I will teach you how to cultivate immortality

Chapter 29 The Witch Who Teaches People to Read

The next day, Lijia Village.

"..."

Li Boyang looked at the pattering raindrops outside the window and fell silent.

Not far from Li Boyang, the "Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets" was laid out flat and hung on the wall.

This is what Chen Yun did after hearing what Li Boyang and Da Yatou had gone through last night when they returned.

Not only that, Chen Yun also made a point of reading through the contents of "Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets" in front of Li Boyang.

It was at that moment that Li Boyang realized with surprise that Chen Yun could actually read.
Although Chen Yun, like Da Yatou, didn't know many characters.

It's still better than Li Boyang figuring it out on his own.

Afterwards, when Li Yu returned, he also stumbled and added a few new words.

Instead, they didn't ask too many questions about what happened to Li Boyang and Da Yatou.

Unbeknownst to them, Li Yu and Chen Yun seemed to have completely accepted their child's unusual characteristics and adopted a "whatever" attitude.

Last night before going to bed, Li Boyang even overheard Li Yu and Chen Yun discussing whether they should consider letting him start his formal education.
Unfortunately, intellectuals are extremely rare in this era.

Throughout Li Yu and Chen Yun's many years of life, the only literate teacher they truly knew was their eldest daughter's father.

Li Boyang, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, had an unexpected gain.

There was a sorceress in a small town about 100 kilometers away from here, who specialized in teaching people to read.

Although the sorceress didn't know many characters, she might have made some mistakes.

However, the sorceress only accepted a small amount of rice and grain, and she held classes almost every day, making her much easier to get to know than those real literate teachers.

Of course, Li Boyang had no intention of becoming that sorceress's disciple.

After all, although his parents accepted his supernatural abilities, Li Boyang wasn't foolish enough to go around telling everyone.

A newborn child was made to learn to read by a sorceress.

If anyone knew this, they probably wouldn't just treat it as a joke or a rumor.

Therefore, Li Boyang secretly opened his third eye and secretly learned from the sorceress while she was teaching the other children to read.

Fortunately, by comparing the descriptions given by Li Yu and Chen Yun, Li Boyang found the address of the sorceress without much effort.

Then, Li Boyang discovered a problem he hadn't anticipated.

[How can I learn to read if I can't hear any sounds?]

Scratching his head in frustration, Li Boyang could only try to observe the mouth shapes of the sorceress and the children, attempting to discern their correct pronunciation.

I have a feeling that once I learn to read, I'll probably have to learn lip-reading without a teacher.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

In a simple courtyard behind the land temple in Gaocun Town.

Groups of children were sitting on the ground, using their twigs to trace characters in the sand in front of them.

Directly in front of these children, an elderly woman with a hunched back and only a few teeth left was smiling as she taught them pronunciation.

Even though her own pronunciation was terrible, the old woman was extremely strict in correcting the children's pronunciation.

"Grandma! We just learned this word yesterday! Why are we learning it again today?"

Holding her hand high, a little girl with dreadlocks asked reluctantly.

"Can't we learn it today if we learned it yesterday?"

"There will always be new kids who haven't learned it yet. I can't let you learn it all by yourself, can I?"

"Read it with me again: This is one, it is the number one, it is the one of a lot of money!"

The old woman reached out and patted the little girl's head, her smile undiminished as she chatted on.

"Huh? But I'm the newest doll, aren't I?" "Even I've learned it, surely someone else hasn't?"

Looking around, the little girl noticed that even the youngest person present was several years older than her, and muttered to herself in bewilderment.

"Grandma, are you getting confused again?"

"Everyone else already knows it, right? I know it too!"

The little girl was telling the truth.

Because the older children next to her had already started drawing doodles in the sand out of boredom.

"You little brat, why are you talking so much nonsense?"

"You're told to learn, so learn. This is to lay the foundation for you."

"Don't forget how to write it when you actually need to use it."

Because of the rain, the fortune teller's lesson lasted a full two hours.

I don't know if it was just Li Boyang's imagination.

He always felt that when the get out of class ended, the fortune teller glanced in his direction, intentionally or unintentionally.

Did she only teach simple, basic characters today? Or is this the kind of character she teaches every day?

Suspiciously recalling those extremely basic characters, Li Boyang realized that the characters the fortune teller had taught him today were all at the beginner level.

Even someone like myself, who can only learn by "seeing," can easily correct the pronunciation of these words by observing their mouth shapes and meanings.

The important thing is that the sorceress didn't make the children memorize things by rote.

On many occasions, Li Boyang could see the sorceress listing a series of words with the same pronunciation.

From easy to difficult, from simple to complex...

In an era without pinyin, Li Boyang even felt that those real literate teachers might not be as good as the sorceress in teaching.

After all, enlightenment and teaching are two different things.

The former doesn't require profound knowledge; being easy to understand and simple is the most important thing.

Just think about the Three Character Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames from ancient times, which were easy to recite, and you'll know what the standard of enlightenment was.

Actually, if you look at it this way, those typos aren't necessarily typos after all...

He looked up again at the "Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets" on the wall.

Li Boyang saw the few "typos" written by the eldest daughter and his mother.

Perhaps it's the difference in writing systems between a thousand years ago and a thousand years later...

Or perhaps those characters are simply written differently in different regions...

So why are other time travelers able to so easily become familiar with the language and writing system of their new world?

Haven't they encountered similar situations of text evolution before?

Li Boyang felt a headache coming on just thinking about the complex writing system before the Qin Dynasty unified China.

If the world also lacks a unified central writing system.

Therefore, the text from "The Nine Chapters of Divination" is most likely from the region near the Huai River a thousand years ago.

This means that the difficulty for Li Boyang to correctly read through the "Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets" has increased even further.

The principle is that a small error can lead to a huge difference.

This is most evident in the field of written language translation.

[I clearly have a secret manual, but I'm being kept out of the door because of the language barrier. I guess only a transmigrator like me could encounter something like this, right?]

Monthly ticket/recommendation ticket

(End of this chapter)