After figuring out this connection, Yan Zhengming realized that it was time for him to go down the mountain and travel.

The depths of water and fire can strengthen the body, and joy and sorrow can strengthen the spirit.

Although the Fuyao Wooden Sword is an entry-level sword technique, it secretly coincides with the ups and downs of a mortal's life. It is not something that can be created behind closed doors. He spends all day in the gentle land of Fuyao Mountain. He is afraid that one year may pass in a thousand years, or even in ten thousand years, and he will never be able to catch up with the tumble of the earthly world.

Not everyone can get this kind of enlightenment by chance and know where their bottleneck is. Generally speaking, when a practitioner encounters this situation, he will naturally be ecstatic and go against the current until he breaks through the wall.

But is Young Master Yan an ordinary person?

The four words "go down the mountain to travel" flashed for only a moment in his vase-like head, and were immediately drowned out by the imagination of all the hardships and inconveniences of living in the open air and traveling at the foot of the mountain.

When it comes to going down the mountain, Yan Zhengming becomes overwhelmed just thinking about how much luggage he needs to bring. All the lazy muscles in his body rebel, hindering his steps towards the future.

"Travel?" Finally, the young master thought with a broad mind, "Whoever wants to go can go, I won't go anyway - bottleneck is bottleneck, who cares."

Yan Zhengming made up his mind. He planned to ignore the awkwardness and unsmoothness in his sword skills. Anyway, he had memorized the sword moves, so he would consider that he had learned them all. He would ask his master to learn the fourth move tomorrow.

The eldest senior brother, who had no ambition and always lived for the day, felt at ease and lazy. He waved his hand and threw a few small stones, helping the master to knock down the fourth junior brother who had climbed up a tree and was using a wooden sword to dig out a bird's nest. His direction was precise and his force was just right.

Yan Zhengming looked at Han Yuan, who was lying on the ground and howling, and felt that he had made some progress in his kung fu and didn't need to be too serious about it.

After noon, the day's mutual torture between the master and his disciples finally came to an end.

Except for the eldest brother, everyone else went back to their respective courtyards to eat and rest, and study hard in the afternoon - those who didn't want to study could play with the monkeys on the mountain.

Master Mu Chun let all his disciples run wild, and only told them to abide by the sect's rules, to behave themselves on the first and fifteenth nights of every month, and not to wander around in the mountains.

Only Yan Zhengming had to stay in the afternoon to continue facing his master's old face.

Seeing the Taoist boys bringing in wood and carving knives one after another, Li Yun explained to his two new fellow apprentices, "Those are talismans. Talismans are divided into visible talismans and invisible talismans. Vivid talismans are carved on something, the most common being wood. If you are an expert, you can use metal or stone as materials. Invisible talismans are much more powerful. Water, air, and even thoughts can become talismans. But those are all legends. No one has ever seen one. It is estimated that only a great master can do it."

Cheng Qian pretended to be not curious at all, but in fact he had pricked up his ears.

After all, talismans are the foundation of immortal weapons, and immortal weapons are the most intuitive impression of immortal cultivation for ordinary people.

Han Yuan approached him and asked, "Second Brother, what is great power?"

Li Yun grinned at him and said, "Who in the world dares to call themselves 'capable'? The truly powerful ones have already ascended to heaven."

Han Yuan didn't have a good impression of the eldest senior brother, but he also knew that he couldn't afford to offend him. Besides, the little beggar was not as shameless as Cheng Qian, and he didn't hold grudges deeply. A bag of pine nut candy was enough to make him forget his grudges with a smile.

He looked at Yan Zhengming's free and easy back with a bit of envy, and asked Li Yun eagerly: "So, senior brother, when can we learn to carve that?"

"We can't learn it," Li Yun waved his hands and said with regret, "To learn spells, you must first have a sense of qi - don't ask me what a sense of qi is, I don't know either, but Master said it's a mysterious feeling that can communicate between heaven and earth... Master, you will understand it later, don't pay too much attention to what he says, you won't understand even if you pay attention."

