Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

The process of learning knowledge is like a circle constantly expanding. As he learns more and more, he discovers that as the circle grows larger, the unknown areas he encounters also increase.

Yunling kowtowed three times and prostrated herself before the tombstone.

After a long while, she patted the dirt off her clothes and stood up.

"let us start."

Her eyes were still slightly red from crying, but there was no trace of weakness on her face.

Zhuang Xing nodded, stepped outside the cemetery, and joined her in practicing the warm-up incantation.

The white rat followed them all the way, hiding far away, peeking out with its head to peek.

True Qi flowed within their bodies, and wisps of black energy appeared on Yunling's body.

"Don't breathe erratically," Zhuang Xing whispered in Yunling's ear. "Follow my rhythm."

Yunling adjusted herself, looked at Zhuang Xing, and continued practicing.

Black energy continuously emerged from her body, and it was burned away by the sunlight.

Zhuang Xing heard a faint tiger's roar in his ear, and a solid black mist suddenly flew out from Yun Ling's mouth and nose.

A strange thing happened: the black mist neither dodged nor made any move to attack.

It simply floated quietly in front of Yunling, letting the sunlight scorch it.

Under the scorching sunlight, irregular ripples appeared on the surface of the black gas.

The tiger's roar became even louder, and the black mist suddenly transformed into the shape of a tiger.

That man-eating tiger was killed by Yan Huai'an five years ago; it was dead beyond any doubt.

But due to various coincidences, it seems that it still retains a faint remnant of its soul and resentment.

It doesn't seem to possess any intelligence; it just roars in agony under the sunlight.

The tiger-like shadow seemed to be trying to break free, peeking its head out into the shade of the tree.

But then, a pair of hands reached out and pressed down on the tiger's head.

The raging tiger was pushed into the shadows, and the tiger's shadow disappeared. In its place, the phantom of a man appeared before Zhuang Xing's eyes.

The man silently watched Yunling and Zhuang Xing. He stood there, and as the sunlight shone on him, his shadow became increasingly transparent.

His shadow flickered, the tiger-like shadow appearing and disappearing in an instant.

The man suddenly reached out and pointed at the wooden sword in Zhuang Xing's hand.

There was no communication, but Zhuang Xing understood what the man meant.

Zhuang Xing gripped his sword and solemnly bowed to the man.

No, he bowed to Mr. Yunshu.

Yunling looked up, her eyes fixed on the scene.

Zhuang Xing assumed a fighting stance, using the same sword technique that Miss Huai'an used five years ago to behead the tiger demon.

The tiger demon's remnant soul seemed to still remember the fear of that sword strike, and when it saw a child striking a similar pose, it struggled even more fiercely.

No matter how much it struggled, it couldn't move an inch. Its remnant soul merged with Yun Shu's remnant soul, and its individual will could not dodge this sword strike.

Zhuang Xing's innate Qi was mobilized. With a flash of sword light, the black aura dissipated like a punctured balloon, and then completely dissolved in the sunlight.

Looking at the place where the black energy dissipated, Zhuang Xing thought to himself that there was still so much for him to learn.

...

In the evening, Zhuang Xing and Yunling came to the waterwheel and sat down.

"That lotus flower... at first I thought it was my father coming back to see me..."

Yunling peered through the gaps between her fingers at the fragmented sunset on the river surface.

“I’ve never really wanted to believe that my father is dead. I feel like he’s still watching me from somewhere. His funeral was held by the river, so... I often come here when I’m alone. When I sit here, I feel like he’s right next to me.”

“He probably really is watching you,” Zhuang Xing said. “His soul is entangled with the remnant soul of the tiger spirit. Logically speaking, you should have shown symptoms of being possessed by a ghost five years ago, but... he only appeared in front of you today. I think that in these five years, he must have done his best to protect you.”

"I see..."

A lock of hair by Yunling's ear fluttered in the wind. She reached her hand into the river, the water flowing through the gaps between her fingers. She clenched her fist slightly, but couldn't grasp the flowing water.

"Thank you, Zhuang Xing. Without you, I would never have realized something so important."

"Can you still teach me to read tomorrow?" She turned her head and smiled, her smile as clear as water.

"Come to my house tomorrow," Zhuang Xing said, taking her cold little hand in his. "I'll teach you to write."

She paused for a moment, then nodded emphatically.

"Ah."

Chapter 44 I've had a bad stomach since I was a child

The next morning, Zhuang Xing went out and brought Yunling to his home.

"Mother, this is my friend, Yunling," Zhuang Xing introduced to his mother.

He already talked to his mother last night, saying he would invite friends over to play.

His mother always doted on him and was happy for her son to make more friends, so she naturally didn't refuse.

"Um... Hello, Auntie..."

Yunling greeted him reservedly. Today she was wearing a clean white dress, her hair was combed without a single split end, and she had specially braided it. She must have taken a thorough bath when she got home, as her skin was fair and clean, and she had a faint fragrance about her.

The mother paused for a moment, looked at the girl in front of her, and said softly, "Are you Yunshu's daughter?"

Yunling seemed a little guilty under that gaze, lowered her head, and nodded slightly: "Mm."

