I picked up skill fragments in the demon world

#126 - The Buddha Song of Abotsi

Chapter 126: Abercius's Buddha Song

People are iron, food is steel; skip a meal and you'll feel!

Upon hearing the scholar's words, the woman pointed at his nose and erupted in a torrent of abuse: "You're almost sixty years old, yet so poor you don't even dare to have a child! If you keep dragging this on, will you even have the chance? The family's so poor, how would we raise a child if it were born? How old am I? How many more years can I wait! Are you trying to force me to divorce you and find another man to have children with?"

"Do you know you're going to die without an heir?!"

"If anyone holds me responsible in the future, I'll just take all the blame myself. I absolutely won't implicate you."

"Su Zhen... I..." The middle-aged scholar sighed helplessly. Facing his tearful wife, he finally threw up his sleeves in resignation: "Have it your way."

Chen Sanliang was so ashamed by his wife's scolding that he finally retreated into the house, crestfallen, leaving only Su Zhen and Zhang Chen standing in the courtyard. At this moment, Su Zhen was silently weeping.

Zhang Chen was in a good mood. He had thought things had reached a dead end, that Chen Sanliang was too down-and-out to break the rules of the gentry. But who knew his wife would speak up directly, giving Zhang Chen hope.

At this moment, Su Zhen wiped away her tears. Her eyes were swollen like peaches as she turned to look at Zhang Chen: "If you only want to learn to read and write, and not pursue the learning of a sage, then I can teach you. If you don't mind, then stay."

"Disciple greets Master!" Zhang Chen was very straightforward upon hearing this. He lifted his robe and knelt directly at Su Zhen's feet.

"Absolutely not! In this world, it's always men who take disciples, how can there be a reason for women to take disciples?" Su Zhen quickly went forward to help Zhang Chen up.

"Master is mistaken! Imparting knowledge, teaching skills, and resolving doubts don't differentiate between men and women. Heaven and earth, all things are achieved through the interaction of yin and yang. Why can men take disciples, but women can't? Women can also hold up half the sky, and are no weaker than men!" Zhang Chen quickly retorted.

Han Suzhen was stunned upon hearing this, and looked at Zhang Chen with surprised eyes: "I didn't expect you to have such insights."

She didn't expect Zhang Chen, who had never read a book, to have such wisdom. He could truly be called a good seed.

"Get up. Today's matter has made you laugh. You've also seen the situation in Master's home; we're already on the verge of not having anything to cook."

"Mother is mistaken. Which couple in the world doesn't quarrel?" Zhang Chen stepped forward to comfort her.

Han Suzhen was dispirited upon hearing this, and waved her hand at Zhang Chen: "I'll impart knowledge to you, but if you leave this door in the future, you can't say you're my disciple."

Saying this, Han Suzhen feared Zhang Chen would overthink it, and explained: "It's not that I look down on your background, but your Master and I have many enemies in the North. Although they can't do anything to me, if they knew of your existence, they would definitely ruin you. Moreover, I see that you're extraordinary, and you'll definitely create your own career in the future. If you take a woman as your teacher, you'll be ridiculed by the people of the world."

Han Suzhen was an honest person. After tidying up the courtyard slightly, she took out her brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and said to Zhang Chen: "Come and sit down, I'll teach you to read and write."

At this moment, Zhang Chen took out the scripture he obtained from the Yellow Dawn Temple from his sleeve, and didn't hide anything from Han Suzhen: "The reason why this disciple is apprenticing is to recognize the words on this. I wonder if Mother can start with this book and teach me to recognize all the words on it?"

The Yellow Court Scripture was already widespread. Every disciple of the Daoist temple had a copy, and even the homes of the affiliated believers had them for worship.

Han Suzhen reached out to take the scripture, a look of surprise appearing in her eyes. She recognized the origin of this scripture at a glance: "This is a scripture of the Yellow Heaven Dao? It seems to be the great Dao chapter passed down by the Yellow Heaven Dao."

"Does Master know the Yellow Heaven Dao?" Zhang Chen asked.

Han Suzhen said: "A group of people with ulterior motives. Are you a disciple of the Yellow Heaven Dao?"

Zhang Chen nodded, not hiding anything: "Due to a coincidence, I had no choice but to join the Yellow Heaven Dao."

"Leave as soon as possible in the future. I've also heard news about the Yellow Heaven Dao, and I always feel that this Yellow Heaven Dao seems a bit off," Han Suzhen waved her hand, signaling Zhang Chen to come forward, and opened the book: "Let's start recognizing words today."

