Starting Today, I’ll Work as a City Lord - CH 95

Xi Yang City currently had two schools: an elementary school and a night school. The elementary school was for people under 15 years old, and the tuition was 3 copper coins per month. The night school was for people above 15 years old and the tuition was 2 copper coins per month.

Many of the citizens of Xi Yang City were willing to spend 2 copper coins per month to go to the night school, especially since Liu Feng made it so that literate people had a 20% higher salary compared to those that were illiterate. Well, they were only the ones that didn’t have children, because the families that had children would simply have the children teach their parents the things they learned in school.

One advantage of having the children teach their parents was that the kids would focus on what they were learning and not wander off to their thoughts during their class. This was because if the children got home and couldn’t teach anything to their parents, well, they had to choose one between two of the “meals” prepared for them: a wooden stick or a shoe.

Liu Feng put a lot of focus on the elementary school as the future development of Xi Yang City depended on them, the carriers of knowledge.

Liu Feng was currently taking Weya to the elementary school. The school had about 200 students, but there were only 2 teachers in the school. One of the teachers was Luma, and Liu Feng would occasionally go over to hold a few classes.

“One to ten, ten to hundred, hundred to thousand, thousand to ten thousand.

“The three foundations, sky ground and humans. The three light-bringers, sun moon and stars.¹

“Three basic relationships, principles of monarchs and ministers, love between parents and children, peace between husband and wife.²

“…”

Liu Feng and Weya could hear the students reading from outside the school. Weya was surprised to hear the short phrases that she had never heard of.

“This is?” Weya turned her head and looked at Liu Feng, her eyes filled with questions.

“Three Character Classic, an enlightenment book from my hometown,” Liu Feng said, smiling, It was one of the first teaching materials that he got. It had taken him a few days just to translate the book into something that could be understood by the people in this world.

“Hometown?” Weya frowned when she heard the answer. She had heard about Liu Feng’s hometown a lot. She had heard that everything in Liu Feng’s inner vault, which she considered to be an evil dragon’s treasury, was from Liu Feng’s hometown.

It gave her the feeling that Earth was a mysterious and magical place. It’d be good if I can get the chance to visit that place.

“Let’s go! There just happens to be a class that needs you to teach.”

Liu Feng led the way inside the school. The school was an old house as the new school has yet to finish construction. It wouldn’t be until the spring of next year that the new students could move in.

“He he he… don’t run! I am Knight Guan Yu! Watch me chop you up with one swing of my sword!”

“Ah! I died… Okay, Ba Dou, it’s my turn to be Knight Guan Yu and your turn to be the horse thief.”

“No! I, Knight Guan Yu, can still kill a few hundred more people!”

Liu Feng and Weya could hear the students’ clamoring before even going into the classroom. The loudest of them was Buff’s grandson, Ba Dou, aka the number one naughty kid.

“These are the students that I have to teach?” Weya asked, raising her eyebrows. Why do I feel like it’s going to be super hard to teach them?

“Yep!” The corner of Liu Feng’s mouth twitched. This was the naughtiest class in the school. As long as the teacher wasn’t there and they were made to self-study, they could pretty much tear apart the classroom. They were a bunch of naughty kids that were basically silly dogs.

As soon as Liu Feng walked in, the noisy classroom became quiet. Three seconds later, all the students shouted even louder than before!”

“Lord Liu Feng is here!”

“Lord Liu Feng, are you going to tell the story Romance of the Three Kingdoms today?”

“Yeah! Last time we got to Knight Guan Yu and Knight Zhang Fei going to kill the horse thieves.”

Ba Dou was the kid that was shouting the fiercest. Children all loved hot-blooded stories like this one. Of course, Liu Feng had changed the story to make it easy to understand.

“Okay, all of you go back and sit down first,” Liu Feng said with a blank face.

The kids all ran back to their seats and sat there obediently, waiting for Liu Feng to speak.

“Before I start to tell a story today, let me introduce a new teacher to you. She will also be the one to teach you in the future and tell you stories.”