"Really... Yunshu's daughter has grown so much..." Mother reached out and stroked Yunling's cheek.

Her mother did not try to avoid Yunling at all and was very close to her.

"Come inside quickly, Zhuang'er has been asking you to come over to play since yesterday."

After the two entered the house, the mother took a lotus leaf package tied with straw rope from the table and placed it in Zhuang Xing's hand.

"These are red bean paste cakes that your mother just bought. Zhuang'er, you can share them with Yunling. Don't eat them all by yourself."

"Got it, mother."

"Then you can go play by yourselves, I won't bother you anymore." The mother smiled and went to sit in the yard to pick beans.

After that, Zhuang Xing took Yunling into the house and taught her to write with a wooden board and charcoal pencil.

Of course, he didn't just teach her to recognize characters; Zhuang Xing also taught her arithmetic.

Leaving aside anything too complicated, it's still necessary for Yunling to learn basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

During the break, Zhuang Xing would take out the chessboard and pieces he had carved himself and play Gomoku with Yunling.

Eating red bean paste cakes and chatting and laughing, the morning quickly passed by.

At noon, Yunling ate lunch at Zhuang Xing's house. Her father also came home for lunch. It was late spring now, and the crops in the fields had sprouted. Unlike in early spring, when he had to plow the fields all day, her father would go to the fields in the morning to check on them and then come home in the afternoon to help his mother pick beans or go for a walk with her.

At first, the father didn't recognize Yunling and was quite enthusiastic, but after Yunling introduced herself, his expression clearly changed.

It was his mother who pulled him away by the arm. He had probably been scolded by his mother, because when he came back, his attitude had completely changed.

When Yunling came for the second time, her father even went to the market to buy a bag of maltose.

Seven days later, Yunling had become very familiar with Zhuang Xing's family. Her father and mother treated her exceptionally well, almost like their own daughter.

His mother would often privately remind Zhuang Xing not to bully other girls.

Like Zhuang Xing, her mother probably felt some guilt and sympathy towards Yunling.

Only two families in the village encountered the living tiger demon. Not only were the mother and Zhuang Xing unharmed, but they also gained a new house. Only Yunling lost her father and her family was destroyed.

People always feel a sense of empathy for those who have had similar experiences to their own. Sometimes, Zhuang Xing felt that seeing Yunling was like seeing another possibility of himself. His mother must have felt the same way, which is why she tried her best to make up for the loss of her father in other ways.

In short, life returned to normal.

The only difference is that Zhuang Xing and Yun Ling spend more time together now. About every three days, Zhuang Xing will give Yun Ling a lesson at home. The rest of the time, they either go outside the village to catch fish and have private lessons together, or they cultivate together.

Thus, half a month later, Yunling finally began the formal cultivation of the Life Force Technique.

They met in front of the White Mouse Cave today because they needed to use the jade slip.

Zhuang Xing brought out the parts related to magic and placed them in front of Yunling.

"Can you understand it?" Zhuang Xing asked.

Yunling looked at it carefully for a while, then shook her head.

"No, there are still many characters I don't recognize, and I can't read them fluently."

Well, after all, she has only been learning to read for half a month, and the actual time spent in class during that period was less than five days. It is too much to ask her to read on her own.

Zhuang Xing then helped her interpret the first step in cultivating the Life Force Technique: infuse one's true qi into the plant seed. If one can use true qi to accelerate the germination and growth of the plant, then this step is considered complete.

It sounds simple, but it is actually an extremely difficult thing, requiring a very high degree of control over one's true qi.

Plant seeds are extremely fragile and tiny life forms, and the amount of true qi they can withstand is limited. If too much is inputted, the seed will be destroyed, but if too little is inputted, it will have no effect. The right amount of true qi input can only be achieved through training and continuous accumulation of experience and feel.

Moreover, this places special requirements on the characteristics of true qi. If the true qi is too aggressive, such as Zhuang Xing's true qi, let alone making the seed sprout, he would have to concentrate on controlling it to prevent the true qi from cutting the seed open.

But for Yunling, this step was a piece of cake. She only spent a few days and successfully made the soybean seeds sprout in front of Zhuang Xing, making rapid progress.

Zhuang Xing felt that his previous ability to see lotus flowers was entirely due to the blessing of the amulet he was wearing, while Yun Ling was the one who truly relied on her talent to resonate with the jade slip.

Her true qi is perfectly suited for life-giving techniques. Even during the testing phase, she managed to sprout new buds from broken leaves, showing that she was born to follow this path.

After completing the first step, we move on to the second step.

"Let me see..." Zhuang Xing flipped through the jade slip. "The second step is to make the seeds of the spiritual plants germinate successfully as well. Because spiritual plants have more stringent requirements for the environment and Qi, the difficulty is several times higher than that of making ordinary seeds germinate."

“Speaking of spiritual plants... it seems like the only one we’ve ever seen is the snake fruit.”

"We buried the fruit pit before and haven't gone back to check on it since. Let's go take a look over there today."

"Mm." Yunling nodded.

The two returned to the grove of trees, where the snake fruit plant they had started with had withered and died.