The next morning, before the mist on Fragrant Ze Mountain had cleared, Wenren Sheng was dragged by He Mu to the Scripture Pavilion to study.
Although the Mountain God Temple had long been uninhabited, neither the meditation room where Wenren Sheng stayed nor the Scripture Pavilion here resembled some shabby, rustic standard setup. Instead, they exuded the elegant refinement of a prestigious family, which made Wenren Sheng somewhat unaccustomed.
He tucked in his legs and sat down at the long desk in the quiet room, sniffing the faint scent of pine smoke and ink, and curiously looked around.
For the next year, he would study and review books here every day.
Although his mind was still groggy, Wenren Sheng had always firmly believed in doing whatever he said he would. The resistance in his heart had vanished completely after a good night’s sleep.
Now he had become family with the Mountain God. He had to work even harder to catch up to the Mountain God’s pace.
“I don’t know what someone your age should start learning. Last night, I asked the owner of a bookshop in Xiang City, and he said this would be more suitable for you.”
He Mu sat across from Wenren Sheng, pushed a book over, flipped it open in front of him, and said,
“Arithmetic.”
“Arithmetic.” Wenren Sheng repeated once and nodded.
That was just counting things, right?
He had often helped the clan leader tally the number of rabbits in the Rabbit Burrow before. Arithmetic shouldn’t be too difficult for him.
Wenren Sheng psyched himself up, straightened his back, and focused his attention on the arithmetic chapter in front of him.
Good. Time to start on the first problem.
The Mountain God had told him that all the great heroes in the jianghu were well-read scholars, and the Mountain God must have been the same. So he had to study diligently too, to become… eh, what was that third word again…
He Mu had no idea Wenren Sheng’s thoughts were wandering so far. He only knew the kid had been reluctant the day before but was suddenly serious today, which satisfied him greatly.
He didn’t disturb the focused Wenren Sheng. Instead, he got up, casually grabbed a miscellaneous book he had bought down the mountain, leaned against a nearby wooden ladder, and flipped through it idly.
“A heavenly spiritual root is great. He learns everything so fast.”
Yet even after he finished the book, Wenren Sheng still hadn’t moved his brush.
He Mu finally couldn’t hold back any longer. He set the book down, circled around to Wenren Sheng’s side, placed one hand on the desk, and asked doubtfully, “Is it really that hard?”
Only then did Wenren Sheng raise his head to look at He Mu. He pointed aggrievedly at the arithmetic book in his hand and muttered, “I don’t recognize so many of these words.”
He Mu: “…”
He had almost forgotten—what characters could a little demon who grew up living with rabbits possibly recognize?
“Alright, I’ll read them for you. Listen carefully, okay?”
He Mu tugged the book closer to himself and looked at the first line of text.
“This problem says: Now there are pheasants and rabbits in the same cage. There are thirty-five heads above and ninety-four feet below. How many pheasants and rabbits respectively?”
After He Mu read the problem aloud, Wenren Sheng felt chickens and rabbits jumping all over the place next to his head, endlessly nipping at his ears.
This was completely different from the rabbit-counting he had imagined.
Wenren Sheng bit down on his brush and shook his head in confusion. He cast another pleading glance at He Mu.
But this time, He Mu didn’t put on that air of effortless confidence. He frowned and read the problem over twice, looking equally troubled.
“This…”
Wenren Sheng asked cautiously, “You don’t know it either?”
“Of course I do.”
He Mu denied it outright. He simply took the brush from Wenren Sheng’s hand, sat down on the floor, and began scribbling and drawing.
“Wait here.”
Wenren Sheng’s hand was suddenly empty. He blinked in a daze.
It got stolen!
There were no extra brushes on the desk, and Wenren Sheng felt too awkward to interrupt He Mu while he was focused on solving the problem. He could only puff out his cheeks and stare at him, sitting in place and waiting idly.
And so, as the line of incense in the Scripture Pavilion burned away bit by bit, Wenren Sheng waited a long time—until his butt went completely numb—yet He Mu still hadn’t come up with the answer.
