Chapter 766.1: The Sprouting Hope

Before arriving in Port Gallon, Sunir had always assumed that its residents were conservative, feudal, and stubborn to an almost unreasonable degree.

Much like the believers in the Spirit of the Desert in Sunset Province, who always carried a handful of rusty-smelling sand in their pockets.

Thieves never dared slash open those people’s pockets. If they lost money, they would merely report it to the authorities. But if the sand in their pockets went missing, they might actually kill someone.

To avoid offending the locals, and to avoid being beaten to death by a girl’s family while trying to flirt with her, Sunir had earnestly consulted the Moonfolk girls working at the Irina Bar in French Fry Harbor while he was still in the Southern Seas. He carefully studied the Poro Province’s religions, taboos, customs, and traditions, even recording them in a small booklet he carried with him.

One could say that he had done more than enough preparation. Yet when he truly arrived in Port Gallon, he discovered that what he had heard and what he saw with his own eyes were two entirely different things.

There were nowhere near as many twists, turns, and taboos as he had expected. The locals’ conservatism applied only to themselves. Toward outsiders like him, they were not merely unconservative. Their openness exceeded even his imagination.

French Fry Harbor had bars, as did Ring Island, but no one there had ever become so drunk from a single sip of beer that she collapsed into his arms and breathed into his ear.

Are the people here really all such terrible drinkers?!

Had he not carried a mirror with him, he might even have begun suspecting that he was actually devastatingly handsome and that no one had noticed only because Ring Island was too small and his disreputable friends had deliberately undermined his confidence.

At first, he had rather enjoyed it. But after it happened too many times, even he grew tired of it.

Compared with the most primitive sort of desire, what he truly enjoyed was the spark created when two different souls collided. Yet most people there merely wanted to sleep with him. Once it was over, they would lie on his chest and talk about life, dreams, future plans, bicycles, and the next generation...

His head was about to explode. He was only twenty years old. Why the hell would he think about any of that? And after hearing too many plans of buying bicycles, he couldn’t help but wonder what use was a bicycle anyway? If they wanted to travel faster, wouldn’t driving a speedboat be far better?

What frustrated him most was that he had come with the impure motive of hunting beauties, only to discover after arriving that he had somehow become the prey. The girls sitting at the bar were even more experienced than he was.

The feeling was not enjoyable at all. It was downright terrible.

He became so depressed that he even gave up drinking.

It was not limited to bars. The same thing happened at work.

Take his first job, for example, working as a private tutor for the daughter of a wealthy local merchant.

The job had been introduced by a Wislander intermediary. Supposedly, the merchant had once been a noble of Port Gallon and had been extremely wealthy since the days of Governor Nihark.

The pay was equally generous! It was 10,000 Silver per month!

The employer had only one requirement, the tutor had to be from the New Alliance.

The South Sea New Alliance counted as part of the New Alliance as well. At least, the Wislander intermediary had said it would be fine, so Sunir accepted the job. He had assumed that the distinguished people living in such a grand mansion would be more reserved. To his surprise, not only did the young lady constantly find excuses to touch him, even the merchant’s wife kept sending him suggestive glances.

Sunir felt as though he was losing his mind.

That was especially after he heard that the merchant had business dealings with a notorious local gang known as the Assassin Gang.

Faced with a choice between the generous salary and his own life, he ultimately chose the latter and reluctantly resigned from the high-risk position.

Of course, it had to be said that such abnormal behavior was limited to a very small minority.

It was like a large group of starving people charging into a cafeteria. Inevitably, a few would behave as though they had been reincarnated from starving ghosts, desperately trying to make up for everything they had failed to eat in a previous life, only to be carried out horizontally in the end.

Compared with the two extremes of refusing to eat and eating until one burst, most people were perfectly normal. Working diligently and studying hard were the ordinary person’s usual state.

After spending a week adjusting himself, Sunir was introduced by the city hall employment office to a public school established locally by the Baiyue Strait Development Company, where he became a language teacher.

Most of the students were children from the surrounding communities. Some came from impoverished families, while others were citizens. Because the Port Gallon authorities promised students free breakfast and lunch, and because literacy allowed people to obtain better jobs, the overwhelming majority of locals were highly cooperative with the compulsory-education policy.

Regardless of which social class they came from, the children were exceptionally diligent. They were so hardworking that even Sunir felt somewhat ashamed.

They yearned to change their fate.

Ring Island also provided free education, yet he had somehow muddled his way through university. After graduating, he went to work at a factory, later drifted to the docks, and eventually gave up altogether while collecting unemployment benefits...

Compared with those boys and girls, the first 20 years of his life seemed to have passed in a haze.

Encouraged by those earnest and eager gazes, he threw himself into his work with 120% zeal, devoting himself wholeheartedly to education. He even sent telegrams to his friends on Ring Island, asking them to mail him books from there, and crammed furiously to relearn the knowledge he had forgotten.

The public school did not pay much, only 12,000 Gallons per month. However, that was still considerably more than the wages earned by local residents.

