I said, "It seems there are quite a few problems. You can take care of the academic subjects for now."
The problem is actually far more complex than that. First, there's the academic subject Yan Jingsheng mentioned. We lack teachers. These children range in age from six to middle school age; such a complex situation clearly cannot be handled by Yan Jingsheng alone. Although Xiao Rang, Wu Yong, and a few others can use simplified characters, I wouldn't dare put them to work without training. Then there's a very real issue: food and lodging. Our Yucai School will be under closed management. For now, the children can go home at mealtimes, but this is not a long-term solution. Since Old 300 left, the school cafeteria has never been open. Xu Delong and a few other students who stayed behind could manage, but with more people, it's not enough; we need to find a cook.
Of course, similar problems became increasingly apparent later on. For example, many parents, hearing that Yucai was completely free, eagerly sent their children here because their clothes were worn out from the intense physical activity, but then almost had to expel them because they couldn't afford new clothes. There were also textbooks; in the early days, we faced difficulties, and many younger children used the day's newspaper as their textbooks. Older students took over some of the books left over from the old 300-year-old curriculum, including "Physiology and Hygiene." These problems could all have been solved with money.
The problem that money can't solve is the lack of teachers. Academic teachers are relatively easy to find; we offer salaries more than 40% higher than the industry average. We receive resumes from everyone from recent graduates to seasoned, elderly teachers—they're all eager to apply. But very few of them pass Yan Jingsheng's scrutiny. The reason is simple: he believes they lack compassion. However, martial arts teachers, especially those comparable to the heroes, are extremely difficult to find. You have to understand, learning martial arts isn't a pyramid scheme or a cult where one person can lead tens of thousands. The heroes say a master can only take on a maximum of 20 disciples. Look at the famous schools in novels; they only have a few hundred members at most. And look at ordinary schools today; they have at least two or three thousand. That's why there's an old saying: "Poor in literature, rich in martial arts." Running a school that combines literature and martial arts isn't easy. Old Fei said that the current scale of the school could comfortably accommodate at least 30,000 students, but we'll start with 5,000. Even then, we'll still have a significant shortage of teachers.
The biggest difficulty was that we had no readily available experience to draw upon. Typical martial arts schools are essentially large sports schools, and I've never seen a sports school that can enroll 5,000 students at once. Furthermore, we were building a legacy for generations to come, requiring a complete and mature theoretical system to support it. For example, how would we determine the general education and elective courses? How would we arrange the schedule? Fortunately, after familiarizing himself with the strengths of the students, Yan Jingsheng tentatively created a general education curriculum. Yan Jingsheng pointed out: The current general education courses are essentially the skills you must master or know to survive in society, such as computers, English, and basic law. So, within the context of Yucai, what are the essential skills we must master? Besides the basic academic courses, which goes without saying, I summarized three points: "Can't be trapped to death, can't be drowned, can't be beaten to death." This later became the famous "Little Strong Theory." Upon closer examination, it's nothing more than three skills related to land, sea, and air, from which the earliest three compulsory courses were derived: "Basic Knowledge of Lightness Skill," "Introduction to Ancient Chinese Boxing," and "Brief Analysis of Swimming Techniques." The minimum requirements for passing these three courses are: to fly up a 2-meter-high wall without any external force or object; to counterattack and win after being surrounded and attacked for 15 seconds; and to swim a 50-meter swimming pool in a straight line, folding in half, with no more than 10 instances of surfacing. These "required courses" mean that as long as you studied at Yucai, regardless of your major (our later majors were quite diverse, including detective work, art, instrumental music, vocal music, archaeology, etc.), you had to meet these three basic requirements to graduate. Of course, that's a story for later.
Regarding the current issue, after negotiating with Lao Fei, he said that he would soon mobilize a group of cultural subject teachers, allocate funds to purchase school uniforms and textbooks, and recruit cooks.
After the students dispersed, my heroes and I had a brief meeting in the lecture hall of the old campus. Xu Delong and Zhang Shun, who was leaning on a stick, were also present. We mainly discussed the strategy for dealing with the Eight Heavenly Kings. The heroes also felt that since the other side had ulterior motives, instead of going out and running around like headless flies, it would be better to stay in the school, conserve our strength, and wait for them to come to us.
