After the opening of Jeju University, Oh Do's life soon became difficult. After paying the accommodation fee for the next academic year, the money he has left is very frugal, and it is only enough for one month. Because he had no money, he pushed away all the dinners and singing of his classmates after the start of school.

Reducing expenditure is not a long-term solution, and new sources of economic resources must be found. Wu Dao would not ask his family for money, and on the first day he entered the Hecheng Town Government, he thought that he would support himself in the future, and he would no longer be able to reach out to his parents to ask for money. Moreover, he had told Wu Yang, Li Mei, and Wu He more than once that the money he had saved for a year in the Hecheng Town Government and the graduate student allowance issued by the university was enough for all his expenses during his graduate studies, and he did not need to spend a penny at home. I can't ask my family for money, and the only way left is to work.

Jeju University's second year of graduate school is more relaxed than the first year, and Oh Dao plans to find a part-time job. He looked up job postings on the Internet and saw that the school where Si Baifang worked was looking for substitute teachers, so he immediately decided to apply there. Before applying, he called Si Baifang first:

"Baifang, I saw on the Internet that your school is now recruiting substitute teachers, and I want to go there as a part-time teacher."

"Are you having a hard time in life? You must have treated me and spent all your money. Si Baifang said.

"It's not all for this reason. The main thing is that there are very few courses in the second year of graduate school, and I have a lot of free time, so I want to find a part-time job. I saw online that your school was recruiting teachers, and I thought of going there to work part-time. Also, we work together, and I can also help you revise for graduate school. ”

"Wu Dao, thank you, you always think about what you do for me."

Gaoyang Middle School has very simple operating conditions, with more than 600 students. More than half of the teachers at the school are part-time substitute teachers, and many of them are college students from various universities in Jeju, so they are highly mobile.

On the day of the application, Si Baifang took Wu Dao to the school's personnel department. Gaoyang Middle School does not have high teaching requirements, and there is a large shortage of teachers, although Wu Dao did not have a teaching certificate, he was still hired.

Being able to work with Si Baifang and get along day and night, Wu Dao is naturally very happy. Si Baifang was also very happy, because Wu Dao could help her review, and having a man by her side every day could also give the impression that she already had a boyfriend, and discourage people around her who liked her and wanted to chase her.

After Wu Dao arrived at Gaoyang Middle School, he did not undergo any training, so the principal arranged for him to be a Chinese teacher in the first two classes of junior high school, and only gave him one day to prepare. Wu Dao referred to Si Baifang's previous textbook and re-prepared the lesson. In order to be able to teach well, after going to work the next day, Wu Dao transferred the Chinese classes of both classes to the afternoon. He used his morning time to listen to two lectures given by Si Baifang. Wu Dao found that Si Baifang was very serious and methodical in her lectures, and although she was very talented, she couldn't play at all on the podium.

The first class Wu Dao taught was the Chinese class of the first year of junior high school, and he asked Si Baifang to come to the classroom and sit in the back to listen to his lecture, so that he could give comments after class. In that class, Wu Dao wanted to tell the students about "Winter in Jinan" written by Lao She. For Lao She, Wu Dao is very familiar, in college, the first writer he really liked was Lao She, and in his freshman year, he finished reading Lao She's main works. For Jinan, Wu Dao is more familiar, but he doesn't think that Jinan's winter is so poetic, the reason why Lao She will write Jinan so well is just that the author's mentality is very good, more precisely, life has reached a very high level. This state of life has been expressed in Tao Yuanming, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, Su Shi and other great literati, and Wu Dao also wanted to live calmly like these ancients, but he was never able to reach it.

The class bell rang, Wu Dao walked into the classroom of the first year of junior high school, stood on the podium, and felt uneasy. The class leader shouted, "Stand up", and the students said in unison, "Hello teacher!" ”。 Wu Dao looked around at the dozens of students in the class and said:

"Hello students, please be seated. Today we are going to study together "Winter in Jinan" written by the famous writer Mr. Lao She. Before I study, I would like to introduce myself. I am a graduate student in the Department of Chinese at Jeju National University, and my name is Wu Dao. ”

Hearing the teacher say that he was a graduate student of Jeju University, the classmates in the class were boiling, because although Jeju University is not far away, it is an unattainable place for them, and the word graduate has a huge aura. Wu Dao stretched out his hand and pressed it down, and said to the students:

"Stop, stop talking."

The classmates stopped talking, and a classmate in the first row said to Wu Dao:

"Teacher, are you really a graduate student?"

"It's a graduate student, so it's like a fake." Wu Dao said.

"Then why did you come here as a teacher?" Another classmate said.

"Graduate students have a lot of free time, and I'm a substitute teacher here. Actually, Jeju University is not as good as you think, and the graduate students are not as good as you think, and now I am just an ordinary substitute teacher, no different from other teachers. As long as you study hard, you will be able to get into a good university in the future, and you can also become a graduate student, or even a doctorate. ”

After this conversation with the students, Wu Dao's originally nervous heart calmed down. He wrote his name on the blackboard and said to the students:

"This is my name, Wu Dao, very easy to remember, you may often hear the words 'Wudao Duanjun', King Xu, Emperor Yang of Sui, etc. are all famous Wudao Dujun, students can remember my name as long as they think of them."

