Chapter 6: Walls and Science

There was only one gentleman in the academy, called Zhang Jinglin, and the lessons in the academy were all taught by the gentleman alone.

Everyone thought that Mr. Zhang was powerful and knew everything. But Ren Xiaosu had always had doubts. It was said that there were specialties in the arts, and a person’s energy was limited, so Mr. Zhang couldn’t be all-knowing and all-powerful, could he?

Ren Xiaosu has always been different from others, he likes to reflect when he looks at the problem, then listen to Mr. Zhang’s lectures to know, this is called a dialectical view of the problem.

Yan Liuyuan was sometimes puzzled, because Ren Xiaosu often refuted Mr. Zhang Jinglin’s views, but would still have the time to come to listen to Mr. Zhang’s class …….

Ren Xiaosu specially took Yan Liuyuan to celebrate during the afternoon class, not for any other reason than he could listen to the class in the courtyard from now on.

Crouching on the wall too far from the classroom on weekdays was a bit hard to hear after all. Originally, Zhang Jinglin liked to close the doors and windows tightly when he lectured, this was for fear that the commotion outside would affect the students and cause them to be distracted.

But later, after he realized that Ren Xiaosu was eavesdropping, he would leave a window open.

Now, what about simply calling Ren Xiaosu to the courtyard.

Many children’s parents in this chaotic world, send their children to the school is not to give the child long learning, but to send here to facilitate the child’s future marriage, especially the girls who have gone to school usually can be promised a good family.

In these days, it was good enough to be able to read and write, and to know three-digit arithmetic.

Everyone was so busy trying to survive, who cared if you were literate or not when there was no food to eat?

So most parents don’t send their children to school with long-term plans. There are poor and rich people in this small market town, and where there are people, there will be comparison.

Yan Liu Yuan watched as Ren Xiaosu went to the grocery store to buy a cigarette with a filter, and the old king was especially proud to say that his cigarettes definitely did not have any added ingredients, and that they were very safe.

A 20, things are expensive.

Yan Liuyuan was puzzled and asked, “Brother, what did you buy cigarettes for?”

“Your gentleman let me into the courtyard to listen to the lesson, I don’t pay the tuition fee even if it’s okay, I have to show it,” Ren Xiaosu said with a smile, “I know this Mr. Zhang likes to smoke.”

In Ren Xiaosu’s opinion, when others expressed their kindness, they had to return the favor.

The two of them went to the backyard of the academy while everyone was having lunch, Mr. Zhang was eating fried cabbage, Ren Xiaosu took the initiative to smile and handed the cigarettes to Mr. Zhang.

Zhang Jinglin didn’t excuse himself, but told Yan Liuyuan to stay away, “You’re growing up and it’s not good for you to smell the smoke.”

Ren Xiaosu thanked, “Thank you sir for letting me into the courtyard to listen to the lecture.”

“Hoo,” Zhang Jinglin took his own fire cooking matches to light the cigarette, and then spat out a mouthful of smoke: “Now like you love to listen to the lecture of not many students, want to listen to it, you will stand at the door, but not allowed to enter the classroom.”

“Okay,” Ren Xiaosu responded, “Mr. I have a question.”

“You say,” Zhang Jinglin probably had a rare cigarette, and now he didn’t mind whatever Ren Xiaosu asked.

“Sir you said that the humans before the calamity had a lot of technology, and it’s not like we humans died out, why is it that we don’t see those technologies reappearing now?”

Zhang Jinglin glanced at Ren Xiaosu, “During that time after the calamity, the humans themselves didn’t even accurately calculate how many years we all mete out, it was good enough to survive every day, where were the people who did the learning?”

“But we should still have some information, right? Wouldn’t learning about it quickly recreate civilization?” Ren Xiaosu was curious.

“Broken generations,” Zhang Jinglin said with some regret, “Let me ask you, if I give you a set of materials for building airplanes now, can you build them?”

“It’s not like I’ve ever learned, although having the information can save a lot of time, but I’m also learning from scratch,” Ren Xiaosu said.

“Right, everyone is learning from scratch now,” Zhang Elf looked at his cigarette which was only half left and felt a bit distressed, like he was hesitating to smoke or not to smoke.

