Chapter 81

After being away from school for seven or eight years, Buck finally returned to the classroom.

He was never a fan of school as a child, so his grades were always poor. Buck also felt that he wasn't cut out for studying. By the time he reached middle school, he was even more mischievous, and his frequent scoldings from his father, Bada, were a source of public satisfaction.

They say that children of the poor grow up fast. Most of the kids in the dormitory area had only one path to success—studying hard. Many of them scored over 600 points on the college entrance exam and leaped from the dragon gate, but Buck only managed a little over 300. He originally planned to work after high school, but his parents, who had suffered from a lack of education, refused. They were willing to deplete their meager savings to send him to college!

It was just a few ten thousand yuan. Even a mediocre university would be embarrassed to accept such a small sponsorship fee, and there was a good chance he wouldn't find a job after graduation. Little Buck, who had some sense, couldn't bear to see their hard-earned money go to waste, and the two sides were at odds.

At this time, an old colleague who worked on international trains to the northwest of Xinjiang brought back some news. Studying in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union countries was very cheap, and the visa process was easier. It was more cost-effective than attending a good university in China.

So, after a month of intensive Russian language training, Buck, who could barely say a few greeting phrases, set off in a daze!

Among the dozens of students from all over the country who went to the same country and city, most returned with mediocre results, and few became successful. Buck, who had dropped out of the preparatory class, was the only one who stumbled and eventually made it to where he is now.

Does he regret it?

Buck has never regretted it. He even thanks life and fate for giving him such experiences. Of course, it would have been better if the hardships had been less severe. The trials of blood and fire made him grow and understand things faster than ordinary people, shaping his current mindset. This mindset, in a sense, is his greatest asset, even surpassing any skills, whether for killing or saving lives.

One always regrets not having studied enough when the need arises. Buck finally realized the importance of education to himself. After a brief period of confusion and indecision upon returning to China, he began to break free from those emotions and decided to find his direction.

Of course, the complex and varied content of the courses during the enrollment period also contributed to his decision to quit his job and focus on studying.

Interior design art movements and styles, spatial design, lighting design, indoor greening design, furniture design, color design, decorative arts, design materials and applications...

Just hearing about these subjects made the 8,000 yuan interior design training program seem high-end and prestigious.

Indeed, the prospectus Fang Lingying found for Buck listed various training programs ranging from 2,000 to 8,000 yuan per term. Buck, with the mindset that cheap things are no good, chose the most expensive one. Mainly because the four-month course would end just in time for the Spring Festival, when his funds would be available.

What could you learn in a one or two-month short-term training program? And after that, would you just find another short-term job?

Buck isn't the type to do things haphazardly. He is trying to adapt to a society he has been away from for a long time, understanding different things to see how he should live after leaving the battlefield.

Of course, this training program isn't in a university campus but in a large industrial warehouse area next to the campus. Rows of warehouses have been converted into studios or workshops, and the "First Design Training Institution" is hidden among them, quite unremarkable.

From the name of the training institution, it's clear that it's a private company operating on the fringes, without any national accreditation to issue certificates. It offers a wide range of courses, from pre-college art training to computer graphic design, interior design, traditional Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, watercolor, and even children's art!

In simple terms, it's a hodgepodge of training programs capitalizing on the talent pool of the art college, with questionable depth in any specific field.

Buck parked his motorcycle in the yard of the factory building, which was covered in artistic graffiti, and still drew some attention. Although his weathered appearance made him look older, his neat, clean light blue shirt and jeans, along with his backpack, were well-supported by his tall, muscular build. Combined with his white motorcycle and black athletic shoes, he presented a high-quality image of a mature man.

A few groups of women exchanged observations quietly.

Buck showed his payment receipt and was respectfully led inside by a receptionist who clearly worked part-time and had no artistic flair.

From this, Buck knew that not many people were foolish enough to pay 8,000 yuan for such a program.

Sure enough, after waiting in the small classroom for half an hour, about thirty students of various ages, from teenagers to people in their forties and fifties, trickled in. This only confirmed his suspicion that he had joined a makeshift operation!

Especially when the students started chatting and he overheard that most had paid around 2,000 yuan for basic training, and a few had paid 3,000 to 5,000 yuan for intermediate skills, Buck, the only one who had paid for the full package, couldn't help but roll his eyes. Fortunately, he hadn't had high expectations.

It wasn't the first time he had been scammed into such a fly-by-night training program. It felt like being sent to a university in Ukraine's second-largest city for a preparatory class, surrounded by cheap international students from all over China.

So, Buck actually smiled, life always has its twists and turns.

As everyone finished sizing each other up, the men focused their attention on the few girls, and the girls naturally huddled together for security. A middle-aged, overweight man wiped the sweat from his face and walked in unhurriedly. He wore a casual suit with an unbuttoned white shirt collar, and his demeanor clearly marked him as not a student. He walked to the front of the classroom and clapped his hands twice: "Welcome to the First Design Training Institution. This will be the starting point of your career. I am the general manager and your principal, Wu Xianhao. If you have any work or study-related matters, feel free to contact me. Here is my phone number..." He wrote a phone number on the blackboard and placed a stack of business cards on the podium, then gestured to the back of the room: "Without further ado, since you are here to learn, let me introduce your first professional instructor, Mr. He! Welcome!"

He started clapping, and the students, including Buck, who clapped rhythmically, responded with sparse applause.

A young man with a flushed face, clearly lacking teaching experience, walked in without looking at the students and almost tripped on his way to the podium!

Standing next to Wu Xianhao, his face turned even redder, making the other students, who had paid less, feel uneasy.

Fortunately, the training wasn't so shabby that students had to copy the textbooks by hand. Wu Xianhao clapped his hands again, and the receptionist and two other young people brought in a stack of books and distributed them. The textbooks were the same for both the 2,000 yuan and 8,000 yuan students.

A black-covered book titled "Principles and Techniques of Drawing Perspective" priced at 25 yuan.

A black-and-white photocopied self-made textbook titled "First Design Institution Interior Design Essentials," which might be worth five yuan, as it was only a dozen pages!

The students immediately started murmuring, but Buck didn't join in, just flipping through the books to see how Principal Wu would handle it.