Li Yun had thin lips, with slightly upturned corners. Even when he wasn't smiling, he still looked a bit amused. When he smiled, he looked even less like a good person. When he said this, he paused for a moment and then frowned pretentiously: "But some people can't feel the Qi in their entire lives. Some of them are because of poor aptitude, and some are just unlucky."

Han Yuan's face tightened when he heard this, and he straightened his back unconsciously: "That's a pity."

"Of course it's a pity," Li Yun said, "Without the sense of Qi, no matter how well we practice this wooden sword, it will only strengthen our body and will not be of much use."

At first, Cheng Qian didn't take Li Yun's words to heart, because he had already decided that Yan Zhengming was a useless person. Yan Zhengming was able to make a name for himself in seven or eight years, and if he was even worse than a useless person, he might as well give up the idea of ​​seeking immortality and go back to farming and doing small business.

But when Li Yun said this, Cheng Qian could already hear the hidden meaning and hook in his words.

Cheng Qian turned back to meet Li Yun's gaze and spoke slowly: "From what I heard from Second Senior Brother, it seems like you know some way to awaken the Qi sense?"

Li Yun smiled at him, and even her eyebrows and eyes were curved, like a pair of black and white hooks. She looked at Cheng Qian meaningfully, but just looked at him without saying a word.

Cheng Qian didn't take the bait and said nonchalantly, "Oh, that's great. I wish you all the best soon."

If there really was such a way to train the Qi, how could Li Yun not do it after a year of learning? It was obvious that he had some bad intentions and wanted to find a scapegoat to test the law himself.

This kid is so cunning that Li Yun’s hooked eyes twitched.

Han Yuan, however, was a man who could not sit still. Hearing this, he immediately asked, "What? What method?"

Li Yun gave up on Cheng Qian and turned to keep Han Yuan in suspense: "You can't tell me. It violates the sect rules."

He said "I can't tell" but his tone was "Come and ask".

Li Yun dug a huge pit in front of him, and Han Yuan cooperated very well, stepping into it without saying a word.

Han Yuan seemed to have become close friends with his new second brother during the toad transformation. He kept asking questions, and Li Yun was "forced to do so" and "could not refuse in any way." Finally, he whispered, "I've read a book about the scenery of our Fuyao Mountain. It says that there is a big demon at the foot of the mountain. On the first and fifteenth nights of every month - that is, the first and fifteenth day of the month - the demon's aura echoes with the moon phases. The clear and turbid air in the mountains stir and gather in the mountain cave. At this time, even mortals who have never entered the cave can feel the aura in the mountain cave at the back."

Li Yun changed the subject and said, "Of course, our head master has ordered that all disciples are not allowed to leave the courtyard on the first and fifteenth nights of every month. The mountain cave is a forbidden place and cannot be visited."

Han Yuan listened thoughtfully.

Li Yun pretended to persuade him, "Junior brothers, you have just entered the sect, and you may not have started to recite the sect rules for 7749 times, right? It is clearly written there. For a junior brother with good aptitude like you, you must practice step by step. One day you will be able to feel the energy. There is no need to think about taking shortcuts and violating the sect rules all day long, right, Third Junior Brother?"

Cheng Qian replied with a fake smile: "Second Brother is right."

Li Yun: “…”

Li Yun looked Cheng Qian up and down. His taciturn third junior brother seemed to be too young to grow up. He was thin and small, and no one could see his face when he lowered his head.

Li Yun was a little confused for a moment. Was this third junior brother young and timid, not good at speaking, or was he becoming more smart where he should be?

Cheng Qian's words of agreement made him feel a little choked up. Li Yun forced a smile and said, "Third Junior Brother is really well-behaved."

Not far away, Yan Zhengming took a bowl of sweet-scented osmanthus and sour plum soup handed to him by the Taoist boy, and just looked up and saw this scene. He always felt that Li Yun was a man with evil intentions, and when he was grinning, he saw a pair of evil intentions in the eyes of his second junior brother.

Yan Zhengming suddenly had an idea and turned his head to the Taoist boy next to him and said, "You called that little one... the shortest child, I forgot what it was called?"

The Taoist boy replied in fear and trepidation: "That is Third Uncle Cheng Qian."