Saying this, Han Suzhen said: "However, the Yellow Court Scripture of the Yellow Heaven Dao is a thing to fool the common people. The so-called cultivation and inquiry, seizing the creation of heaven and earth, and the mysteries of all things, are all lies. You must not be immersed in it, lest you be deceived by the Yellow Heaven Dao and lose everything."

Zhang Chen quickly agreed upon hearing this.

Han Suzhen opened the scripture, pointed to the first word on the scripture, and said: "Let's start recognizing from the first word today. As for the learning progress, it depends on how many words you can remember in a day."

Zhang Chen listened carefully and attentively. At this moment, he also took out the prepared pen and ink. Han Suzhen pointed to the large characters on the cover of the scripture and said: "This character is read as 'Huang'."

Zhang Chen quickly took out a fine brush, dipped it in ink, and then marked the pinyin on the character 'Huang'.

Literacy is very difficult, but with pinyin, as long as you mark the pinyin yourself, the next step is to carefully ponder it.

"What are you doing?" Han Suzhen asked with a surprised expression when she saw the strange symbols marked by Zhang Chen.

"This is a script invented by the disciple. There are a total of sixty-three. As long as they are combined, you can recognize all the characters in the world," Zhang Chen said with a smile.

He didn't hide anything. It was just pinyin, nothing great.

But Hanyu Pinyin is definitely one of the greatest inventions in the world.

"A script you created? As long as you master sixty-three, you can recognize all the characters in the world?" Han Suzhen was stunned upon hearing this, her eyes filled with disbelief.

How can you recognize all the characters through sixty-three characters?

"How can there be such an incredible thing in the world? If you can possess such abilities, you will definitely write books and establish a theory in the future, and become a generation of sages," Han Suzhen's eyes were obviously disbelieving. How could a person who doesn't know how to read have such abilities? It was like someone directly telling her that she could become an immortal on the spot.

Zhang Chen smiled and said to Han Suzhen: "Master, why not test me?"

"How to test?" Han Suzhen asked, suddenly becoming interested.

"This Yellow Court Scripture probably has ten thousand characters. It's impossible for me to remember it after only learning it once. As long as Master leads me to mark it once, I can recognize all the characters," Zhang Chen said.

He also wanted to directly mark all the characters and then go back to study it himself, striving to figure out the method of Qi training as soon as possible. If he waited for Han Suzhen to teach him to recognize all the characters, he didn't know how many years it would take.

Three years or five years?

He couldn't wait that long!

He also wanted to excavate the tomb of the Emperor's Daughter, trying to find a way out on the path of cultivation.

Seeing Zhang Chen's serious expression, Han Suzhen became interested: "To be honest, I don't think there is such a magical thing in this world. I want to see if it's as magical as you said."

Han Suzhen began to lead Zhang Chen to read the Yellow Court Scripture, watching Zhang Chen mark each word one by one. Seeing that he didn't seem to be joking, the expression on her face became more and more serious.

Three hours later, after annotating over a thousand characters, Han Suzhen stopped. Her eyes were fixed on the document in her hand, marked with pinyin by Zhang Chen:

"Now, I'm going to test you to see if you really have the ability to recognize all these characters just by relying on these strange symbols."

Han Suzhen randomly pointed to a character, and Zhang Chen recognized it: "This character is pronounced 'shi' (室, room)."

Han Suzhen's expression showed surprise. She continued to point at the characters on the book, but Zhang Chen swept his gaze over them and recited them all without the slightest error. His pronunciation was pure and flawless.

Han Suzhen pointed to more than twenty characters in succession, and Zhang Chen read them all out one by one. Han Suzhen was completely stunned, her eyes staring blankly at the boy with a childish face in front of her, her eyes filled with disbelief: "I never believed in so-called innate knowledge, let alone natural-born scholars. But when you appeared before me, I realized how narrow-minded I was. So saints are born that way, and there really are people in this world with innate talent."

"Thank you for your praise, Master," Zhang Chen said unceremoniously, accepting Han Suzhen's compliment. Seeing the light in Han Suzhen's eyes, he knew she was interested in his pinyin. He didn't hold back, saying, "If Master is interested, this disciple can share everything about pinyin with you, so you can also help me correct any mistakes."

"This kind of secret knowledge is invaluable. Anyone who can master your pinyin can cultivate a large number of potential scholars, making studying no longer difficult and saving a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted on recognizing characters. You're not being secretive? You're willing to impart it?" Han Suzhen asked, somewhat incredulously, her eyes filled with astonishment.

This was knowledge, and invaluable knowledge at that.

