Chapter 192 - 191: Notes
After seeing the two County Magistrates off, Chen Li didn’t stay idle. He began to ponder the matter of expanding the family home.
The family had grown last year, and they had also purchased many new servants and maids.
Despite being expanded twice, the old residence was already crowded.
Here, building a house didn’t involve the tedious procedures of a past life, like homestead approvals and land compliance reviews. You didn’t even have to file a report; you could just build on your own farmland.
But after careful consideration, Chen Li decided to expand and renovate on the original site.
After all, he had lived there for decades and had grown attached to every blade of grass and every tree.
Moreover, Mirror Mountain, and indeed all of Jiangzhou, was mostly plains. Although there were mountains, years of logging had made it difficult to find any large trees a person could barely wrap their arms around.
The giant timber needed for the main beams and large pillars to build a large house was simply not available locally. It had to be transported over long distances from the mountainous regions in the south.
Small quantities were manageable, as they could be purchased sporadically in the county seat or surrounding markets.
But for large-scale construction, the amount of timber required was enormous. It would be difficult to gather enough even by searching several nearby counties, so it was a matter that required long-term planning and gradual procurement.
Chen Li convened a clan meeting and proposed to fund the purchase of Chen Yongxiao’s courtyard home.
Given his current prestige within the clan, naturally, no one objected.
The next day, Chen Li summoned the head craftsman, preparing to first repair and tidy up Chen Yongxiao’s old courtyard to use as a temporary residence.
...
「He Niu Martial Arts Academy.」
The afterglow of the setting sun bathed the tall Bell Tower in a warm, golden light.
DONG... DONG... DONG...
Nine tolls of the bell, their melodious and deep chimes drifting from the top of the tower, spread to every corner of the Martial Arts Academy, announcing the end of the day’s Cultivation and lessons.
Chen Shouheng calmed his breath and steadied the massive iron mallet used to strike the bell.
Three months of life at the Martial Arts Academy had accustomed him to this daily duty.
Before long, the sound of unhurried footsteps came from the staircase behind him.
Chen Shouheng turned to see that the newcomer was his classmate and colleague, Song Zilian.
He was about thirty years old, with an honest face. He wore a faded blue robe, its cuffs frayed, and walked with a steady gait that couldn’t quite hide his exhaustion.
"Brother Shouheng, you’ve worked hard."
Song Zilian walked up, carefully took out a slightly old but well-preserved, string-bound notebook from his robe, and handed it over with both hands.
"These are my notes from Master Wang’s lecture on the geography of the Western Regions today. It’s just... Master Wang is incredibly knowledgeable, and when he gets excited during his lectures, he tends to jump from topic to topic and speaks very quickly. My writing is poor, so I only managed to jot down the main points. There are probably many omissions and errors, so just use it as a reference, Brother. Please don’t laugh."
His tone was filled with sincere apology.
Chen Shouheng accepted the notebook. He could feel the densely packed characters and the occasional hasty, messy strokes on the pages, a testament to the focus and rush with which they were written.
He felt a surge of gratitude. "Brother Zilian, what are you saying? If you weren’t so generous in sharing your notes every day, I would miss out on so much knowledge. I can’t thank you enough."
He still vividly remembered registering at the Dining Hall when he first arrived at the academy three months ago.
He never would have imagined that the annual tuition for He Niu Martial Arts Academy was a staggering fifty taels of gold.
And that wasn’t all. Room and board cost an additional five taels of gold.
Although Zhou Shuwei later stepped forward, explaining she had invited him to come along, and readily paid the enormous tuition and fees for him.
But Chen Shouheng soon discovered that the academy’s expenses were far from over.
Meals in the dining hall had to be paid for out of pocket. While the dishes were dazzling, many of them delicacies from land and sea that he had never seen before, the prices were truly steep.
He could be frugal with daily meals and expenses.
But the path of Cultivation was like a gold-swallowing beast.