“So slow…”
Wenren Sheng gazed resentfully at He Mu.
What was this? The Mountain God didn’t know anything at all.
He pursed his lips and decided not to pin his hopes on He Mu anymore. He would learn the later material on his own first.
Wenren Sheng took back the arithmetic book and flipped past the first page of chickens and rabbits to look at the problem on the second page.
Fortunately, this next one seemed much simpler. He recognized most of the words on it.
He pointed at each character with his finger and read it out slowly:
“Now there is a thing, unknown its number.”
“When counted by threes, remainder two. When counted by fives, remainder three…”
“When counted by sevens… remainder… ask the thing… called…”
He hadn’t even finished reading the problem when drowsiness assaulted him. He had a premonition that if he kept going, he would faceplant right into the ink and end up with a face full of it.
Wenren Sheng yawned and finally chose to lie down on the desk to “study,” preventing his face from getting smeared with ink.
“When counted by sevens… remainder…”
He hadn’t mumbled for long while lying there before he lost the ability to focus. He couldn’t resist getting distracted and started playing his hand shadow game.
He made a little dog shadow with one hand and wagged it back and forth in front of himself. He even changed his tone to imitate it:
“Wenren Sheng, to become a great hero, you have to study extra extra hard.”
Then he switched back to his normal voice to reply, “But I’m really so dumb. I can’t learn anything.”
The hand shadow said, “That’s exactly because you haven’t studied, so you’re dumb as a rock?”
Wenren Sheng said, “But actually, great heroes don’t need to be well-read in poetry and books at all. The Mountain God clearly hasn’t read that many himself.”
The hand shadow said cuttingly, “Wenren Sheng just wants to slack off and take shortcuts. He always makes excuses for himself.”
“…”
Wenren Sheng had no comeback. His eyelids grew heavy as he closed his eyes, and his consciousness drifted lightly back into the morning’s dream.
…
By the time He Mu finally divided the chickens and rabbits into the two correct numbers, more than an hour had already passed.
He stretched his body and said somewhat happily, “Good. I’ll teach you—”
Halfway through his words, he realized Wenren Sheng had already faceplanted onto the desk and was snoring away.
“Oh, that sleepy?”
He Mu lowered his voice and carefully leaned in closer to look.
Wenren Sheng slept very peacefully with his arm as a pillow, perfectly restrained—even his breathing was light and soft. From He Mu’s angle, he looked just like a soft little white dough bun. It felt like a pinch to the cheek would make him burst into tears.
With that thought, He Mu couldn’t resist poking Wenren Sheng’s cheek.
So soft.
The first day’s studying hadn’t gotten off to a good start, and the days that followed remained stuck in the same bad pattern: He Mu focused on working the problems while Wenren Sheng snored away.
This went on for a full half year before Wenren Sheng finally couldn’t stand it anymore.
That day, after sitting down in the quiet room, Wenren Sheng hugged his book and shot He Mu a deeply resentful look.
He Mu immediately read the dissatisfaction in his gaze. He crossed his arms and looked back at Wenren Sheng, raising an eyebrow. “What’s wrong today, little miss?”
Wenren Sheng pursed his lips and muttered, “The Mountain God isn’t as smart as me.”
He Mu laughed in a mix of anger and amusement. He leaned forward and lightly poked Wenren Sheng’s forehead, countering, “You ungrateful little thing. Wasn’t it you who asked me to be your teacher?”
Wenren Sheng refused to admit it now. He huffed lightly, turned his head away in a sulk, and said, “What I said back then was that it was fine if the Mountain God didn’t teach me. I never said it had to be the Mountain God.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he suddenly felt they were inappropriate. He quickly changed his tune. “B-but it’s okay! I can already study on my own now.”
“Um, just a little bit.” Wenren Sheng paused, then added softly.
Although at this rate, it would take him fifty years to finish arithmetic.
He held back the second half of that thought.
