In the art room, Dorothy felt a hint of confusion as she held the stone cube. In her previous life, she had studied a bit of art, and logically, shouldn't still-life sketching use plaster casts? She had never seen stones used.
After placing the stone cube back on the low table, Dorothy took advantage of the teacher rearranging the still life to go to the cabinet at the edge of the classroom. She looked at the lifelike plaster busts on the cabinet and reached out to touch them.
'These busts are also stone... they just have a layer of white powder on them to look like plaster. Is this school that extravagant? Using stone sculptures for still-life sketching... and so many of them...'
Looking at the entire row of various lifelike stone busts displayed on the cabinet, she couldn't help but feel confused.
Plaster casts and stone sculptures are very different. Plaster casts only require making a mold, pouring plaster into it, and waiting for it to dry. As long as the mold exists, they can be mass-produced, making the cost very low.
Stone sculptures, on the other hand, are different. They require a whole stone to be slowly carved by hand. Both the time and effort required are much longer than making plaster casts. Therefore, generally, still-life sketching in art classes, whether drawing geometric shapes or heads, uses plaster casts. A meticulously carved stone sculpture can be placed on a street as a landmark.
But this school is quite impressive. Not only does it use stone sculptures as still-life subjects for students in the art room, but there are also so many of them. More importantly, these head sculptures are all carved so lifelike, with very high detail, and each one is unique. You can tell they are the work of masters at a glance.
Thinking of this, Dorothy recalled that many other places in this school also seemed to display a considerable number of various stone sculptures. Does this school have some stone carving master?
For a moment, Dorothy couldn't help but feel a hint of doubt. Carrying this doubt, after finishing her painting and waiting for class to end, she planned to find someone to ask. As for who to ask, she already had a candidate in mind.
During the lunch break, the increasingly hot sun baked the campus. In a corridor somewhere in the school, an old school worker was wiping a half-body stone sculpture standing by the roadside.
The school worker looked serious and wiped very carefully, not missing any detail on the sculpture. The ear canal, under the nose, the curve of the eyebrows, inside the collar, and even under the eyelids were not missed, and he wiped them clean meticulously.
Just as the old school worker was working with a serious expression, a voice came from beside him.
"Mr. Dean, there are some things I'd like to ask."
Hearing this voice, the old school worker was suddenly startled. He then turned his head and saw a white-haired girl standing beside him, wearing a black girls' school uniform and a polite smile. A hint of confusion then appeared on his face.
"May I ask who this Miss is..."
"Dorothy Mesi Horse. Have you forgotten? We met before, not long ago, on my first day of enrollment." Dorothy reminded him with a smile, and the old school worker named Dean also nodded.
"Oh, I remember now. Thank you both, you and your brother, very much back then. But what's the matter now, Miss Mesi Horse?" Dean smiled slightly and then spoke to Dorothy in a slightly aged voice, and Dorothy immediately replied.
"It's like this, Mr. Dean, I've noticed that there are so many exquisite sculptures in the school, especially in the art room. You don't see this phenomenon anywhere else. Do you know the origin of these sculptures?" Dorothy asked the old school worker in front of her with curiosity. She had already inquired about his name before this and knew that he had worked at the school for many years.
"Heh heh... Interested in those sculptures? That's understandable. Other places where you can cultivate art don't have such exquisite still life subjects. After all, these aren't defective products cast from plaster and molds. Every one of them is incredibly detailed and lifelike. Any shopkeeper could use them as their prized possession."
Listening to Dorothy's words, a clear smile appeared on Dean's face, and he continued to speak.
"These sculptures are all carved by Mr. Aldrich, the principal of this school. That Captain is a master in sculpture. He likes to display the things he has carved in the school for students to sketch and to cultivate the artistic atmosphere of the entire school. He also hopes that one day this school can produce more artists..."
"The principal of this school... Aldrich?"
Looking at the smiling old school worker in front of her, Dorothy's expression fell into thought.
...
In the afternoon, in a classroom, a religious teacher with graying temples and glasses was passionately reading the doctrines of the Shining Light Church on the podium. The students below were praying and taking notes, while in the second to last row by the window at the back of the classroom, Dorothy was propping her head up, gazing boredly at the scene outside the window.
He could see the old school worker Dean in the garden downstairs, carrying a large pair of scissors and moving around nimbly, diligently trimming the plants in the garden. The gardening he did was neat and beautiful, very aesthetically pleasing.
'It's necessary to confirm a bit... I'm a bit bored anyway...'