"Master is joking. The value of knowledge lies in its inheritance. Humanity has been passed down for thousands of years, even without this pinyin, hasn't it still been passed down? This pinyin is just icing on the cake; it's not really anything precious. It just saves people a little effort when they're studying," Zhang Chen said. He didn't think that pinyin was particularly valuable. Its real value lay in reducing the need for rote memorization during early education. Noble children had teachers who could repeat things constantly, so they wouldn't face the embarrassing situation of not knowing who to ask for help when they returned home.

The preciousness of pinyin lies in the fact that, in the future, when there are private schools, teachers can guide a group of children to learn to read and write. With pinyin, those children can also review and consolidate their knowledge at home.

After Zhang Chen finished explaining the sixty-plus pinyin sounds, Han Suzhen wrote them down and used characters to reverse-annotate them. This operation shocked Zhang Chen. He didn't expect Han Suzhen to have such a skill.

"Hahaha, your teacher was a famous talented woman in the past, possessing some intelligence," Han Suzhen said triumphantly, picking up the white paper and blowing the ink stains away.

"A 'Yellow Court Scripture' is only over ten thousand characters. If I work hard tonight, it won't be difficult to annotate them all. You can come here tomorrow to pick up the scripture. The most troublesome part of learning to read is the repetitive character recognition during the initial stages. With this pinyin, you can review it yourself when you go back. When the time comes, I only need to teach you how to practice calligraphy and explain the meaning of the characters. Of course, calligraphy practice is the most crucial. Mastering good calligraphy is also a difficult task, with every stroke having its own subtleties. It requires real skill," Han Suzhen said.

"Isn't annotating all the characters overnight too rushed? Won't it be too tiring for you, Master?" Zhang Chen hesitated slightly.

"What's this? I'm just excited by new knowledge and can't wait to master it immediately," Han Suzhen replied, urging Zhang Chen to leave and not disturb her annotation of the pinyin.

Seeing this, Zhang Chen had no choice but to say goodbye and leave.

After Zhang Chen walked away, Han Suzhen closed the door, then picked up Zhang Chen's gift box and looked at it. She directly took out a gold ingot and walked out of the house.

The reason why she had urged Zhang Chen to leave just now was actually because she was too hungry to bear it anymore. The family had been without food for a day.

Han Suzhen bought fine rice and began to cook. Soon, a pot of yellow rice and braised meat was ready and placed on the table.

At this time, Chen Sanliang came to the table, looked at the rice, and silently sat down, picking up his bowl and chopsticks to eat.

The couple didn't mock each other at this time. There was only peace. After they had their fill of food and drink, Chen Sanliang put down his bowl and chopsticks and looked at Han Suzhen: "Did you really accept him as a disciple? You must know that knowledge is only circulated among the nobles. That is a rule and an iron law. Once it is leaked out, it will cause big trouble."

"By the time those people come looking for trouble with me, I'm afraid I'll have starved to death already. Whether it's Prince Pingbian's mansion or the scholars of the world, they have already pushed us to the brink, not leaving us any way out. Since that's the case, how can I care so much? Let the floods rage; I'll get through the current difficulty first," Han Suzhen said, looking at Chen Sanliang: "Your thinking is too rigid. That child's demeanor, temperament, and even his words and actions, although not in line with the rules and interests of the nobles, have their own kind of bearing. He will definitely achieve great things in the future. He is no ordinary person. Your failure to accept him as your disciple will be the biggest regret of your life."

Chen Sanliang scoffed upon hearing this: "He's just a child from a lower-class family. I don't believe he's as mysterious as you say. Moreover, regarding the matter of accepting disciples, I already have a suitable candidate in mind. His family background, character, and morality can all be called top-notch. I just don't know if my philosophy can bewitch him and recruit him as my disciple."

"Could it be that one from the Chai family?" Han Suzhen asked.

"That's right, it's Chai Chuanxin from the Chai family. He's already a little famous in the world. I heard people say that he seems to have gone to the Northern Lands to study. This is the perfect opportunity for me. If he can inherit my learning, with his family background, he will definitely be able to withstand the pressure and pass on my philosophy. As for that Zhang Chen you're interested in, no way! He started studying too late, not to mention his lowly bloodline. He's not suitable for studying!"

Chen Sanliang said with a smile: "That child may seem to have an extraordinary temperament, like a noble, but you need to know that a real noble and a fake noble are two different things."

Han Suzhen didn't want to speak, only tapping the cooked rice. Chen Sanliang looked at the rice and immediately shut up.

After all, he was still eating her rice, wasn't he?