Chapter 73

In the afternoon, Liao Tingyu just came back from the school, he saw dozens of people standing in front of his shop.

He felt very strange. Why would anyone suddenly come to trouble them after living in the town for a while?

When he entered the crowd, he saw two acquittances holding their own sons. They seemed to be ten years old.

“What’s going on? Why such a big crowd?” Liao Tingyu asked them with a joking tone but there was no dissatisfied in his face.

The two people who had been waiting since early were embarrassed. As an experienced and astute businessman, they knew they were making trouble.

However, the most basic thing to be a businessman was having a thick skin.

Liao Tingyu opened the door and calmly arranged the servants to enter in orderly manner.

It was the time to accept student formally, Zhang Yi thought about it and prepared more gifts for the teacher. It didn’t matter if it was too much, anyway he could bear it.

Moreover, these gifts could be a deterrent to prevent your children being bullied. Either way, people always love receiving things.

But he didn’t expect that he would frighten the teacher’s family.

When he saw Liao Tingyu, he was very happy as if he had seen a life-saving straw.

“Sir, look at what I did. I am really sorry, I just wanted to give some things for you. Unexpectedly, I frighten your family, it was me who didn’t think carefully.”

“What kind of gift that requires so many people to bring?” Liao Tingyu looked at the boxes placed outside with some excitement.

The yard inside wasn’t very big, once the boxes moved, it was cramped.

Zhang Yi quickly led Liao Tingyu to open the boxes on the ground. Inside, there were beautiful fabrics and exquisite ceramics.

Well… Liao Tingyu looked at the small and delicate toys, it seemed to be handmade very carefully, “Boss Zhang, this thing is very delicate.”

Zhang Yi smiled proudly and stroked his beard, “I heard that Liao-xiucai’s family is blessed with golden grandson so I especially prepared the toys. These toys are made from good wood, yes, the corners all smoothed out to protect the child. These are what my wife prepared; children loved to play with things. But I don’t understand it, luckily there is my wife.”

Yang Shu stood aside stupidly, even his servants couldn’t stand it. Boss Zhang was being talk active and licking shoes but his master didn’t even move!

Yang Shu wanted to say something about his gifts but he thought again whether Liao Tingyu would like it. No one taught him about gifting a scholar!

Liao Tingyu looked at the gifts from Zhang Yi with great satisfaction and nodded his head, “These gifts are for the child. I think boss Zhang’s wife is very virtuous. Since the things have arrived, please let the servants go back.”

Yang Shu’s servants pulled his sleeve before they left. Yang Shu cheered himself, it was all for his children’s future, “Sir, I also brought gifts. Do you want to see it? look, it is books from Teacher Lan Hui. I heard many scholars love it, so I brought them for you. There is beautiful painting inside.”

Liao Tingyu blinked as he looked at the books, “Do you think he writes well?”

Yang Shu didn’t know it, “Well, I don’t know many words.” In fact, he couldn’t recognize more than five words out of tens.

“So, you haven’t read it?”

“My son has. He read it to me, although he was young, he could recognize characters now.”

“Is it well written?” Liao Tingyu asked again.

“The writing is naturally excellent. I owe my literacy to these books, it’s a pity there was no real martial arts in the world.” Yang Shu said with emotion.

Liao Tingyu was satisfied with the answer. Although, he had some of his books. But he didn’t buy the extremely well-made because it was too expensive.

At first, he comforted himself it was all the same books. But it still felt different holding it in your hands.

“Is this your child? He looks very cute.” Liao Tingyu looked at Yang Shu’s child with a smile.

Some babies were born with big watery eyes, fat cheeks and chubby bodies. He was so cute. Unlike Zhang Yi’s child who kept a straight face and pretended as an adult, although he also cute in his own way.

Yang Shu didn’t know if Liao Tingyu was happy with his gifts but he was aware of Liao Tingyu’s weird satisfaction from his face.

Especially after hearing his answer.

Liao Tingyu nodded at Yang Shu’s kid and Zhang Yi quickly pushed his son to introduce himself.

“Come and see. This is my son, Zhang Dewu. Sir, please teach him carefully, if he is disobedient, you could punish him. This kid is really tough, he can stand your beating.” Zhang Yi couldn’t wait to pull his son in front of Liao Tingyu and made him kowtow.

Not to be outdone, Yang Shu quickly pulled his kid too, Yang Wenhao.

Liao Tingyu looked at the two children and felt they were very innocent and smart. But he still didn’t know inside their heads.

“Get up quickly, don’t do it here.” Liao Tingyu stopped the two kids from kneeling down.

“Okay, I will teach you later. Now, please calm down, I will test these two kids first. How far is your studying now?”

“Sir, I have studied the Three-Character Classic.” Yang Wenhao thought of his father who mentioned to tell everything he knew, “I can count from one to a hundred. I know how to use abacus and cook roast duck. If you accept as a student, I will cook roast duck for you.”

Liao Tingyu listened at the child’s word and smiled at him, “Then you recite them for me. As for the roast duck, how about we wait later on?”