Liu Feng beckoned Weya to come forward with his hand and said, “This is Teacher Weya. From now on, you have to listen to her and don’t mess around.”

“Understood!”

Childish voices rang out in unison as many pairs of curious eyes looked at Weya’s long rabbit ears.

“Wow! She’s so tall! She’s 1.5 times as tall as Miss Anri!”

“Yeah! She’s really tall! She’s as beautiful as Miss Mina!”

When Mina, who was standing at the door, heard that, the corners of her mouth twitched. These kids should be glad that Anri isn’t here.

Weya was slightly nervous as this was the first time she came into contact with so many human children, and it made her palms sweat crazily. However, she still tried to put a serious expression on her face.

“You can stay on the side to watch as I give them a lesson. You can just learn from how I do it,” Liu Feng said, smiling lightly.

“Okay,” Weya said, going to the side like an obedient baby.

“Cough cough…” Liu Feng cleared his throat. “Today I will not tell the story of the knights of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I will tell you a better story.”

The naughty kids’ eyes were almost glowing with green light. A book even better than Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Now that’s interesting.

The book Journey to the West began with: The Divine Root Conceives and the Spring Breaks Forth. As the Heart’s Nature Is Cultivated, the Great Way Arises. Before Chaos was divided, Heaven and Earth were one; all was a shapeless blur, and no men had appeared. Once Pan Gu destroyed the Enormous Vagueness, the separation of clear and impure began.³

Would Liu Feng really read from the book word for word? Of course not! With these children’s comprehension abilities, all of them would fall asleep if he just read from the book word for word. As such, Liu Feng told the book through how he comprehended the story.

“Cough cough… today’s story is called Journey to the West!”

“A long, long, long time ago, during the time when there weren’t humans or beastkins, not even the world existed. It was the era of gods. The gods secretly cultivated in the shadows, until a god called Pan Gu created the world.”

Liu Feng immediately attracted the attention of the children as soon as he started. Even Weya and Mina got attracted to the story. The story was too fictional, one that they had never heard before.

“The legend says that an unknown amount of time passed, and a new era began. The world had multiple continents even larger than the continent that we are in. The main continents are the Eastern Continent of Superior Body, Western Continent of Cattle…

“The story begins in Aolai Country in the Eastern Continent of Superior Body. There was a mountain called Flowers and Fruit Mountain, and on the mountain was a divine stone. One day, the divine stone exploded, and a stone monkey flew out from the stone…

“This was the beginning of the legendary story of the person known as the Monkey King…”

Translator’s Notes:

¹ 三才者，天地人。三光者，日月星. So basically, the first sentence is saying that there are three basic things that shape our environment- sky, ground, and humans. The sky refers to sunlight, air, and water. The ground refers to animals, plants, mines, ores, etc. The humans refer to, well, the humans, but also their amazing ability to create. The second sentence is saying that there are three things that can emit light without the need for human intervention (creating false “lights”)- the sun, moon, and stars.

² 三纲者，君臣义，父子亲，夫妇顺. This sentence is basically saying that the society that we live in is formed from a web of networks between humans, and it is our social relationships with each other that formed the web of networks that created and shaped our society. The three most basic relationships are between rulers and ministers, parents and children, and husband and wife. The things that hold the relationship between rulers and ministers together are their logics and principles. What they say and what they do must be backed by logics and reasons. They cannot just do things just to do things. The things that hold the relationship between parents and children are their feelings, blood relation, and love. Parents and children must be close to each other not in their physical bodies but in their hearts. The things that hold the relationship between husbands and wives (or spouse and spouse) are their willingness to go with the flow and to listen to each other. Husbands and wives should support each other and not fight too much. If the couple has disagreements or problems, they should solve them without trying to escalate them, and even just go with what their spouse says when needed.

³ I did not bother translating, I just searched up the English version of the book and copy and pasted up to the part that I thought the author included.

It’s hard to translate these poems and the like. I’ll just do my best to explain their meanings. They might be different depending on who you ask.