Chapter 141: Absurdity
Shi Feizhe did need time. He was currently at the Qi Sea realm in terms of cultivation, but his combat strength was comparable to that of a Zhoutian expert.
As long as he became a Zhoutian martial artist, and converted the True Qi from several techniques into True Origin Sword Qi, he would be able to push the 《True Origin Sword Finger Formula》 to Grand Completion!
With the 《True Origin Sword Finger Formula》 at Grand Completion, he would even have the strength to fight against True Realm martial artists!
That day in the desert, under the white light of Old Man Yuan’s “Enlightenment” and with the feedback from Supreme Wisdom, he had a chance to become a Zhoutian expert, but… it was interrupted.
Now, he could only rely on gradual progress, accumulating day by day, to break through the Qi Sea and become Zhoutian.
Fortunately, this day was not far off.
At the moment, he was maneuvering between Pi Mountain and the Longevity Temple, making them think he was connected to the Jiang Family or the Demon Sect.
He would then stabilize the Jiang Family, making them hesitant to act rashly against him, and even win them over.
After all, it was Fan Jianqiang who seized the Jiang Family’s manor, not him, Academy Head Shi.
In this way, the Qing Shan Martial Academy would be in a fragile balance.
This kind of trickery wouldn’t last forever, and the three factions would eventually notice something was amiss, but… by that time, Shi Feizhe would have already become a Zhoutian martial artist, so what would he have to fear?!
Shi Feizhe listened to Jiang Ning’s delaying tactics and didn’t waste any more words. He left after saying, “Think about it carefully, I’ll wait for your news!”
Jiang Ning watched Shi Feizhe’s retreating figure, her teeth itching with anger!
Then she heard Shi Feizhe greet Xiong Ba, who was returning from outside, with a laugh.
“Brother Xiong, are you done?”
“Yeah!”
“Come to the dining hall for dinner later!”
“Okay!”
“Nothing to do this afternoon after dinner, free time!”
“Good! I found an ant nest in the courtyard!”
Hearing Xiong Ba’s voice, she became even angrier.
Therefore, when Xiong Ba came in carrying a mud bucket, he saw Jiang Ning glaring at him furiously.
“?” Xiong Ba was puzzled. He looked at the fuming Jiang Ning and said, “Once I get to know Academy Head Shi better, I can take you away!”
“The breakfast this morning was poisoned, you know!” Jiang Ning attacked first.
“Oh. I know!” Xiong Ba nodded and said.
“You knew and you still let me eat it!”
“If you don’t eat, you’ll be hungry!”
“You know I’ll get poisoned if I eat it!” Jiang Ning shouted angrily.
“Poisoning won’t kill you, but hunger will.” Xiong Ba nodded and said matter-of-factly.
“…”
“I!!” Jiang Ning felt her head buzzing, she spat out a mouthful of blood with a “poof”, then her vision went black and she fainted from anger.
Thus, Xiong Ba didn’t go for lunch.
When Guan Shan came with a lunch box, he saw Xiong Ba sitting on the steps at Jiang Ning’s door, looking down at the bugs in the cracks of the stone bricks.
The door behind him was tightly shut.
“Hey~ why didn’t you go to the dining hall for lunch? Academy Head Shi asked me to bring this to you.” Guan Shan put down the lunch box and sat down next to Xiong Ba.
Xiong Ba lowered his head and said, “My wife wouldn’t let me go.”
“…”
Family status, my friend!
Guan Shan’s eyes lit up and he said, “Did your wife not let you eat in the dining hall, or did she not let you eat at all?”
“She didn’t let me eat in the dining hall.”
“Then I brought you lunch, so you can eat now?” Guan Shan said with a grin, pointing at the lunch box.
“Oh?” Xiong Ba’s eyes lit up and he opened the lunch box.
Lunch was simple, one meat dish and one vegetable dish. The meat dish was stir-fried mooncakes with pork belly, and the vegetable dish was braised winter melon, with two bowls of multigrain rice underneath.