Yang Wenhao knew he had said too much, he was a little shy but still recited in a low voice, “At the beginning of human beings, nature is good…”

Although he didn’t explain it much, but it was good enough to memorize it. Education in the past mainly focused on recitation, it was good enough if the kid understood.

This kid was quite smart.

Zhang Dewu couldn’t hold himself any longer. He looked at the teacher who kept nodding his head. He felt competitive for the favour. Fortunately, Liao Tingyu didn’t stay too long on Yang Wenhao.

He stopped the kid and turned to the other one, “I remember your name is Zhang Dewu. What do you know?”

Zhang Dewu looked at the gentle scholar, although he felt inferior but he wanted to be valued by his teacher.

He said with a prideful tone, “I can memorize the Three-Character Classic too. I can count, use abacus and ride a horse.”

Liao Tingyu thought about it and asked them with a simple calculation problem.

It might be because both of their fathers ran a business, these kids were very sensitive to calculation. Although they weren’t very bright but they had the talents.

He looked at the two children and thought, okay that was good. He led the excited people inside his study.

A statue of God of Civil Arts hung in the middle of the study. Liao Tingyu lit the incense and handed it to the two children, while the fathers stood aside watching them.

They knelt down to present the tea for their teacher, it could be regarded as the beginning of teacher-student relationship.

After setting time for the class, he asked mother Deng to take the two children and tell them about things in the shop and ate something.

The two children were very sensible, they ate food willingly and ran to the front to help Liao da-ge sold things.

Liao Tingyu and the two fathers stayed in the study to discuss about the tuition.

Liao Tingyu touched the wooden box in front of him. This was the ceremonial gifts; inside were valuable things including fine tea, jade pendants, gold and so on.

In fact, the two fathers actually wanted to give expensive calligraphy and paintings but those things couldn’t be bought easily even with money.

Liao Tingyu didn’t care about those things. He was a vulgar person; those scholarly things didn’t fit his heart.

But these gold and silver were in line with his taste. Those antique calligraphy and painting were something he couldn’t afford. Even if he had them, he could only look and not touch it. He could sell it if he met knowledgeable person, otherwise, those things would just sit in the dust.

So, Liao Tingyu accepted the gifts and money generously. He smiled when the two flattered him, all of them were in a good mood.

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The next day, Liao Tingyu was feeding the little baby when a knock sounded from the side door. Two neatly dressed children stood outside obediently.

He looked down at his nephew and saw the chubby cheeks which was very tempting, he squeezed happily. It felt good as expected.

A shame, the nephew was too young so he couldn’t be touched for too long. Otherwise, mother Deng would be angry.

Because they made a lot of money, mother Deng happily made her famous pumpkin cake to entertain the two little gods of wealth. All in all, it was a happy scene in the Liao family’s house.@@novelbin@@

When Liao Tingyu prepared for the class, he called the two children, “I don’t much about your studying back then. So, I plan to teach you from the beginning. The foundation for a scholar is four books, five classics and arithmetic. If you pass the child level exam, you can enter Qingshan Academy. I will mainly teach you about these three, we will study about the books and classics for one hour then took a break before learning about arithmetic. I am very strict in my class; I hope you will be obedient. If there is something you don’t understand, just ask me.”

“We only brought one book today. We didn’t bring arithmetic.” Zhang Dewu and Yang Wenhao looked at each other nervously.

“It’s okay. I originally told your fathers to only bring Three-Character Classic. We won’t study the other books for now, you can put them at home. I will tell you when we could study them. As for the arithmetic, you don’t need to worry about it.” Liao Tingyu rubbed the cute little kids’ heads.

“Now, open your book. Let’s learn from the beginning….” Liao Tingyu guided the two children to learn the first paragraph of Three-Character Classic.

Once there was good foundation, the children could recite it and the teacher could tell the meaning of each sentence and connected it with principal of life.

This was something that other teachers didn’t have. The meaning of each sentence could be different according to the teacher and it would take too long for the student to understand if the teacher didn’t explain it well.

Liao Tingyu liked to use storytelling as a way to explain his teaching. This was the students could understand vividly about his lesson.

Children were young and always curious about things. The original boring teaching gradually became interesting with the story.

The two children were very happy when they went home. They picked up the book and told their parents what they had learned today.

What does this sentence mean?

This made the two fathers, who were worried at first, felt relieved.

The two felt that the fate of their sons were getting brighter and it was all thanks to Liao-xiucai.

They quickly remembered the things inside Liao-xiucai’s house and used their brains to buy some things. People in the business world always give things based on practicality.

After they moved around, it seemed to be too little for a gift. So, they thought it was better to give money.

And Liao-xiucai wasn’t an immortal who didn’t eat and drink. In fact, as long as the teacher’s heart was right, there was no harm in liking worldly things.

After all, who doesn’t love money?

Some people liked to pretend to be pure and untouchable. Even though they had the same basic needs as them, they acted like they didn’t live in the real world.

According to Teacher Lan Hui, it was all artificial.