primary school teacher, personally served as the class teacher, and they enjoyed the most high-quality educational resources taught by Yuanlao teachers.

In order to prevent these young children from becoming detached from the masses too early, the Study Courtyard, which was specially set up for the children of the Yuanlao, also absorbed the elite naturalized citizen students from the first, second, and third classes to live with them day and night as their classmates.

For the visiting parents, they did not know the mystery behind it.

Teacher Xu opened the classroom door and led the parents in with a smile. The twenty-odd parents crowded the podium, looking at the high-spirited children below. Many of them had red eyes at that moment.

A male student in a black school uniform with a class monitor badge on his chest sat up straight in the front row and shouted loudly, “Stand up! Bow!”

The twenty-odd children of the first grade, second class of primary school stood up abruptly and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

Teacher Xu clapped her hands, and the classroom instantly erupted. A dozen or so children rushed towards their parents, and the scene was immediately filled with laughter and tears. Only the dozen or so orphans and children whose relatives had not come to visit watched with envy from their seats.

Dai Yan, sitting by the window in the front row, had long seen her parents. Not having seen them for a month, she naturally missed them very much. At this moment, she ran the fastest and rushed directly into Mrs. Dai’s arms.

Mrs. Dai held her daughter, her tears already falling uncontrollably. She hugged her giggling daughter and looked her up and down. The little face she hadn’t seen for a month had not thinned at all; on the contrary, her chin was a little rounder. She had the short hair common to the girls here, pinned behind her ears with a hairpin. Her black hair was neatly combed, looking clean and tidy. She wore a well-fitting fine cloth school uniform, and on her feet, which were covered in white knee-high socks, she wore a pair of “Australian-style” black buckle cloth shoes. She looked even more clever and lovely.

Her school uniform’s lapel was decorated with three white lines. The boys had three white lines on their cuffs. Dai Dehou knew this was the mark of a fast-track student. The students in the selection group, ranked 65 to 300, had two lines, while ordinary students only had one.

As the first in the grade’s general selection, Dai Yan also wore a special metal badge on her neckerchief, which was the glory of being number one in the grade.

Fangcao was full of elements that stimulated students to compete. Only the cruelest competition could make the outstanding seeds stand out. The lifespan of the Yuanlao was limited, and time was very tight to cultivate enough successors for the new world in a short period of time.

It was Dai Dehou who managed to keep a straight face at this time. He stood on the side, only the corners of his eyes twitching slightly. It wasn’t until Dai Yan hugged him and sweetly called him “Dad” that he couldn’t help but call out “good” repeatedly, and a tear at the corner of his eye could no longer be hidden, which Dai Yan wiped away with a giggle.

When the scene gradually calmed down, Teacher Xu clapped her hands and led everyone to the kitchen and cafeteria.

Due to the large number of students, eating in one place would cause chaos, so the National School’s cafeteria was divided into several by grade. However, the dining place for the fast-track class was not the student cafeteria of Fangcao, but the Study Courtyard cafeteria. The food here was supplied according to the highest standards among the naturalized citizens.

The parents stood outside shyly, watching the children busy inside through the large glass windows.

Today’s visitor’s class was part of the labor class. The parents would observe the students’ labor class process. Today, the labor class for the first grade, first class of high primary school was assigned to help in the kitchen and cafeteria: washing vegetables, washing rice, washing dishes, and wiping tables and chairs.

“This kitchen is so clean, I’m afraid to step in,” a parent exclaimed.

“No wonder they all wear white fine cloth clothes.”

“Using so much soap is too extravagant. And the rags, they are all good cloth strips. It would be better to make shoe soles…”

There were nearly two hundred people in the three grades and nine fast-track classes of the Study Courtyard, plus the hundreds of visiting parents. The amount of food needed was not a small number. By the time everything was ready, the labor class was almost over.

The meal bell rang on time. The parents outside entered in an orderly fashion. The students on duty for the day picked up the tableware and served the students and parents.