Chapter 111 School
The villagers were delighted to see that all the people from the Taoist temple had come out, and they joked, "It's rare that all the people from your Taoist temple have come together."

Wang Feiyin said cheerfully: "Not all of them are here yet, we still need the second and the second youngest."

"Yes, how is Yin Song doing as an official in the capital? Has he been promoted?"

Wang Feiyin said: "Promotion is not the most important thing. The most important thing for him to be an official is to serve the country and the people."

Villager: "That means he didn't get promoted."

The day was suddenly filled with talk.

Wang Feiyin looked around and said, "Hurry up and clear all these things before noon, and clean the mountain temple inside and out before dark."

The fellow apprentices all responded, picked up the baskets and carts and started loading the things.

The remaining large stones were placed next to the ditch, so that if anyone in the village needed them, they could take them away.

The broken stones can be used to fill the road.

Once it rains, the dirt road will become bumpy, especially after a car runs over it, which will form bigger potholes.

But it rains a lot in the south of the Yangtze River.

At this time, if you fill the pit with some gravel that is not easy to sink, and then fill it with soil after compacting it, it will be a super beautiful road.

After moving all the large stones, the remaining wood and broken wood were separated and placed aside. Then everyone filled baskets with broken stones and searched the village for large holes to fill.

When some villagers saw them filling the road, they immediately called their children, both big and small, and asked them to help clean the mountain temple.

Children love to join in the fun, and now that the busy farming season is over, it's time for them to have fun.

As soon as they heard the adults calling them, they immediately rushed towards Pan Yun and the others.

They played best with Tao Yan and Bai Miaohe, and rushed over to greet them and asked, "Where's Wang Xiaojing?"

Tao Yanbai: "You are from the same village, why are you asking me about Wang Xiaojing?"

"Didn't you take him away? He hasn't been home for twenty days."

Pan Yun: "We brought him back yesterday."

When the children heard this, they immediately left them and ran to find Wang Xiaojing.

Compared to these little Taoist priests, the little friends in the village and Wang Xiaojing have more to say.

Wang Xiaojing seldom went home, so he slept in. When his friends looked for him, he ran over and diligently helped them load the gravel, pour it into the pit and stomped it down.

We also took them to places where they could dig soil, and they dug a lot of soil to fill the gravel.

With so many children in the village helping out, the piled things inside and outside the mountain temple were quickly cleared up. They also swept the place while they were at it, putting the dust, mud, etc. swept out into baskets and filling the pit together, making the best use of waste.

By the time I finished all this, it was almost noon.

A bunch of kids were starving.

Wang Feiyin took charge and took out half of the meat and ribs that Wang Cong and the others had left at Wang Xiaojing's house last night and gave them to Grandpa Wang. He boiled a big pot of pork ribs and radish soup, used the pork rib soup as the base, and cooked a bowl of pork noodles for each child.

It just so happened that the work at the mountain temple was officially completed today, and the wages had to be settled, so the villagers and craftsmen who helped also had a meal together at Wang's house.

Tao Ji couldn't help with things like filling holes and digging mud, so he went to help in the kitchen.

Grandpa Wang looked at him with a smile, "Your cooking skills have improved. I remember when you and your second brother burned down the kitchen, you two were afraid of being beaten by Er Yazi, so you ran all the way down the mountain. Your second brother was fine, but you cried all the way down the mountain."

Tao Ji's face flushed immediately, and he immediately looked outside. Seeing that everyone was working at the mountain temple, and no one came to the shed, his blush faded a little, and he whispered, "Uncle Wang, these are all old things, please don't mention them again."

"Don't mention it, don't mention it. By the way, Taoist Xiao Tao, do you know what kind of person the head of the Yu family is who wants to take my grandson as his apprentice?"

Tao Ji said: "My fourth junior sister and youngest junior sister have seen that man. They are both good at face reading. Since they didn't say anything, it means that the Yu family is trustworthy. You can rest assured and let Xiaojing go."

Grandpa Wang smiled when he heard this, kneaded the dough even harder, and nodded repeatedly, "That's good, that's good."

Yu Qing is indeed trustworthy.

Pan Yun and Wang Xiaojing said, "I think Yu Qing has a righteous temperament and is an upright person. If you learn from him, as long as you are diligent and behave properly, you will definitely learn real skills."

Wang Xiaojing nodded vigorously, "I will study hard, Junior Master, thank you."

If he hadn't been taken there by someone from Sanqing Temple, he would have had no way of getting in touch with the owner of the kiln.

He couldn't just go up to someone and say he wanted to be their apprentice, right?
You know, being an apprentice also requires connections. If you don’t have connections, you can only spend money.

