Not until Zhang Chen finished his meal, raced to wash the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and tidied up the courtyard did he finally take his leave from his master.
As Zhang Chen stepped out the door and Han Suzhen bolted it before returning indoors, Chen Sanliang snorted coldly, "Your disciple is truly disrespectful, he doesn’t show any respect for elders. I ate with him, and he didn’t show even a grain of courtesy."
"What does he have to do with you?" Han Suzhen sat at the table, opening the paper-wrapped candied fruits and merrily popped one into her mouth, dismissively retorting.
"I’m his grandmaster, his elder, how can we have nothing to do with each other?" Chen Sanliang retorted grumpily.
"You don’t even look at him directly, yet you expect him to cater to you nonetheless. Is his brain made of holes to let you trample over him?" Han Suzhen countered displeasedly, "You’re the kind of relic so stuck in your ways, clinging onto the old nobility’s rules even while you’ve fallen on hard times, it’s utterly ridiculous."
Chen Sanliang was left speechless, silently sitting there in annoyance.
"Want some candied fruits?" Han Suzhen picked up a piece and leisurely asked, "It’s been many years since I’ve had this, I can’t remember if it’s been ten or twenty years."
At her words, Chen Sanliang’s throat moved, his eyes setting on the candied fruits, he managed a single word from his mouth: "Yes!"
At that, Han Suzhen smiled, refraining from further mocking, and simply pushed the candied fruits back towards him.
Outside, the sky had already dimmed. Zhang Chen bought some candied fruits, slipped them into his sleeve, and then took out a small fabric tube he had sewn earlier to carefully place books inside before slipping it back into his sleeve, and turning into a bat to fly away.
When Zhang Chen returned to the Daoist Temple, Chengyu was practicing boxing in the courtyard. Upon seeing Zhang Chen return, he paused his movements, cheeks puffing with annoyance, "I say, you’re coming back later and later nowadays. You never focus on practicing boxing, just running around everywhere, how will you ever improve like this?"
"I got some tasty treats today, want some?" Zhang Chen ignored Chengyu’s complaints, he was aiming to cultivate immortality, practicing martial arts was out of the question! No way would he practice martial arts this lifetime!
The trivial Martial Dao is but a small path, easily suppressed with a flick.
"Tasty treats?" Chengyu’s eyes lit up instantly, quickly scooting in front of Zhang Chen, looking at him eagerly.
"Hold out your hands," Zhang Chen said.
Chengyu obediently cupped his hands, looking extremely cute.
Zhang Chen scooped out a handful of candied fruits from his sleeve, including raisins, dried sweet potatoes, walnuts, and other assorted types, filling Chengyu’s hands to the brim.
"What is this?" Chengyu looked at the candied fruits, raising his head with a look of bewilderment at Zhang Chen.
"You’ve never eaten them?" Zhang Chen was taken aback by the question.
Chengyu quickly raised her skirt to hold the candied fruits, then full of curiosity, took one and placed it in her mouth, and the next moment her eyes shone brightly, "Delicious! Truly delicious! Where did you get this? Is it dried fruit?"
"If you like it, eat more; I’ll get you some every day from now on." Zhang Chen patted Chengyu’s head, this little girl hadn’t even tasted candied fruits before, truly pitiful.
At this point, Chengyu picked up a piece of dried sweet potato and suddenly fell silent. When Zhang Chen looked over, he saw the little girl with tears streaming down her face steadily.
"What’s wrong with you?" Zhang Chen asked.
"You’re too good to me. Before, I never had enough to eat within the Daoist Temple, no one ever cared about me," Xiaodouding’s eyes were spilling out tears like broken pearls, dropping onto the dried sweet potatoes.
"Isn’t the Observatory Master your master?" Zhang Chen was stunned at those words, recalling Xiaodouding’s previous thieving incident in the main hall, full of confusion.
"My master is in the Daoist Temple only a few days in the whole year? He went down the mountain yesterday, and I shouldn’t expect him back for half a year." Xiaodouding’s voice was full of dissatisfaction.
"Aren’t you a Huajin practitioner? How dare they bully you?" Zhang Chen looked at Xiaodouding.
