Ch 150: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

How to be a teacher, Mu Xing actually didn’t know.

But he had a talent no one could match: he was born to be liked by little ones.

At two or three years old, three or four years old, that age was usually the hardest to keep focused, the most restless, but when they heard that every evening after dinner, Brother Xingxing would teach a lesson and tell them a story, all the children were well-behaved.

At dinner, they didn’t even need the aunties to watch over them. They wolfed down the food in their bowls, then were carried off to wash their hands and take their baths.

At six-thirty, everyone gathered in the little house.

Mu Xing wasn’t sure how to teach children, but after all, what children needed was simple.

Each class lasted half an hour.

With picture cards bought online, one math class taught counting, one literacy class taught recognizing characters, one English class taught basic words.

The last class, the children sat around to listen to Brother Xingxing tell a story.

The welfare home had an old piano someone had donated. It could still be played, though the sound wasn’t very accurate. Mu Xing tuned it a little himself, then before bedtime played a lullaby for the children.

By then, it was already nine o’clock.

The children were taken back to their little rooms by the aunties, falling asleep with sweet fairy tales in their dreams.

Mu Xing even seriously gave the children simple homework: collect ten different leaves, pick a flower, give it to your favorite friend, things like that.

While he was at school during the day, the children earnestly did the tasks Brother Xingxing had assigned.

At first, Mu Xing only gave basic lessons to the younger ones who hadn’t started school, but later, somehow, many of the older kids came too.

Some even brought their homework, listening to Mu Xing teach the little ones “1, 2, 3, 4” while they worked on their assignments.

The little room quickly became too small.

So the director, the aunties, and Uncle Wang the cook cleaned out a rarely used storage room, scrubbed it spotless, replaced the window glass until it shone bright, and turned it into the children’s new classroom.

The new classroom had many tables and chairs.

At the front were small tables and stools for the little ones. In the back rows were big tables, made by Uncle Wang sawing planks of wood himself, so the older children could study and do homework.

This was something Mu Xing hadn’t expected. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Because in the welfare home, very few kids liked studying. When he asked before, many had said studying was boring, the teachers were hard to understand, and that after graduating junior high, they would just go work and make money.

Mu Xing had talked about it, but he couldn’t change their mindset.

When he asked again, they scratched their heads awkwardly: “Little Jin and the others are so young, yet they’re so serious every night. They’ll definitely be great at studying in the future. Before, none of us were good at school, and it didn’t seem like a problem. But now, we’re so much older than them—we can’t be worse than they are, right?”

“And in our dorm we talked it over too. We think it’s a good thing for the little ones to love studying. We can’t be a bad influence.”

Mu Xing hadn’t expected this surprising gain, but seeing everyone eager to learn was always a joy.

Since some of the older ones genuinely wanted to study, he spent weekends helping them catch up.

A few months later, when the semester ended, the welfare home received a huge surprise.

As expected, Mu Xing ranked first in his grade.

And more than a dozen other children from the home who went to school also showed very noticeable improvement.

Wei Wei, who lived in the same room as Mu Xing, made it into the top twenty in his class for the first time.

When he got home, he nearly ran the whole way, showing his test paper to everyone, proudly boasting: “The homeroom teacher praised me! I’ve been under him for a year and a half, and this is the first time I’ve been praised!”

For the welfare home, this was a tremendous event. All six staff members worked there out of love. Their greatest hope was that every child could grow up well and have a beautiful future.

The director, who normally counted every expense down to the penny, generously spent money to buy each child a nice notebook and pen, and even splurged on a projector for the classroom, making lessons much easier.

Uncle Wang the cook clearly dipped into his own pocket again. At dinner, every child had a big, fat, delicious chicken drumstick in their bowl!

*

After the final exams came what was, for the children, a long vacation.

For ordinary kids, summer break meant not only homework, but all kinds of tutoring classes, traveling with their families, trips to amusement parks, visiting relatives…

For the children of the welfare home, there was none of that.

The home didn’t have enough staff. Everyone was busy every day, with no time to take the children out.

Besides, the children didn’t really have anywhere to go.

For over thirty kids, the world they knew was mostly this welfare home on the outskirts of town, converted from a factory compound.

One day, everyone sat together in the classroom to watch an animated movie. When the main character went to an amusement park, Mu Xing clearly saw that every child, young or old, wore an expression of longing.

He thought for a while, then used the home’s only computer to look up some information.

The next day, he borrowed the director’s phone and called an amusement park.

The customer service agent on the line was surprised to hear a child’s voice: “How can I help you, little one?”

Mu Xing, without a trace of guilt, pretended to be just a kid: “I want to go to the amusement park to play.”

The customer service lady chuckled and said, “Of course, we’re open every day.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

She went quiet for a moment before replying, “You can ask your mom or dad to bring you.”

“I don’t have a mom or dad.”

The customer service agent froze.

Mu Xing went on, “But I have lots and lots of friends. Today, Director Mama took us to watch the movie ‘Little Superman,’ and in it the amusement park was so big. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. None of us have ever been to an amusement park. Today I saw a flyer with this phone number on it, so I secretly called you.”

For some reason, the customer service agent’s eyes stung. Keeping her sweet voice, she asked, “Who is Director Mama? Is this her phone?”

Mu Xing said, “She’s our Director Mama.”

“Where do you live?”

“I live at the Hope Welfare Home.”

“…”

Mu Xing hadn’t just picked a place at random.

This amusement park, called “Good Friends Park,” had been around for quite a while. Compared with the big-name chain parks that were popular now, its facilities were older and the grounds smaller, and it didn’t get many visitors anymore.

But Mu Xing had looked it up. The park had been built by the owner for his son. Back in the day it was hugely popular. Even though it had few guests now, it was still well maintained, and not a single accident had ever happened.

He thought, someone like that wouldn’t be able to refuse a child’s request.

Sure enough, before long the director called for him.

“Did you use my phone to call some amusement park?” she asked curiously. “Someone just called me and asked when we’d like to come play. They said they could even send a car to pick us up.”

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