Xiong Ba picked it up and started eating.
✿✿✿
“Aren’t you going to take it to your wife?” Guan Shan asked, looking at Xiong Ba eating.
“She won’t eat. She said she won’t starve to death!” Xiong Ba said matter-of-factly.
Inside the room, Jiang Ning felt that coming to the Qing Shan Martial Academy and falling into the hands of Shi Feizhe and Xiong Ba was the worst luck she had ever had in her eight lifetimes!
They didn’t plaster in the afternoon.
Shi Feizhe started his class, with Guan Shan, Huang Goudan, Old Man Fan, and Xiong Ba as his students.
This time the lesson was relatively simple, it was about phonetics and addition, subtraction, and multiplication.
“a, o, e, i, u, ü…” Shi Feizhe wrote several vowels on the blackboard and began to teach them the pronunciation.
Guan Shan frowned, wondering what was the use of learning this.
Huang Goudan, although confused, still followed along.
Old Man Fan, on the other hand, learned seriously, seemingly very interested in it.
Xiong Ba was… well, Xiong Ba.
“You must be wondering what this is for!” Shi Feizhe said, looking at the four in front of him.
Guan Shan nodded. This had nothing to do with martial arts!
It would be better to use this time to plaster.
“I’ve seen documents in the Great Cai Armory. The previous Great Cai Dynasty unified the Nine Provinces and had its own official language.” Shi Feizhe recalled the knowledge in his mind and continued, “The dynasties before the Great Cai also had their own official languages.”
“After the fall of the Great Cai, there was no dynasty that unified the Nine Provinces. Naturally, there was no unified official language.”
“Over a thousand years, with sects dominating their own territories, each region developed its own dialect. Many characters have different pronunciations in different places.”
“If we want martial artists all over the world to practice martial arts more easily, we need a simpler and more convenient way of writing and expressing.”
“This way, we won’t have situations where I can practice a martial art, but only I can understand the content I wrote down. Or, a single character with several different pronunciations can cause ambiguity.”
“Therefore, learning phonetics can make it easier to recognize and understand characters, thus enabling faster recording and interpretation of secret manuals.”
“If all the martial artists in the world had a unified pronunciation, wouldn’t it be easier for them to read secret manuals, study martial principles, and practice martial arts?”
Shi Feizhe explained the significance of learning phonetics for literacy, leaving the four stunned.
Guan Shan, the semi-literate, only recognized a dozen characters before he memorized the 《Thousand Character Classic》.
After all, you can’t expect gangs to offer literacy classes, right?
Huang Goudan knew quite a few characters, but they were all related to assassination.
He only recognized a hundred or two characters from the 《Thousand Character Classic》.
Old Man Fan realized the value of this thing, but to popularize it throughout the world seemed… a bit difficult!
Xiong Ba’s eyes flickered slightly, recalling the dozen or so teachers he had angered to the point of spitting blood.
“It’s still a bit early to talk about popularizing it throughout the world, but if we learn it ourselves, we can teach it to future generations. As the Qing Shan Martial Academy continues to grow, phonetics will naturally be learned by more people!”
“That’s how the Jianghu is, the strong will always have scholars singing their praises!” Shi Feizhe looked at the four of them and continued teaching them phonetics.
After teaching seven or eight phonetics and assigning homework, he started teaching mathematics.
Mathematics was much simpler, after all, for adults, it was easy to understand addition and subtraction.
Multiplication… apart from Mr. Fan, the other three had difficulty learning it.
Sigh! Seeing these twenty or thirty-year-olds counting on their fingers to do multiplication and recite multiplication tables, Shi Feizhe felt a sense of absurdity.
Even more absurd was this Jianghu!
Most of the martial artists in the Jianghu were at this level.
Just like that saying.
The image of heroes being handsome and unrestrained is just a fantasy of ordinary people. Who says heroes can’t have pockmarks and be bald?
Who says heroes must know multiplication and division?
A Jianghu full of illiterates, it was truly absurd.
