Chapter 50 The Old Confucian Scholar Who Has Walked Ten Thousand Miles

Outside the tavern, the rain poured down. The middle-aged man in armor told his cavalrymen to move Liang Shu’s dead body onto the horse’s back and take it back to the North Military Government. This military official from the government didn’t even dare to ask about the old Confucian scholar’s background. He would rather explain to the North Military Government than take the risk of being injured or killed by that old Confucian scholar.

Dozens of cavalrymen went away silently in the heavy rain and took away nothing, but Mr. Liang’s life and countless arrows were lost.

In the tavern, Li Fuyao and the old Confucian scholar sat face to face while drinking and had a small talk. The old man was a scholar and occasionally talked about the elementary books those scholars knew but stopped at a certain point in the beginning, being afraid that Li Fuyao knew nothing as he was not a Confucian cultivator. However, in the end, after he found that this boy knew a lot, he became unrestrained and talked about everything with him and even commented on a sage’s essay. Li Fuyao had been a storyteller for many years. Although he had never heard about that sage’s essay, he knew something about the essay’s basic context, so he could understand it.

At last, while talking about the accomplishments on poems, this scholar who had travelled around the world for many years drank some rice wine and then laughed, “As for the achievements on poems, these scholars like to admire the poets in ancient times but criticize the modern poets, thinking that the poems written by the forerunners are enough to spread through the ages and all the later generations should worship them. But in my opinion, it’s unnecessary. Now in the human world, for example, the four sages have their own poems to be handed down. The sage whose wooden statue was the third in the worship hall of the Yanling Confucian Temple had written countless essays before he became a sage. Now at least more than a half of the world-famous essays were written by that sage before he walked on the road to cultivation. But judging from the poems, these sages can’t compare with two people.”

Li Fuyao was interested while listening. Hearing that, he found that the old Confucian scholar would keep him in suspense, so he said with a smile, “Sir, you can’t stop halfway.”

The old scholar picked up the wine bowl and laughed, “These two people in the human world came from the Yanling Confucian Temple, but neither of them is in the temple now. One of them wrote a poem To Li Yong. Because of one sentence in it ‘The roc flies with the wind to ninety thousand miles away in one day’ he borrowed from the Taoist ancient book Travel Freely, he was elbowed out by his study fellows as he wrote such a poem in the first Confucian academy. This young man disdained to study with them, so he left the temple resentfully and travelled around the world. Nobody knows where he is now.”

“As for the second one, he suffered a miserable ending. The scholar named Li Changgu was from Luoyang City. When he was in the temple, he attracted all people’s attention. He studied in the temple for many years and had lots of talent, so he promoted his cultivation soon and wrote many poems. Later, nobody knew why he suddenly changed his mind and practiced swordsmanship. He even broke the gate of the temple with his sword at one go and left freely, but soon he was captured by a master in the temple and must be in Luoyang City now.”

At the mention of swordsmanship, the old Confucian scholar glanced at Li Fuyao. With his sharp eyes, he naturally knew that this teenage boy with a machete on his back was a swordsman.

The old Confucian scholar had seen a lot in this human world. He had even seen Dao cultivators as well as mountain fairies and wild demons, let alone Confucian cultivators. What was the big deal if he saw a swordsman?

So he didn’t come straight to the point, nor did he care.

The only thing that surprised him was that he couldn’t see through the background, cultivation or sect of the teenage girl who was sleeping soundly at the table.

In the old Confucian scholar’s eyes, this girl in black must have some magic tools of high rank to prevent others from detecting her with the vital energy. But as she had such magic tools, the old Confucian scholar felt even more that this girl had a mysterious background.

The old Confucian scholar was in a daze for a short while, and soon Li Fuyao disturbed him, “Sir, you haven’t finished.”

The old Confucian scholar laughed, “The late emperor of Yanling sent eight hundred thousand people to build the Star Building, claiming to use it for worship. In fact, that’s not true. It was that the Yanling Confucian Temple told the Yanling Empire to build a prison to imprison Li Changgu, so he is certainly still in the Star Building now, for about more than seventy years.”

Speaking of that Star Building, Li Fuyao couldn’t help but remember what he had seen outside Luoyang City, thinking that no wonder when he was in Luoyang City, the imperial court forbade anybody irrelevant to get close to the building. This turned out to be the reason.