The carpentry apprentice that his family originally found for him was arranged by his uncle, and they spent another three hundred coins to secure the position.

So when he didn't go, his second uncle immediately took over. It was really a rare opportunity.

Now, he doesn't rely on his family and doesn't spend any money, he has become an apprentice to make porcelain, and his future prospects are no less promising than those of a carpenter.

Pan Jun smiled and patted his shoulder. "It's because of your ability that we have a connection. You can become my apprentice because of your hard work. However, if you want to go far on this road and achieve great success, you can't just learn how to make porcelain."

"What else is there to learn?"

Pan Yun quickly took out a book and said, "Learn the law!"

She said, "If we want to survive in the secular world and make further progress in it, we must understand the rules of the secular world. Their rules are written in the law."

"The Great Ming Code is too detailed and too difficult to remember. You should first learn the Great Edict. There are many cases in it. If you read it carefully, you will find that although the laws are not as strict as those during the Hongwu period, the roots are there and you can't go wrong with them."

Wang Xiaojing shrank his hand and said, "I, I am not very literate and I am also quite stupid. I am afraid I won't understand it even if I read it."

"So I got you the Great Edict. It's mostly stories. If you can't understand the theories, you can still understand the stories, right?" Pan Yun stuffed it into his arms and said, "Just treat it as a storybook. After you finish reading the stories, think about the principles and laws involved, and you will understand them thoroughly."

"When you can understand the Great Edict, I will get you a copy of the Great Ming Code. When you finish reading the Great Ming Code, combined with the skills you learned from the Yu family, I dare not say that you will be able to walk sideways in the Great Ming, but at least you will be ten times more confident than you are now."

Wang Xiaojing: “Really?”

Pan Yun nodded: "Really!"

Wang Xiaojing accepted the "Great Edict" and said, "Okay, I will read it when I get back."

"If there are words you don't know, just ask others. There should be many people in the village who can read, right?"

Wang Xiaojing shook his head. “Not many. Only the people in your Taoist temple are literate.”

This was beyond Pan Yun's expectations. He blinked and said, "What should we do? Is there anyone in the Yu family who can read?"

Wang Xiaojing shook his head. "Only my master can recognize a few characters, and his level is about the same as mine."

So there was no one to ask for advice.

Pan Jun scratched his face in distress, "Then it depends on fate. You can mark the words you don't know and the paragraphs you don't understand, and we will teach you when we meet." Wang Feiyin frowned, thought for a moment, then turned to ask the village chief who came to help, "Where do the children in the village go to school now?"

"Let's go to Dayuanwu."

Wang Feiyin nodded. "It's not far. Are there many children going to school?"

"Not many. Most of them only went to school for two or three years and then came back. For example, Wang Xiaojing only went to school for two and a half years. He said he couldn't continue studying and ran back on his own. Now there are only two families who can continue to study and whose families insist on sending them back."

Wang Feiyin sighed when he heard this, "This won't work. Although our Fenshui Village is not big, it is not small either. There are so many children. How can only two children persist in studying?"

The village chief said: "There is nothing we can do about it. First, the children really don't like to study. Second, it is difficult for every household. It costs a lot of money to support students, and we also lose a labor force."

"Don't underestimate the labor of children," the village chief pointed at Pan Yun and the other two and said, "Children of their age in the village, whether boys or girls, can be used as half adults. Children as old as Xiaojing are just like adults, except that they can't do heavy labor, such as transplanting rice, sowing seeds, applying fertilizers, and weeding. Everything else is the same as adults."

"Once he goes to school, the family will lose a laborer. He will eat and drink for free, and we will have to spend money to buy books, pens, ink, paper, and inkstones, and pay tuition. How many families in our village can afford it?"

Wang Feiyin frowned and said, "What if the school is opened in the village and the children are not required to pay tuition?"

Village chief: "Then there will be seven or eight families who can send their children to school."

"And what about a packed lunch?"

Village chief: "Add seven or eight more households."

"The top three students will get a year's worth of books and a set of writing brushes, inkstones, and paper."

Village chief: "Then about half of the families in the village are willing to send their children to school."

Wang Feiyin said: "Then let's do it."

Pan Yun turned his head to look over.

Wang Feiyin said, "I will pay for this. Is the old school still there? Repair it. If it is in serious disrepair, I will use my ancestral home to run the school. I will hire the teachers, pay the tuition, and provide lunch. The children just need to bring books, writing brushes, inkstones, and paper to study."

The village chief was shocked, "Master Wang, are you serious?"