While thinking, Dorothy glanced at the religious teacher on the podium, then took out a box from her satchel. After pulling it open, she put on the Corpse Puppet Ring inside, and then a large gecko crawled out of Dorothy's pocket.
Wearing the Corpse Puppet Ring, Dorothy controlled the gecko to quietly crawl out of the classroom and into the entire campus, and Dorothy's senses also extended through this.
...
The sun gradually set, and the day quickly passed.
At dusk, it was time for Saint Amanda School to finish for the day. For Dorothy, it was finally time to end the day's torment and go home.
Of course, Dorothy could go home after school, which didn't mean Saint Amanda School was a day school. On the contrary, it was a full boarding school. The reason Dorothy could go home was because she was a girl.
The discrimination prevalent in education during this era was severe, not only in terms of social class but also in terms of gender.
Before the Industrial Revolution, opportunities for women to receive education were almost non-existent. For noble women, at most they would hire private tutors. Grammar schools and even universities like Saint Amanda were exclusively boys' schools, and boys also boarded at the school.
After the Industrial Revolution, the status of women improved slightly. Some secondary schools began to accept female students. Children of the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and citizens with economic means like Dorothy began to be able to attend secondary school.
Of course, this was not a widespread phenomenon. There were still many secondary schools that adhered to the tradition of being boys' schools. Schools like Saint Amanda that were willing to admit female students and change from boys' schools to co-educational schools were considered pioneers of the era. However, they also made certain concessions to tradition, such as limiting the proportion of female students, and the current rule that female students cannot board.
If a large number of female and male students boarded together, even with strict separation of dormitories, conservative elements in society would consider it indecent.
The inability of female students to board was not necessarily good news for them, as it meant they would miss many evening classes, leading to a gap in academic performance compared to male students.
However, none of this mattered to Dorothy. She felt that the fewer of those bizarre classes she had to listen to, the better. Classes like general mathematics, logic, art, and grammar were fine, but religious class and etiquette class were truly unbearable for her. Unless they provided Spirituality, she didn't want to listen at all.
Just like that, as usual, Dorothy and a group of young ladies walked towards the school gate in the sunset, and many carriages were already waiting at the school gate.
Many noble and bourgeois young ladies had their own carriages for pick-up and drop-off at this time. Those who, like Dorothy, could not afford their own exclusive carriage, could only take a taxi home.
Fortunately, knowing that many students at Saint Amanda School needed to take carriages when school ended, some freelance carriage drivers would usually park their carriages at the school gate. Dorothy used to take these carriages home, and the fare wasn't expensive anyway.
Slowly, Dorothy walked out of the school gate with her satchel. As usual, she scanned the area where carriage drivers usually gathered, but she didn't see any freelance carriage drivers.
'Strange... shouldn't there be several parked here at this time?'
Seeing this scene, Dorothy thought in confusion. Just then, the sound of hooves came from a distance. Dorothy turned her head and saw a carriage being driven by a coachman coming towards her from afar, and then it stopped steadily in front of her.
"Miss, would you like a ride?"
The coachman on the carriage looked down at Dorothy and said with a smile, and Dorothy was slightly startled.
'I was just looking for a carriage... and one showed up? Is this a bit too coincidental? This guy seems to have driven over only after seeing me come out...'
"Hmm... let me think about it for a moment..."
Pretending to consider, Dorothy secretly activated the Corpse Puppet Ring, causing the gecko hiding in her pocket to peek its eyes out slightly to observe the surroundings, especially her blind spots.
Then, she discovered that two adults wearing hats and trench coats had approached her from behind at some point. They were pretending to read newspapers while staring at Dorothy in front of them.
'It seems... I've been targeted...'
Seeing this scene, Dorothy took a deep breath, then, as if she had made up her mind, looked at the coachman in front of her and said.
"Alright, please take me to Nanyang Flower Road, Captain."
"Understood, Miss. Please come up."
Listening to the coachman's words, Dorothy walked forward, then accidentally slipped and fell.
"Ouch~"
"Are you alright, Miss!"
Seeing this, the coachman quickly got off the carriage to help Dorothy up, and Dorothy took the opportunity to glance at the coachman's waist.
There, a gun holster was hanging...
'He has a gun...'
"Thank you..."
While thanking him, Dorothy was helped into the carriage by the coachman. Then, the coachman drove the carriage forward.
Seeing this scene, the men who had been standing behind Dorothy exchanged glances, then walked towards a corner at a distant intersection. Before long, two more carriages drove out from the corner, following the carriage Dorothy was in.
On the gravel road, a gecko watched the three carriages leave, then quickly crawled back into the campus.