"Ah, that's him," Yan Zhengming nodded, "Let him wait for a while. When I finish practicing the spell, I'll tell him that my master asked me to teach him swordsmanship."

"He kept silent when I asked him for guidance, but now he's claiming to be my teacher again." Master Mu Chun thought slowly after hearing this, but he looked up at Yan Zhengming and didn't say anything to expose him - the young master must have been quite lonely growing up on such a big mountain, and it was rare for him to have a child to accompany him.

The Taoist boy trotted over and delivered the message. Cheng Qian listened without making any comment, but just thought that the eldest brother might have taken the wrong medicine.

Han Yuan murmured reluctantly, "I want to go to your place later."

Cheng Qian glanced at him and thought, "You'd better let your second senior brother play with you."

With such sarcasm in mind, he said goodbye to Li Yun and Han Yuan as if nothing had happened, and waited quietly by the side as he was told - of course, he was not waiting for Master Yan, who he didn't know whether he was his senior brother or sister. In fact, Cheng Qian was full of curiosity about the so-called "talisman".

Unfortunately, he soon discovered that the mystery of the talisman could not be felt by people without the sense of Qi - at least in his opinion, the eldest brother did nothing all afternoon but carved vertical lines on the wood with a knife under the master's nose.

The only benefit of this trip was that I got to see the strict side of my master.

The eldest senior brother was just as he expected. He was an embroidered pillow. After sitting for only a moment, it seemed as if nails grew on his buttocks. He swayed from side to side and ordered the surrounding Taoist children and maids around.

Sometimes he complained that his hair was too tight and wanted to comb it again; sometimes he complained that he was sweaty and wanted to go back to change his clothes; sometimes he wanted to go to the toilet; sometimes he wanted to drink water... When the water was brought, he either complained that it was too cold or too hot; he complained about this and that; anyway, he just couldn't sit still.

He would often be distracted, often looking around, often criticizing Li Yunmu Chun in his heart, and occasionally humming a new song composed by the maids in his heart. In short, his mind was not at all on carving the wood.

Although Cheng Qian didn't understand what was so good about carving wood, he still looked down on his elder brother's behavior and thought, "A lazy donkey trying to get on the millstone."

Master Mu Chun had known that his useless disciple would cause such a scene, so he placed an hourglass on Yan Zhengming's desk. The hourglass was an exquisite magic tool, and it only took half an hour to drain all the sand, and Yan Zhengming's practice would be over after that. However, as soon as he lost his concentration, the sand would immediately stagnate, and the half-hour hourglass would always drag him until dark.

Yan Zhengming originally thought that when it came to "muddling through", they could be close friends, but every time they practiced spells, the master would act out of character and become somewhat unkind.

Master Mu Chun once said that he actually entered the Tao through the sword. Most people who enter the Tao through the sword have strong determination, but there are exceptions, such as Young Master Yan. Therefore, he must double the effort to forge his skills so as not to be wasted.

Cheng Qian watched for a while, but felt that it was of no benefit to him, so he withdrew his gaze and quietly asked the Taoist boy next to him for paper and pen. He began to do his homework for the day - first reciting the sect rules from memory, and then reciting the "Scripture of Purity and Tranquility" that his master had recited in the morning.

Seeing this, Mu Chun's stern expression finally softened a little, and he waved at him: "Cheng Qian, come over here, you are in the dark."

Yan Zhengming frowned and looked up into his master's triangular eyes.

How could there be backlight in the middle of the day? This was clearly the master trying to teach him a lesson, to show him that he was not as steady as this little guy.

Yan Zhengming tilted his head to glance at Cheng Qian's handwriting, and for a moment he forgot that he was the one who wanted to keep him, and said unreasonably and angrily: "A dog's paw can do it more neatly than this."

After all, Cheng Qian was young and shrewd. Hearing this, he fought back without even raising his head: "Thank you for your teachings, Senior Brother. It's useless to press the dog's paws neatly, because the beast can't sit still at all."

After saying this, he glanced at the hourglass meaningfully, and Yan Zhengming was horrified to find that the damn hourglass had stopped again.