Days without disturbance were blissful, but unfortunately, Yan Fei’s leisurely days didn’t last long.
That day, Gao Rui cautiously came over to the greenhouse, informing Yan Fei that he had to leave.
The fact that he came to say goodbye was commendable, it demonstrated that although he was semi-coerced to stay, he didn’t feel much aggrieved during his time at the cattle farm.
His departure inevitably made everyone at the cattle farm busier. Yan Fei felt he couldn’t be so laid-back anymore. He feared that everyone would suddenly get busy due to the loss of a worker, so he decided to go to the cattle farm to help with some work in the morning.
Fortunately, the turtle shells had been taken care of and were ready to be used for making liquor.
Dealing with turtle shells had been made easier. First, he transformed into an Iguanodon, trampled the shells vigorously, and then smashed them into finer pieces with a large hammer.
Then he could take it to the cattle farm to grind into a powder for making liquor.
However, as he was about to leave, he was faced with a dilemma.
Albeit no one would come here now, he couldn’t take the tiger with him to the cattle farm. The reason was the same as before: he was afraid it would frighten the cows.
After pondering for a while, he hastily put the tiger into Vegetable Garden Island. He then flew to the county town at his utmost speed, bought a thick iron chain, and tied the tiger at the greenhouse entrance.
With this arrangement, he wouldn’t have to worry about it even if he wasn’t around. With a chained tiger and two free-large dogs around, anyone plotting mischief had to be cautious. Any loud noise, especially a roar from the tiger, he would be able to hear.
Upon his arrival at the cattle farm, and before he could start working, Heizi asked in confusion, "Brother Fei, what are you going to do with the tiger if you are here?"
Yan Fei told him about how he had tethered the tiger.
Learning the tiger was chained by an iron chain, Heizi suddenly had an idea, "Don’t let anyone see it’s an iron chain! When you get back, wrap the chain with grass. It’ll definitely fool anyone who sneaks up that it’s tied with a grass rope."
He even chuckled mischievously at his own idea.
"It’s an unnecessary effort. There are two big dogs there, who would dare to go there when their owner isn’t around?" Yan Fei thought Heizi was being obsessive with his distasteful idea, trying to make everything exotic.
"Fine, I won’t..." Seeing Yan Fei didn’t support him, Heizi grumbled and went off to work.
With the grinding machine started at Yan Fei’s side, he couldn’t hear what Heizi was murmuring about later. But he guessed it must be something absurd.
The medicinal ingredients for the turtle shell wine also needed to be ground into powder. Everything was neatly divided and sun-dried once more in the dinosaur world. He just needed to directly put them into the machine to grind.
The next step was grinding the turtle shells, which were smashed into smaller pieces. This process took more time and was even more tedious than grinding bone meal.
Yan Fei just put a few bigger pieces into it, and the machine began to make strange noises. Realizing something was wrong and just as he was about to turn off the machine, a series of cracking sounds emanated from inside the machine before it broke down.
He initially wanted to help with some work, and now he had to repair the machine.
Having worked for a while in the morning, he didn’t need to help when Gong Hanqing returned in the afternoon. So, he carried the machine and left for repairs.
However, when he arrived in the city, the repairman said several critical parts were severely worn and needed to be replaced after opening it up.
The sum of the parts nearly equaled the price of a new machine.
Finding it too much of a hassle, Yan Fei sold the old one as scrap and bought a more powerful one.
This time, he didn’t put it at the cattle farm, but directly placed it on Vegetable Garden Island. Since the machine ran on diesel, it could be used anywhere.
For the following days, he would busy himself in the dinosaur world at night. During the day, he worked at the cattle farm in the morning. In the afternoon, if Gong Hanqing was not at school but at the cattle farm, it was his turn to go to school for a while. After all, as a student, he had barely been to school the entire semester and even he found it embarrassing.
Moreover, there were only three classes in the afternoon, which wasn’t a long time.
Mainly, he studied subjects he was interested in. For example, he was more diligent in studying biology and geography, subjects not greatly prized by others. On the other hand, he did not spend much time on test materials that everyone else thought to be of the utmost importance.
In fact, the limited information in the textbooks, given his memory, was easy to memorize. Mathematical and chemical formulas, political and historical information, and memorizable geographical data that burdened other students, were the easiest for Yan Fei.
With superior memory, learning was not laborious. The key was whether he had the patience to study.
Yet the problem was, he was impatient when it came to studying. He could study knowledge he was interested in but for subjects he showed no interest in, or he felt useless, he didn’t bother looking at.
For instance, English!
He didn’t see how learning a foreign language would benefit him. He was merely a cattle herder. Did he need to converse with foreigners? He even had his dinosaur world to manage. Learning a foreign language was less useful than learning the dinosaur language.
Of course, if there was a dinosaur language course available.
Even when Teacher Guan Yue found out he started to ’seriously’ study and took the initiative to offer help in studying English, he confirmed that he thought it was utterly useless.
Teacher Guan felt indebted to Yan Fei as he had helped her before, so she was particularly concerned about him. Knowing she couldn’t assist him in other matters, she felt she could return the favor by helping him with studying.
Despite Yan Fei’s attitude towards studying, she still patiently persuaded him, "With the continuous advancement of technology, the exchanges between countries are increasing. More and more foreign friends will visit our country, and you may need to communicate with them?"
"Are those foreign friends the attackers of the Forbidden City or the ones who set fire to the Summer Palace? Or those of the Eight-Nation Alliance?" Yan Fei’s reply almost frustrated Teacher Guan enough to bang her head into a wall.
The young and beautiful teacher’s patience was extraordinary. She continued to persuade him, "Those are part of history now, we need to look forward. Hatred can be buried in our hearts, and once we surpass them in various aspects, they will naturally return what we had lost. In this era of peace, we should focus on development, which requires exchanges with foreigners. The end of isolation from foreign countries is evident to all. Learning English is a means of such exchanges!"
"Hmm hmm!" Yan Fei nodded as he agreed with the teacher, but he still insisted on his opinion. "I am just a cattle herder. There are too many who study English, my involvement won’t make a difference."
Teacher Guan Yue felt they had reached a point in their conversation, "Taking your cattle farming as an example, if there are advanced cattle farming technologies abroad and you have to study these techniques, what if all the information are in English? Would you still think studying English is useless?"
Yan Fei started to ponder: if advanced cattle farming technology was really available, should he study it?
However, it seemed like a far off problem.
Thinking up to that point, he stood up to tell Teacher Guan Yue, "I’ll go back and think about it! If I decide to learn, can I come to you for tutoring?"
Teacher Guan Yue eagerly nodded, "I am at the School. You know my office, feel free to reach out to me anytime."
Then Yan Fei left the school and didn’t return the next day. Even until the holidays, the expectant Teacher Guan Yue didn’t see him coming for her lessons.