“Out side！”

On the withered yellow lawn outside the floor-to-ceiling window, two girls in white shirts and black dresses were playing tennis, one of them brandished a racket and shouted excitedly, the sound penetrated the closed long window, and sent the long-lost modern atmosphere into Gao Yi's ears, and for a while, even the lazy and heatless winter sunshine in the sky seemed to be ignited by the passion of the girls, sprinkling more and more hot brilliance.

Gao Yi was in the principal's room at McThier School, waiting for a meeting with the principal, Ms. Richardson. Located on the corner of the ground floor, the office has a row of long windows on the north and west sides, and a large office table facing the south wall, where a large marble fireplace occupies a prominent position.

Gao Yi stood at his desk, admiring the scenery outside the window and feeling a class schedule spread out on the corner of the desk. This class schedule is probably the only Chinese item in this office, and the title reads "Chinese and Western Female Mature Western Credit Year Course Plan" in black and round letters.

Who would have thought? The McThiers School turned out to be a Chinese and Western Girls' High School.

Gao Yi only knows that there is an English-sounding name in Chinese and Western girls called Moti, but if you want to associate "McTyers" with "Moti", you really need to use your imagination. Now that I think about it, since Murti is McThiers, isn't Richardson the second principal of the Chinese and Western Girls' High School, Lian Jisheng? I remember that in later life, I also went to the "Lian Jisheng" hall named after her in honor of her-that is, the "May Fourth" building of the city's three girls' middle school, and the predecessor of the city's three girls' middle school was the Zhongxi girls' middle school.

The reason why Gao Yi knows about the Chinese and Western Girls' High School is because his prospective wife Gu Meimei graduated from the city's Third Girls' High School. As graduates of one of Shanghai's most petty bourgeois schools, it's hard not to talk about the dark green cheongsam uniforms, the owl school warden, the IACE – independent, competent, caring, elegant, and the dormer windows on the red pitched roof, the Gothic pointed coupons, the patterned stained glass and the stained grindstone on the hall floor.

But these are the stories that took place at the new site of the school on Jiangsu Road, which in 1903 was still on the site of Hankou Road.

"Mr. Gao Yi?"

Gao Yi turned around, and at the door was a woman of about forty years old wearing a missionary robe, her cheeks were plump, she was quite tall, her figure was slightly fat, and she did not look outstanding.

"Ms. Richardson? Yes, I am William Goy. ”

Lian Jisheng stretched out his hand like a man, and Gao Yi shook it with her.

After the two of them sat down, Lian Jisheng's entire body was attached to the backrest, his hands and ten fingers crossed on his abdomen, and he looked at Gao Yi's eyes from the bottom to the top with a slightly calm head, as if he was not too welcoming to his arrival. Gao Yi noticed that her eyes were gray and her pupils were clear and transparent, which added a vividness to her face.

"With all due respect, Mr. Gao Yi, the McThièers School is a girls' school, and our only male teacher is an elderly Chinese gentleman who teaches Bahasa Malaysia, so I think I must be cautious about a young man like you coming to teach with us. However, Mr. Rida made it clear in his letter of recommendation that he had considered our particular circumstances, but he insisted that you were up to the job because you were very good enough to make up for your age and gender deficiencies. That's why I've arranged this meeting to ask you to prove to me in person that you have such abilities, Mr. Gao Yi. ”

Is this an aptitude test? Gao Yi can be said to be unprepared for this.

In fact, except for the junior year when he applied for an internship, he passed the traditional written test and interview, and since then he has never encountered a situation where he needs an aptitude test during the interview. His concept of the interview is to meet with the potential future boss over breakfast, everyone has a coffee and chat, first to see if the temperament of both parties is right, and then a little talk about the expectations for the future work, and then it can be finalized. As for ability, to be honest, if you don't already know that he has outstanding ability, why would others come to the door.

Lian Jisheng leaned her head back on the back of the chair, her hands still resting on her abdomen, and seemed to change to a more relaxed posture, but Gao Yi noticed that she was sitting stiffly, which indicated that she was still in a defensive state inside.

"Mr. Gao Yi, I think you can think of me as one of those girls who are listening to your lecture for the first time, because I really don't know anything about this subject like them, you must know that when I was young, there was no such course in the school."

Well, Gao Yi must admit that this is really a bit difficult for him, although a blank piece of paper is easy to paint, but if this is a blank paper that does not enter the oil and salt, it is difficult to say.

Gao Yi's brain turned on, he remembered that when he looked at the class schedule just now, he noticed that there were all subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, English, and religion, but there was no home economics class that Gu Meimei had been talking about. At that time, the home economics class was to teach organic chemistry, which could be said to be a combination of physics and chemistry with life—perhaps we should start from this aspect.

"Steak!" Gao Yi deliberately paused after saying this word, and did not rush to continue, which gave Lian Jisheng enough time to realize that this was a completely unexpected opening. Sure enough, he caught a trace of surprise, a trace of doubt, a trace of annoyance, and most importantly, a small circle of confusion in the eyes of the other party.

"If I'm teaching girls, I think it would be more interesting if it was closer to the housekeeping aspects that they were familiar with, like, how to cook a steak?"

Seeing Lian Jisheng's thoughtful look, Gao Yi continued to speak.

"When I was a child, I lived with my father in Guangzhou. I found out that the local people eat a type of beef meatball, but this kind of meatball is not boiled in boiling water, but is slowly scalded in water that has a certain amount of time before boiling. Of course, I didn't dare to eat it, but I found that all the locals who had eaten it didn't get sick as I thought. I couldn't figure out what it was until I happened to see a book on pasteurization, which the Chinese seem to have understood. ”

This little story, which had little to do with the subject, made Lian Jisheng relax, her back off the back of her chair, her elbows resting on the armrests, and her body leaning forward slightly, a gesture of attentive listening.

So, when I figured out how low-temperature disinfection works, I went to try this cow ball. Slow-cooked beef at low temperature is truly amazing! The taste is very soft and glutinous, the meat is also very tender, and at the same time, you can eat the special texture and deliciousness that only belong to beef, and this method also retains the original taste and original color of the food to the greatest extent, and even does not need additional seasoning. ”

"But the problem is that controlling the temperature is a very difficult thing, in the kitchen we can't have a whole set of equipment to control the temperature like a factory that uses pasteurization, and the Chinese method requires a lot of experience to learn to control the fire."

"So my solution is to reduce the pressure, and when the pressure is lowered, the boiling point is lowered, so the temperature at which the meat is cooked is lowered. Temperature and pressure are the two most critical external conditions in all chemical reactions, and in this way, the students were introduced to the students in the most natural way through the simple daily household chores of the kitchen, which is boiled beef. ”

Seeing Lian Jisheng's abrupt look, Gao Yi stopped, and secretly sighed in his heart, talking nonsense and finally knowing the way back, and didn't go around to Java.