Chapter 81

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Great Tang.

Zhongnan Mountain.

Before a humble thatched herbal hut. A medicine roller lies on the ground.

Sun Simiao, the Medical Sage over seventy years old, stands in the courtyard.

"Extract the toxicity, retain the form... teach the body's defensive Qi to recognize the enemy in advance..." Sun Simiao's hands tremble.

For thousands of years, Traditional Chinese Medicine has emphasized "treating before illness."

But that is limited to regulating Yin, Yang, Qi, and Blood.

Facing smallpox, such a virulent infectious disease, all famous doctors are helpless, able only to watch corpses litter the land.

"Fight poison with poison, first take a mild dose to guard against the severe poison!" Sun Simiao suddenly slaps his thigh.

He turns and rushes into the herbal hut. He grabs a brush from the desk.

He opens the bamboo slips of "Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold" he is compiling, and writes furiously on a blank bamboo strip.

He converts the concepts of "Antibody" and "Attenuated Vaccine" leaked by the Sky Screen into words the Great Tang medical Dao can understand.

Community Health Service Center.

Lin Xuan glances at his watch.

Thirty minutes have passed; the observation time is over.

The needle mark on Xiao Sizi's arm has stopped bleeding.

Lin Xuan pulls out the cotton swab and throws it into the yellow medical waste bin.

He picks up the processed green "Vaccination Certificate," stamped with a bright red verification seal.

"Let's go." Lin Xuan tucks the vaccination certificate into his coat pocket.

Xiao Sizi jumps off the row of chairs.

The two walk out the main gate.

Lin Xuan holds Xiao Sizi's hand and walks back along the sidewalk.

The physical exam passed.

The vaccination records are complete.

The student file is filed.

All procedural barriers blocking this Great Tang princess from modern society have been completely removed.

Shi Diyi Shiyan Xiaoxue.

First-floor lobby.

Sunlight streams through the entire glass curtain wall, spilling onto the terrazzo floor.

Lin Xuan holds Xiao Sizi's hand, crosses the crowd, and stops at the new student registration desk.

Several long tables are joined together; several teachers are bowing their heads, organizing documents.

Lin Xuan hands over the household register and the vaccination certificate.

The female teacher in charge of registration takes the documents.

She opens the household register to verify identity information, then marks a red checkmark behind the name "Lin Mingda" in the roster.

The female teacher turns, pulls a transparent plastic bag from a cardboard box behind her, and extends it over the desk.

"Procedures are complete. Year One Class Three. Here are the autumn school uniforms."

Lin Xuan takes the bag.

Xiao Sizi reaches out and pinches the fabric through the plastic bag.

Red and white cloth, with a slight friction feel.

Not as smooth as silk, but extremely thick and durable.

Lin Xuan tears open the bag and pulls out the school uniform jacket.

"Put it on."

Xiao Sizi turns, and her arms go into the sleeves one by one.

Lin Xuan pinches the bottom of the zipper and pulls it up.

The bright red collar sets off her pale cheeks.

Lin Xuan lifts her pink schoolbag and helps her put it on properly again.

The two walk along the corridor toward the east side.

"Year One Class Three..."

Lin Xuan stops at the door of a classroom hanging a wooden class sign.

He pushes the door open.

A wave of sound mixed with various high-decibel screams hits their eardrums.

More than forty children of the same age cram into one room, like an exploded hornet's nest.

Two boys sprint around the podium, knocking over chairs in the front row. Several girls huddle together, fighting over a few colorful stickers, making shrill crying noises.

Others roll on the floor, rubbing a layer of dust onto the clean tiles.

Xiao Sizi stops in her tracks, her eyebrows furrowing slightly.

In the Great Tang's Hongwen Guan, great Confucian scholars hold discipline rulers.

Let alone such chasing and playing; even if the princes breathed too heavily, they would get their palms slapped.

This kind of noise, with no respect or hierarchy, in a chaotic mess.

It made her instinctively feel a slight sense of constraint.

