Speaking with a senior brother like this, there wasn't really anything awkward about it.
So Ruan Wei put down her bowl and chopsticks, and earnestly explained to Xiao Xuantong the reason she had fainted, the function of the mark between her eyebrows, and so on.
After listening for a moment, Xiao Xuantong simply gave a hum and added, "Then you won't be able to go down the mountain."
"Neither will you."
His chopsticks trembled suspiciously, and then he said, "If that person really finds you, remember to send me a message."
"Got it."
Ruan Wei readily accepted her senior brother's good intentions.
After a while, she said, "Maybe by then I'll be able to beat some sense into him myself."
"Fine," Xiao Xuantong lifted his eyelids to look at her, instructing, "Use the pink spirit sword."
"..."
"After I finish beating him with the pink one, I'll beat him again with the raven."
Ruan Wei thought about it. "Should I ask Master to beat him once with the wooden sword?"
Xiao Xuantong didn't answer her.
Instead, he went back to eating with focused concentration.
Ruan Wei assumed the topic was closed, and she didn't think it was a big deal anyway.
A moment later.
Xiao Xuantong's cool voice sounded, "I still hope."
"You won't run into him."
"Not in this lifetime."
He had a pair of phoenix eyes that people universally found chilling, and his pupils were light in color. When those eyes looked at someone, it was as if no one in the world mattered to him, yet they also held a trace of their master's all-encompassing tolerance.
Xiao Xuantong looked at Ruan Wei very earnestly, imagining the scene of Ruan Wei running into that person—win or lose in the end, it would surely be unpleasant.
These words were spoken very flatly by this expressionless senior brother.
Too calm.
Ruan Wei couldn't help but think of Xiao Xuantong's ending once again.
"You shouldn't run into him either."
Ruan Wei said.
That little bird.
She only hoped that in this lifetime Xiao Xuantong would never run into it again, and never save it.
The girl's voice was too soft, drifting past like a clear spirit, making it hard to hear clearly.
Xiao Xuantong didn't hear it clearly either, but he replied, "Alright."
When he first saw this junior sister yesterday, he had found it strange.
Ruan Wei's appearance was too exceptional, and her talent was too great. This morning, during her very first sword lesson, she had mastered the opening stance without a teacher, and Master even praised her for having the demeanor of a Penglai sword cultivator.
Yet why was it...
When he first saw her eyes, which had briefly flashed with mist, Xiao Xuantong had only felt a pang in his heart.
And then.
Xiao Xuantong only felt that she was fragile.
It was as if she was small in stature and weak in strength, barely able to hold a sword. During the morning drills, wrapped in the wind, she seemed like a fairy maiden's young attendant under the immortals, ready to be carried away by the wind at any moment.
Thinking of this red mole again.
It wasn't that he didn't know his junior sister was resourceful, but he felt an inexplicable ache in his heart.
As if in past and present lives, he had somehow witnessed Ruan Wei in a bedraggled state, stirring up protective pity in him as the eldest senior brother.
...
In the afternoon, Ruan Wei was hauled off by the eldest senior brother to see Cháojiàn.
"Poetry and literature, geography, philosophy, music theory, numerology, herbal medicine, talismans..."
The Scripture Pavilion was too large. In a room where one couldn't see the end at a single glance upon entering, rows upon rows of bookshelves stood side by side. This was the first floor, housing all the foundational knowledge of the worldly Dao.
Ruan Wei looked at Cháojiàn, a dazed expression flickering in the depths of her eyes. "Second Uncle-Master... do we have to learn... all of it?"
In the distance, Xiao Xuantong, sitting cross-legged in front of a bookshelf, had already opened his book to where he had left off last time. The year-end assessment wasn't far away, and having spent this year in seclusion for Foundation Establishment, he had much less time for reviewing books.
"Of course," Cháojiàn pulled the first book from the first bookshelf and said gently, "Learning more can never hurt."
"Let's set a small goal: strive to reach the second floor in three years."
Good heavens!
It was enough to make one's eyes go dark.
And here she thought sword cultivators didn't need to study. Who knew that Penglai's training regimen aimed for all-around talent?
Hesitating back and forth, Ruan Wei ultimately took the book.
Weeping tears of blood internally.
It felt as if she had returned to the terrifying final exam week of her school days.
Cháojiàn asked, "Have you ever had any early education at home?"
"Home... my late father once hired renowned teachers to tutor both my older brother and me," Ruan Wei replied.
Hearing this, Cháojiàn was quite satisfied. Being young didn't matter, as long as she knew how to read.
Take Xiao Xuantong, for instance; he had also been tutored by him since the age of three, all the way to the present.
"Let's begin. We'll start with poetry and literature. I will lecture on the scriptures, and you will listen to the Dao."
