Starry Sky Kindergarten and Noble Kindergarten have always been sworn enemies.
But it must be said, Noble Kindergarten has also been a teacher to Starry Sky Kindergarten.
Ever since Noble Kindergarten's last grand publicity campaign, Shen Wei realized where her kindergarten fell short compared to that one.
It wasn't just the core subject teachers and the kindergarten environment.
More importantly, parents hoped their children could learn more and develop richer hobbies at kindergarten.
Shen Wei always felt that children's horse riding and golf were just satisfying the middle class's imagination of the upper class.
She didn't want to offer those.
The choice of specialty subjects was more mainstream.
Take Song Panpan's violin and piano, for instance, or Wu Feng's classical dance teacher and the soft gymnastics team.
These hobbies were easily understandable by ordinary parents.
And convenient to showcase.
But just two specialty classes were far from enough.
So Shen Wei also found a drawing teacher and a calligraphy teacher.
For now, that was all, but later Shen Wei planned to add English and computer classes.
But that would have to be gradual.
Currently, computer and English teachers still needed systematic screening.
If Shen Wei bypassed the system to hire people, it actually wouldn't be too difficult.
Not only did Starry Sky Kindergarten have a reputation in the industry,
But Shen Wei also had money.
With enough money spent, even big-name teachers were possible.
But Shen Wei still wanted to choose the best, at least those with decent character and professional ability.
So far, the system-selected people hadn't made any mistakes and were all very capable industry experts.
So Shen Wei was full of confidence in this new drawing teacher.
It was just that the person the system selected this time was somewhat unexpected.
The drawing teacher Qi Zhong had a long stack of background information that took Shen Wei 10 minutes just to read through.
Apparently, Qi Zhong was once ranked first and was admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
After graduating, he studied under a painting master and his skills were extremely formidable.
At his peak, one of his paintings cost hundreds of thousands of yuan.
And you had to book at least two years in advance to get one, because there were so many orders, but now his paintings are worthless!
Because he did something that shook the entire art world.
Back then, in addition to painting, he also tutored art students.
While he had many students each year, there were always a few that were his favorites, including one particularly talented painter.
With his professional eye, if the student performed normally, he would at least rank in the top three in exams.
He and the student checked the results as soon as they were released, but the student was unexpectedly not admitted.
Not accepting this, he wanted to go see the student's work, but something insidious had happened.
The work of the person before his student had paint smeared all over the back, contaminating his student's work.
The two papers were indistinguishable.
The person before was admitted with a high score, while his student's test paper was voided.
Years of hard work were undone by someone's despicable act. He was furious!
He told the student about investigating the incident.
That student calmly consoled him.
Clearly, it was the student who had suffered injustice, yet it was the student comforting the teacher instead.
But the next day, he learned of a tragedy - that student had committed suicide.
Looking at the student's diary from before death, he realized how suffocating the student's family environment had been.
Both parents had been extremely controlling.
This exam was the student's only way out of that dysfunctional family.
And the student had prepared for it so diligently, with everyone telling the student they would definitely succeed.
Little did they expect things would take such an extreme turn.
Having one's work contaminated, many would consider themselves unlucky.
But it was the last straw that broke the camel's back, leading to the talent's demise.
Teacher Qi Zhong was enraged and decided to avenge his student.
So he exposed the incident.
Leveraging his influence in the art world from back then, he pressured the perpetrator to drop out.
He uncovered the truth behind the incident.
He even personally confronted and violently beat up that person.
He vented, but the incident had too severe an impact, essentially a celebrity cyberbullying a nobody.
And this nobody wasn't entirely a nobody either, as his father was also a businessman.
As a result, with various instigators added, Qi Zhong ended up being portrayed as an unstable madman.
The Calligraphy and Painting Association issued a statement dissociating itself from him.
Various art associations expelled him. Even his originally respectable job was gone because of this incident.
He just grimly drank alone, visiting his student's grave, saying words no one asked whether he regretted.
For the sake of one deceased person, had he ruined his own future?
What use was it even if he had? The dead would not be revived.
But he didn't care, constantly livestreaming his paintings.
That livestream room was also harassed by hired trolls from the deceased student's parents, hurling insults.
No one could withstand prolonged cyberbullying.
By the time Shen Wei met him again, he had gone from a spirited youth to an unkempt old man with an unkempt beard.
Shen Wei said, "I'm from Starry Sky Kindergarten. We spoke on the phone before. I wanted to ask if you're interested in coming to teach our children how to draw."
Teacher Qi Zhong was silent for a while.
If it were earlier, he would never have considered teaching children painting as a livelihood.
But now, he hadn't earned a single cent in several months.
And learning art was expensive.
His brushes, inks, and pigments were a major expense.
He used mineral pigments, sold by the gram, costing nearly as much as gold.
He urgently needed a job.
But even so, teaching kindergarteners had never crossed his mind.
Shen Wei continued, "The children at our kindergarten are all very cute, and they have great imagination when painting!"
She then showed him some children's drawings.
The children's works were indeed imaginative, despite lacking professional guidance - elephants flying in the sky, birds swimming underwater, and so on.
The drawings were crude.
But they looked charmingly naive, and you could easily tell what the children were depicting.
The world of fairy tales was most worth exploring.
He said, "How much would you pay me?"
Shen Wei replied, "20,000 yuan a month!"
He said, "Not enough."
Shen Wei asked, "How much do you want then?"
He thought for a moment, "25,000, I'm a bit in debt."
Shen Wei agreed, telling him there was also a 100,000 yuan payment to buy out his image rights for livestreaming.
Interestingly, upon hearing of the additional 100,000 yuan for image rights,
"Then I'll take 20,000 yuan!" Shen Wei said immediately.
After all, he didn't initially intend to ask for an extra 5,000 yuan.
He just wanted to repay his debt.
Now that he had this unexpected windfall, there was no need to quibble over those 5,000 yuan.
Qi Zhong said, "If you can provide materials like pigments, I can reduce my salary further."
Shen Wei readily agreed, "No problem. But there's no need to lower your salary!"
She then asked him to make a list.
When Shen Wei saw the list, she suddenly realized she had been careless.
These were all kinds of mineral raw materials.
And they were very expensive.
At that moment, the system spoke in Shen Wei's mind: "There's a promotion on pigments in the points mall right now. 500 points can get you 24 kinds of mineral pigments, 1 kilogram each."
Shen Wei was startled and immediately redeemed the points. Soon, shimmering mineral pigments arrived in her space.
It's better to use points.
There's a free kind of happiness.
Qi Zhong said, "I'll use mineral pigments for my own artworks, but I'll use regular ones for teaching the children."
Even if he was wealthy, he couldn't be so wasteful.
He still understood propriety.
Soon, they signed the contract. Shen Wei transferred the money, and they agreed on his work schedule.
Shen Wei couldn't wait to see his surprised reaction when he saw all those pigments.