Many students couldn't help but laugh. Wu Dao also said:

"Without further ado, let's start learning today. Mr. Lao She's "Winter in Jinan" was written in 1931, when he was teaching at Qilu University in Jinan. Everyone is also very familiar with Jinan. Qilu University is a religious university that was abolished in the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This is also the case at Yenching University in Beijing and St. John's University in Shanghai. ”

The effect of the first class was better than Wu Dao expected, and before he knew it, forty minutes had passed. Finally, he said to the students:

"The winter in Jinan is so beautiful in Lao She's writing, but in fact I don't think it's that good. In my opinion, the reason why Mr. Lao She describes the winter in Jinan so well is because he loves life and can look at the place with an aesthetic eye. Under the east fence of Tao Yuanmingcai, you can see Nanshan leisurely. If it were us, in that situation, I am afraid it would not be so leisurely. How can we achieve a state of leisure? Mr. Lao She's pen name has already told us, that is, to learn to give up, learn to let go. Everyone may have come here from various rural areas, and each place has its own characteristics of winter. Today's assignment is to write a short essay of no less than 300 words by recalling the winter in my hometown with an aesthetic eye. Of course, if your hometown is Jinan, copying texts doesn't count. ”

Hearing that they were going to write a short essay, many students began to sigh, but when they heard Wu Dao's last sentence, they couldn't help laughing.

After class, Wu Dao and Si Baifang returned to the office. Si Baifang said to Wu Dao:

"I really didn't expect you to be so good in your first lecture."

"Actually, I didn't know what I was going to do before I went to class. When I got on the podium, I was very nervous. After saying that I was a graduate student, my classmates began to speak, which gave me the opportunity and time to adjust. It was only after I introduced myself that I really calmed down. Wu Dao said.

"Every teacher is nervous when they give a lecture for the first time. The first time I stood on the podium to give a lecture, I was more nervous than you. I found something interesting. ”

"What's the matter?"

"When you stand on the podium and give a lecture, you are not the same as usual."

"What's the difference?"

"You're usually a serious person, and you don't seem to have much humor, but when you give lectures, you often say something humorous. For example, when you assign homework before class, it's interesting to say, 'Copying texts doesn't count'. How did you come up with these words? ”

"I don't know how to come up with it, but when it comes to that point, I'll say it myself."

"In this way, the profession of teacher is really related to you."

"Perhaps, but speaking of which, when I was lecturing just now, I did feel very good, and I felt very comfortable in my heart."

Wu Dao wanted to say that Si Baifang was not the same as usual when she was lecturing, she was not as talented as she was in life when she was lecturing, but the words stopped when he came to his mouth, and he was worried that it would hurt Si Baifang's sensitive heart.

As soon as he got to work the next day, the representative of the Chinese class brought the homework of the previous day and handed it to Wu Dao. When he was grading his homework, he was surprised to find that one of the students had a painting in his homework that depicted him during the lecture. There are also a few words written under the painting: "Mr. Wu, you have given a good lecture, it may be the first time you have given a lecture, and it can be seen that you are a little nervous." I hope you don't get nervous in the future, it will be better that way. Wu Dao was deeply moved, and when he stepped onto the podium again, he didn't feel nervous at all.

Every time he gives a lecture and looks at the students in the class, Wu Dao often thinks of when he was in middle school, when he often didn't have enough to eat, his body was very thin, and the only way to change his fate was to study hard. He secretly vowed to do his best to teach his students well and help them change their fate.

After substitute teaching for a while, Wu Dao found that he really liked this part-time job, and the students in the class liked him too. He was also pleasantly surprised to find that several students showed very high writing talents and had the potential to become writers, so he paid more attention to these students and often borrowed literary masterpieces from the Jeju National University Library to show them.

Tian Mowen knew that after Wu Dao worked as a substitute teacher in a private middle school, he was very opposed to him doing this, Wu Dao was not only the first graduate student he accidentally recruited after not recruiting graduate students for two consecutive years, but also the "academic seedling" that he valued very much. In this year's graduate examination at Jeju University, eight graduate students were recruited for the foreign literature major, and two of them were recruited under Tian Mowen's disciple. After comparing the three graduate students under his command, Tian Mowen felt that Wu Dao was the one with the best conditions in all aspects, and he hoped that Wu Dao would be able to take the academic path in the future, take the doctoral examination, and become a teacher in the university, and not distract his energy from other things. However, at this time, Wu Dao had to work to earn money, but it was not good to tell Tian Mo the reason. Tian Mowen had no choice but to tell him, don't waste your academics because of the contemporary teacher. Wu Dao also promised to do so.

After the winter, Si Baifang made another pair of cotton shoes for Wu Dao, and with the lesson of the last time, this time she specially took Wu Dao to buy the soles together. The shoes fit perfectly. Wu Dao was wearing cotton shoes made by Si Baifang himself, walking on the road, although he looked a little unusual, he only had happiness and sweetness in his heart.