Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 829 - 453 I’m Going to School

Chapter 829: Chapter 453 I’m Going to School

A high school in a small town, one where the college entrance rate is embarrassingly low to calculate and speak of, the teaching quality is as you would imagine.

It’s not that the teachers are not dedicated, but a glance at the average age of the faculty tells the story. Within the entire high school, the majority are young teachers who have graduated only a few years ago, followed by elderly teachers whose years of teaching are nearly the same as the ages of these young teachers—with hardly any middle-aged teachers in between.

From this, it’s evident that the school has not added any new teachers for quite some time, except for the influx of some young teachers in recent years.

The elderly teachers, though somewhat experienced, lack vitality and are deemed too old-fashioned by the students, making it difficult to blend in with the modern students. The young teachers have the energy and can get along with the students, but their teaching experience falls short.

And those in the middle age bracket, who have plenty of energy, sufficient teaching experience, and can mingle well with the students, are practically nonexistent.

Now, the aged history teacher is trying his best to raise his voice so that even the students at the back can hear the historical significance of the events he’s describing. He occasionally takes a sip of water and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a towel.

But as Yan Fei listens, he just wants to doze off.

Going round and round, the lecture never strays far from the textbook—it’s the same teaching plan that hasn’t changed much over years, just slightly expanding the text and comparing other related historical events. However, the examples are so familiar that there’s nothing new to learn. Apart from some diligent students who consciously study and a handful of students interested in history, most, like Yan Fei, are inattentive and drowsy.

After all, this is what’s known as a minor subject. To some students who think ahead, they will already have chosen liberal arts or sciences by the second year of senior high, and those planning to study sciences don’t even intend to pay attention to these minor subjects belonging to liberal arts during their first year of senior high.

Fortunately, a class is just forty-five minutes long—persist through it and it will pass.

In junior and senior high, these minor subjects have no homework. Instead, exams are treated like homework. Therefore, just before class ends, the teacher pointed out a few focus areas, then left with the textbook and lesson plan.

Of course, teachers of minor subjects are not in a position to assign homework. The main subjects like language, mathematics, and foreign languages are somewhat better, but before classes are divided, even the teachers themselves don’t take them too seriously.

Yan Fei is relatively lucky. After the second period of geography, he discovers that the third period is physical education—his class’s first such period since school started less than a week ago, and they hadn’t had PE during the previous scheduled session either.

At the beginning of school, PE classes must be held. These are the joys that students in non-graduating classes of junior and senior high can only enjoy for a few days before the start of each school year. Soon enough, the PE teachers will all be busy with various tasks, and teachers of other subjects will take over the classes.

After all, PE teachers are the busiest in the school—they’re always too occupied to teach classes and always have so many things to do. It’s genuinely busy work; after all, there are just two or three PE teachers for over a thousand students, and they also have to coach the students specializing in sports from the graduating classes. Basically, aside from unlikely events such as getting periods or having babies—as all the PE teachers are men—they could be involved in anything.

But whether they’re so busy that they can’t even take one class, well, that’s something everyone clearly understands.

Physical education classes are primarily focused on training for a few events included in the college entrance physical tests. They start with assessments to see if any students might be potential candidates for specialized sports training, which is crucial for the school, as it can slightly boost the college entrance rate. After all, relying solely on the majority of students to excel in academic subjects for college entrance is rather unreliable.

Before the expansion of college admissions, the students’ situation was quite dire, with most having bleak prospects. This can be seen from the distribution of ages: five classes in the first year of senior high diminish to four when students choose between liberal arts and sciences in the second year, and the number remains at four in the third year—at least a quarter of the students in the graduating classes are repeating the year, some for two to three years, and the record being repeated for five to six years. For some, this exceeds even the legal marriage age.

While the other students are eager to try after listening to the teacher’s instructions, Yan Fei just stands there and watches.

The PE teacher lives on the campus, and over the summer break, he had interactions with Yan Fei, even eating the beef Yan Fei had sent and knowing quite a bit about him. With a smile, he asks, "Yan Fei, aren’t you going to give it a try?"

Yan Fei hesitated, "Wouldn’t it be a bit like bullying if I join in?"

His hesitation is because he doesn’t want to stand out too much, but he fears that participating in the running and long jump trials would demoralize the other students.

The PE teacher chuckled, "Just give it a casual try!"

After a moment’s thought, Yan Fei said, "Alright then! I’ll just try this one. For the test, a full score is up to that farthest line, right?"

He was talking about the standing long jump, marking the acceptable line with a pencil on the ground. Yan Fei thought this was pretty boring and had been daydreaming, so he hadn’t listened carefully.

"That was before..." the PE teacher had just started speaking when Yan Fei walked forward, took a jump, and landed right beyond the line, slightly over half a foot. Even little kids know to chant "Swing your arms, jump far away" while playing, but he just stood there without much bending of his legs and scored a perfect jump.