Cháojiàn set his whisk aside, not even needing a book.
Ruan Wei held her book and followed along.
"The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth; the named is the mother of ten thousand things... You can understand this as: the Dao that can be articulated is no longer the ordinary path..."
Ruan Wei was a smart person.
Smart people never find learning too arduous.
Some of the quick memorization methods from the Modern World seemed even more applicable in the Cultivation World.
Listening through the first book, Ruan Wei didn't even need to spend much energy memorizing. Aside from her proper study methods, this was also thanks to the vastness of her sea of consciousness.
Though she couldn't achieve Cháojiàn's flawless rote recitation, she had already thoroughly comprehended the material.
Of course, it also helped that Cháojiàn's lectures were exceptionally good.
He was widely read and had a strong memory, while Ruan Wei's thinking often leaped forward, and she had her own independent opinions. As a result, the questions she asked weren't formulaic like Xiao Xuantong's; instead, she frequently diverged and asked questions based on her own circumstances.
Yet Cháojiàn was always able to quickly combine the classics and provide her with answers.
Ruan Wei excelled at learning.
She could settle her mind much better than Xiao Xuantong could.
When Xiao Xuantong was her age, he would spend half of a single-hour session letting his mind wander.
Cháojiàn nodded in satisfaction.
A student like this took no effort at all to teach.
Suddenly, a bell rang.
"Let's stop here for today, Ruan Wei. Tomorrow, hand in a reflection. Xuantong, draw three lower-grade talismans."
Cháojiàn stood up, and the whisk automatically settled back onto his arm.
"Phew—"
Ruan Wei let out a long breath and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, her gaze was completely refreshed. Listening to the lectures seemed even easier than she had imagined, especially now; she didn't even need to memorize by rote. She simply closed her eyes to reflect, and the scriptures she had just learned would automatically replay in her mind.
"Let's go, Third Uncle-Master's place is next."
Xiao Xuantong walked over to Ruan Wei, holding two brick-thick books.
The young girl sat in the center of a pile of books, her face as pretty as peach blossoms. Hearing his voice, she turned sideways to look at him, her eyes carrying a limpid clarity steeped in knowledge.
"Alright, let's go." Ruan Wei copied Xiao Xuantong's manner of tidying up books, stacking the ones Cháojiàn had just lectured on together and packing them into her Mustard Seed Bag.
Seeing her pack so many books all at once, Xiao Xuantong's face finally twitched twice. "Second Uncle-Master taught you this much all afternoon?"
"Mhm," Ruan Wei nodded. "Uncle-Master said that biting off more than you can chew is bad, so we're only covering this much today."
"You memorized all of it?"
Xiao Xuantong's grip on the two books in his hands tightened fiercely.
What was so difficult about this?
"I memorized it, yes. And it's not that much." Finished speaking, Ruan Wei urged, "Hurry up, Senior Brother, let's go."
Xiao Xuantong took a deep breath and said nothing for a long while.
Odious.
He hated you smart people to death.
Cháojiàn never shot without a target; for every book he lectured on, he would ask questions to ensure his disciple fully comprehended it before moving on to the next. The fact that he lectured Ruan Wei on a whole stack of books in a single afternoon meant Ruan Wei had truly used a single afternoon to memorize all of them?!
Thinking of his own painful memories of being repeatedly sent back to redo his work.
Rarely, Xiao Xuantong wore an expression that was half-laughing, half-crying.
Ruan Wei, who had been about to turn back and urge him again, ran right into her senior brother's resentment.
Uh...
Ruan Wei quickly turned her head away.
Didn't see it, didn't see it. Ancestor of the Dao above, I saw nothing, please bless me, bless me, bless me...
The two walked to Cui Yanjun's small courtyard.
Following Cui Yanjun to sort through herbs, Ruan Wei learned some medical theories, and she also accompanied her senior brother to the back mountain spring to fill up buckets of spiritual spring water for Cui Yanjun.
Perhaps due to Feng Wuya's quirky sense of humor, the buckets Ruan Wei used for carrying water resembled the small buckets children in the Modern World used to dig in the sand.
Pink ones.
Pink little buckets that even Cui Yanjun could only shake his head at.
—
When she finally returned to her own courtyard, Ruan Wei's mind, which had been stretched taut all day, finally found a moment of relaxation.
Massaging her bruised and battered calves from the morning drills, along with various scrapes on her knuckles, Ruan Wei hissed and winced as she applied medicine to herself. Once the medicine was applied, she dug out a stack of books and began writing furiously.
A fulfilling day.
Suddenly remembering something, Ruan Wei, currently sitting cross-legged in meditation, abruptly started rummaging through her Mustard Seed Bag.