Moreover, the cost of living was extremely low. Food, transportation, and haircuts were all cheap. Only imported goods, luxury items, and assets were expensive. It was ideal for a loafer like him who had few ambitions in life.

However, to be fair, his current existence could no longer be described as him giving up on himself. It could even be described as having risen above vulgar pleasures and becoming incomparably fulfilling. He had found something that could genuinely be called a career, something worthy of contemplating for the rest of his life.

Of course, even so, rebellious individuals would still occasionally appear and attempt to create some disturbance, or surprise, in his otherwise ordinary teaching career.

Everything happened on a bright and breezy afternoon. He had just finished substituting for a senior class and explaining geometry when a tall girl cornered him inside the office to ask about a mathematics problem. At first, they genuinely discussed mathematics. Before long, however, the girl changed the subject and gazed at him with shining eyes. “Teacher, may I ask your family name?”

Sunir gave her a puzzled look before mumbling, “Su... Why?”

The girl stared at him in surprise. “I see. I always thought Sunir was your given name and that your family name was something else.”

Seeing that she was curious about his homeland, Sunir smiled. “We have many different naming conventions where I come from. It mainly depends on the parents. My father told me that my great-great-grandfather might have been a shelter resident, while my great-great-grandmother came from the Southern Archipelago. Besides that, some people have no family names at all, just like the people here who have only given names.”

The latter was common among wastelanders. Certain unusual shelter residents also chose to use slang that outsiders could not understand as their names, for example, the residents of Shelter 404.

Curiosity about the outside world shone in the girl’s eyes, along with a faint trace of longing. “... We don’t only have given names. We actually have family names too. For instance, the Rat Clan has 13 different pronunciations, the most common being Skaven. But the Snake Clan also has people named Skaven, so we rarely use our family names.”

“I see. I thought you simply didn’t have surnames... Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Sunir looked at her in surprise, then quickly realized that his words might have sounded too casual and hurriedly added an apology.

The girl smiled gracefully and answered without concern. “It’s alright. You’ve only just arrived here, so it’s normal that you wouldn’t know. By the way, my name is Anushka.”

Sunir offered a compliment. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“Is it...? I don’t think it sounds very nice. It has too many syllables. I’ve always wanted to change it.” A trace of melancholy appeared in Anushka’s eyes before she suddenly looked at him with shining eyes again. “What do you think of Su’an or Suka?”

The sudden direct attack caught Sunir completely off guard, especially when her face abruptly drew closer and the ends of her hair swayed beside her cheeks.

A faint fragrance entered his nose. He coughed dryly and unconsciously retreated half a step. “Uh, well, for something like that, I think you should ask your parents for their opinion.”

“But you have better ideas than they do.” The girl stepped forward and stared at him with blazing eyes. “You came from the New Alliance, didn’t you?”

“I’m from the South Sea New Alliance! It’s actually quite different,” Sunir explained helplessly.

“It can’t be that different. After all, someone from there is as knowledgeable as you are... It would be wonderful if I could visit someday.” Hope shone in the girl’s eyes, accompanied by a faint trace of yearning.

Sunir wanted to tell her that there was actually nothing especially wonderful about the place. Its streets were narrow and short, and he had only come over to try his luck because he could no longer stand living there... But looking at her expression, he knew that nothing he said would matter.

Just as he had no idea what to do, footsteps outside the office finally broke the abnormal atmosphere.

Relieved, Sunir exhaled.

The girl, disappointed that she had not heard him say that he would being her over, still thanked him for his guidance, bowed slightly, and hurried out with her notebook.

Glancing at the girl rushing through the doorway, the colleague who sat beside him could guess what had happened without even using his brain. He looked at Sunir and teased, “It gives you a headache, doesn’t it? The girls here are far too enthusiastic.”

His colleague had worked there longer than anyone else and had come from Dawn City. It could be said that every possible buff had been stacked upon him.

The female colleague sitting at the opposite desk was displeased by the comment. She curled her lips and snapped, “It isn’t only the girls. The boys are the same. I can’t even eat a meal without encountering three locals asking me for directions. I have no idea who gave them the impression that people in the Bugra Free State spend every day having orgies... Honestly, I’ve had enough.”

Seeing her roll her eyes, the colleague from Dawn City leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Hahaha... Now that you mention it, I really did hear something like that while I was in Dawn City!”

A chill crept up his spine the next moment. Under the murderous glare from across the desk, he involuntarily shivered and immediately ended the unfunny joke.

Sunir brewed himself a cup of tea, sat back down, and sighed as he watched the mist curl above the cup. “Honestly, I’m worried. It wouldn’t matter if this sort of atmosphere existed only in bars, but it shouldn’t appear in classrooms. Many of the girls in French Fry Harbor clearly came from here as well, yet they’re completely different from the people here. Sometimes I can’t help wondering whether something is wrong with our teaching methods. We should teach them more than knowledge. We should also teach them dignity and self-respect. Otherwise, even if they stop being slaves to the empire, they’ll only become someone else’s slaves. What difference would that make in the end?”

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