I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 290 The Mountain Village Elementary School Under the Night
The village isn't large, nestled on a hillside. As night falls, every household turns on its lights, creating a twinkling effect.

After saying goodbye to Uncle Qiangba, the four of them arrived at a flat area halfway up the mountain. The school was built here, and when they arrived, the school was quiet.

Li Ye unlocked the school gate with his key, walked in, and turned on the streetlights on campus. He said, "It's National Day, so students and teachers are on holiday. Qingye, you'll stay with me tonight, and Bai'ou and Gesang will stay in her dorm."

Fang Qingye naturally had no objections. After carrying her suitcase to the dormitory, Li Ye said he would go cook.

"Li Ye, why don't you show your classmate around? I'll go cook," Liu Xigesang said at this moment.

Li Ye didn't insist and took Fang Qingye and Bai Ou for a stroll around the campus.

The school was not large, consisting of a three-story teaching building that served as both classrooms and teachers' dormitories. The front half was used as offices, while the back half was used as dormitories. There were also a few single-story houses next to it, which were used as kitchens and for storing grain and firewood.

The playground is surrounded by a running track, and in the middle there are basketball hoops, badminton courts, and ping-pong tables.

"I built all of this after I came here," Li Ye said with pride. "It's also the best-equipped primary school in the entire township." He then pointed to the side of the teaching building:

"The township plans to build another teaching building there to bring together students from several nearby villages. They also plan to build a dormitory building behind the teaching building so that students from far away won't have to walk more than two hours along mountain roads every day and can live on campus directly."

"Li Ye, you must have spent a lot of money yourself, right?" Fang Qingye asked.

"Hmm, over two hundred thousand, I guess. Oh, and the computer lab you helped with, let me show you there." Li Ye said, leading Fang Qingye and Bai Ou up to the second floor and opening a classroom door. After turning on the light, they saw rows of desks with computers on them, all very clean and almost spotless.

"The students cherish it very much, and they clean it up thoroughly after each session," Li Ye explained.

Looking at these computers, Fang Qingye couldn't help but think of the internet cafe her distant cousin ran in the city; those computers were already covered in dust.

Just then, a child's innocent voice came from downstairs: "Principal Li, Principal Li."

"You're the principal now?" Fang Qingye asked in surprise.

"Vice Principal," Li Ye replied, and as he walked out of the classroom, he saw a little boy standing downstairs in the teaching building.

"Zaxi Yixi, what's the matter?" Li Ye asked.

“My dad heard from Uncle Qiangba that you brought your friends back to school, so he asked me to invite you to my house for dinner,” the little boy said.

"Thank you. Tell your father we'll be right there," Li Ye said with a smile.

The little boy skipped and hopped outside. Li Ye said to Fang Qingye and Bai Ou, "Come on, let's go to Zaxi's house. It would be impolite not to go when he invites you."

"Li Ye, do you often eat at your fellow villagers' homes?" Fang Qingye asked with a smile.

"I guess so. The local people are quite simple and honest, especially after you get to know them. If you don't go, it's like you're looking down on them."

Li Ye went downstairs to the kitchen and called Liu Xigesang up. He took a flashlight, and the four of them left the school gate and walked up the mountain along the rugged mountain path. The village was built against the mountain, and the houses were not far apart. They were all in Tibetan style, but they were not built of traditional stone. Instead, they were built with wood, stone, and mud as raw materials.

Li Ye told Fang Qingye and the others that the locals called it "Bengke," which means "a house built of wood" in Tibetan. Half of the villagers are Tibetans, and the rest are Han and Qiang people, and they generally live together harmoniously.

After walking along the path for more than ten minutes, they arrived at a building called "Bengke". With the help of Li Ye's flashlight, Fang Qingye saw red walls and exquisite murals and patterns painted on the four walls, doors and beams of the house.

When Fang Qingye and the others arrived at the house, the door opened, and a man in his forties walked out.

"Uncle Gongbu!" Li Ye and Liu Xigesang called out, and the man greeted them with a smile as he welcomed them into the house.

The room wasn't very big, but it was very clean. Besides the little boy from earlier, there were two other children, a boy and a girl, who were both children of Gonpo. A middle-aged woman was busy at work; she was Gonpo's wife.

Hand-pulled mutton, sheep intestine noodles, and dried yak meat are all must-haves, along with Tibetan specialties like barley wine and butter tea.

Gonpo and his wife didn't speak Mandarin very well, but their three children spoke it fluently. During the meal, Gonpo told Li Ye that his eldest son, Dorje, had graduated from junior high school this year. He wanted his son to stay home and farm, but his son wanted to go out and make his way in the world.

"Dorje, where do you want to go?" Li Ye asked the somewhat silent boy.

“I want to go to Chengdu. I saw online that the No. 2 Vocational Technical School in Chengdu is recruiting students, and I want to go there to learn to be a chef,” Dorje said.

"Principal Li, is the school that Dorje mentioned that he saw online real or fake?" Gonbu asked.

"It should be true." Li Ye smiled and said, "How about this, Uncle Gongbu, I'll go back and do some more research online, ask around about the school, what it's like, whether there are any preferential policies for ethnic minority students, and let you know after I've found out, okay?"

"Alright, alright, I invited you over for dinner today so you can help me look it up online!" Gonpo immediately said, "If it's really good, I'll let Dorje learn it. We Tibetans have lived in these mountains for generations, and now it's time to broaden the horizons of the next generation. Come on, let's have a drink."

Gongbu raised a glass of barley wine.

More than an hour later, the four left Gongbu's house. Fang Qingye was a little dizzy from drinking, but the cool night wind outside sobered her up considerably.

"Li Ye, do you often help your fellow villagers look up information online?" Fang Qingye asked.

"Yes, at first it was mainly the elementary school students from our school who went online. Later, some junior high and high school students from nearby villages found out and came to learn during their holidays. Now, the villagers want to learn about planting techniques and market conditions, so they ask me and Gesang to help them check the green leaves. I really have to thank you for this. The role that you played in providing these 30 computers was far greater than I expected."

Hearing this, Fang Qingye felt a surge of pride. This was far more valuable than the internet cafe she sold to her distant cousin.
When they went to bed at night, Fang Qingye and Li Ye squeezed into one bed. Since they couldn't sleep, they started chatting.

"Li Ye, do you plan to continue teaching here?" Fang Qingye asked.

"Actually, I'm no longer considered a volunteer teacher. I passed the teacher certification exam last year and the local teacher recruitment exam this year, so I'm now a formal teacher," Li Ye said with a smile.

"Heh, settling down here completely? Is it all for Liu Xigesang?" Fang Qingye joked.

(End of this chapter)