24. Hamburgers are priced beyond imagination.

"Mr. Li, are you saying that Xiaobei didn’t learn any new material today?" Xiaobei’s mother asked.

Li An explained, "Today, we reinforced the content on the first page. Bringing both hands together is a process that tends to be a bit slower. Don’t worry—this piece contains large sections of repetition, so once he masters the first page, it’s essentially as if he’s learned two pages."

Hearing this, Xiaobei’s mother finally relaxed. According to her plan, the piece had four pages, and Xiaobei would need to learn one page per lesson in order to finish the entire piece within two weeks.

"Alright, I understand. So, shall we keep the next lesson on Sunday?" she asked.

"Yes," Li An replied. "If there are any changes, just let me know in advance. Also, in the near future, please prepare two textbooks for your child: one is Czerny’s Opus 599, and the other is Bach’s Elementary Piano Pieces."

"Once he finishes this piece, we’ll start alternating between several textbooks for his lessons."

"You can find them at Xinhua Bookstore. I’ll send you pictures of the books in a bit."

"Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Li," Xiaobei’s mother said.

"Goodbye, Mr. Li," Xiaobei added.

As mother and son departed, He Yiming appeared in the west wing of the teaching area, greeted Li An, and entered Lin Pengfei’s classroom.

Li An returned to his office and received a call from Liu Fengrui’s father, saying that his child had suddenly developed a fever that morning and would need to reschedule the lesson.

They moved the lesson to Friday afternoon.

Since the school hadn’t yet assigned an academic affairs officer directly to the west wing office, all recent schedule changes for teachers like Lin Pengfei and other young instructors had to be reported to Director Dong.

It wasn’t until midday that Li An managed to reach Director Dong and promptly reported Liu Fengrui’s situation.

This way, the academic affairs assessment team could promptly note any changes in participating teachers’ lessons and select appropriate times for observation.

With work handled, Li An opened the system panel for a quick glance.

Just now, the student-teacher rapport index for Xiaobei had increased by only two points during their lesson—the smallest gain in the past three sessions.

Now it stood at seventy-two.

Counting the one teaching point from Liu Fengrui’s last class, zero from Wang Xiaohu’s session yesterday afternoon, and two just now from Xiaoben, the teaching points had again surpassed ten.

Twelve points in total.

After hesitating a moment, he thought, “Let’s check Liu Fengrui’s strategy.”

Since the system was activated, even Lin Peng had reached a student-teacher rapport of two, yet this kid’s heart seemed as immovable as iron.

"Would you like to spend ten teaching points to unlock Liu Fengrui’s beginner student strategy?"

"Yes."

"Please wait, generating data..."

Ten seconds later.

"Liu Fengrui has recently been secretly practicing 'Blue Bird' on the piano."

What?

Li An was stunned.

"Blue Bird"? Whose work was that?

He quickly pulled out his phone to search, and a moment later, he understood.

It was an insert song from the anime "Naruto."

He clicked on a video and listened.

It did sound quite passionate—the melody stirring, the rhythm filled with syncopation and dotted notes, giving the music a dramatic ebb and flow.

The kind of music that could easily stir the dormant blood of youth.

But he didn’t even need to look at the sheet music to know that, given Liu Fengrui’s current right-hand chord technique, this was far beyond his ability.

Still, it reminded him of a student he’d had before—a child who loved playing pop songs but had little interest in the textbook pieces.

Putting away his phone, Li An took out Liu Fengrui’s student progress file and noted down the keywords "Blue Bird" and "anime."

He then updated Xiaobei’s progress file with today’s lesson record.

According to the revised teaching plan he’d made for Xiaobei, the next step was to gradually integrate him into his own piano curriculum, rather than focusing solely on examination pieces. Otherwise, things would become very difficult for both him and the child by the time they reached grade five or six.

But this would inevitably slow the child’s exam progress—a conversation he’d have to navigate carefully with Xiaobei’s mother.

"It’s done! We did it!"

Before noon, Ma Tao strode into the office, announcing, "It’s done, brothers!"

