The Three Spirit Stones

After the work was arranged, Cheng Yu was ready to set off. He asked Lu Wuchen to protect Ah Cai personally. Lu Wuchen agreed immediately. He now keeps an eye on her condition at all times.

He often took out the jade token and waved it in front of her, hoping that she would suddenly have an epiphany after looking at it many times.

But Ah Cai was very reluctant. She felt that this old man was very bad. Not only did he teach Cheng Yu to cheat, but he also disrespected women. In his eyes, women were just appendages of men. Men could have several women, but women had to be faithful to one man.

Similarly, Lu Wuchen was also very dissatisfied with Ah Cai's behavior. In his entire life, he had never seen a woman with such a sharp tongue and such a bad temper.

To be fair, the food in the marquis's mansion is better than that in the imperial palace's kitchen, but she still thinks this and that are not tasty. What she can't stand the most is that she wastes food. It is common for her to eat a bite of steamed buns and half a chicken leg. You have to know that in today's world most people still have to eat coarse food, let alone meat, not many people can afford even white flour and rice.

And then there is her bad temper. When Lu Wuchen just wanted to talk to her at a close distance, she threw a glass of water on his face and said that he had bad breath and didn't brush his teeth.

Lu Wuchen admitted that he did not have the habit of brushing his teeth, but that didn’t mean he would splash water on him!

Also, he now didn't dare to wave the jade pendant in front of her. She actually dared to throw such a precious jade pendant into the pond, which scared the old Taoist priest so much that he jumped in to salvage it without even taking off his clothes.

He complained to Cheng Yu, but he found that Cheng Yu had no control over her at all. In fact, it was he who spoiled Ah Cai's bad habits.

Cheng Yu was also helpless!

As the saying goes, you can tell a person's future from the age of three. She had such a stubborn temper when she was little. Should I beat her?

Lu Wuchen said that he just didn't know how to teach children. How could a child not be beaten?

Look, it's grown crooked now, right?

Cheng Yu did not agree with this educational philosophy at all.

Girls should be pampered and raised in wealth, how can they be beaten?

And what’s wrong with me, Acai?

She is so good at studying that even Fortune 500 companies want to hire her with an annual salary of one million. How many people can do that?

Ah Cai just watched quietly as the two old men quarreled over her education.

On the day Cheng Yu left, he told her earnestly to respect the old man Lu Wuchen because he was their savior. As for Lu Wuchen, Cheng Yu asked him not to bother with A Cai because she was still a child.

Lu Wuchen thought to himself, you are so lucky to say that she is still a child. Other people’s families have a lot of children of her age.

But he soon discovered that she was indeed a child, and a naughty one at that.

One day when Ah Cai went to class, Lu Wuchen was taking a nap on the railing outside the classroom. This was his way of practicing, not really sleeping.

When she was explaining the principle of concave lens, she suddenly became playful and pointed a magnifying glass at Lu Wuchen's clothes. The students in the classroom looked at him in confusion. After a while, his clothes caught fire. The students screamed.

Lu Wuchen woke up immediately, but his clothes burned very quickly, so he took them off in just a few moves, leaving only a pair of shorts. The female students screamed in fear, and he covered his crotch in anger and panic and ran away. From a distance, he could hear Ah Cai clapping and laughing behind him!

Lu Wuchen was very angry. He knew it was her fault, but he couldn't do anything about it.

He really doesn't understand what God's will is?

How could such an unfocused person be able to shoulder the important task of activating the Taichu Divine Mantra?

However, after spending some time together, Lu Wuchen discovered that Acai actually had her own strengths.

There is a shop on Ma Xing Street in Bianjing City that specializes in helping people do their accounting.

With the growing commercial activities in the Song Dynasty, more and more industries needed people to do accounting. However, the person who could do accounting had to be a scholar first. Although the knowledge popularization rate was not low in the Song Dynasty, it was relative to other dynasties. It was not easy for ordinary merchants to hire an accountant, let alone small traders.

However, since the establishment of this [Excellent Accounting Firm], it has become much easier for merchants to settle accounts.

They only need to send their recorded income and expenditure accounts to this office, and they will receive accurate revenue data in half a day at the least and one or two days at the most. Moreover, the fees are very reasonable, charged by the number of pages in the account book, and generally only a dozen to several dozen coins per time, which is much more cost-effective than hiring an accountant.

What's even more amazing is that their accounts are very accurate. Someone once spent several days reviewing their account books and found that not a penny was wrong.

Due to the high demand, this shop is doing a booming business every day.

Lu Wuchen followed Ah Cai there one day and found out that she was the owner of the shop.

Sitting in her special Fei Chi brand carriage, he was amazed at how there could be such a comfortable carriage!

The carriage is spacious, the seats are soft and comfortable, and the road is not bumpy at all!

