Chapter 8: The Teacher's Mind is Like a Father

  "Is it Biaoqiang? Are you back today?" Qin Yu opened the door and saw Huang Biaoqiang, so he asked excitedly.

  "Just arrived, Xiaodong, come on in and take a seat!" After many years of being master and apprentice, Huang Bingqiang no longer needed to use polite language when speaking to Qin Yu, and he called out to Cheng Xiaodong in a tone that was more like an order from a host.

  "What's the situation?" This sentence sounds abrupt to others, but Master and apprentice knew what was going on. After Qin Yu asked, Huang Bingqiang started talking: "This time, the caterpillars and black cutworms were very severe, although some preventive measures were taken in advance, they did not achieve the desired effect. After the pest outbreak, the local area has sprayed pesticides, but due to increasing resistance, it did not achieve the expected effect. They also used the new medicine developed by Zhi Dong and others, but the effect is still not obvious."

  As for this trip to the tea production area, Huang Bingqiang's expression was very heavy. This pest infestation is a severe test for the tea production area.

  "Oh...I see. Have you thought of any follow-up measures?" Qin Yu sighed.

  "Not yet, this time I came back just to check the foreign data to see if there are any new drugs that can effectively kill these pests." Huang Bingqiang said bluntly.

  "Teacher, brother, I happened to see an introduction of a new medicine, which is American-made, called Bromadiolone. It has a broad spectrum of toxicity and can be combined with touch and absorption. Why not bring it over and try it?" Although Cheng Xiaodong was not enthusiastic about research, he could still understand the conversation between Qin Wei and Huang Bingqiang, so he chimed in at this time.

  "What's '溴氰菊酯'?" Huang Bingqiang glanced at Cheng Xiaodong, "This is a new drug, I've never come into contact with it before, let's take it for experimentation"!

  This remark from Cheng Xiaodong brought him into the spotlight, and Qin Yu looked at Cheng Xiaodong, already noticing him.

  "Teacher, isn't this Cheng Xiaodong, whom I told you about?" Huang Bingqiang also chimed in.

  "I know him!" Unexpectedly, Qin Yu spoke out these words, much to Cheng Xiaodong's surprise.

  "Teacher!" To be honest, I'm ashamed to say that although I was admitted to the Agricultural College, it wasn't my own volition. As a result, I only managed to achieve average grades in my studies and spent most of my time on my hobbies instead. In terms of professional development, I have made no achievements whatsoever. The only thing worth mentioning is that survey report, but now that's exactly what's causing trouble.

  "You're Cheng Xiaodong, the top scorer in your 84th class, unfortunately, your original application was to apply for the East Mountain Army, but someone tampered with your physical examination form, and you were assigned to the Agricultural College. Your grades have always been average, however, I'm aware of that incident involving Oracle bones in your freshman year." Not everyone will be determined to pursue research, let alone a field like agriculture which isn't exactly popular. Given Cheng Xiaodong's reasons for enrolling, it's not surprising he didn't want to further his studies in agriculture, and Qin Yu wouldn't blame him for that.

  "Ah, so the teacher knows about that embarrassing thing too!" Cheng Xiaodong's face turned red as he mentioned that incident of his youth and unexpectedly said.

  "I may often be at the Agricultural Institute, but after all, I am still a school teacher. What's strange about that storm? It's you who are making some weird symbols and claiming they're oracle bones, and can even explain them convincingly - that's quite rare!" Qin Yu laughed loudly, not caring that Cheng Xiaodong's face had turned beet red.

  It was when Cheng Xiaodong had just started school, in a political class, the teacher found that all the other students were diligently taking notes, while only Cheng Xiaodong was sitting lazily with his pen occasionally moving. The suspicious teacher thought he was pretending to study and felt deceived and disrespected by the old lady's blood boiling over, she grabbed Cheng Xiaodong's notebook in anger, only to find that it was filled with rows of strange symbols.

  The old lady politician was notorious for her sharp tongue, and at that moment she launched a scathing attack on Cheng Xiaodong, criticizing his learning attitude, and berating him until he was left speechless. Holding up his notebook, she showed it to the students and asked Cheng Xiaodong: "Is this Oracle bone script you've written? Using such simple symbols to record events is indeed convenient, but this kind of retrogression is unacceptable. I don't think your primitive ancestors' Oracle bone script can match the level of writing we have today. I suggest you use simplified characters for note-taking instead."

  Those strange symbols were just a shorthand notation created by Cheng Xiaodong, and at the time, he could have explained it clearly to the old lady and gotten past it. However, the old lady's scolding and insults made Cheng Xiaodong develop a rebellious psychology, refusing to explain, and instead debated with the old lady about the expressive power of "oracle bone script" being no less than that of modern writing.

  Right in the classroom, Cheng Xiaodong wrote a poem of sentiment with his "oracle bone script" and gave those shorthand symbols all sorts of strange pronunciations (the oracle bone script is similar to modern Chinese characters in meaning, but as for the pronunciation... who knows how to read those characters?!), yelling and "translating" at the same time. At that moment, he scared the old lady so much that she had a heart attack. When the school intervened to investigate, they asked Cheng Xiaodong to recite it again. If his reading didn't match what was in class, then it would prove that Cheng Xiaodong was intentionally causing trouble and he would definitely be severely punished. However, Cheng Xiaodong's memory was astonishing - he read that poem of sentiment with a strange tone three times without missing a single word, so the school had no choice but to give up.

  "Xiao Dong, actually that time the school had made up its mind to expel you, it was your teacher who spoke up for you, otherwise, I think even getting to know you would have been difficult!" Huang Bingqiang said with a smile, patting Xiao Dong's knee.

  "China's education is like this, it likes to follow the crowd, and what it dislikes most is being innovative and standing out. Fortunately, you later became very low-key, and your grades were also passable, otherwise, even if I, as your father, spoke up for you, it wouldn't have been enough to save you!" Qin Yu chuckled and immediately changed the subject.

  "Teacher, today I and Xiaodong came, it's because of this matter!" Huang Bingqiang saw that the topic had already been brought to Cheng Xiaodong's body, and it seemed that the teacher still had a good impression of Cheng Xiaodong, so he told about the incident of plagiarizing Cheng Xiaodong's manuscript.

  "I had seen that newspaper and thought it was strange at the time, like I had seen it before. I didn't expect it to be this way. Remember that survey report you showed me? Some of the data and materials were supplemented by our agricultural institute."

  Qin Yu stood up, took down the Dongshan Daily from the newspaper clip on one side, flipped to that article, and pointed at a table above it, asking: "How did your article end up in these people's hands?"

  "Xiao Dong was a tutor in this family called Zeng Huisha, and as he was an editor of the newspaper, he would give his articles to him to take a look, just to polish the words a bit, who would have thought that it would be plagiarized?" Huang Bingqiang said with hatred.

  "This kind of thing, even if investigated in normal times, would only lead to endless disputes and it's hard to seek justice. But today is different!" Although trying his best to cover up, Qin Lao still revealed a hint of anger, slamming the newspaper onto the tea table and saying: "Governor Qu has taken this article very seriously, he even invited those two reporters for an interview and specially called me to join in. Now that it's come to this, I'd like to see just how thick-skinned these two thieves who steal others' achievements can be!"

  PS: I'll post it first, during the initial period, updates won't be very fast, wait until it gets recommended and then I'll explode with speed again. Same old phrase, new book phase, seeking votes, seeking collections, seeking... everything!

  Chapter 8: The Teacher's Mind is Like a Father