“Your English is quite good!” After testing more than sixty words, He Tianlong was convinced that the person on the other end of the internet had indeed memorized all two thousand words.
However, He Tianlong found it hard to believe that someone could memorize two thousand words in a single day.
It wasn't that geniuses didn't exist in the world; there were always exceptions.
But the problem was, under the national education system, such a monster would have already been admitted to a gifted program or the like, and wouldn't be looking for someone online to teach them programming.
It was common to see news about children from poor families being unable to afford education. However, these children were generally ordinary people.
If a genius emerged from a poor family, they would immediately be scouted by various schools. Not only would their tuition be waived, but they would also receive monthly subsidies. The goal was to secure this outstanding student for the school, proving its excellent educational capabilities.
Therefore, He Tianlong didn't believe a true genius would be learning programming from him online. The person on the other end must have already known English, and quite well at that, but was an unlucky individual who was still struggling after adulthood.
That was the only explanation for why they could catch up on their English in a day and memorize two thousand words.
“Can I learn programming now?” the other party asked directly.
“Yes. I have a C language fundamentals book, and another book on what programming is and how to program. Once you’ve mastered these two books, you can move on to further learning!” He Tianlong employed his usual tactic. “If you can’t understand something, you can ask me privately. However, you only get one question per day. If you want to ask a second question, it will cost an additional three yuan!”
“That’s so expensive? A whole month of your course is only twenty yuan! Why is one question three yuan?” the other party asked with dissatisfaction.
“I was selling it for fifty yuan, and you bargained me down to twenty. Besides, don't I need to work? There are over a hundred people in the group. I have to answer over a hundred questions every day. If I don’t charge more, I won’t have time to answer you!” He Tianlong stated self-righteously. As a common person, I had nothing more to say and accepted the files.
By around 10 PM that night, Pingfan Ruwo asked his first question to He Tianlong. It was a very simple question, and He Tianlong answered it concisely.
The next evening, around 11 PM, Pingfan Ruwo posed another question. This time, it was a more profound question that required reading through the book and understanding most of its content to even formulate.
By the third day, Pingfan Ruwo presented a question that indicated he had already mastered the entire book and was now approaching more advanced programming rules.
“Don’t be overly ambitious. Build a solid foundation. These questions are still a bit too advanced for you!” He Tianlong, unusually dedicated, advised the other party. However, the response was, “Teacher, I feel I have basically mastered these basic concepts and want to formally begin learning!”
“Arrogant!” He Tianlong couldn't help but curse. They were currently in a voice call, and the other party undoubtedly heard He Tianlong’s remark.
“Teacher, I am not arrogant. I have truly mastered them. Why don’t you test me again?” the other party replied.
“Alright!” He Tianlong agreed readily. “You have five minutes to write a program for a digital clock display. However, the duration of each second in this digital clock should be only 0.5 seconds of the original time. Also, a minute will not be sixty seconds, but seventy-eight seconds. Furthermore, a day will have twenty-eight hours.”
He Tianlong’s requirement was exceptionally tricky. Writing a digital clock program was a basic introductory task for every programming student, so in itself, it wasn’t beyond the scope.
However, He Tianlong had altered the fundamental rules of days, hours, minutes, and seconds, making the task extremely difficult. Most importantly, Pingfan Ruwo couldn’t simply search for a program online to submit as his homework.
This approach was taught to He Tianlong by his own teacher. When He Tianlong had just enrolled and studied basic programming for a month, his teacher assigned this very task as classroom homework, requiring all students to complete it within twenty minutes.
As a result, only two students in the entire class completed the task. The rest were completely stumped and at a loss. Their teacher used this incident to mock them for over a year.
Whenever they became a bit complacent or made a mistake, their teacher would use this story to humiliate them severely.
Now, He Tianlong was using this same tactic to humiliate his own student… In truth, He Tianlong wasn’t that kind of person. When other students were tested, He Tianlong would give them ordinary numerical time problems. Even if the student clearly copied a program from the internet, He Tianlong wouldn’t expose them.
After all, he only charged fifty yuan, and there was no need to upset both parties. If the student got offended and left, losing fifty yuan a month, wouldn't that be a net loss?
Learning was a personal endeavor, and the knowledge gained was one's own wealth. It was laughable for someone to expect others to force them to master this wealth if they themselves were not willing to put in the effort.
