Call Me Daddy

These days, Wang Yuemin had been bothered by some people, mostly leaders and teachers from urban primary schools. They doubted the results achieved by rural students.

“The invigilators were all transferred from several junior high schools, one of whom happens to be my wife’s sister,” Wang Yuemin said angrily. After a formidable opponent emerged, instead of thinking about how to improve teaching standards, they thought the other party cheated. This wasn’t the measure of a qualified school leader.

His meaning was clear. The teachers from the commune primary school couldn’t have bribed five invigilators from different schools, especially when one of them was the sister-in-law of the Director of the Education Bureau. Suspecting the invigilators of leaking exam questions and cheating would be accusing him, the Director of the Education Bureau, of negligence.

In fact, they knew in their hearts that in the inconspicuous Hongqi Commune in Fengyang County, no one had the ability to cheat under the noses of invigilators.

They kept coming back, only because they were unwilling to admit that they had lost to a commune primary school.

“Director, there’s a package sent from the capital, and it’s quite heavy,” the secretary said as the door was knocked. Hearing the response from inside the room, the secretary opened the door and brought in a package.

“Sent from the capital?” Wang Yuemin was also puzzled. He gestured for the secretary to hand him the package and then checked the sender’s address on the package.

People’s Publishing House of the Capital?

He was shaken, then carefully took out a pair of scissors and began to carefully unpack the package.

Inside the cardboard box were several sample books and one or two letters. One of the letters was addressed to the leaders of the Education Bureau of Fengyang County, namely Wang Yuemin, and another thicker letter was addressed to Su Aobai.

Wang Yuemin’s brain was a bit confused for a moment, quickly opened the thinner letter.

The writer of the letter was the leader of the People’s Publishing House in the capital. A few months ago, he received a manuscript from Hongqi Primary School in Fengyang County. The content of the manuscript was a set of teaching materials for Chinese and mathematics for grades one to three.

At that time, all the editors were very interested in this manuscript. However, publishing educational materials wasn’t a simple matter, especially in this era. So they found many educators who had been rehabilitated in recent years to conduct in-depth research on these manuscripts.

In the end, those experts all gave the same result; impeccable, with nothing to improve!

What a high praise it was!

The capital was the center of politics and the place where policy changes were felt most deeply. After much deliberation, the leaders of the publishing house finally decided to summarize and publish these manuscripts.

Due to the special identity of the textbook author, the publishing house chose to send sample books to the local education department and instructed the local leaders to promptly deliver the replies and royalties to the original author.

“Hahaha!”

Wang Yuemin laughed heartily. This Su Aobai really brought me surprises time and time again!

The coaching materials soon to be mass-printed by the capital publishing house were produced by teachers in his jurisdiction. Could this be considered one of the achievements of my tenure as the director of the Education Bureau?

“Take a look, everyone, and see where the difference lies between yourselves and others.”

Wang Yuemin flipped through the books, still carrying the scent of ink, and then handed them to the school leaders and teachers who had doubted the performance of Hongqi Primary School.

“It’s indeed from the capital, and the writing is excellent. It covers all the basics and provides room for improvement.”

“Yes, if we had materials like these, the students’ performance would definitely improve.”

As educators, they could discern the quality at a glance.

They all looked at the books in their hands, reluctant to return them to Wang Yuemin. Such excellent teaching materials should be printed in multiple copies and distributed to every teacher.

“Hehe, indeed, they’re from the capital publishing house, but the person who wrote these books is none other than the one you were just criticizing; Su Aobai, a teacher at Hongqi Primary School, and he’s just a temporary teacher!”

Wang Yuemin felt that the temporary teacher had been treated unfairly. With just these few textbooks in hand, he was ready to approve a position for him now. He wasn’t worried that those in the system who didn’t get along with him would cause trouble for him.

“Let’s go, let’s head to the countryside!”

Wang Yuemin couldn’t wait any longer. He snatched the sample books from the shocked teachers and then ordered his secretary.

The others looked at his back, exchanged glances, recalling what he had just said, gritted their teeth, and followed him.

***

This day happened to be the day when students returned to school to receive their final grades.

In previous years, it was just a small test organized by the school, and the students would come to receive their oral grades, but today was different. Red lanterns were hung at the school gate early on, and the students were brought to the school by their parents and relatives.

“I heard your son ranked ninth in the county!”

“I heard your daughter got full marks in math!”

“Hey, when it comes down to it, my Xiao Tuzi is the least competitive. Math 87, Chinese 86, far behind the other kids, but at least not dragging behind.”

“Well, that’s pretty good. This score beats many city kids!”

Everyone was cheerful. How come we hadn’t realized before that discussing children’s grades could be so interesting?

Because of the outstanding performance, the commune also began to value Hongqi Primary School. This time, the old Principal prepared well, setting up a stage in the open space in front of the classroom doors and organizing a proper awards ceremony.

Students who achieved good rankings in the county’s individual rankings were given additional rewards by the commune.

When it was his turn to go on stage, Su Mingcheng received 15 yuan, a leather notebook, a pen, and a porcelain cup with red flowers and green leaves printed on it.

He wore a big red flower pinned by the old Principal in front of him, and together with several other students, he received admiring and envious looks from the audience.

“Is this the county’s first? Wow, which kid is this? Amazing!”

“See, we should learn from this student more!”

“Good grades also come with money? It’s almost as much as half a year’s worth of the brigade’s money. No wonder they say studying well can make big money.”

Listening to the discussions below the stage, Su Mingcheng felt even prouder, as if his chest was as straight as the flagpole on the playground.

His little face was flushed, and his eyes kept searching for his family in the crowd. Today, his parents brought his sister along, and not only that, but his grandparents and several cousins were also there.

It seemed like they noticed him looking for them and were waving frantically from afar.

“See, that’s my grandson!”

“That’s my cousin!”

They waved and introduced him to the people around them.

Based on their lip movements, Su Mingcheng inferred what they were saying at that moment.

Suddenly, he realized that studying was really interesting, especially when he did well. Holding the rewards in his arms, the frustration of being persuaded to do extra practice every day disappeared in an instant.

[Su Mingcheng’s affection level: 75, 77, 78.]

Su Aobai received the news that his son’s affection level had broken through the 75 mark, and at the same time, he received the second reward; a thousand sets of junior high school teaching materials.

He looked at his son on the platform, proudly displaying his little belly, and once again mourned for him in his heart.

But his unlucky little daughter in his arms didn’t fare any better. When she grew up a bit, she would truly appreciate the vast homework empire her brother had laid down for her several years in advance.

“Tsk, he just passed the exam. Is it necessary to make such a fuss? All this fuss is just because he’s an unestablished teacher. Even when my son was the Director of the Xifeng Town Police Station, I never flaunted it.”

Old Lady Yu, for some reason followed over, mingled in the crowd and pinched her throat to speak.

There were several people around her praising the son-in-law of the Jiang family, all feeling that he taught well, so the children could achieve such good results. Old Lady Yu couldn’t stand these words. That man who took away my favorite daughter-in-law, why should so many people like him?

She thought that after she said that, the people around her would come to flatter her because her son was the Director of the police station. This was much more impressive than some teacher.

Unfortunately, those people just glanced at her and then moved to another place to continue discussing their children’s academic performance.

Old Lady Yu suddenly felt choked up, used her hand to smooth the air in her chest, and prepared to find another place to speak.

But before she could find someone to confide in, Wang Yuemin hurried over.