teaching
Inside the main room, Xiao Wan'er and Liu Mingyin looked at each other in bewilderment. After a moment's silence, Xiao Wan'er tentatively asked, "Junior brother, have you begun to learn?"
"Replying to Senior Sister, I have already been enlightened."
Xiao Wan'er breathed a sigh of relief and asked again, "What books have you read?"
"I have read all the Four Books."
Xiao Wan'er was overjoyed.
She went to the study, pulled out a copy of the Tao Te Ching, handed it to him, and instructed him, "The rules of our school require that upon entering the sect, a disciple must first read the Tao Te Ching. Since you've already read the Four Books, basic reading comprehension shouldn't be a problem. Start by understanding and reciting it yourself. If you don't understand something, come and ask me. If I can't explain it clearly, write it down and ask Master."
"Okay." Liu Mingyin obediently took the Tao Te Ching and sat down in the window seat to study on her own. Xiao Wan'er saw this and also took out the Taoist scripture she was studying and sat down in the wall seat to study on her own.
Near noon, Xiao Wan'er put down her book, grabbed some change, and walked out of the house, heading straight for the West Market. She walked into the West Market, looked around, and then went into a pastry shop. When she came out, she had already bought some delicious food.
Liu Mingyin had just finished studying when she saw Xiao Wan'er walk in with some cakes. She sat down cross-legged, placed the cakes on the table, divided them equally, and placed them in front of the two of them.
"I just bought some rice noodle soup from the West Market. You have martial arts training this afternoon, which will test your physical fitness, so you should eat something now."
Liu Mingyin looked at the rice cakes on the table. Before the Liu family fell, pastries had been his main meal. Now, they were only a midday snack, and the quality was far inferior to what had once graced the Liu family's table. When the Liu family was raided, the family was having dinner, and rice cakes were also their main meal. Back then, he thought he would never be able to eat them again.
He picked up the rice noodle and ate it very carefully. Then he looked at Xiao Wan'er solemnly: "It's delicious. Thank you, Senior Sister."
Xiao Wan'er smiled, "What's there to thank me for?"
After eating the pastries, Xiao Wan'er did not take Liu Mingyin to the main courtyard used as a training ground, but took him to the backyard between the main house and the back house. She also brought a hoe and vegetable seedlings brought back from the West Market, which made Liu Mingyin confused for a moment.
"Junior brother, do you know how to do horse stance?" Xiao Wan'er put the hoe and seedlings aside and solved her junior brother's problem first.
"I don't know." Liu Mingyin shook his head. When the Liu family was still alive, he learned the skills needed to be a civil servant and had never practiced martial arts in this way.
Xiao Wan'er demonstrated it on the spot.
"You do it like me, and you can't change your posture until I tell you to stop."
Liu Mingyin then obediently took up horse stance.
Seeing her apprentice brother was so obedient, Xiao Wan'er picked up a hoe and carved out two rectangles in the space between the back room and the east and west wing rooms, creating two plots of land. Using both her magic and the hoe, she cultivated the two rectangles into two plots of land. She then planted vegetable seedlings, thus creating two vegetable plots in her new home.
After finishing this, she looked at Liu Mingyin. Liu Mingyin was still in horse stance. After a long period of inactivity, his legs had begun to tremble, and sweat dripped onto the ground at his feet. But he hadn't reached his limit yet.
Xiao Wan'er simply stood aside and watched, and only let him stand up when he could no longer hold on.
"Don't stop, walk slowly. Do you want some water?" Seeing Liu Mingyin nod, Xiao Wan'er used her spiritual energy to transform it into water. "Open your mouth."
Liu Mingyin's mouth opened before his brain reacted, and then a small ball of water entered his mouth. He swallowed it reflexively and found that it was no different from ordinary water.
"Okay, keep walking slowly, don't stop." Xiao Wan'er used all the training Liuyun had given her back then on Liu Mingyin. Seeing that he was gradually recovering, she told him to jog around the yard. "Don't step on the vegetable patch!"
The front and back yards of this house were connected, so Liu Mingyin ran along the entire wall. It was past 3:00 PM, and Xiao Wan'er, seeing that Liu Mingyin still had some energy, went into the kitchen to cook.
Liu Mingyin was a little tired. Seeing Xiao Wan'er enter the kitchen, he wanted to slack off for a bit, but he didn't expect to hear a loud shout: "No slacking off!"
Liu Mingyin immediately resumed his original speed. He continued until he was truly exhausted. Then a voice came from the kitchen: "That's enough. Let's stop here for the afternoon."
Liu Mingyin sat down exhausted, feeling deeply impressed by the immortal's extraordinary abilities. Even without watching him, he could tell what he was doing. He waited until Xiao Wan'er called him for dinner before standing up and asking expectantly, "Senior Sister, how was my performance this afternoon?"
"It should be okay, right?" Xiao Wan'er had done terribly in the physical fitness test and didn't know what a good score was, so she was very uncertain about the conclusion she came to.
But Liu Mingyin's physical fitness is indeed stronger than Xiao Wan'er.
There was only porridge and boiled vegetables for dinner. Liu Mingyin was very tired and didn't eat much. After the meal, the burden of washing the dishes fell on Liu Mingyin's shoulders.
"Since I'm the one cooking, you should wash the dishes," Xiao Wan'er said. Suddenly, she thought of something and hurriedly asked Liu Mingyin for confirmation. "Have you ever washed dishes before? You won't break them, will you?"
Liu Mingyin was speechless.
"Don't worry, Senior Sister, it won't happen."