Pan Yun was also shocked, "Big Brother, our Taoist temple is so rich?"

Wang Feiyin sighed, "You can be poor no matter what, but you can't be poor in education. We must find a way out for our children. Studying is the best way out. Even if they don't take the imperial examination to become an official, they can still choose other paths to follow. There are many more paths for children who can't read and write."

The village chief was moved and held Wang Feiyin's hand, "Second boy, you are still you. You haven't changed in all these years."

He wiped his tears and said, "You have been hiding in the mountains for the past few years and rarely came down. I thought you were tired of us."

Wang Feiyin: "...I just went into seclusion to practice."

"I know, I know. As soon as you mentioned running a school, I knew you must have been delayed by something."

The village chief decided that he didn't want any wages.

When Pan Yun heard this, he became nervous and shouted, "No, running a school is running a school, and building a mountain temple is building a mountain temple. You must take the wages!"

The village chief was stunned.

Wang Feiyin also advised him, "Take it, take it. If you don't take this salary, she won't be able to sleep well at night, hahahaha..."

In the end, the village chief was persuaded to take the salary.

After Tao Ji paid all the workers, he did some calculations and said to Pan Yun, "There are still seventy-five taels left from the money you gave for building the temple."

"It's quite a lot," Pan Yun thought for a moment and said, "Leave twenty-five taels to buy things for the mountain temple, and keep the remaining fifty taels in the temple to build a school for my eldest brother."

Wang Feiyin smiled and said, "Junior sister is the one who understands me."

Pan Yun nodded and said, "As for education, I understand. I am only worried about whether our temple can sustain itself with enough money. Running a school is not a matter of one or two years, but ten, twenty, or even longer."

Wang Cong felt even more stressed and whispered, "Dad, why don't we wait another two years? I'll pass the exam next year and start working after I go out and earn money."

Wang Feiyin patted his head and said, "Don't be afraid. You don't need to take care of this matter. I will find a way to get the money. I just need to invite the master. Once the mountain temple is settled, I will go out to invite the master."

Autumn and winter are good times for infrastructure construction.

At this time, the autumn harvest is over and farming is not very busy, so manpower can be spared to do many things.

The village chief and Wang Feiyin confirmed three times that the school could be opened in the early spring of next year. He went back and gathered all the villagers for a meeting, and started to renovate the old school the next day.

It didn't matter if the house was old or even broken. As long as each family donated some things or money, and with the leftover wood and some stones from building the mountain temple, they built two more classrooms.

Unlike the mountain god temple, where the entire house is made of stones and bricks, the school has a stone base and broken mud bricks on top. It is cheap and quick to build, so it can be built much faster than the mountain god temple.

It can be done in five days.

After the bricks are laid, stir the mud and apply it all over the house to add a thicker layer, which will keep the house warmer in winter and cool in summer.

Anyway, apart from being ugly and being damp in spring, it has no other disadvantages.

The whole village devoted a lot of effort to the school, while the people of Sanqing Temple devoted most of their energy to the mountain temple.

I don’t know if it was because he had been working for the mountain temple all day, but apart from falling twice, nothing else bad happened to Pan Jun throughout the day.

Lian He and Miao Zhen went to cut the pig bristles smoothly, and there were no accidents like the pigs suddenly going crazy.

When the villagers heard that Pan Yun wanted pig bristles, they enthusiastically went to their own pig pens and shaved the hair on the pigs' necks and backs for her.

Pan Jun kept saying "Enough, enough" for a long time, but no one paid her any attention and insisted on sending her off, thinking that she had not had enough.

All the families with pigs in the village have shaved their pigs. Today is a rare day for pigs.

Pig life is hard.

Fortunately, winter is coming soon, and these pigs will not live for more than a few months, at most March.

Finally, Pan Yun carried a large bag of pig bristles up the mountain. This time, Wang Feiyin was unwilling to take her back to the mountain because he felt that the pig bristles had a strong smell.

When Pan Yun heard this, he handed the sack to Wang Cong.

Wang Cong was silent for a moment, but still reached out and took it silently.

Pan Jun opened her arms towards her dear senior brother.

Wang Feiyin paused, but still took her with him and quickly went up the mountain.

He placed her in front of the mountain gate and said expressionlessly, "Junior sister, you have great talent. You should seize the time to practice and strive to enter the first stage as soon as possible. Then you can learn to fly."

Pan Yun's eyes sparkled, "Don't worry, Senior Brother, I will practice hard."

　Today's lucky number is the number ending in 5. Here is a screenshot as proof. Join the "Daming" group and find Mo Yan to claim your reward.
　　(End of this chapter)