"There is discipline within the Daoist Temple, there are always those stronger than you, brute force can’t resolve everything." Xiaodouding replied gloomily, handing a piece of dried sweet potato to Zhang Chen, "Open your mouth."
Looking at Xiaodouding, whose eyes were bloodshot, and then at the tear-soaked dried sweet potato, Zhang Chen displayed a slight look of disdain: "This dried sweet potato has been washed in your tears, I’d rather not eat your tears."
Despite his words, he obediently opened his mouth. Xiaodouding furiously stuffed the dried sweet potato into Zhang Chen’s mouth: "Go on, eat up, daring to complain about your senior sister’s dried sweet potato, you’re really rebelling against the heavens."
The dried sweet potato was very sweet, with a hint of saltiness, but Zhang Chen tasted bitterness, intense bitterness, just like this great tumultuous world.
"Zhang Chen, you should start practicing martial arts." Xiaodouding nibbled on a piece of dried sweet potato, beginning to urge Zhang Chen to practice martial arts and train in the True Dragon Form.
Zhang Chen retorted in displeasure, "It’s so late, can I practice tomorrow instead?"
Now he had hopes of cultivating immortality, who would even want to practice martial arts?
"How can you fish for three days and sun-dry the nets for two? How else can I take you to roam the Martial World in the future?" Xiaodouding was indignant, giving Zhang Chen a kick on the rear, the force reaching the bone yet not harming it, but it hurt enough for Zhang Chen to break out in cold sweat.
"Damn it, I can’t even beat a kid, this is fucked up!" Under Xiaodouding’s domineering presence, Zhang Chen had no choice but to set aside his study of the texts to diligently practice the True Dragon Form.
After practicing over fifty times, Xiaodouding finally shouted, "That’s enough for today."
Then Xiaodouding yawned as she climbed upstairs, "I’m going to bed."
With Xiaodouding gone, Zhang Chen summoned clear water to wash up, then lit the oil lamp and sat by the window, letting the moonlight pour down, absorbing it entirely. Only after did Zhang Chen take out the books annotated by his teacher, reading them under the lamplight.
However, after reciting for just a brief moment, he felt something was off; the pinyin pronunciations were too general, making it quite inconvenient to decipher the texts accurately.
"yao zhu fu nei."
As Zhang Chen read the first line of pinyin aloud, he was somewhat at a loss: "To bless inside?"
What’s this about?
Looking at the first line of pinyin, the wisdom in Zhang Chen’s mind started to turn: "Is the Huangting Scripture not a Qi Cultivation text? How could there be words like ’to bless inside’?"
Zhang Chen was bewildered, pondering for a while, then said, "I remember the previous world’s Daoist Sect Chapters spoke about great medicine and jade pearls, so..."
Zhang Chen’s gaze landed on the first pinyin ’yao’. After a brief contemplation, he picked up a brush, considering carefully for a moment, and recorded the character for ’medicine’ in accordance with the language characters of his previous life.
For the second pinyin ’zhu’, Zhang Chen mused over it a while, saying, "It certainly can’t be pig, as pigs are animals, unlikely to appear in qi cultivation mantras."
However, regarding the character ’zhu’, two words came to Zhang Chen’s mind that seemed related to Daoist mantras.
The first was cinnabar, the second was jade pearl.
But how should the second pinyin be interpreted?
"Cultivation demands utmost precision, even the smallest mistake could mean instant death." Zhang Chen cautiously deliberated over the characters, continuing to look at the subsequent pinyin, hoping to deduce the text from the overall sentence structure.
"yao zhu fu nei, zhou hou fei jin..."
Seeing the pinyin, Zhang Chen’s eyes revealed a bewildered look.
"I finally understand why ordinary people can’t steal techniques; stealing knowledge is incredibly difficult, as hard as reaching the heavens!" Zhang Chen grumbled, looking at the pinyin.
The book had over ten thousand pinyin entries, how could there not be errors?
Moreover, this is an obscure Qi Cultivation Chapter, involving specialized terminology, attempting to decode it using pinyin is exceedingly arduous.
"What a hassle! It seems shortcuts aren’t easy. My decoded text doesn’t flow at all."
"To bless inside, spell afterward fly in?" Zhang Chen mumbled to himself, then complained, "What the hell, if I decode it, it’s likely completely messed up."