Liu Mingyin went to wash the dishes. As for Xiao Wan'er, she had to store the two dinners left for Liuyun and Pei Yingguan and reheat them when they returned.
After dinner, Liu Mingyin reviewed his morning lessons while Xiao Wan'er practiced his magic. Liu Mingyin's homework wasn't heavy, and he finished it quickly, so Xiao Wan'er paused and took him back to his room.
After that, they taught Liu Mingyin how to meditate. While Liu Mingyin wasn't as quick as Xiao Wan'er, it only took him half an hour. Seeing that he had settled into a state of meditation, Xiao Wan'er stretched and left his room. Just then, Liu Yun and Pei Yingguan finally returned home from their shift.
"Master, Senior Brother, have you had dinner yet?"
"Not yet," Liuyun and Pei Yingguan placed their weapons on the weapon rack at the gate, "Have you eaten yet?"
"I've eaten. You and your brother's dinner is in the kitchen. Just heat it up."
Pei Yingguan went to heat it up, and Liuyun and Xiao Wan'er went into the main room together.
"How is your junior brother today?" Liuyun asked Liu Mingyin as soon as he sat down.
"Junior brother, he has already read the Four Books and can read the Tao Te Ching on his own. His physical fitness is slightly better than mine, but I can't say how good it is, as I lack talent in that area. As for meditation, it took him half an hour to achieve it."
Liuyun nodded, "Your senior brother and I are both on duty now, so I'll leave the task of teaching your junior brother to you."
Pei Yingguan arrived carrying dinner, and Xiao Wan'er stood up to take her leave. Before leaving, Liuyun stopped her and said, "From now on, you and your junior brother don't have to eat breakfast with us. You can follow the time you have at the temple."
The next morning, when Xiao Wan'er finished her meditation, Liu Yun and Pei Yingguan had indeed left. There were two breakfasts in the kitchen, so Xiao Wan'er heated them up and went to call Liu Mingyin.
Liu Mingyin was still meditating, and only when Xiao Wan'er patted him did he come back to his senses. Just as he was about to stand up, the pain in his muscles nearly made him fall onto the bed.
"Pfft," Xiao Wan'er's laughter made him blush. Seeing him like this, Xiao Wan'er laughed even more happily. "I was like this when I first started learning martial arts. You'll get used to it slowly, brother. Now, come with me for breakfast."
After breakfast, they began studying the sutras. Xiao Wan'er handed Liu Mingyin a set of brushes, inkstones, and paper. "Write down what you learned yesterday. Once you've memorized it, you can start studying new things."
"Yes." Seeing Liu Mingyin doing as she was told, Xiao Wan'er also began to study. When the time came, she went to the West Market to buy lunch snacks as usual. This time, she bought cherry biro.
In the afternoon, after letting Liu Mingyin stretch his muscles, Xiao Wan'er threw him a sword like Liuyun did back then, and then demonstrated the most basic sword moves of her sect.
"The sword is the king of all weapons. All disciples of Biyun Temple must first master the art of swordsmanship before learning other weapons."
Then, he broke down the sword moves. At this point, Xiao Wan'er finally understood how Liu Yun felt when he taught her the sword technique—Liu Mingyin was learning swordsmanship much faster than she was at the time.
After pondering for a while, Xiao Wan'er decided to speak the truth: "I have very little talent for martial arts, so I'm afraid I can't teach you much. Starting tomorrow, you will do as I did back then: swing your sword a hundred times every afternoon, then learn every single sword move. When Master and Senior Brothers are on their days off, you can ask them for their advice."
"Okay." Liu Mingyin agreed.
Unlike the awkwardness she felt during martial arts class, Xiao Wan'er's forte was magic. She had already mastered the technique Liuyun had used to visualize her mind that day, and that very evening, she used it on Liu Mingyin. Afterward, she waited a full hour for Liu Mingyin to successfully extract the spiritual energy from her body.
Liu Mingyin was elated after successfully extracting the spiritual energy, so he asked Xiao Wan'er, "Sister, how long did it take you to successfully extract the spiritual energy?"
There was more pity in Xiao Wan'er's eyes when she looked at him.
"Senior Sister, I succeeded on my second try." Seeing his smile froze, she kindly added, "But it doesn't matter. At least you're better than your senior brother. Master said it took him a whole night."
Liu Mingyin's confidence was finally restored, and Xiao Wan'er introduced him to the three realms of entering the Tao, transcending the ordinary, and returning to the true self, and then gave him the introductory books on magic that she had learned.
"Calling on spiritual energy is only the first step. After that, you must learn to use spiritual energy to cast spells. This book records the most basic spells. Start from the beginning and learn one by one."
Then she watched Liu Mingyin begin to condense the five elements. He still wasn't as fast as Xiao Wan'er, and only just before he entered into meditation did he successfully condense a water ball. As he finished his practice, Xiao Wan'er left his room. As she emerged, she saw Liu Yun guarding the door.
"Junior brother has mastered the first basic sword technique quite skillfully, and he just successfully condensed a water ball. As for studying the Tao Te Ching, I haven't interfered. Everything is up to him," Xiao Wan'er reported the entire day's teaching progress to Liuyun conscientiously, adding, "There are some things I can't teach him, so I think Master might need to teach him in person during his rest time."
"Well, this is a relatively normal progression," Liuyun commented. "Your senior brother and you, one is very fast at martial arts but knows almost nothing about magic, while the other has very poor martial arts talent but learns magic very quickly. This is actually quite rare."
Seeing that his young disciple had no problem in learning, Liuyun completely handed the task over to Xiao Wan'er, and only answered his questions during his rest time.
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