Nearly a month had passed since he became Bai Chen’s disciple.
Throughout the entire month, Tu Xiao had immersed himself in the Pavilion of Scriptures, as Bai Chen had told him to read more immortal texts and ancient classics.
As for reading ten thousand scrolls and naturally mastering the principles of the Dao…
Little did Bai Chen know, there were some traditional characters that Tu Xiao didn’t even recognize. He could only guess and muddle his way through them, having no grasp of their actual meanings whatsoever.
The only area that showed improvement was his sword technique. From a little good-for-nothing who could barely hold a sword at first, he had turned into a little swordsman who could wield his blade at will.
He felt pretty great about himself, but his Shizun did not seem entirely satisfied.
Bai Chen was busy every single day, sometimes remaining out of sight for several days on end. The number of times he laid eyes on his master this month could easily be counted on the fingers of two hands, leaving him no opportunity to ask Shizun about the things he couldn’t understand in the books.
Surely Shizun doesn’t think I can be like him, possessing a natural-born talent for cultivation?
That just reading a single book could turn me into a peerless prodigy! He didn’t even know half of the characters properly.
Just as he was agonizing over how to handle future pop quizzes, a sound transmission talisman arrived, and its contents were simply an invitation to a meal.
“The dining hall has new dishes, want to go try them?”
The sender was Lin Wutong, a newly accepted disciple of the Immortal this year. Just like Tu Xiao, he was also a connection-hire who hadn’t gone through the selection trials, getting directly designated as a personal disciple.
Because he became a disciple of Xinjing Mountain through an exception, and served as the primary senior disciple of Immortal Hengchen, he was extremely unpopular among this year’s crop of disciples.
There was no helping it; lucky people were never well-liked, a fact he could understand as long as they didn’t run around causing trouble right in front of him.
Only Lin Wutong felt not a shred of jealousy. Gentle-tempered, he didn’t join in the others’ ostracization.
The original text’s description of Lin Wutong was sparse, amounting to mere passing strokes and summarized in a single sentence: an unfavored imperial princess of the royal family, who had her legs injured by members of her own family and was sent off to Xinjing Mountain—a place you could enter but never leave.
Perhaps she died in the end, or perhaps she didn’t; he didn’t retain a deep impression of this transparent character.
Perhaps out of a sense of mutual sympathy since both were unloved outcasts on the mountain they frequently arranged to go to the dining hall for meals together.
Still, having a pretty meal-companion wasn’t a terrible thing.
It was just that recently, everyone had started worshiping the practice of biggu (abstaining from grain), and Lin Wutong was no exception. He didn’t understand it; if you were going to mistreat anything, you shouldn’t mistreat your own taste buds.
Before he even stepped out of his courtyard, he ran headfirst into Shizun, who was walking in the opposite direction.
“Good morning, Shizun.”
He flashed his standard eight-tooth smile at Shizun, a vague, ominous premonition stirring in his heart.
He raised his eyes to steal a glance at Shizun’s expression, which remained detached and self-contained as ever.
Why doesn’t Shizun smile more often? With such a gorgeous face, he’d definitely look even better when smiling.
Oh wow!
Such a beautiful white blossom, its stamen still carrying the fresh dew of early morning.
Tu Xiao stared with wide eyes, looking at Shizun in disbelief. “Is this flower for me? I’ll definitely take good care of…”
Before words of cherishing could slip past his lips, he watched as the flower transformed into a white medicinal pill right in Shizun’s hand. Whether it was his imagination or not, he thought he saw the corners of Shizun’s lips curve upward, though it vanished as quickly as a flash in the pan.
He must have been seeing things.
“Medicine refined from Heavenly Mountain snow lotus will give you a better chance at condensing your spiritual core. Eat it.”
The pill wasn’t pleasant to swallow, carrying a sweet yet bitter aftertaste. Chewing and enduring it simultaneously, Tu Xiao rasped, “Thank you, Shizun.”
Bai Chen brushed past him sideways, only to turn back a moment later and pull a fresh Heavenly Mountain snow lotus out from his wide sleeve.
“Here’s another one for you to play with.”
“Shizun!?”
Tu Xiao froze for a moment, then took it with delight.
“Shizun is truly so good to his disciple.”
He really should have kicked himself just moments ago for thinking that Shizun was deliberately teasing him.
Just as he prepared to grab Shizun’s sleeve and properly act spoiled, he was quizzed on how his cultivation had been progressing lately and whether he had made any headway.
Seeing that Shizun was about to walk away again, he lifted his chin and pouted.
“Shizun hasn’t been teaching me properly, only bossing me around without caring whether I understand or not. I… I’m not blessed with extraordinary talent like Shizun; I don’t understand those ancient classics at all, and I don’t even recognize all the characters. Doing poorly in my studies shouldn’t be blamed on me.”
