A Young Woman's Heart

"Let Xiaoxue take a look later." She returned the stone to Mo Xueyao, her voice slightly lower, and her face turned away slightly. "This stone is as beautiful as your eyes."

"what?"

Just as Mo Xueyao was about to say something, a loud and energetic shout suddenly came from the classroom door.

"report!"

The two immediately forgot about what had just happened and turned to look at the door.

Perhaps considering that the two were going to teach in rural areas, most of the clothes that Mo Xueyao's mother prepared were not flashy. The colors and styles were generally simple, mainly dark colors, which made them look more dignified and made them look older. They did indeed have the air of teachers.

"Hello, teacher!" The first student to arrive at school was a little girl. Her seaweed-like hair was swaying in the wind, and her skin was very rough, with visible pores.

However, his skin tone was quite fair, and he didn't look sickly at all; he appeared to be very energetic.

"Hello!" Mo Xueyao greeted her warmly, imagining what it would be like to talk to Yu Jinyu, and asked, "Which island are you from?"

"The closest one! Teachers, you're all from inland areas, right?"

"It's not exactly inland anymore..."

"Well, so you probably don't know the name either, but it's the closest one~" The little girl winked cleverly.

"Oh—" Mo Xueyao was a little unsure how to respond. In fact, she was not very good at communicating with children. She could only chat with her godfather's daughter, Yu Jinyu, when they were together. After all, they met often and the other had a good family education, so it was easy to communicate with her.

As for the other relatives' children... especially the little boys, they were all so bad that I wish I could hang them up and spank them.

While Mo Xueyao was lost in thought, Li Wanyan squatted down to make her eye level with the little girl's and gently took her hand: "Hello, you can call me Teacher Li. What's your name? How old are you? What grade are you in?"

"Hello, Teacher Li! My name is Song Shanyan! I am nine years old and will be in the third grade in September."

"Song Shanyan, you can call me Teacher Mo!" Mo Xueyao quickly pointed to herself, as if afraid of being forgotten.

"Hello, Teacher Mo!" she called out cheerfully, blinking her bright eyes.

Li Wanyan brought over a blank roster form, with not a single student's name written on it.

She wrote "Third Grade" in big letters at the top of the roster, and recorded Song Shanyan's name in the first line.

"You're a boarding student, right?"

"Okay! I brought a change of clothes!" She didn't seem to have any aversion to going to school. Most kids would have to go to school during the summer vacation, so they would definitely have some resistance.

She looked as if she had asked her parents for it herself.

"Is it hot?"

"It's alright."

"There's nothing we can do about it..." Mo Xueyao smiled awkwardly, because the ceiling fans in the classroom were already turned up to the maximum.

That was just a polite remark.

Will you still be studying here after September?

"Well, my mom said the city is too far away and I can't live at school. This place is closer, and it's convenient to go home on weekends, and it saves money—I came here by my grandpa's little fishing boat."

Mo Xueyao nodded, ran to the podium, bent down and rummaged through the cardboard box to find several third-grade textbooks.

These books are not new, but rather used ones. However, the ones that were collected are mostly well-preserved and have no damage.

In the city, third graders already have English classes. Mo Xueyao put all these textbooks on her desk: "Keep these safe. You'll need them not only for the summer vacation but also for next semester."

"Hmm! Is it a new textbook?" Song Shanyan excitedly thanked her and then opened the Chinese textbook first, a habit similar to Mo Xueyao's.

After glancing at it a few times, she opened her English book again.

"You're going to learn English?" She was pleasantly surprised and not at all resistant to the potential difficulties. Instead, she felt excited about the new knowledge she was about to encounter.

"Ah."

"Can I learn it in advance?"

"correct."

"Great! Teacher Mo! When do we start class?"

This was the first time Mo Xueyao had ever seen a student so enthusiastic about learning. No, thinking about it carefully, Li Wanyan seemed to be this kind of person as well.

She just doesn't show it.

"It's not that early yet. It officially starts tomorrow. Rest today, and a teacher will take you to your dormitory later."

"Hmm!" She didn't ask anything more and lowered her head to concentrate on reading her Chinese textbook.

The third-grade Chinese textbook still had pinyin annotations. She laid the book flat on the table and read it very carefully, running her finger over each character.

One after another, more students followed Qiu Yi's instructions and came to the classroom.

By 5:30 p.m., eleven people had arrived.

There are no first graders; most are second and third graders, and one is a sixth grader—to be precise, he should start sixth grade after school starts in September.

She was a twelve-year-old girl, very tall, only half a head shorter than Mo Xueyao.

In contrast, even boys who are only a year younger than her seem to be in a completely different age group, like the difference between a teenage girl and a little kid.

