Chapter 9 Lin's Family education
Originally the Lin's coming-of-age ceremony was not done stealthily nor with scheme. It was a normal farewell event. The Lin Family's child, when their age reached 16 years old, they would be brought to the backside of the mountain by their family members.
The backside of the mountain is their family's properties, inherited since the family's founding, the stronghold of the family's background and foundation. And only those from the family's bloodline may enter.
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Before reaching adulthood, each child of the family would first be trained appropriately.
They need to learn household skills since they were young kids. Things like doing laundry, cooking, baking, tea making, painting, managing finances and etcetera, were taught by their nanny at home when they were tasked to helped with household work since childhood.
When they start attending schools, they were expected to have already been taught the necessary social and communication skills to interact with others. So, for the juniors of the family, going to school was not only to receive formal education but also to learn and practice some of the skills learned at home.
At some point afterwards, they were also asked to learn mannerism, dancing, attending and hosting parties and balls, and various skills needed to socialize with nobles and aristocrat.
To allow children to relax and control their emotion, they were encouraged to take any arts courses they like as hobbies.
They can either take piano course, acting course, or they can even establish their own music band. They were not expected to become experts nor even master the skills to a high level. What were requested of them was at least to be proficient in them.
Moreover, if the children were interested, they may even participate in pottery, handicraft, needlework or even wine making.
The family does have some businesses in these industries and the children may go to the various workshops and lab to learn them.
In this way the children can use these hobbies to help them ease and control their mood.
It can also become a good topic in maintain relationships and to socialize with the so-called the elites and aristocrats. This way they may develop their own social circle and develop themselves in the future.
When they enter the age of 14, they would take leave from school and join the family's private army to train. The training did not only serve to improve the physical fitness and strength but also learned how to fight.
Though one particularity that differentiate them and regular army was that all children of the family must learn horse-riding, archery, shooting skills, hunting, and basic tracking and anti-tracking skills.
For practical lessons, they learn to fight and survive in the wild. Should the child be capable enough, they can choose to follow the captain, or even follow the army commander, acting as their assistant, and learn how an army was operated and managed.
This way they could even learn how logistics as well as how the flow of money and resources distribution work even without systematically learning economy.
These are the required and expected courses for the child of Lin's.
It may sound a lot to learn, but beside the arduous tasks and courses in the two years' experience in the army, other skills were taught over time slowly.
The household skills were taught since childhood by the nanny, allowing them to be independent.
The social and communication skill were taught slowly as they grow up, helping them to easily befriend with others.
They were only required to at least learn one art skill. It allows them to relax and control their mood and emotion.
Mannerism, dancing and the like, as an aristocrat family it was a must have skillset for any people in the high society. To mingle among the elites and aristocrat, one cannot show rude behavior and the crudeness of unable to dance, etc.
Finally, the two years military training was conducted to teach the children survival skills as well as how to defend themselves.
And as they celebrate their 16th birthday, after the birthday party celebration, they would be taken to see the ancestor for the coming-of-age ceremony.
The parents and family members would then properly bid their farewell to each other. The children would be repeatedly reminded of various precaution that they need to remember and abide.
After all things were said and done, the ancestor or the elder of the family would give each of them a spirit ring.
And under the watchful eye of everyone, the child would walk into the same garden at the pavilion's center. Climb up the white platform, wait for the spirit tree to response and grant the children his or her respective fruits that correspond to each of their aptitude.
Before finally being transmitted to the designated destination.
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However, for the bear child, his parents and grandparents were worried that the teenager would make trouble when the time comes.
He was someone who had passion in entertainment world. He might still have some attachment to Earth.
(Though unknown to the family, the real reason for him joining the entertainment industry was to confirm the authenticity of his eldest sister and elder brother story of starring in movies and showbiz)
He was someone who had pester his army commander to bring him onboard the military plane and almost jumping out of the plan, skydiving by himself, frightening his commander. The commander even swear he would never take him aboard an airplane again.
(Though as we all know, he just wants to feel how it was like to fly and maybe catch a flying sword in the sky).
And he was also someone who almost got lost in the jungle during military training.
(When was asked, he simply said hasn't found the hundreds-years -old snake in legend last time, thus wants to look for it again).
So, a mistake arising out of various misunderstandings over the years, the family rarely reach a unanimous understanding.
They felt the bear child would definitely cause trouble again and run away after obtaining his anticipated miracle fruit.
With his rashness personality, he could indeed have done that.
Thus, today's trick was set up among the adults. Even to ensure secrecy, they didn't tell the youngest sister about it, nor was it attended by their grandmother and relatives.
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Actually, when their eldest sister and elder brother underwent their own coming-of-age ceremony, the two youngest siblings did attend it. However, they were just too young at that time.
When eldest sister had her coming-of-age ceremony, the youngest sister was just one year old and when it was elder brother's turn, she was two years in age while the teenager was only four years old. So, the little ones didn't remember any of it.
Afterwards, although the two older siblings were missing from home, i.e., away from home, they did keep in touch with the family thus allowing the two young children to hear about them and were familiar with them.
And when the two came back wearing the weird costume, that was their formal face-to-face meeting. At that time the two young siblings had grown up.
The brother was almost 6 while the youngest sister was 4 years old. They were sensible enough to become aware of their surroundings.
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"Father, would the child be alright?"
Seeing the final moment of the transmission process and the sudden shadow that appear, the mother was agitated. They didn't expect that something out of expectation would occur.
In that final moment they saw a beast with scaled horse body, ox tail and protruding lump on its head. They recognize and know that it was a young Qilin.
Moreover, the grandfather even recognized it. It was the same Qilin that had brought them here earlier!