Shizun appeared approachable yet remained unapproachable, feeling as though he were separated by a layer of frosted glass. Tu Xiao felt a bit cowed and somewhat terrified; after all, nobody liked a slow-witted disciple, just as teachers only favored top students.
Just as he readied himself to apologize, he heard Shizun’s soft voice coming from above.
“It’s… my consideration that was lacking. From now on, I will come by every day, and Xiao can ask me whatever he doesn’t understand all at once.”
It turned out differently from what he had expected; he had thought he would be reprimanded for making excuses. Tu Xiao’s drooping head instantly snapped up, and he nodded vigorously to say alright.
At the garden of Jingzi Mountain, Bai Chen stood along the covered walkway, looking as pristine as a bright moon.
At this moment, moonlight fell upon the long sword in Tu Xiao’s hand, and the sword-flower he spun out was dazzlingly brilliant, possessing quite a bit of moonlight-swordplay aesthetic beauty the only flaw being that it was all for show.
Clang!
A sliver of faint light broke into the center of the sword-flower, striking squarely against the spine of Tu Xiao’s sword without a single deviation.
That speck of light was merely a twig that Bai Chen had casually snapped off. Tu Xiao only felt a condensed force shoot straight through his wrist bones, his palm stinging so badly that his long sword nearly flew out of his grasp, forcing him to stumble backward several steps before steadying his footing.
Pinching that twig, Bai Chen casually flicked his fingertips, causing pale-yellow ginkgo leaves to rustle down in a cascade.
He raised his eyes to look at his disciple, his gaze devoid of anger, holding only a quiet, scrutinizing assessment.
“Xiao, if you merely mimic the appearance, you will ultimately fail to grasp the essentials,” his voice wasn’t loud, yet it felt like a cool morning breeze blowing straight to Tu Xiao’s earlobes: “You need to steady your wrist to control the blade’s edge, rotate your waist to transmit power, let your shoulders guide your arms, and achieve the unity of body and sword.”
Mid-sentence, Shizun somehow appeared right behind him, guiding his sword-gripping hand and attentively walking him through the movements once from start to finish.
Being guided through the practice versus practicing on your own made a massive difference, and the effect was far more pronounced.
“Shizun, I feel like I’ve made great progress already, though compared to Shizun, I’m still a thousand miles behind.”
“After all, what kind of person is Shizun? As the saying goes, ‘without taking small steps, one cannot cover a thousand miles,’ so this disciple still needs to take things step by step.”
“Therefore, if I haven’t mastered it by now, can we go eat first?”
The sun had already descended from the east to the west; if he didn’t eat something soon, he was going to starve to death.
“Eat? You’re still thinking about eating.”
With a slight flick of his wrist, that twig materialized once more, striking Tu Xiao’s forehead with a moderate, crisp thack.
Withdrawing the twig, Shizun’s voice finally carried a hint of unquestionable firmness.
“Go on, execute three thousand sword-strikes.”
“Every single strike must be loud enough for the sound of breaking wind to be heard. After that, head to the Pavilion of Scriptures this master will be testing you with a pop quiz.”
Rubbing his slightly reddened forehead, Tu Xiao watched the crisp arc stirred up by Shizun’s snow-white sleeve as he turned away. Daring not to act spoiled, he obediently picked up his sword.
With his delicate wrists and frail little hands, wouldn’t he be unable to even hold his chopsticks tonight after finishing three thousand strikes?
Whoever loved swinging a sword could go do it; he wasn’t going to, he wanted to eat.
He refused to believe that Shizun could really stand guard over him the whole time.
Catching Tu Xiao sneaking a surreptitious glance backward, he unfortunately locked eyes with Shizun’s sharp gaze, which felt as though it could nail him to the spot in the next second.
“Hehehe, Shizun, the wind it was just the wind blowing into my eyes, I’m starting right now!”
Grinning with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he turned back around with utter awkwardness: “One, two, three… one thousand and three…”
His quota of three thousand sword-strikes was drastically shortened by him, slashing through a mere three hundred.
Afterward, he pattered over at a trot, calling out to Shizun who sat with his eyes closed in meditation: “Shizun, Shizun, let’s go to the Pavilion of Scriptures.”
“You’ve made progress, your speed is quite fast. This master couldn’t even hear the wind of three thousand strikes.”
Meeting Shizun’s profound gaze along with the subtext in his words, Tu Xiao hurriedly averted his gaze to help Shizun up to his feet.
“Let’s go, Shizun. There are many books in the Pavilion of Scriptures that Xiao finds baffling; if we go any later, they’re all going to close their doors and go to sleep.”
Little did he know that the Pavilion of Scriptures on Jingzi Mountain had a curfew and that its books went into hibernation.
Ah well, he wouldn’t argue with him.