So she sat on the far right of the classroom, with no other children sitting next to her, making her look as if she disdained associating with childish kids.

Around six o'clock, Ye Wen and Wang Qianyu finally returned. They had bought a lot of ingredients, enough for the teachers and children to use for three days.

I don't know if all of this will fit in the refrigerator.

They had to use a flatbed cart to get up there, and Qiu Yi had to go down and help to pull it to the top of the mountain.

"Xuan Anyi, you can put these away. Qianyu, go to the 301 team and bring the students out. I'll take them to arrange their dormitories!" As soon as Ye Wen returned, the students who had been in the classroom all afternoon could finally get up and move around. Perhaps because they had just arrived, everyone was very reserved, and not a single one of them went to the playground to play.

Students of varying heights, builds, and shapes followed Ye Wen toward the dormitory.

Although there weren't many people, they still brought a bit more life to the quiet school.

“Managing students seems pretty easy.”

"That's because they were more self-disciplined on the first day." Ye Wen glanced at Mo Xueyao sideways. "You'll see after a while! Especially elementary school students, tsk tsk, they're terrifying, almost like monkeys."

"That's an exaggeration. This afternoon, everyone was quite quiet, doing their own thing."

"Pfft, just a misperception~" Ye Wen clearly had this experience. "Do you know why I became a high school teacher? Because when I first became a primary school teacher, it was just too painful... I couldn't even explain things logically!"

……

Chapter Twenty: Post-Meal Exercise

Tonight, I'll be stir-frying again.

However, the person in charge of cooking has changed to Xuan Anyi.

Li Wanyan and Mr. Xue were responsible for helping out.

Teachers and students sat around a long table made up of many square tables. Many of the dishes on the plates were the same, so there was no need to worry about not being able to reach the food you wanted on your side.

The first meal between the teachers and students was actually rather dull.

Although Mo Xueyao and the others were joking and chatting, the students were hesitant to join in.

Even if the topic is steered in the right direction, the response is always a one-word answer, which is quite passive.

It's normal to be afraid of the teacher, after all, it's only the first day.

Qiu Yi, Duanmu Ji, and Mr. Xue were all asked by Ye Wen to stay and clean. After receiving the order to disperse and move around freely, the students all ran out of the restaurant in less than a minute.

You can hear the children playing outside from inside.

But as soon as Mo Xueyao walked out, the boys who had been chatting loudly together immediately fell silent.

She clearly heard one of the little guys only manage to utter half of a swear word, and judging from the flushed face on his face, he must have been holding it in for a long time.

"Alright, alright, what are you all doing gathered here? Let's do some exercise after dinner, why don't you hurry up and go play on the playground?" Mo Xueyao said with a laugh, suddenly realizing how her elementary school teacher felt.

"Xiaoyao—take the key to the equipment room. There are some basketballs, badminton shuttlecocks, and other things inside. Let the kids take them and play—"

"oh oh!"

The entire playground is less than 200 meters long, which is not very big for adults, but it is spacious enough for these little kids.

Even though they mostly just gather in this corner where the basketball court is.

Eleven students scattered here, and suddenly it didn't seem like there were many of them.

Because there weren't many people, children of different ages were able to play together.

Moreover, it doesn't discriminate between men and women; it only considers whether the relationship between the two people is good or not.

In a sense, these children are the ones who have truly achieved gender equality.

Mo Xueyao had no intention of getting involved; she just thought it was quite interesting to watch.

It was almost seven o'clock when the sun slowly sank below the horizon. Standing on this mountaintop, you could see this scene exceptionally clearly.

The seawater began to churn as if it had been boiled by the orange-red sun.

The cloudless sky was bathed in a deep red glow, as if it were ablaze.

Standing here, looking out through the iron fence, it feels as if the light of the whole world is being taken back by the setting sun, and the surroundings are beginning to darken, while only there it remains bright.

Mo Xueyao was captivated by the afterglow of the setting sun and couldn't look away.

This is completely different from the sunsets seen in the city.

After all, the sea is much larger than the land that is blocked by houses.

Although she had just eaten dinner, Mo Xueyao still felt that the seawater was becoming more and more like tomato soup...

And it's the kind with tomatoes and ketchup.

So much so that she wanted to drink some of the tomato soup she had just had.

Unfortunately, they didn't drink much during the meal. Although the students didn't dare to talk at the table, they ate without any restraint. They finished almost all two large bowls of tomato soup.

Xuan Anyi originally thought there would be a lot of food left over, but in fact, almost all the dishes were eaten, especially the meat dishes, which were almost completely devoured.

"Hey." Suddenly, a warm, slender hand patted Mo Xueyao's shoulder. She hurriedly turned around and saw Mr. Xue's smile, revealing his white teeth, in the sunset.

Why are you scaring people?