Xu Hongxin spun a watering can in his hand. "What, you’ve ascended to immortality?"

Ma Tao was visibly excited. "I just gave a trial lesson and the parents signed up!"

Good news.

Li An clapped his hands in congratulations.

The timing was perfect. This would mean an extra two hundred and forty in Ma Tao’s commission next month, and an additional two hundred each month thereafter.

"Tao, you’re definitely going to blow up after this. We have to celebrate," Xu Hongxin said, putting down the watering can and turning to Ma Tao with mock seriousness. "I want a hamburger, bro."

Ma Tao did a quick calculation. "Tomorrow’s Crazy Thursday—I’ll treat everyone to spicy crispy chicken, one for each."

Xu Hongxin shook his head stubbornly. "No, I just want a hamburger. From that shop at the corner. Just today at lunch. One word, yes or no, bro!"

Li An didn’t care—if someone else was paying, he wasn’t going to be picky.

Chen Xuan cared even less; someone telling her what to eat for lunch was already a huge help.

Seeing this, Ma Tao simply pulled out his phone and ordered two double meals, which, after discounts, only came to a little over fifty—much cheaper than Crazy Thursday.

Before placing the order, he asked, "Sister Xuan, do you want anything on the side? Some fries?"

"No, thank you, I can’t eat that much," Chen Xuan quickly waved her hands. "Really."

Li An smiled.

Ma Tao didn’t insist and placed the order.

Soon, the food arrived and the four dug in.

There wasn’t much in a double meal; the three men quickly finished their portions.

Li An felt as though he hadn’t eaten anything at all.

Just then, Chen Xuan slid her untouched hamburger over to him, her voice gentle: "If you don’t mind, you can finish mine. I’m already full."

Li An looked at the half-unwrapped beef burger—who could refuse meat delivered right to their mouth?

Chen Xuan had felt a little nervous offering it and grew even more anxious when Li An didn’t immediately reach for it.

She was about to say something more, when Li An took the burger. "These things aren’t good cold. Leave it to me."

That small exchange sent Chen Xuan’s heart racing several times before settling down.

It was the first time in her life she’d ever given her own food to a… boy.

Thankfully, it went well.

"Phew…"

...

"Congratulations to Teacher Xu Nana for fulfilling a renewal quota."

"Congratulations to Teacher Zhang Youwei for securing a referral trial lesson."

"Congratulations to academic affairs officer Liu Nan for booking two appointments within twenty-four hours."

"Congratulations…"

With another yellow heat warning issued, two days slipped by in a flurry of activity.

All of Yudong was running like a machine with its engine at full power; every department was in high-gear mode.

These days, everyone’s social feeds were filled with nothing but work promotions.

Academic staff consulted parents again and again to secure renewals and referrals.

Teachers, eager to break the ten-thousand mark in average monthly income, crammed extra lessons into students’ summer schedules and repeatedly stressed the importance of exam grades to parents.

Only Li An and a few other teachers with fewer students could do nothing but watch enviously.

Apart from practicing piano, Li An spent the rest of his time browsing rental apps—the deadline for updating his landlord was only five days away.

Given the current situation, he had two plans.

Plan one: see if he could negotiate with his landlord to stay one more month, offering an extra two hundred in rent.

If that didn’t work, plan two: find a place that allowed monthly payments, however shabby, and settle for now—location didn’t matter.

He’d scoured all the rentals near Yudong online. Almost none allowed monthly payments.

And most of the rents were prices he’d never dared to imagine in his previous life.

At three o’clock Friday afternoon, after wrapping up a lesson observation with Huang Juan, Li An sent Liu Fengrun on his way and planned to take the afternoon off to check out apartments near East Station.

But upon returning to the classroom, Huang Juan barely discussed the lesson with him; instead, she asked whether his evenings were busy.

"Not too busy. What’s up?" Li An replied, sensing something out of the ordinary and giving a tactical, non-committal answer.

Huang Juan nodded, paused, then asked, "Do you have time to take on some substitute lessons?"

At that, Li An felt as though Huang Juan had suddenly grown a few years younger.