The immortal is beside me

Chapter 78 Zhou, Qing

In the blink of an eye, the old man and the young man have been on the road for nearly two months.

For two months, they traveled from Guandong through Jingzhou, heading south. Whenever they reached a place where people still lived, Old Zhou would stop for a while, practicing medicine or doing labor to earn some food to support the two of them.

There are not many opportunities to replenish food.

Drought and plague had left few pristine patches of land in the Central Plains. For the past two months, the most common sight on the roads was hunger: people dying of it, and others living through it.

As if inspired by Qing, whenever he arrived at a place where disaster victims gathered, Old Zhou would hold the sword and hopefully let the hungry people touch it, testing whether there were anyone with spiritual roots among the crowd.

It looked like some kind of preaching, but he didn't want to leave behind any legacy; he did all this for a very simple reason.

In this year of famine, finding one more person may mean one less starving person.

He was just a low-level Qi-refining cultivator, with little power and inability to change the world or save the world, so he just wanted to save as many people as possible.

However, things went against their wishes. They met thousands of people along the way, but did not find a single qualified person.

Every time he failed, Old Zhou would sigh heavily, and then quietly leave a few pieces of the dry food left in his bag to the hungry people, away from people, so as to avoid looting and the loss of innocent lives.

As a result, the two of them were always short of food along the way. He gave most of it to Qing, leaving only a little for himself that was barely enough to sustain his life.

There was only bad news along the way, and only Qing's talent gave him a little comfort.

Only a month or two after he successfully drew Qi into his body for the first time, the young man had fully opened his Qi sea and was able to skillfully stimulate spiritual power.

This speed was truly astonishing. Even within that sect, most cultivators took years to stabilize their Qi Sea, yet it had taken him a full twenty years to achieve this.

Under the nourishment of spiritual energy, the boy's body underwent visible changes.

Although his figure was still thin, the shriveled look caused by hunger was gradually fading away, and the unique youthful spirit was once again evident in him. Even though he was only wearing tattered clothes, it still couldn't conceal the overflowing vitality.

This was one of the few happy things that had happened to Old Zhou in recent days. In this young man named Qing, he felt the value of his existence for the first time in a long time.

"Boy, I will teach you another technique today."

While stopping for a rest at an inn, Old Zhoutou said, "Your Qi Sea is now fully open. If you strengthen your Qi circulation, you will be able to stabilize your state."

Hearing this, Qing came closer. Over the past two months, he had gotten to know Old Zhoutou's temperament thoroughly. Although he was a deity, Old Zhoutou didn't act like a cultivator in his daily life, but more like a gentle teacher.

In troubled times, such people were rare. Qing was initially wary, but as time went on, he gradually got used to the old man's presence, to practicing martial arts with him and listening to him talk about the "brilliant man" he had never met.

Old Zhou described a time when ordinary people could eat, sometimes even twice a day. Widows, widowers, and orphans were not abandoned but received special care from the imperial court. Everyone was proud to be a Han Chinese; even refugees from other places clamored for Han titles.

These descriptions seemed like fairy tales to him, completely beyond his imagination. But Old Zhou always mentioned them from time to time, so he just listened to them as if they were stories.

Old Zhou pulled out a bamboo slip covered with words from his spirit bag: "This is the advanced method of the Zhoutian Circulation Method, which is the foundation for stabilizing the state of Qi Refining. Take a look at this first."

Halfway through his conversation, he noticed that the young man didn't take the bamboo slips, so he asked again, "What's wrong? Don't you want to learn?"

"I can't read," Qing said. Old Zhou was stunned. He had been walking with him for several days and had always been amazed by the young man's talent, even making him forget that he was just an illiterate refugee.

Ever since Emperor Guangwu rebuilt the Han Dynasty and reorganized the imperial court a century ago, the Han Dynasty had placed great emphasis on education. This was especially true during the reigns of Emperor Ming and Emperor Zhang, when learning reached its peak, with the Emperor even personally attending the Imperial Academy to lecture students.

In addition to establishing the Imperial College in the imperial capital, the court at that time would also regularly send people to the countryside to teach people to read and write. He did this more than once when he was an official. Later, people called that period the "Ming Zhang Reign," which was a great era of rule that was as famous as the "Wenjing Reign" a hundred years ago.

To this day, his memory still lingered on the early years of the dynasty, when learning was thriving. Qing's reminder reminded him that the Han court was now in decline, its former passion for education long gone. It couldn't even afford disaster relief to feed the common people, let alone teach them to read.

Old Zhou was silent for a moment and put away the bamboo slips.

"You still have to learn to read."

"When you join the sect, you will inevitably need to read the classics of cultivation. In the past, there were many disciples from humble backgrounds in the sect, and there were people who taught them how to read and write. However, with the current chaos, I don't know if this tradition has been passed down. I will teach you some first."

He touched his fingers to the storage bag and pulled out a thin sheet about the size of two palms. It looked like cloth, but it was much rougher than cloth, as if mixed with something like tree bark.

"Come to think of it, I haven't used this Cai Hou paper in many years."

Old Zhou stroked the paper, a hint of nostalgia in his eyes.

"Back when Cai Lun, the Grand Chamberlain, developed the 'art of papermaking,' it really took Luoyang City by storm. Everyone followed his lead, opening paper mills everywhere. Looking around the world, only the Han Dynasty could possess such a creation."

"The Han Dynasty of the past... was truly glorious."

He muttered to himself for a moment, then pondered, "Let me think of what to teach you with this first character. Let me teach you how to write your own name first."

Old Zhou channeled his spiritual power into his fingertips, gently scratching across the Caihou paper, leaving a faint gray mark. Qing leaned forward to examine it, only to see a symbol slowly taking shape on the paper.

"This is your Qing (Qing) character." Old Zhou placed the paper in front of him. "I don't have a pen, so you can copy it with your finger first. Once you get used to it, you'll recognize it quickly."

Qing did as he said, and ran his finger across the gray mark, outlining a faint word "Qing".

This was the first time he had truly seen what his name looked like, and it was quite novel. After copying it a few times, he had memorized it.

"What about yours?" He looked up and asked, "How do you write the 'Zhou' in your last name?"

Old Zhou was slightly startled, then burst out laughing.

"Well, since you want to learn, I'll write it down for you to see."

He picked up the paper again, scratched a few times next to the character "清", and returned it to Qing. The young man took the paper and saw that there was a "周" symbol next to the original "清".

Zhou, Qing.

Qing copied the words over and over again with his fingers. These were the first two words he learned, so he would naturally remember them by heart.

Until a lifetime.

(End of this chapter)