He Tianlong was not their father or mother, needing to worry day and night about their future. If an adult didn’t understand these basic principles and resorted to deception, it was even more ridiculous.
Moreover, if someone entered the intermediate class with only a partial understanding, they would undoubtedly have more questions during their studies, perhaps requiring them to pay He Tianlong extra for consultations daily. This would also mean they spent more time in the group learning, which was a good thing!
But when dealing with Pingfan Ruwo, He Tianlong felt his temper flare. He was determined to make this guy, who liked to show off, realize that being too cocky yesterday was a mistake.
Three minutes later, a large block of code appeared in the chat interface with "00".
“Done!” Pingfan Ruwo said. “Teacher, please check it!”
“……” He Tianlong was stunned. He looked at the program, felt it seemed fine, then ran a simulation. It truly had no issues; it was the program he had requested.
Could this guy have found a program online and copied it?
But that didn't make sense, as He Tianlong was sure that the parameters he had randomly given were unique, and there wouldn't be a program with exactly the same parameters online.
“Perhaps this guy changed the parameters temporarily, which is possible, but the carry-over logic…” He Tianlong scratched his head in frustration.
Oh well, he couldn’t be bothered to manage it further. Letting the guy enter the intermediate class was fine; it would just mean one more student.
The so-called intermediate class was where content was learned after mastering the basic knowledge of programming and being able to write simple programs.
Due to the large number of people in the group, and the fact that they joined at different times and had different learning paces, it was impossible for He Tianlong to conduct lessons in the traditional manner, gathering a class of students to learn programming sequentially from simple to complex. This would only be possible if He Tianlong organized classes based on progress, but that would be too much for him to handle alone, requiring him to hire dedicated teachers.
With a monthly income of five thousand yuan, he couldn't afford a second teacher. He also didn't want to share the money he earned. Thus, He Tianlong had an innovative new idea: template-based teaching.
This meant that during each class, he would present a sample program, such as a digital clock, a robotic arm, or an electric vehicle control program – programs that were relatively simple and widely applicable.
Then, he would use one class period to explain the various knowledge points within this simple program. This way, even students who had just completed the introductory phase could earnestly begin to grasp program writing.
With proficiency in various simple programs, they could naturally comprehend the general principles of programming.
Of course, teaching through this method certainly couldn't cover all the knowledge points of intermediate programming comprehensively. The students taught this way would mostly be incomplete, incapable of writing more sophisticated programs.
However, it still possessed practical value. At the very least, they could write simple microcontroller programs, which had practical application. For instance, one of He Tianlong’s students, who reportedly opened a toy factory and was manufacturing and selling remote-controlled electric cars, had even earned a good amount of money. He once sent He Tianlong a thousand yuan as a token of gratitude.
However, the probability of cultivating true programmers through this method was extremely slim. Many later realized that He Tianlong’s approach was flawed and decisively dropped out to seek other avenues of learning. He Tianlong didn’t mind; he just wanted to earn a little money.
But his method seemed to be failing with Pingfan Ruwo.
Originally, He Tianlong would lecture, and the students would listen. They could only ask questions on the public screen, and He Tianlong would answer them if he chose to, ignoring those he didn’t want to address.
These questions were not counted towards the one question per person per day limit. However, Pingfan Ruwo began flooding the public screen with questions.
That was not all. Soon, He Tianlong despaired as he discovered that this guy was asking more and more profound questions, some of which he himself couldn't answer.
Although He Tianlong could refuse to answer, if he did so too often, students would surely doubt the teacher's capabilities.
Therefore, He Tianlong wished he could strangle this guy. At the same time, he resolved that once the month was up, he would no longer accept the twenty yuan from him, preventing him from undermining his authority.
But the problem was that there was still a considerable time left in the month. One day, when He Tianlong was cornered by his questions, he admitted directly, “My abilities are insufficient, I can’t teach a genius like you. You should withdraw from the course!”
“Refund my twenty yuan!” came the reply a few minutes later.
Seeing this response, He Tianlong panicked. He had finally managed to earn twenty yuan from this person, and now they wanted a refund? Was he trying to make him spit blood?
However, considering the possibility that this guy might spout nonsense in the group and damage his reputation, He Tianlong’s eyes darted, and he proposed, “How about this? I have a simple problem here. If you can solve it, I’ll refund your twenty yuan!”