The Library Pavilion housed a vast ocean of Secret Manuals, but the cost to redeem any single Cultivation Technique for study was easily ten or a hundred taels of gold, sometimes even thousands of taels.
Even after redeeming a Cultivation Technique, seeking guidance on its key aspects from a Master outside one’s own hall required offering a handsome gift.
Furthermore, the Alchemy Room offered various Elixirs to aid Cultivation, temper the body, and increase Inner Breath. Their wondrous effects were dizzying to behold.
But their prices were, without exception, astronomical figures that an ordinary family could never imagine.
Money! Money! Money!
’Everything required money!’
It was only now that Chen Shouheng truly understood why, on the day the Martial Arts Academy opened for new admissions, only a few dozen students had shown up to register.
’With such astonishing expenses, who but the scions of Noble Families would dare to set foot inside?’
The travel money he had brought with him wasn’t even enough to cover a fraction of the cost.
It was for this reason that he felt somewhat grateful that Zhao Anshi had assigned him to Guangye Hall.
’If I had actually entered Suixing Hall, where one only needs to focus on Cultivation without worldly duties, the annual yield from my family’s several hundred acres of fields probably wouldn’t have been enough to support my expenses at the academy.’
’What’s more, the family just bought over seven hundred acres of land, and it will take several years for it to become truly productive. We still have significant debts to pay off, so there’s no way they could afford for me to be extravagant here.’
So, just a few days after entering the academy, he had rushed to the Dining Hall to look for odd jobs to earn some silver coins.
After searching for a long time, he found that only the position of "Bell Tower Timekeeper" had an opening, with a monthly salary as high as three hundred taels of silver.
’Such a high-paying job, yet it remained vacant.’ He immediately took the post without a second thought.
However, once he actually got to the Bell Tower and was informed by Song Zilian, who was already working there, Chen Shouheng realized he had been far too naive.
The act of ringing the bell to mark the time wasn’t complicated. In fact, it was quite easy.
Inside the Bell Tower were a precise hourglass and a sundial, making the time clearly discernible.
And although the iron mallet for striking the bell weighed over a thousand pounds, it was a piece of cake for Chen Shouheng with his Spirit Realm Cultivation.
It was just that the job was incredibly draining!
Starting from 5:00 AM every day, the bell had to be struck to announce the hour, and also struck once every quarter-hour.
The day only ended after the final chime was struck at a quarter past 9 p.m.
In between, one had to constantly watch the water clock and the sundial’s shadow. Forget about peaceful Cultivation; it was hard to even catch a quick nap.
It was a pure waste of time. Doing this job would inevitably cause a major delay in one’s Martial Dao progress.
No wonder no one was interested and the position had remained vacant for so long.
After all, everyone came to the Martial Arts Academy to study.
The annual tuition was fifty taels of gold.
Inside the academy, you could freely exchange gold and silver with few restrictions, but it was at the official exchange rate, meaning fifty taels of gold was equivalent to five thousand taels of silver.
To give up the vast majority of one’s Cultivation time for a part-time job that paid three thousand six hundred taels of silver a year simply wasn’t worth it. No one was willing.
Chen Shouheng had once asked Song Zilian how he had managed to persevere on his own before.
Song Zilian had just given a wry smile.
He said that with no one to rotate shifts with, he was stuck in the Bell Tower alone, which was probably why the academy had given him a monthly salary silver of eight hundred taels.
He came from a Humble Family and had already scraped together every coin he could just to afford the academy’s tuition and fees. To be able to earn such a generous salary here to support his future expenses was something he was already very content with; he dared not ask for more.
He had remarked with feeling that now that Chen Shouheng had arrived, even though his own salary silver had been reduced, being able to get away to attend lectures in the various halls was a great blessing.
’After all, we came to the Martial Arts Academy to study, not to work for money.’
There was no complaint in his words, only appreciation and gratitude.
