When the wild apricot blossoms of Mount Zhongnan shed their final petals, clear and resonant reading voices drifted from the Yi School at Yuxu Taoist Temple. Zhang Yifan shook his Gilded Abacus Beads as he walked through the Wishing Forest, noticing Yuqing standing dazed beneath an apricot tree. On her grey robe she wore a "Book-Protecting Ghost Face" abacus bead newly carved by Huwa, and the bead's eyes were fixed on the school window, where the leaking sunlight fell upon the corners of her slightly upturned lips.
"Is the Daoist Priestess calculating the number of disciples?" He jingled the Gilded Abacus Beads, and they bounced into the shape of the number "thirty-eight" on the wooden hairpin in her hair—precisely the number of the school's first batch of students. Startled out of her reverie, Yuqing immediately poked at the beads with the tip of her broom: "This poor Daoist is observing the astral phenomena!" Yet the beads mischievously slipped into her sleeve, making the "sleeve-guard figurine" abacus bead at her cuff wag its little tongue.
The sound of Huwa's carving knife drifted from the school. The little fellow was carving "Book-Protecting Ghost Face" marks for each pupil's desk, and the abacus beads watched the Tao Te Ching on the bamboo slips: "Brother Fan! Gousheng at Auntie Wang's place read 'the Dao that can be Daoed' as 'the Dao that can be slashed'—it cracked Huwa up!" Zhang Yifan chuckled lightly, and the beads bounced into the character "Fun" on Huwa's carv…
Chapter 121