Finally, after I told them about the theft of the Qin King's Tripod as a minor incident, I was surprised by their strong reaction. They were all indignant, proving they weren't unpatriotic after all. They unanimously demanded that I immediately contact Senior Constable Fei Sankou to obtain the exact location of the two F-country nationals, so they could then stage a scene to retrieve the national treasure. I painstakingly explained the "international dispute" to them, and the heroes fell silent for a moment before turning their gazes to Shi Qian. Shi Qian, still fuming from the disrespect he received that afternoon during the student-grabbing incident, deliberately ignored me, arrogantly peeling cherries with a knife while sitting with his legs crossed—
Wu Yong coughed twice and said with a forced smile, "Brother Shi Qian, it seems that this matter still needs your help to steal that treasure back."
Shi Qian swung his leg and said, "Stealing sounds awful."
I quickly said, "Can a hero's actions be called stealing? It's more like stealing treasure!"
Lu Junyi also stood up and said, "Brother Shiqian, the motto of Liangshan is to act on behalf of Heaven. You can't just watch those two foreign dogs get away with it, can you? Besides, this great achievement is nothing more than a piece of cake for you. It will also ensure that future generations remember the merits of the Liangshan heroes." It seems that Lu Junyi always cares about official matters, no matter where he goes. He really has the soul of seeking amnesty.
Normally, Lu Junyi would be overjoyed if he could even exchange a few words with Shi Qian. But today was an exception; Shi Qian, without even looking up, said, "This is now the future."
At this moment, Hu Sanniang and Li Kui finally couldn't hold back any longer. The two of them grabbed Shi Qian from the left and right, lifting him into the air, and shouted, "Are you getting too big for your britches?" Hu Sanniang said to Li Kui, "Tie Niu, I'll count to three, and then we'll pull together and stretch this kid into two and a half people." Li Kui agreed without thinking, "Okay!" Duan Jingzhu, supporting his injured leg, said, "Wait a minute." Shi Qian sighed, "Brother Duan, you still care about me the most."
Li Kui glared at Duan Jingzhu: "What's wrong?"
Duan Jingzhu asked with a smile, "I'm just asking Third Sister, if you separate a person, they're still a person, or you could say two, but what do you mean by 'two and a half people'?"
Hu Sanniang said, "If you divide a person into two, one half on each side, then naturally you'll have two 'half-people'."
Duan Jingzhu: "Understood, you guys go ahead with your work."
Hu Sanniang glanced at Li Kui and counted, "Ready—one, two."
Shi Qian cried: "I was wrong, okay? If you're going to steal, at least find a place to do it—"
Chapter 54 Moving Boxes
After the joke was over, all that was left was to contact Lao Fei. I figured there was no need for us to talk; he already had all the information he needed about me and the heroes, including the National Security Bureau's record of the theft at the Education Bureau Director's house. So I figured there was no need to spell things out, and I directly asked him for the addresses of those two F-country nationals.
"Wait for me," Lao Fei said to me before hanging up the phone.
About half an hour later, Lao Fei arrived at Yucai in his beat-up Hongqi. To the heroes, Lao Fei was just a "high-ranking constable." When I picked him up, I told him that we were a very formal role-playing club, and everything was done like in the game, including the names—I really didn't have time to think of so many fake names anymore.
So when the two sides met, some pretended to understand while others pretended not to. But Lao Fei understood one thing: these people were truly capable.
Without saying much, he took out a blueprint from his chest pocket, spread it on the table, and clasped his hands in a fist salute to the heroes surrounding him, saying, "Comrades of Liangshan, without further ado, who is in charge of this operation?"
Shi Qian jumped from the back row onto the table and squatted down, saying, "Tell me, how do I 'take' it?"
Fei Sankou pointed to the blueprints and said, "This is the only five-star hotel in our city, the Qinhan Hotel. These two French people are staying in room 803 on the 8th floor, and they are accompanied by two other people, who should be bodyguards."
Li Kui chuckled: "Just four people?"
Fei Sankou understood what he meant, glanced at him, and said, "We can't use force."
