Chapter 29: The Shamaness Who Teaches People to Read

The second day, Li Family Village.

"..."

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

And on the wall not far from Li Li Boyang, the Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets was spread flat and hung up.

This was what Chen Yun had done after listening to the two of them recount their experiences when Li Li Boyang and the eldest daughter returned last night.

Moreover, Chen Yun had specifically read through the contents of the Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets roughly right in front of Li Li Boyang.

It was at that very moment that Li Li Boyang was surprised to realize Chen Yun could actually read?

Although Chen Yun, like the eldest daughter, did not know many characters.

But it was still better than Li Li Boyang figuring it out all by himself.

Afterwards, when Li Yu returned, he also stammeringly added a few new characters.

Instead, he did not ask too many questions about the things that had happened to Li Li Boyang and the eldest daughter.

Unknowingly, the couple Li Yu and Chen Yun seemed to have fully accepted their child's peculiarity and displayed an attitude of "whatever."

Before going to sleep last night, Li Li Boyang even heard Li Yu and Chen Yun discussing whether they should consider sending him to a primary school?

Unfortunately, intellectuals in this era were truly rare.

Looking at how many years Li Yu and Chen Yun had lived, the only literate teacher they truly knew was the eldest daughter's father.

On the contrary, Li Li Boyang, who had eavesdropped on their conversation, made an unexpected discovery.

That was that in a small town about a hundred kilometers away, there was a shamaness who specialized in teaching people to read.

Although the shamaness did not know many characters herself, and might even have some wrong ones.

But she only asked for a small amount of grain, and held classes almost every day, making her much easier to approach than those real literate teachers.

Of course, Li Li Boyang did not intend to go run and become that shamaness's disciple.

After all, although his parents had accepted his supernatural nature, Li Li Boyang was not so foolish as to go around proclaiming it.

Letting a newborn child learn to read from a shamaness.

Whoever found out about this would probably not just treat such a matter as a joke or gossip.

So Li Li Boyang's approach was to quietly open his Heavenly Eye and, while the shamaness taught other children to read, sneakily learn from the side.

Fortunately, by comparing the descriptions of the couple Li Yu and Chen Yun, Li Li Boyang did not spend much effort finding the shamaness's residence.

Then, Li Li Boyang discovered a problem he had not anticipated before.

【Since I cannot hear the pronunciation, how am I supposed to learn characters?】

Scratching his head in considerable distress, Li Li Boyang could only strive to observe the mouth shapes of the shamaness and those children, attempting to distinguish their correct pronunciation.

【I have a feeling that after I learn to read, I will probably have to master lip-reading on my own again.】

Gao Village Town, a dilapidated courtyard behind the Earth God Temple.

Scattered groups of children sat on the ground, using their twigs to trace characters on the sand before them.

And directly in front of these children, a hunched old grandmother with only a few teeth left was teaching them pronunciation with a smiling face.

Although her own pronunciation was ridiculously distorted, the old grandmother corrected the children's pronunciation with extreme strictness.

"Grandma! We just learned this character yesterday! Why do we have to learn this character again today?"

Raising her hand very high, a little girl with dirty braids asked very unwillingly.

"Just because we learned it yesterday, does that mean we can't learn it today?"

"There are always new babies who haven't learned it; we can't let you learn it all by yourself, can we?"

"Read it with me one more time; this is 'one', the 'one' of quantity, the 'one' of a big coin!"

Patting the little girl's head, the old grandmother chattered on without her smile fading.

"Huh? But isn't me the newest baby?"

"If even I have learned it, does that mean there are still people who haven't learned it?"

Glancing around at the surroundings, the little girl looked at the youngest present, who were all several years older than her, and muttered in confusion.

"Grandma, you haven't gotten confused again, have you?"

"Everyone clearly already knows it, right? I know it too?"

The little girl was speaking the truth.

Because the few older babies next to her had already started drawing doodles on the sand out of boredom.

"You little brat, where do you get all this nonsense?"

"If I tell you to learn, then learn; this is laying the foundation for you."

"Don't let it happen that when you really need to use it, you forget how to write it."

Due to the rain, the shamaness's class lasted for a full two shi.

Whether it was Li Li Boyang's illusion or not.

He felt that when announcing the end of class, the shamaness intentionally or unintentionally glanced in his direction.

【Are the characters taught today all simple basics? Or does she teach these characters every day?】

Recalling those extremely basic characters with suspicion, Li Li Boyang found that the characters the shamaness taught today were all introductory level.

Even for a sneak learner like himself who could only "watch," it was very easy to correct the pronunciation of these characters through mouth shapes and meaning.

More importantly, the shamaness did not make the children memorize by rote.

Many times, Li Li Boyang could see the shamaness listing a series of characters with the same pronunciation.

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

In this era without pinyin, Li Li Boyang even felt that those real literate teachers might not teach as well as the shamaness.

After all, enlightenment and teaching are ultimately two different matters.

The former does not require profound learning; being easy to understand and simple and clear is what matters most.

Just think of the catchy Three-Character Classic and Hundred Family Surnames from ancient times in the previous life, and one knows what the standard for enlightenment is.

【Actually, if one really looks at it this way, those typos might not necessarily be typos...】

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

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

Perhaps it was the difference in characters between a thousand years ago and a thousand years later...

Or perhaps those characters simply had different forms in different regions...

【So why can other transmigrators so easily familiarize themselves with the language and characters after transmigrating?】

【Did they never encounter such matters of character evolution?】

Thinking of the complex character system before the Qin Dynasty unified China, Li Li Boyang felt a throbbing headache.

If this world likewise lacks a unified central script.

Then the characters from the Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets are most likely regional characters from the Huaijiang area a thousand years ago.

This means the difficulty for Li Li Boyang to correctly read through the Nine Chapters of Divination Secrets has increased by several degrees.

The principle that a miss of a hair's breadth leads to a difference of a thousand miles.

Is manifested in the field of language and character translation more obviously than anywhere else.

【I clearly hold a secret manual in my hand, yet I am blocked from entering the door due to language issues; such a thing is probably something only I, a transmigrator, could encounter.】

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(End of Chapter)