He was a disabled military officer who doted on his research work in the Northwest.

Liu Fang was sitting at the table knitting a sweater. Upon hearing this, she simply smiled faintly and did not reply.

Bai Wei paced back and forth in the room, growing increasingly resentful. In this compound, besides being "Liu Fang's friend," she had nothing. Shen Tang had won over a group of children and military wives by growing vegetables and cooking; why should Bai Wei have to slink away and remain invisible?

She also needs to find something to do, to show the people in the compound what it really means to be cultured and capable!

Shen Tang, a country bumpkin, can farm and cook—anyone can do that. But teaching and educating people is something only knowledgeable and learned people can do!

Thinking of this, Bai Wei's eyes lit up, and an idea came to her.

The following evening, several military wives were enjoying the cool air in the courtyard with their children. Five or six toddlers were chasing and playing, making a racket that gave everyone a headache. Zhang Cuihua, while cracking sunflower seeds, scolded her son: "All you do is run around all day! You don't even study during school holidays! If you get last place in the exams again when school starts, wait till your dad gets home and gives you a good beating!"

Bai Wei happened to be coming out of Liu Fang's house with a glass of water when she heard this, and immediately put on a warm smile and went over to her.

"Sisters, how about this—I'm someone who's been to school and taken exams, after all. While I'm staying in the compound these few days, I'll teach the children to recognize characters and read books. Consider it helping you all out."

The military wives' eyes lit up when they heard this.

The children in the compound are used to being wild, and they're like wild horses when school's out for holidays. It would be wonderful if someone could keep them in line and get them to sit down and learn something.

"Nurse Bai is willing to teach? That's great!" Zhang Cuihua was the first to respond. "She's a proper nurse, educated! Much better than us roughnecks!"

"That's right, that's right! Weiwei is a kind and good-hearted person; we feel safe leaving the children with her!"

Bai Wei, flattered by the praise, immediately patted her chest and assured them, "Don't worry, sisters-in-law! Although I'm not a teacher, I can still read and write perfectly! I guarantee I'll teach the children to be well-behaved!"

She was extremely pleased with herself—once she had won over all the children in the compound, how could Shen Tang's few tattered radishes compare to her!

The next morning, Bai Wei set up a small table and a small blackboard under the old locust tree in the courtyard and started an "open-air classroom" in a very professional manner.

Seven or eight children were herded over by the wives of the soldiers and sat obediently on small stools, looking up at Bai Wei writing on the blackboard.

The first day went relatively peacefully. Bai Wei taught the children a few simple words—"big," "small," "up," and "down"—and the children repeated them. The military wives watched from the sidelines, thinking it sounded quite convincing.

But problems arose the next day.

"Come on, kids, repeat after me—the '戍' in '戍边' (guarding the border): horizontal, vertical, horizontal, horizontal, diagonal hook, dot." Bai Wei wrote the characters stroke by stroke on the blackboard with chalk, and nodded quite proudly after finishing.

Shen Tang happened to be returning from the cafeteria that day. As she passed under the old locust tree, she caught a glimpse of the words on the blackboard out of the corner of her eye, and her steps suddenly stopped.

The character "戍" – Bai Wei clearly wrote "戌".

The characters 戍, 戌, and 戊 look similar, but their meanings are completely different. 戍 refers to guarding the frontier, 戌 refers to the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch combination, and 戊 refers to the 戊戌变法 (Hundred Days' Reform). Bai Wei not only misspelled the characters, but also messed up the stroke order.

Shen Tang initially didn't want to get involved. She ignored whatever Bai Wei said about her behind her back, treating it like a dog barking. But she couldn't tolerate this misleading of young people.

These children are at the age where they are building a foundation. Once they remember something wrong, it is harder to correct it than to relearn it.

"This character is written incorrectly."

Shen Tang's voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear under the quiet shade of the trees.

All eyes turned to them at once.

Bai Wei was writing enthusiastically when she heard this, and the chalk in her hand snapped in two with a "crack". She turned her head sharply and saw that it was Shen Tang, and her face instantly darkened.

"What did you say?"

Shen Tang walked to the blackboard and slowly pointed to the character: "The '戍' in '戍边' (shù biān) has a dot inside. The one you wrote has a horizontal line in the middle, which is the '戌' in '戌时' (xū shí). The two characters have completely different meanings."

She picked up a piece of chalk and neatly wrote three characters next to it—戍, 戌, 戊—and then marked the pronunciation and meaning under each character.

"戍 (shù) means to guard the frontier; 戌 (xū) is the eleventh of the twelve Earthly Branches; 戊 (wù) is the fifth of the ten Heavenly Stems. These three characters look similar, but with only one stroke difference, their meanings are completely different. It's especially important to pay attention to distinguishing them when teaching children."

The children tilted their heads, looked at the blackboard, then at Bai Wei, their eyes filled with confusion.

Bai Wei's face flushed crimson, as if she'd been publicly exposed. Clutching the broken piece of chalk tightly, she retorted shrilly, "Stop pretending to be so great! I've been to school! I've always written this character like this since I was little, how could I be wrong? You're just a country bumpkin who never even went to school, what do you know!"

"Don't you understand? The words are right there; anyone can look them up in a dictionary." Shen Tang's tone was flat, devoid of any extra emotion. "If you don't believe me, go back and look it up on page 535 of the Xinhua Dictionary."

Bai Wei was speechless. She couldn't possibly remember which page the dictionary said what. But she refused to admit defeat to Shen Tang, stubbornly insisting, "Anyway, that's how I learned it! Believe it or not! Kids, don't listen to her, repeat after me—"

The children looked at each other, unsure of whose advice to follow.

Tiger scratched his head and muttered, "But the one Sister Shen Tang wrote is the same as the one in our textbook..."

Bai Wei's face stiffened.

"Sister Shen Tang! Sister Shen Tang!"

A child who hadn't attended Bai Wei's tutoring session came running up, panting, his face flushed, shouting, "Sister! Something terrible has happened! Someone's stealing your vegetables!"

Shen Tang's heart tightened, and she immediately followed her quickly toward the flower bed.

"I just came back from that path behind the house and saw someone squatting by your vegetable patch!" the child gestured. "The person was wearing drab gray clothes and a tattered straw hat, acting suspiciously! I called out to him and he ran away!"

Shen Tang squatted down and carefully examined the vegetables in the flower bed.

The second batch of bok choy was growing well, a lush green expanse. She counted them one by one—one was missing.

But what alarmed her wasn't that one vegetable was missing. It wouldn't be a big deal if someone took one vegetable; she herself often gave vegetables to others. But the way that vegetable was taken was suspicious.

Ordinary people who steal vegetables either uproot them, making a mess, or simply snap off the leaves and stuff them in their pockets before running away. But in this empty space, the soil had been neatly dug into a regular square hole, about fifteen centimeters deep and just wide enough to accommodate the complete root system of a cabbage. The walls of the hole were smooth and flat, and there were no signs of trampling or damage to the surrounding soil; not even the adjacent seedlings had been bent in the slightest.

More importantly, there were clear cutting marks from a shovel on the edge of the pit. It wasn't an ordinary shovel, but the neat cuts left by a small sampling shovel used in laboratories to collect soil samples.

Shen Tang's pupils contracted slightly.

This is not stealing vegetables.

This is sampling.