At this time, Henry Faulkner had already served as the director of the main assembly workshop for more than half a year. He had truly stepped onto the right track of a leadership position—not only responsible for the workshop’s work, but also often traveling on business with the factory leaders to other places. As a result, all the household chores were shouldered solely by Grace Bolton. Fortunately, Edward Faulkner’s older brother and sister were now able to help out, and Edward Faulkner himself was surprisingly worry-free, so Grace Bolton felt that things at home were actually not that troublesome.

However, the teachers at school were all very curious when they saw Grace Bolton bringing her just-over-two-year-old child to work.

“Teacher Zhang, um, will bringing your child into the classroom affect teaching?” The principal felt it necessary to remind Grace Bolton.

The principal glanced at Grace Bolton’s youngest son. Although he was very adorable and seemed well-behaved now, who could guarantee that he wouldn’t start wailing during class and disrupt the lesson? Parents were becoming increasingly concerned about their children’s academic performance. If a teacher bringing her own child into the classroom led to a decline in students’ grades, what would the parents think? What would the school do? This was something that had to be addressed up front.

Before Grace Bolton could respond, Edward Faulkner beside her spoke up first, “Hello, Principal Grandpa. Please don’t worry, I won’t break classroom rules. Mom brought me here just so I could experience the classroom atmosphere and learn a bit from the older brothers and sisters.”

The principal was stunned. While it was true that children over two could communicate a lot with adults, he had never seen a case like Grace Bolton’s youngest son, who could express himself so clearly and articulately!

“This child is bound to achieve great things when he grows up!” the principal said, hitting the nail on the head as he patted Edward Faulkner’s head.

Grace Bolton was long used to Edward Faulkner’s abilities. Seeing him handle the principal so smoothly saved her the trouble of explaining, so she took her son, bid farewell to the principal, and went into the classroom.

Just as Edward Faulkner had said, after the initial novelty wore off, the other children quickly got used to his presence. Because Edward Faulkner never disrupted the class—he simply flipped through his mother Grace Bolton’s teaching reference books and textbooks. No one knew he could read the words, nor would anyone have imagined it.

A child not yet three years old, able to read without any formal education—if this news got out, it would probably shock a lot of people. Edward Faulkner was well aware of this and kept silent, quietly reading. Fortunately, these books were really quite simple for him. After a period of preparation, he was finally able to tell his mom that he had completely mastered everything in those books.

“Could you find me some books from the library to read?” This was Edward Faulkner’s request.

Grace Bolton was a fifth-grade Chinese teacher, and a rather accomplished one at that. In addition to her main duties, she also had to take on some extra work, such as writing materials for the school.

At first, she just thought her son was a bit of a prodigy, with early mental development. But now, with Edward Faulkner claiming to have finished all the fifth-grade textbooks, she found it hard to accept.

The result was that, after grilling Edward Faulkner on the questions from the textbooks, she was left speechless. Fifteen mini-test papers, and Edward Faulkner got every single one right, even correcting a few debatable questions. Grace Bolton had nothing more to say and simply brought back a huge stack of books from the library for him.

From then on, there was an extra unofficial student in the fifth-grade classroom. While his mother Grace Bolton taught lessons at the front, Edward Faulkner sat quietly at the back, flipping through books, each minding their own business. For several years, this became a unique sight at the school.

In April, the National Education Work Conference was held in Beijing. The meeting called for improving the quality of education and raising the level of science and culture teaching, pointing out that education must meet the needs of national economic development, that teachers’ work should be respected, and that the quality of teachers should be improved. This speech pointed the way forward for education in the new era.

While Edward Faulkner was reading widely, he also paid close attention to current events, never missing any of the newspapers the school subscribed to. When he saw that Deng Gong had already become chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and was frequently appearing at various party, government, and military meetings, he knew that his own spring was about to arrive.

Soon after, on May 11, Guangming Daily published a special commentator’s article titled “Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth.” That same day, Xinhua News Agency reprinted the article. On the 12th, both People’s Daily and PLA Daily published it as well. The article discussed the Marxist view that practice comes first, pointing out that any theory must be tested by practice, and that the treasure trove of Marxist theory is not a pile of rigid, unchanging dogma, but must constantly be enriched with new content through practice.

Looking at the bold headlines in the newspaper, Edward Faulkner suddenly felt that, though these print media were crude, they were also quite endearing. He could fully imagine that a great ideological transformation was about to erupt, that people would finally break free from the shackles of their thinking and move toward a life of happiness that belonged to them.

The footsteps of spring were drawing ever closer.