The old Confucian scholar talked about many irrelevant things. When he was in a great mood, he mentioned why he stayed here and didn’t continue to travel around the world mostly because this old man who had seen a lot of scenes wanted to see more than the cultivators from the three religious sects, so he went into the deep mountains to see the rare Demonic cultivators in the human world. He happened to meet the middle-aged woman who had just become like a person and was fighting in the mountain against a hawk which had transformed many years ago and hunted for snakes. The hawk was the natural enemy of snakes, and this middle-aged woman transformed lately, so she was not its opponent. She had no choice but to retreat and get out of the mountain, while that hawk just wanted the snake eggs this middle-aged woman had laid before she transformed, so it didn’t chase to kill her. In fact, even the Demonic cultivators seldom used the demon cores to promote their strength, except for few vicious ones. So after the middle-aged woman retreated from the mountain, it didn’t consider chasing after her.

The middle-aged woman who was badly injured came here and opened a tavern. She didn’t plan to attract customers, so she intentionally made the flag and tavern like this. She didn’t expect to meet the old Confucian scholar who was travelling here. The old scholar had seen her fighting against that hawk in the past. After he met her again here, he didn’t plan to kill this demon but just wanted to see if the middle-aged woman was a bad person, so he drank dozens of pots of wine and didn’t pay, in order to see how this woman would react.

But then he stayed here at last, which was beyond expectation.

The old Confucian scholar always obeyed the rule set by the Confucian sages to make no social distinctions in teaching. He didn’t consider if this was a person or a demon, a Confucian cultivator or a Dao cultivator. He just wanted to see if she was kind or evil.

If not so, Liang Shu wouldn’t have died so soon.

The old Confucian scholar drank some wine and then smacked his lips, “Since the guy whose family name was Liang knew that there is a chance at the border, it seems that you won’t live in peace here in the future.”

The middle-aged woman was furious, “I have you, right? Don’t forget that you owe me so much money.”

The old Confucian scholar played a rascal, “When did you see that I had money?”

The middle-aged woman was angry but laughed, “So you want to repudiate the debt, scholar?”

The old Confucian scholar asked seriously, “When did you see such a shameless scholar?”

The middle-aged woman pointed at the old Confucian scholar, and her answer was absolutely clear.

The old Confucian scholar was defeated and said helplessly, “Fine. I can never outargue you. I don’t know why you have such a silver tongue, woman.”

After a moment’s silence, the old Confucian scholar took out a brush pen which looked ordinary and was in fact partly bare. He asked with a big smile, “How about I write an excellent essay in exchange for the wine? You sell it and it is worth so much money.”

The middle-aged woman replied decisively without thinking, “No!”

She was not stupid. Since this place was not secret anymore, more people would come to look for her. She was wounded and could hardly cope with Liang Shu who hadn’t entered the Fundamental Stage. What should she do if somebody more powerful came in the future? She certainly needed to keep this old Confucian scholar here at least to make her secure from disasters several times.

The old Confucian scholar smiled silently. Since he was refused, he put away the bare brush pen and turned to Li Fuyao. This time, he finally asked the question he wanted to ask since long ago.

“Are you going to the Sword Mountain?”

Li Fuyao was astonished.

“You are at the first stage of swordsmen and don’t have any treasure to isolate my vital energy, so I can certainly guess. In fact, after you enter the third stage, all your vital energy in your meridians and heart would turn into sword Qi, which would show then, so anybody observant can see your cultivation. In the final analysis, only swordsmen in the human world disdain to conceal anything, and even the methods are so straightforward. But you seem to be a swordsman with no achievement. The one who taught you swordsmanship didn’t even give you a sword. Oh, right, most of the swordsmen would climb the Sword Mountain to get a sword. It appears that you go to the Sword Mountain this time just to get a sword.”

The old Confucian scholar poured out words and seemed to be quite familiar with the swordsmen.

Before Li Fuyao spoke, the old scholar sighed with emotion again, “You go there too late. The Sword Immortal was on the Sword Mountain a few days ago. If you have an amazing performance when you climb the Sword Mountain, perhaps the Sword Immortal would teach you some skills, but now he has left the mountain and gone to the demonic land in the north. Nobody knows what he would do. Would he want to kill a great demon? It’s hard to guess at that guy’s intentions.”

Li Fuyao got impatient and asked, “Sir, why do you know so much?”

The old Confucian scholar drank some wine and laughed, “I have walked a long way and seen a lot. Is it difficult to know more?”