After two lifetis, An Jin finally had the dubious honor of experiencing the hardship and helplessness of being a teacher.
Every ti she saw the crooked, ssy characters on the submitted howork—oh wait, they couldn’t even be called characters. They were practically glorified scribbles.
’Help , I’m so angry I can barely breathe.’
Gu Yin was amused by her huffy reaction. He chuckled, lazily propping up his cheek with one hand as he lifted his gaze to her. "Why don’t you find a few helpers?" His eyes fell on the half-stack of howork on her desk. "It’s too much. You can’t handle it all by yourself."
She had been so busy lately, sotis not even having ti for a single bite of food. Her face had clearly grown thinner and more haggard, and it pained him to see it.
"Sigh, I underestimated this. I never thought teaching people to read and write would be so hard... It’s like teaching a newborn, showing them how to write stroke by stroke."
A classroom of around 100 people... It was practically killing her.
Gu Yin let out a soft laugh. After a mont of thought, he offered a suggestion, "You could pick a few of the smart ones to teach first, and then have them teach the rest."
"If only it were that simple..." She shook her head, looking completely defeated. "The problem is, there aren’t any. Maybe it’s because this is the first batch of students, but basically, all of them are very slow learners. I’ll finally manage to teach them a few characters one day, only to find they’ve forgotten everything by the next."
"I can help you."
"Huh?"
He tilted his head, a smile overflowing from his long, magnificent eyes. He picked up a couple of howork sheets from the desk, glanced at them, then casually tossed them aside. "You can try teaching first. How about it?"
’Gu Yin considered his mory to be quite good, especially when it ca to holding grudges, so this arduous task was perfectly suited for him.’
With no other options, An Jin decided to give it a try and taught him a few characters. To her surprise, he rembered every single one.
"How about that?" he asked smugly.
"You’re an absolute genius!"
Gu Yin remained noncommittal, his dangerously handso face as nonchalant as ever, but his snake tail curled happily.
"I’ll go find where Ling Hong and the others are. I just rembered, back when I was teaching you all to write, you few learned very quickly!"
"..." Gu Yin’s expression darkened again. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
After so testing, it turned out that both Ling Hong and Gu Yin were very strong learners. They could basically rember sothing after being taught just once, and even after a night’s sleep, they could still recall most of it during the review the next morning.
Xi, in comparison, was a bit lacking.
rfolk don’t have large brain capacities. Xi struggled with all his might just to rember her na, his own, and a few simple, everyday words. He couldn’t seem to morize anything else, no matter how hard he tried.
"*Sob*, am I really dumb? These words are so hard... I can’t seem to learn them no matter what I do..." Xi was afraid An Jin would be disappointed in him.
"Not at all," An Jin comforted him. "Everyone learns at a different pace, that’s perfectly normal. Besides, you’re the smartest rfolk I’ve ever t."
"Really?" His eyes lit up as if he’d just been thrown a lifeline.
"Yep." She sounded utterly sincere.
’After all, he was the only rfolk she was familiar with. So, it was technically the truth, right?’
Having been assured that he wasn’t dumb, Xi finally relaxed and happily went off to play in the river.
...
The teaching was organized on a weekly basis.
Just like the system in her previous country, the first five days of the week were for work, and the last two were her days off.
On her days off, An Jin would teach Gu Yin and Ling Hong the material for the upcoming week. Once they had learned it, she had them teach the other students.
And so, the three of them took turns teaching the class, which lightened her burden considerably.
In the schoolhouse, the normally lazy Beastn tensed up the mont they saw Ling Hong stride through the door, imdiately sitting up ramrod straight.
Beastn revered the strong; it was an ingrained sense of hierarchical and bloodline suppression deep in their subconscious.
The next day, it was Gu Yin’s turn to teach.
The Beastn in the schoolhouse didn’t even dare to breathe.
They felt as though they were being targeted by a ferocious, cold-blooded predator, making them squirm in their seats. Sweat beaded on their foreheads, their minds went blank, and the hands clumsily holding their pens trembled.
...
Most of the Beastn were extrely enthusiastic about their studies at first, but after a couple of days, that passion faded. They began to find it all incredibly dull and boring.
Many of the Beastn who couldn’t endure the hardship decided they wanted to drop out.
"Drop out? Sure, you can."
An Jin’s head popped up from behind a book. She steepled her fingers, rested her chin on them, and gave the group a sweet smile. "Before you all ca, I told your Clan Leader that free room and board was contingent on passing the exam. You’ve only been studying for two days and you already want to drop out... Hmm, I suppose you can. You just have to settle your tab for the Beast Crystals."
The Beastn were dumbfounded.
"Let calculate it for you. Lodging is 20 Beast Coins per day. Three als a day at 5 Beast Coins each makes 15 for food. You’ve all been here for five days, which cos to... 175 Beast Coins..."
The Beastn’s jaws dropped so wide you could have stuffed eggs in their mouths. An Jin continued counting on her fingers, twisting the knife. "And that’s just the basic room and board. The pens and paper you’re using for your studies are also provided by our city. We’ll call it a friendship price... how about 100 Beast Coins?"
"So, all together, if you want to drop out without any trouble, each of you just has to pay ... oh, 275 Beast Coins. Let’s just call it an even two Beast Crystals. How about it?"
’You’d never find anyone in the whole world as generous as her.’
The Beastn snapped their mouths shut and began shaking their heads frantically, waving their hands in protest. "No, no! We want to study! We don’t want to drop out! We love studying!" With that, they fled as if for their lives.
An Jin watched them go with a smile.
’Take advantage of ? Not a chance. Now that you’re here, you’re going to study properly! This isn’t so all-expenses-paid resort!’
An Jin, the Strict and Ruthless Dean of Students, thought to herself.
"I’ve already taught you this character five tis, how are you still getting it wrong? Copy it five tis as punishnt."
"Copy this sentence three tis."
"No daydreaming in class. If you don’t pass the exam a month from now, you’ll have to keep studying."
For a ti, the classroom was filled with wails of misery. Every Beastman who passed by the schoolhouse would gather at the window with lon seeds to watch the drama unfold.
An Jin had also considered that not everyone was cut out for academics. That was why she’d set up a selection exam for one month later. The Beastn who passed and wished to continue could then proceed to more advanced studies.
The exam a month later eliminated half of the Beastn.
The other half who remained were either those who truly loved the subject, those who were genuinely talented, or those who simply wanted to keep freeloading... In any case, the Beastn who stayed were willing to study hard, which made her teaching job much easier than before.
After a few months, many of the Beastn had mastered the characters for everyday language. They would even compete with each other sotis to see who had learned the larger vocabulary.
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