"Teacher Golding doesn’t even know her Pinyin! She can’t tell the difference between ’c’ and ’ch,’ ’s’ and ’sh,’ or ’r’ and ’l.’ She doesn’t recognize a lot of characters, either. She pronounces the word for ’spring’ wrong, making it sound like ’village.’ She butchers the idiom for ’a riot of colors’ into something that sounds like ’wilted eraser,’ and turns the phrase ’full of life’ into gibberish. She gets everything wrong!" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Tang Xiaonan repeated herself loudly. She wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest. Phoenix Golding was truly an empty vessel, completely uncultured. She wasn’t even qualified to teach first grade. ’How on earth did that woman even graduate from high school?’

What she didn’t know was that Phoenix Golding had been failing since elementary school, with grades on par with Jim Thorne. But back then, academic performance didn’t determine your educational path—your family’s class background did. A "good" background meant you could advance, while a "bad" one meant you were out of luck, no matter how good your grades were. Take Clayton Xavier, for example. He was first in the entire school every year, yet he was only allowed to attend elementary school, barred from middle and high school.

Although Phoenix Golding’s grades were poor, her class background was good, so she stumbled her way through to high school and barely managed to graduate. In reality, she was completely unlettered.

Besides, she spent all her energy trying to flirt with men. She had no time for lesson planning, let alone self-improvement. She just went through the motions in class every day. It would be a miracle if she ever taught a decent lesson.

However, she was teaching first-graders. Seven- and eight-year-olds had no way of knowing if their teacher was right or wrong. When Phoenix Golding mispronounced something, the children would copy her. Parents weren’t like their modern counterparts who checked homework daily. And even if they did, they might not have known the correct answers themselves; few in the countryside had even managed to graduate from elementary school.

So, Phoenix Golding managed to coast along as a teacher for two years, and no one ever noticed her gross incompetence. But this year, she ran into Tang Xiaonan.

Shane Thorne frowned slightly. If what Tang Xiaonan said was true, then this Phoenix Golding was truly outrageous. ’It’d be a miracle if any of her students turn out well.’

"Grand-uncle Shane, I’m not lying! That’s really how Teacher Golding teaches. If you don’t believe me, ask the others," Tang Xiaonan said, thinking Shane Thorne doubted her.

There were several children from Millstone Peak in the first-grade class at Xavier Village, so it would be simple to verify her claims. She hadn’t said a single false word against Phoenix Golding.

Shane Thorne whispered a few words to the Village Chief, who nodded. The group returned to the village, where a few children were playing. The Village Chief waved them over. "Miles, come here. I want to ask you something. Jackie and Maeve, you come over too."

The three children walked over. They were Miles Golding, Jackie Golding, and Maeve Golding. Jackie was Iris’s precious youngest son. Maeve was the granddaughter of Accountant Golding, the second-wealthiest household in the village. She and the original owner of this body didn’t get along, but she was actually a decent girl at heart, just with a bit of a temper.

Shane Thorne crouched down, used a stone to write the word ’spring’ on the ground, and asked the three children to read it aloud in Mandarin.

"Village-day."

The three children chirped in unison, proudly puffing out their small chests.

Shane Thorne then wrote out ’a riot of purples and reds’ and ’full of life and vitality,’ but the phrases were too complex; none of the three children recognized them. He shot a surprised glance at Tang Xiaonan. ’This little girl knows more characters than a third or fourth grader.’

He then wrote out some Pinyin. It was just as Tang Xiaonan had said: they couldn’t produce a single retroflex sound. They pronounced ’fourteen’ and ’forty’ as the same word, and ’orchid’ and ’southern’ sounded nearly identical. Then there was math. They had been in class for almost a month, yet they hadn’t even been taught something as simple as two plus three. Every day, they only practiced recognizing numbers. There were only ten digits in total—did that really need to take a whole month?

Even the Village Chief could tell something was wrong. ’What in the world is she teaching? Anyone can teach one, two, three, four, five—even I could do that! This Phoenix Golding is teaching a load of absolute nonsense. It’s preposterous!’