At this moment, Yang Zhi came over and said, "How about this? We cut off their water, electricity, and air conditioning. I don't think they can stand it for long in this heat. Then I'll carry two buckets of jujube wine up to sell. As for the wine..." He nudged Ruan Xiaoer, "Do you still have any of that sleeping potion?" It seems that Old Yang has truly learned from his mistakes and fully absorbed the lesson of losing the birthday gifts. Now he wants to use Wu Yong's methods to teach the French a lesson.
Seeing everyone staring at him with smiles, making him feel uneasy, he quickly waved his hand and said, "Never mind what I said."
Fei Sankou continued, "One of the difficulties now is that each room in high-end hotels like Qinhan is equipped with a small safe for guests to store their valuables. However, there are only two electronic keys for each of these safes in the world. One is handed to the guest by the hotel, and the other is held by the manufacturer in Switzerland. In other words, if a guest loses the key, the only way to open the safe is to find someone from the manufacturer thousands of miles away." As he spoke, Fei Sankou took out a stack of photos, including front and side views of the four French people and photos of the small safes.
Shi Qian said, "Stealing the key shouldn't be too difficult, right?"
Fei Sankou nodded and said, "It's not difficult. Any guy handcuffed to the radiator at any police station could do this job. Actually, unlocking isn't the key point. Our experts can open it in 5 minutes with just a stalk of celery."
Shi Qian asked with displeasure, "Then what do you mean?"
Helplessly, Lao Fei placed the photos of the two F countrymen next to the safe and said, "The difficulty lies in the fact that they used the simplest and most cumbersome method—one of these two people is always inseparable from the safe. Even if our experts can unlock it in 5 minutes, it's useless; they don't give us even a blink of an eye."
Shi Qian sat cross-legged on the table and said, "Let me introduce the other details."
Fei Sankou said, “The two guards work in shifts, each for six hours. The only information we have that is in our favor is that they take turns going to the restaurant for a late-night snack every night at 10 pm. The safe is equipped with sensors that trigger an alarm when the safe leaves the hotel, so one of the bodyguards stays in the lobby on the ground floor. We can disable this measure through official means. But the other one has booked a room on the 8th floor at a corner that is a must-pass. We suspect they have installed another alarm system. The two sensors should be one in the safe and one on the second bodyguard. This means the safe cannot even leave the 8th floor.”
Shi Qian picked up a panoramic photo of the hotel and looked at it, saying, "The top floor of the Qinhan Hotel is the 12th floor, right? Since we can't go through the corridors and the main entrance, let's enter through the window."
Fei Sankou said, "Send special forces to infiltrate through the window? We have considered this method, but there is always one target staring at the safe. Once we get in, we can only knock him unconscious. This is where the problem lies. These targets need to contact us every few seconds. If there is no response here, they will immediately notify the bodyguards to rush up. Once a battle breaks out, we might as well just rob it."
Shi Qian rested his chin on his hand and said, "I used to be able to imitate other people's speech, but unfortunately I don't know their country's gibberish."
A moment of silence fell. Everyone glanced at Wu Yong, seemingly unintentionally. Wu Yong thought for a while, then suddenly removed the photos of the two bodyguards, paused, and took one of the two guards as well. He held it in his hand, fanning himself, and said with a chuckle, "The two bodyguards are confined to their fixed locations and can be disregarded. The other guard will definitely need a rest, so he can be ignored for now. Now we just need to figure out a way to deal with the guy watching the safe!"
Everyone asked in unison, "How do we deal with it?"
Wu Yong chuckled and said, "Let me think about it."
Everyone: "Tch—"
It now appears that the four F-country nationals were definitely not embassy staff. Their actions were a masterclass in offense and defense, calm and collected yet leaving no room for error; they were undoubtedly trained agents. Therefore, the Qin King's Ding (a bronze vessel) is most likely in the hands of this group.
I said to Lao Fei, who seemed a little disappointed, "Can I take these documents and photos back? I'll think about it some more." Lao Fei sighed and left first.
The heroes were humiliated and looked at Shi Qian with disdain. Shi Qian shrugged and said, "We're not experts at dealing with high technology."