He Mu wasn’t angry. Of course he knew there had been no real progress in the past half year—Wenren Sheng had basically just slept the whole time.
The reason he had let it slide was that the reinforcements he requested from the Heavenly Court kept putting him off with excuses of being too busy. It had taken him a great deal of effort to negotiate.
Fortunately, he had finally managed to bring the person today.
“Since you think I teach poorly,” He Mu said, “how about I get you a really great teacher? Would you like that?”
Wenren Sheng’s eyes brightened. He twisted the corner of his clothes with his fingers and sneaked a glance at He Mu, seeing that he wasn’t angry.
He straightened up and asked, “No need to go down the mountain? No need to leave you?”
He Mu curved his eyes in a smile. “Of course not. This is your home.”
The moment he heard those words, Wenren Sheng twisted his clothes even harder.
He fell silent for a moment before stammering haltingly, “I-I didn’t mean the Mountain God is dumb or anything, um… I just want to become a great hero faster, so I can protect this home.”
After saying that, Wenren Sheng hung his head even lower. He stared at the wrinkled corner of his clothes that he had pinched and added in a mosquito-like whisper,
“I didn’t mean to make the Mountain God unhappy.”
Hearing the kid’s endless string of explanations, He Mu understood his feelings.
He squatted down, rubbed Wenren Sheng’s cheeks, and laughed. “Have you seen Wenqu Star in any storybooks?”
Wenqu Star?
Such a familiar name.
Wenren Sheng racked his brains and finally remembered.
A few years ago, he loved playing down the mountain. At that time, there was a very popular miscellany book among children called Dream Tour of the Eight Immortals Heavenly List: Extra Chapter.
The book told of a man who dreamed of touring the Heavenly Court. When he woke up, he wrote down all the immortals he had seen in the little booklet.
Children and teens in Xiang City all loved this “Heavenly List.” They would leave their marks on the booklet too.
Whenever they liked an immortal, they drew a vertical line after the dharma name to show they were a “believer” of that immortal.
Wenren Sheng flipped through two pages. The list featured all sorts of famous immortals like Yuanshi Tianzun, Dong Wanggong, and Xi Wangmu, with dense clusters of little lines beside them.
At first, he was excited and planned to draw some lines after the Mountain God’s dharma name to show his support.
But even after flipping to the last two pages, he didn’t find “Cangyu True Monarch.”
After checking twice with no luck, Wenren Sheng disappointedly closed the booklet and left. From then on, he had always scoffed at this “Heavenly List,” dismissing it as a trick to fool children.
What Heavenly List or Earthly List? Without the Mountain God’s name, they were all fake lists.
That said, it did mention Wenqu Star’s dharma name, and in Wenren Sheng’s memory, there were quite a few lines after it.
With that realization, Wenren Sheng said, “Oh, I know—”
Before he finished speaking, he felt something cold wrap around his ankle. The sensation startled him into a shiver, and he immediately bounced up from the cushion.
He looked down. At some point, a grayish-white giant python had coiled beneath the long desk. Its patterned body encircled both Wenren Sheng and He Mu.
The snake’s body reared up as tall as two people, its greenish pupils fixed on Wenren Sheng. Its tongue flicked in and out, as if it wanted to swallow him whole.
“…Heavenly spiritual root?”
That voice was human yet not quite, with every word seeming to tremble and echo in his ears. But when he focused, he detected nothing unusual. It was extremely eerie.
Wenren Sheng wasn’t afraid of snakes, but this was the first time he had seen such a massive creature. He couldn’t help feeling timid and hugged He Mu’s leg tightly.
“Is this the snake?” Wenren Sheng pointed at it and whispered. “It doesn’t look much like a teaching master.”
He Mu scratched under Wenren Sheng’s chin comfortingly. “Scholars are all like this—they love to put on airs. Forgive her.”
Wenren Sheng said “oh” and corrected him. “It’s a cultural snake.”
He Mu nodded. “Right, a cultural snake.”
Wenqu Star: “…”
