Women in the Future Era can attend school alongside men!
There seem to be quite a lot of them. Looking at the people outside, they saw that men and women were almost evenly divided.
“This, this, this is absurd! How can women go to an Academy to study like men?”
“It is utterly depraved!”
“With so many women around, how can those students study in peace? What is the headmaster plotting?”
“What use is there in women studying? Isn’t sending them to an academy a waste of places? I wonder which idiot came up with this idea.”
The men of the Ancient Era flew into a rage and began berating them. In eras after Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, when women’s status had fallen drastically, men had grown accustomed to exploiting them. In their eyes, women were supposed to be ignorant and uninformed; obedience was all that mattered.
Thus, seeing women sitting and standing as equals with men made them feel insulted.
Unfortunately, all they could do was rage helplessly. This was only the beginning. When An Ran walked into the office and greeted her younger brother’s Homeroom Teacher, their anger grew even stronger!
Not only could women study now, but some even served as Teachers!
In their eyes, if women studying meant equality, then women serving as Teachers meant trampling them beneath their feet.
If this school were filled with girls, that would be fine. They could treat it as rich young ladies amusing themselves and might barely tolerate it.
But men were here too, and they made up nearly half the students. Having a woman teach men was practically like trampling their faces beneath her feet.
Consumed by rage, they belittled the school, the nonexistent Emperor of the Future Era, and the female Teacher.
“What can a lowly woman possibly teach? She is ruining people without end!”
“The Emperor of the Future Era must be a Fatuous Ruler. He has clearly lost his mind.”
The men from before Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism were also displeased, but they had not lost all reason. After all, this would happen far in the Future Era. Moreover, they did not hold the same contempt for women as Later Generations did, especially in dynasties that had produced outstanding female political leaders.
An Ran learned what had happened. The two had collided while playing ball, and each thought the other had done it on purpose. Since both had fiery tempers, they ended up fighting.
Both were at fault, and the fight was not serious. They apologized to each other, and that was that.
However, “that was that” only meant that their parents had reached a reconciliation. The Homeroom Teacher still had to punish them: they had to clean the toilets for a week and write an 800-word self-reflection letter.
After they came out, An Bo wore a troubled expression. An Ran knew what worried him. He was a poor student, and writing an 800-word essay was more painful to him than cleaning toilets for a month.
An Ran rolled her eyes. “How did our family end up with you as the odd one out?”
Her parents were both top students, and she and her younger sister had excellent grades as well. Her younger brother could barely pass any subjects. Fortunately, their parents did not expect him to achieve great success. As long as he did not grow up crooked, that was enough.
An Bo said with careless indifference, “This is what happens when things go too far: when water is full, it spills, and when the moon is full, it wanes. You divided all the intelligence among yourselves, so naturally I was left an idiot.”
An Ran glared at her younger brother. “The National College Entrance Examination is coming up soon. Put some effort into your studies. No matter which tier, at least get into a University.”
However, despite saying that, An Ran was not particularly worried about whether her younger brother would get into a University. He was pursuing the path of an athletic-specialty student. Since he was naturally gifted at sports, he could at least get into a lower-tier university.
An Ran only mentioned it briefly and said no more. Teenagers hated being lectured; saying too much would only make them rebellious. After a while, school ended. The three siblings went to the School Cafeteria together for a meal. An Ran transferred several thousand yuan to each of them, then went home for an afternoon nap. The Livestream ended there as well.
An Ran went off to enjoy a good sleep, while the people of the Ancient Era remained immersed in the shocking things they had seen and heard that day.
During the previous break, seeing the students outside had made them think there were already quite a lot of them. But when everyone came out after school, they realized that the earlier crowd had been nothing by comparison. The students filled the grounds; there had to be several thousand at least, right?
If this had been the highest institution of learning, like their Imperial Academy, they would not have been so astonished by the number of students.
But from the siblings’ conversation, they learned that this was a high school. There were Universities as well, and more than one of them. How many students would there be in the Future Era?
Then there was the School Cafeteria. Good heavens, the food was excellent! There were large white steamed buns, bowls of rice, and even meat. No wonder those children had grown so plump and fair.
The Common People were not particularly envious of the students attending school. In their eyes, anyone who could afford fine flour, good rice, and meat was wealthy. Wasn’t it natural for wealthy people to be able to study? They envied the food more, imagining how wonderful it would be to have even one meal like that.
The men grew angrier as they thought about it. Women in the Future Era had climbed above them, and the thought made them furious. They wished they could travel into the past and give that Fatuous Ruler a proper scolding.
The women, meanwhile, were filled with envy. Contrary to popular belief, not every young lady from a wealthy household in the Ancient Era knew how to read or study. Although their families were rich, some parents would not let their daughters study because they considered it useless.
Women would eventually marry and leave home. Learning embroidery, managing a household, and being a virtuous aid to their husbands was enough. Even if they studied, it was only to recognize a few characters and manage the household better.
The women who had never studied were envious, as were those who had. After all, studying at home under a female teacher was completely different from attending an Academy.
They thought of the confident, spirited girls studying in the Academy beneath the Heavenly Screen and felt both envious and sorrowful.
They envied the girls’ freedom. Women could even study alongside men, so they presumably faced few constraints in other areas as well. Thinking of their own circumstances saddened them. Once they had seen the light, they could no longer endure the darkness.
Until then, they had believed that women were inferior to men and ought to remain behind them. They thought it natural for women to live under all those rules.
But the Heavenly Screen had shown them that women did not have to obey all those rules. They did not have to tolerate their Husbands having other women. They could leave the house alone, and interacting with men would not get them condemned as Loose and immoral. Women were not inferior to men after all.
Leaving An Ran aside, she managed a group of people at work. As for the female teacher, surely men had competed with her for the position. How could they not have? A teacher’s position at an Academy was highly sought after. The men must have competed and failed to beat her.
After witnessing this vast world, they found it difficult to remain at the bottom of a dark well. But what could they do, however unwilling they were? This era did not allow them to fly out. They could only remain at the bottom of the well and add to their own sorrow.
Still, knowing that the women of Later Generations lived well made them happy. They could not do so themselves, so they hoped their Descendants could live in that world.
Moreover, they were already much better off than the people before them. At least they now knew that women could live this way. Watching people in the Future Era live each day was interesting, and it gave them hope for their own lives.
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