Chapter 254 — Betty Studies Hard

Gao Yang set down the last engineering report that required his personal sign-off, rolled his neck to loosen the stiffened vertebrae, and looked around.

The study was very quiet, but he was not, in fact, alone. Not far from Gao Song's great desk, against the wall, stood a small table. Betty was bent over it, head down, earnestly writing out the words whose spelling she had most recently learned.

Two hours at night school every evening to study spelling, then practice writing against the textbook whenever she had spare time during the day—this had become Betty's daily routine. And to give this studious girl a more convenient place to study, Gao Yang had specifically permitted her to practice her writing in his study, and had set up a little desk there that belonged to her alone.

This was plainly beyond what a maid ought to receive, yet no one in this place would question Gao Song's decisions—and as for Betty herself, her mind did not seem complicated enough to ponder questions like "overstepping the proper bounds."

Betty truly was not a clever girl. In fact, she was a bit slow. There was a word Gao Yu used to describe such girls: "adorkable." But he took not the slightest pleasure in Betty's adorkableness. The girl had no congenital defect; her slowness was simply the result of malnutrition and a family life of hardship from childhood on.

Like most of the destitute children of this age, like most kitchen maids, low-ranking menials, the sons and daughters of serfs—nutritional deficiency during the critical stages of development and a lack of education during life's most important learning years tended to blight them for life. They lacked experience, their curiosity was extinguished, they had no capacity to learn and no notion of independent thought. Nobles routinely regarded the "lower orders" as stupid and benighted, took this as an inborn defect, and even used it as evidence to support the "truth" that "nobles are born noble." There was surely exaggeration in this, and senseless discrimination—but as he came to understand this world better, Gao Yang had to admit one fact:

There really was a gap between the destitute and the well-off children of nobles in learning ability and speed of thought. It had nothing whatsoever to do with any "superiority of bloodline," yet the gap itself was an inescapable reality.

So Gao You worked to narrow that gap. Whether promoting free special meals for children at the night school or distributing food subsidies to children under six in the domain, it was all part of the effort. First solve the children's malnutrition, let their minds develop as fully as those of noble children, and alongside that, roll out education—this was the most effective method he could think of. But what of those already grown, or nearly grown?

Gao Yang rose and came to stand behind Betty, watching this clumsy girl struggle to spell out word after word. Her mistakes were few, and her handwriting was far neater than at the start—but she had to spell a single word dozens of times before she could remember it. To this day she was still learning what the night-school children mastered in their first two months.

Betty had already come far beyond the vast majority of her class. She was nearly grown, yet still possessed keen curiosity, and she took to learning of her own accord, spontaneously. She loved writing, longed to read and write as fluently as Rebecca and Hedy and the others—and yet learning remained exceedingly difficult for her. She was no buried genius; she had already missed the best age for learning, and no amount of later effort could make up for that.

Indeed, if not for a great calamity in the domain, if not for Gao Yang bringing her to see so many things of the "outside world," Betty would likely never in her life have learned that any way of living existed besides doing rough work in a kitchen.

Just as in those early days after fleeing the domain, she had clung to her frying pan—because in all her past life there truly had been nothing else. As a kitchen maid, that pan was the highest honor and calling she could imagine.

At last Betty noticed the figure beside her. She looked up with a start and scrambled to rise in flustered haste: "Master..."

"It's fine. I just finished my official business and came to check on your progress," Gao Yang said, pressing a hand on Betty's head to settle the girl down. "Ah... you can already write quite neatly."

Betty smiled, a little embarrassed. The praise delighted her, but she also felt somewhat aggrieved: "Pea learns faster than me..."

"She's young; it's only natural that she picks things up more easily," Gao Yang comforted the little maid. "You're working hard. You'll catch up with the others sooner or later. And if there's anything you don't understand, I can teach you anytime."

"Mm!" Betty nodded vigorously. Just then Gao Yang noticed several sheets of drafting paper sticking out from the stack of books beside the little desk. Curious, he pulled them out and saw, to his surprise, some simple basic runes sketched on them.

"You've started learning runes?" Gao Yang asked in surprise.

"Mm..." Betty lowered her head. "Mr. Santis, who teaches rune studies, opened his classroom and let other classes sit in, so I went along..."

"Can you follow it?"

"I can... follow part of it," Betty said, gesturing with her hand to show it was a very small part. "Mr. Santis explains things very carefully, and he's very patient. Even those sitting in can ask questions, so I learned some. Mr. Santis said if I can memorize the twenty-eight basic runes, he'll let me attend the class formally."

Gao Yang could not help picturing that lanky, gaunt young mage in his threadbare robe, hair in disarray, somewhat timid in manner. Ever since he had assigned that Second-Rank arcanist to teach runes and magic at the Cecil General Academy, Gao Yang had heard nothing more about him. The arcanist was a genuinely low-profile man; give him a post, it seemed, and he would work away in silence at it forever. But judging by the results, he seemed to be doing rather well in the role of teacher?

Few formal mages would be so patient with the children of commoners, and he could even explain relatively complex rune theory to the point where even Betty could just barely follow part of it. That was truly a remarkable talent.

After all, no one before him had ever considered how to explain magic to people who could not sense mana at all. Santis's teaching approach was entirely his own devising.

"Mr. Santis said something once: 'You cannot see mana, but it is there,'" Betty said quietly. "But he won't let us casually carve runes onto red copper plates or black stone. He has us practice first on sand, on drafting paper, on writing boards. Only once we're proficient are we allowed to touch magical materials..."

"Safety awareness is the first step in learning magic," Gao Rong cut in. "You'd do well to listen to him on that."

Having said this, he suddenly turned toward the window—he sensed Amber's aura approaching rapidly.

Unfortunately, this time the anti-Amber device had failed to work. The half-elf, skilled in the shadow talent, had vaulted straight over the mousetrap on the windowsill and landed squarely on the floor. Gao Yang noticed that her expression looked rather serious.

It was rare to see a serious expression on Amber's face, so Gao Yang temporarily shelved the idea of replacing the windowsill mousetrap with a tripwire next time, and looked at her curiously: "What happened?"

Amber grabbed Gao Song's cup from the desk and gulped down the cold tea inside. Only after drinking her fill did she catch her breath: "Phew—running all the way here has worn me out. The patrol from the mountains came back early. They ran into a bunch of suspicious armed men, and brought back two wounded prisoners."

Gao Yang's brow furrowed at once: "Suspicious armed men? What's the situation?"