A Cai didn't think much of it. She still missed her old BMW, but it could only appear in her dreams.

Ever since she burned his clothes, Ah Cai started to feel a little guilty towards him and her attitude became better. Their relationship became much better and they would chat sometimes.

Outside the shop is a spacious hall with many young male waiters receiving customers. They have a good attitude. Some customers are not well educated and have very vague memories of the bills, but these waiters are very patient in verifying the records for the customers one by one and do not show a bad attitude at all because of the illiteracy of the customers.

There are rows of chairs in other places in the hall. Guests whose turn has not come yet can rest here first. Someone will automatically serve them tea, and if it is not enough, they can get a refill.

This shop also has hand-cranked fans installed on the wall, and when there are many people, someone will pull the fan to cool down and ventilate.

On the other side of the hall is the place where you get the results, which has the same layout.

Lu Wuchen felt very fresh when he came here for the first time.

For a long time, scholars had a much higher status than businessmen. Businessmen always felt inferior to scholars. But here it was the other way around.

These guys looked well-educated at first glance, and they were gentle, patient and polite when serving the merchants. Some merchants who came here for the first time were simply flattered!

Lu Wuchen asked Acai this question, and she was very surprised why she would have such a question.

They are guests, isn't it normal for them to provide good service?

What surprised Lu Wuchen even more was that the gentlemen doing the accounting in the backyard of the shop were all girls.

The girls were as young as 13 or 14, and as old as 16 or 17.

Some were responsible for keeping account books, some were responsible for calculating accounts, and some were responsible for checking accounts.

The numbers they wrote were very strange. They were not the usual 1, 2, 3, 4, but symbols. Ah Cai said they were Arabic numerals.

When the guest's account book is brought in, a girl will first write the numbers in the account book into Arabic numerals. These numbers will be filled in a form. Then someone will use abacus chips according to the numbers in the form. Soon, a set of data will come out and then be handed over to a dedicated person to verify it is completed.

Lu Wuchen asked A Cai why she asked so many girls to settle the accounts?

She said that these were her students, and they studied harder than the men because they knew that their learning opportunities were rare.

Many of them have been engaged since childhood and have to get married when they reach a certain age. Whether they like it or not, they have no choice.

But I hope to give them another way to go.

I opened this shop because, firstly, there is market demand, secondly, I want these girls to be able to apply what they have learned and have their own jobs and income, and thirdly, when these girls have income, their family status will improve and their parents will not marry them off so easily. Even if they are married, they can earn money and live much better in their husband's family.

These words greatly changed Lu Wuchen's impression of Ah Cai.

He couldn't imagine that this woman whom he labeled as a domineering asshole could actually have such compassionate thoughts.

In ancient times, ordinary women were a neglected group. They seemed to be born for men and were men’s appendages throughout their lives.

When a woman is unmarried, she follows her father; when a woman is married, she follows her husband; when a woman loses her husband, she follows her son.

This is a woman's life. Whether she lives a good life or not depends on the man's preferences.

Just as Acai said, if these girls can have their own jobs and income, their fate will indeed become much luckier!

In addition to this, Lu Wuchen also discovered that the Cheng Industrial College was not as rumored by the outside world, saying that it was opened by the loyal and brave marquis to let these children play with his wife.

On the contrary, these children receive a very advanced education here.

They were both male and female, with varying ages, from five or six years old to sixteen or seventeen years old, but they had one thing in common: their literacy rate was very high.

They use a learning method called Pinyin. Every child must first learn Pinyin. After mastering the Pinyin method, they will start to read.

Their books are very unique. There are pinyin annotations on each word. Even if you have not learned this word, you can still read it through pinyin. This method greatly improves children's learning ability.

There is a large library in the school where every student can read books. These books were purchased by Cheng Yu from various places at great expense. During breaks or rest times, the library would be filled with students eager for knowledge.

These students will take exams every quarter and year. Those with good grades will be divided into fast-track classes, where Ah Cai will personally teach more advanced courses. After these students become successful, they will be hired back as teachers to teach the next students.

She said this is a pyramid teaching structure, otherwise she would be exhausted if she had to teach everyone.

Every student is proud to be admitted to the fast class, and everyone hopes to receive personal teaching and guidance from Teacher Cai. Therefore, in school, Teacher Cai is the god of the students. Every student's eyes light up when they see Teacher Cai, and they respectfully call her Teacher Cai.

Lu Wuchen was very emotional!

This may be what Confucius meant by "teaching without distinction"!

Before these students met Ah Cai, many of their parents were tenant farmers or refugees from famine, and some were even serfs.

Their parents never thought that their offspring would be able to read and write. You know, it was not easy to read in ancient times.

But now their children not only know how to read and write, but if they study well they can also go directly to the factory to learn to be managers. This is the only chance for them to change the fate of their family!