Lin Xuan placed his palm on her shoulder, pushing Xiao Sizi inside.

Stepping over scattered paper scraps, Lin Xuan stopped at an empty seat in the third row by the window.

"Sit here." Lin Xuan pulled out a wooden chair.

Xiao Sizi took off her schoolbag and stuffed it into the storage compartment under the desk.

She turned and sat down.

The boy in the seat beside her was burly.

He was holding a piece of eraser half the size of a palm, shoving it into his mouth to bite hard, drool dripping from his chin onto the desk.

Xiao Sizi shifted half an inch toward the window.

Lin Xuan patted her thin shoulder. "The norm for commoner education."

"Get used to it, blend in. I'll go outside."

Lin Xuan straightened up and walked out of the classroom.

He did not go far.

He stood in the corridor, looking into the room through a large, transparent Glass window.

Xiao Sizi sat among the noisy crowd, somewhat out of place.

She turned her head, her gaze piercing through the Glass to catch Lin Xuan's eyes.

Lin Xuan tapped lightly twice on the windowsill, his expression encouraging.

The Taiji Hall of Great Tang.

Civil and military officials tilted their heads back, their necks aching.

The panoramic broadcast projected every detail of the modern campus directly into their eyes.

Kong Yingda, the Director of the Imperial Academy, swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

His Adam's apple bobbed.

He stared at the five-story teaching building.

The walls were smooth as a mirror; Glazed Ware windows embedded in them shone brilliantly, banishing all the indoor gloom.

The Imperial Academy, Great Tang's highest institution of learning, covered a vast area, yet consisted entirely of low wooden houses.

During prolonged rainy spells, the interiors would be pitch black.

Scholars needed to light expensive candles to read the bamboo slips.

Yet this school, dedicated solely to enlightening commoner children in later generations, was even more spacious and bright than the side halls of the Taiji Palace of Great Tang.

Behind the ranks of military officers.

A Censor stepped out of the formation, knelt on the ground, and shouted loudly: "A hen crowing at dawn! This violates the rites!"

The Minister of the Ministry of Rites followed closely, holding his jade tablet high: "Your Majesty! Inside the school, fully half the students are girls!"

"Men and women sitting together, reading the sages' books jointly."

"Such chaos must never be emulated in Great Tang!"

Ancient society had clear class distinctions.

A woman without talent is virtuous.

Except for a very few noble daughters who could have private tutors teach them a few characters, commoner girls did not even have the qualification to approach a book.

Yet in the Sky Screen, dozens of boys and girls mixed together in one hall.

No one found it improper.

This directly trampled the psychological bottom line of ancient Confucian scholars.

A young female homeroom teacher in a professional suit walked onto the podium, holding a lesson plan.

"Students, be quiet!" The teacher clapped her hands twice.

The children, in a state of utter chaos, paid no attention at all.

Two boys in front of the podium were still pulling at each other's collars.

The teacher did not lose her temper.

She set down the lesson plan, picked up a black Remote Control from the edge of the podium, and pressed it.

Beep!

Behind the podium, that dark green blackboard suddenly split open from the middle.

It slid automatically to both sides.

A huge smart touch-screen LCD panel, occupying half the wall, was exposed to the air.

The screen lit up.

The speakers emitted a burst of cheerful electronic music.

Several colorful cartoon animals popped up on the screen.

As the animation flashed, the letters "a, o, e" appeared one by one, accompanied by a standard female voice reading them aloud.

On the other side, several piles of red apples, through animated demonstration, pieced together equations for addition and subtraction.

Rich in both text and images, combining sound, light, and electricity.

The noisy classroom instantly fell deathly silent.

The fighting boys let go of their hands.

The crying girls closed their mouths.

Over forty modern toddlers seemed as if they had been cast with a spell of immobilization.

They all turned in unison to look at the screen, the flickering colors reflected in their eyes.

Their instinctive curiosity was completely captured by this extremely dazzling audiovisual impact.

They each returned to their seats, straightened their bodies, and stared at the blackboard with their mouths open.