The other tests also seemed too boring to try, and the surrounding students had heard his question from before and knew he was aiming for the line.

Yan Fei didn’t want to discourage his classmates, but he didn’t know that a few of them were already looking dismayed, with a hint of despair in their eyes. They had only learned about the consideration of sports proficiency for university admissions in high school. Some who had just found out and were keen to try suddenly felt their future prospects dim as they saw him easily surpass the line by half a foot.

Yan Fei thought little of beating the perfect score by half a foot, but the PE teacher surrounded by those despondent students was already feeling a bit dizzy.

The lines drawn with pencil naturally couldn’t be as precise as in an exam, marked every five centimeters.

The reason for everyone’s reaction was that the farthest line wasn’t the perfect score line. Yan Fei thought the teacher was about to say it was the old standard for exams, but in reality, the teacher had drawn the school’s past records—those of students who had competed in the sports proficiency tests—to motivate everyone.

That’s why the PE teacher couldn’t finish his sentence; those records were measured to the centimeter and millimeter, and Yan Fei had beaten them by half a foot. If such a record were left, it wouldn’t motivate everyone; it would be demoralizing.

So, after some thought, the teacher asked, "Do you plan on applying as a sports specialist student in the future?"

Yan Fei had already thought of an answer, "If there are bonus points in the future, I’ll take the bonus points, but being a specialist student seems a bit like taking a shortcut, not very formal..."

The teacher’s face fell, so all these years I’ve been involved in sports, I’ve been taking shortcuts?

Of course, this student couldn’t be treated like an ordinary one. The school’s teachers knew how to calculate; they had already figured out that the beef Boss Yan provided during the summer vacation was worth several months of their salaries. And they only knew about the school; they couldn’t inquire about places like the police station or armed forces department.

There were also rumors that the price of his beef in Hong Kong was much higher than the street prices. So for the townspeople, including the schoolteachers, Boss Yan had far surpassed their level of understanding. Whether he was at school to barely scrape through for a diploma or genuinely preparing for the High School Entrance Examination was anyone’s guess.

Having heard Yan Fei’s words, the PE teacher finally understood that he was indeed aiming for the High School Entrance Examination. With this in mind, he became more composed, thinking you might have to apply as a sports specialist student in the future if your academic subjects aren’t up to par—he didn’t believe Yan Fei could swing by academically on the High School Entrance Examination. How could he not know Yan Fei hadn’t attended Third Year of Junior High and was purely "specially recruited"?

But everyone was happy to have this special recruit, as he brought tangible benefits and no one objected. Moreover, he was not like other students who were admitted through connections, who performed poorly and caused trouble. Everyone knew about Yan Fei’s situation; whether he performed poorly or not didn’t matter since he seldom attended class and even when he did he wouldn’t disturb other students.

Now the PE teacher thought even further ahead, "Yan Fei, have you considered pursuing sports as a career? Like joining the municipal or provincial sports team, becoming an athlete, and eventually making it to the national team to win gold medals for the country in international competitions?"

Yan Fei immediately laughed, "If I become an athlete and chase glory for the country, I won’t have time to manage the cattle farm. Can you imagine if folks in the town knew it was you who convinced me? Wouldn’t someone smash your windows?"

After a moment’s thought, the teacher said, "Forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything."

In fact, the teacher knew more about the sports industry; he immediately regretted what he had said. Being a PE teacher and often leading teams to the city for competitions, he was quite informed about the current situation. Suggesting to a wealthy owner like Yan Fei to become an athlete seemed feasible to a recent graduate, but to the teacher, who had taught physical education for over a decade, it wasn’t reliable. It was the thrill of seeing Yan Fei’s results that made him speak without thinking.

As for Yan Fei’s joke, it was very likely to happen. Who in the town didn’t know that Boss Yan had taken out loans close to a million and had paid them off in no time? Not to mention the many villagers looking to get rich by following his lead in cattle farming, there were already plenty who benefitted from his success.

Convincing such a figurehead to become an athlete, he’d have to replace his window panes with steel plates and wear a helmet when going out to avoid being clubbed.

The two shared a little joke, which actually brought them closer. They simply stood there and chatted, and as for the students, the teacher cared even less since they all preferred it that way. Anyway, it was the last class of the day, and many students were eyeing the steaming noodles being brought out of the cafeteria with drooling mouths—not because they were greedy, but because they were growing kids, and the school meals weren’t very filling. No matter how much they ate during mealtimes, their stomachs would inevitably start growling before the next mealtime.

Yan Fei chatted with the teacher for a while and inquired about policies on extra points for the High School Entrance Examination, then strolled back home. At least he had finished all three classes satisfactorily that afternoon.

Asking about extra points was sensible, as he intended to be "Docter," a bona fide college student in the future. Specialist student wasn’t in the cards, but if there were bonus points available, he would certainly not leave them on the table.