He wanted to leave half of it to smoke later, but would doing so in front of Ren Xiaosu and Yan Liuyuan be a bit faceless ……

Ren Xiaosu is still puzzled: “Could it be that during those years, no one really overcame the hardships and continued to do scholarly work?”

“No, they all starved to death,” Zhang Jinglin said.

“Could it be that all that knowledge has been cut off now?” Ren Xiaosu was not willing.

Zhang Jinglin looked seriously at Ren Xiaosu this time and said meaningfully, “They are held in the hands of a few.”

……

“Alright,” Zhang Jinglin stood up and said, “Don’t ask about this, it’s time for class.”

Ren Xiaosu pestered Zhang Jinglin with one last question, “Sir, when was the wall of our refuge barrier built, and why did we build it.”

“After the Calamity, wild beasts were rampant, and it was rumored that there was even an insect wave a long time ago, so humans had no choice but to build a high wall to block out the danger,” Zhang Jinglin explained.

“But most of the wild beasts actually don’t actively attack humans even if they have evolved,” Ren Xiaosu was curious, monkeys were still vegetarians and sparrows still loved grains, they didn’t actively eat people.

Now that the 113th refuge barrier is within the ‘circle’ of human existence, most of the more ferocious beasts are actually excluded from the ‘circle’.

The higher the serial number, the more dangerous the refuge barriers are, for example, the legendary refuge barriers of No. 178 have killed and injured a lot of people because of the expulsion of wild beasts every year.

The 113th refuge barrier, on the other hand, was actually already considered the ‘hinterland’.

There were still quite a few dangers present, such as wolves, but they were not insurmountable. If that was the case, why did such a large human settlement still have towering high walls.

Zhang Jinglin laughed, ”As long as there are still dangers in the wilderness, then the stragglers can only rely on the refuge barriers to live, and that’s when the refuge barriers have a large amount of cheap labor. Do you think that those consortiums behind the refuge barriers don’t have the strength to completely purge the wilderness of those dangers? Humanity’s thermal weapons are more powerful than you can imagine, but why would they want to purge it, it’s not like it threatens them.”

Ren Xiaosu was already in deep thought when he heard this, although he was a precocious teenager, there were some things that he was destined to not understand if he hadn’t been exposed to them, and that was why he craved for knowledge.

Zhang Jinglin continued, “They won’t bring the wall down, how could the vested interests in the wall give up this natural class barrier?”

Saying that, Zhang Jinglin went to change his clothes, and Ren Xiaosu curiously said, “What are you changing your clothes for, sir, that one just now wasn’t dirty.”

Zhang Jinglin straightened his collar and said, “Just now that body was stained with the smell of smoke, the students smelled bad.”

Yan Liuyuan stood in awe, while Ren Xiaosu suddenly became a bit unhappy: “Then it’s okay for me to smell it, sir, you didn’t let me stay away just now.”

Zhang Jinglin pondered for a long time, “Scram.”

At this time, Ren Xiaosu suddenly heard that palace in his mind once again vocalize, “Mission: craving for knowledge is never a bad thing, but what is learned, is taught.”

Ren Xiaosu froze for a moment, he stiffly didn’t understand what exactly this mission was trying to make him do.

……

In the afternoon class the students felt fresh, there was a Ren Xiaosu standing outside the door who was several years older than them, so much so that many of the students turned back to look at him.

Zhang Jinglin knocked on the blackboard several times before stopping the curiosity of these students as he said, “Survival class this afternoon.”

This was what made the academy unique in this era, it not only had to teach arts and sciences, but also survival.

However, this lesson had always given Zhang Jinglin a headache because he really wasn’t very good at wilderness survival.

So most of the time, he could only read from the book through the information that he had kept in the past.

Zhang Jinglin looked at the students in the classroom, “Pay attention, don’t feel that danger is far away from you, right now you have your parents to shelter you, but when you become adults, you have to learn to shelter yourselves. Today we are talking about what to do if you encounter a wolf pack in the wild.”

The students under the stage actually liked to listen to the survival class the most, the other courses were still a bit too boring for their age, the survival class was only interesting to listen to.

At this time, the classroom was silent, Zhang Jinglin looked to Ren Xiaosu who was standing against the door listening to the lecture, “Come on, tell me, what should I do if I encounter wolves in the wild?”

Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and said, “You should try to choose a hillside with trees all around, because it’s better to choose a cemetery with good feng shui.”

Zhang Jinglin: “???”