After understanding the situation, Chen Shouheng went to the Dining Hall again and simply had his own dormitory switched to one next to the Bell Tower, so he could live with Song Zilian.
The two privately agreed to take turns, one person on duty per day. One would stand watch from 5:00 AM until 5:00 PM, and the other would take over for the final watch period starting at 7:00 PM.
This way, both of them could get a bit of a breather.
From then on, Chen Shouheng began his new life: ringing the bell while struggling to squeeze in time for Cultivation.
Song Zilian was an extremely hardworking and humble person.
Every day he went to the halls to attend lectures, he would diligently record every word the Master said, as detailed as possible.
At night, back in their dormitory, he would often review, recopy, and organize his notes until late.
Even in the breaks between ringing the bell on his shift, he seized every available moment, either reviewing his notes or practicing his martial arts. He refused to waste a single instant.
Inspired by him, Chen Shouheng also began to practice much more diligently than he had at the Tiger Subduing Martial Arts Hall.
The Masters of Guangye Hall didn’t just teach the Martial Dao.
Their lectures covered a wide range of subjects, from classics and histories to astronomy, mathematics, and military strategy. Sometimes they would even speak of world geography, local customs, and the secret histories and anecdotes of the Martial Arts world. The content was all-encompassing.
At first, Chen Shouheng didn’t have the habit of taking notes.
But when it was Song Zilian’s turn to ring the bell, he realized he had nothing to give in return, which made him feel quite ashamed.
Over time, influenced by Song Zilian, he also began to try recording key points during lectures.
However, Chen Shouheng had disliked writing since he was a child.
Although his mother, Song Ying, had forced him to read and write, he would just scribble nonsense to get it over with, then drag his younger brother Shouye out to play as soon as he was done.
After he turned ten, his father sent him directly to a martial arts hall, and he never seriously held a writing brush again.
He could recognize all the characters, but his handwriting was crooked and an eyesore.
Often, when Song Zilian took his notes, he would have to examine them repeatedly just to guess fifty or sixty percent of the content, which frequently left Chen Shouheng’s face burning with embarrassment.
Out of embarrassment, during his free time while on duty at the Bell Tower, Chen Shouheng finally began to calm his mind and practice his calligraphy, stroke by stroke.
With his Spirit Realm Cultivation, his control over his Inner Qi was exquisitely precise. Using this to guide the brush, his progress was surprisingly fast, and his handwriting gradually became neat and orderly.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, Chen Shouheng carefully placed Song Zilian’s notebook inside his robe and said, "Thank you for your trouble, Brother Zilian. Have you eaten yet, Zilian?"
Song Zilian smiled and waved his hand. "Not yet. I don’t have much of an appetite today. You go ahead, Brother. Don’t be late."
Chen Shouheng nodded, said no more, and turned to walk down from the Bell Tower.
Behind him, the faint sound of Song Zilian turning the pages of a book soon followed.
...
「The Dining Hall.」
It was nearly evening, dinnertime.
The dining hall was bustling with noise.
In the massive hall, dozens of long tables were filled with students eating their meals.
A dazzling array of dishes was on display, many of them delicacies from land and sea that Chen Shouheng had never seen before, all cooked to perfection in color, aroma, and taste.
"Shouheng!"
He turned his head and saw Zhou Shuwei at another table not far away, dining with a woman in rich clothes who had a cold, aloof air.
Zhou Shuwei smiled apologetically at her companion, whispered a few words, then picked up her own nearly untouched tray and walked straight toward Chen Shouheng.
"Patriarch Zhou."
Chen Shouheng put down his chopsticks and stood up, habitually using the formal address he used outside the academy.
Zhou Shuwei walked up to him and, hearing his words, rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I don’t mind you calling me Patriarch Zhou when we’re outside. But here, in the Martial Arts Academy, what are you supposed to call me?"
Her bright eyes glared at him with a hint of feigned annoyance.