Chapter 22: Absurdity

Previously, Li You only complained about not being able to get a full meal, but now he thought further ahead; he wanted more people to have full meals, at least letting children like Yu Zhengchun and Little Tangerine have a decent meal.

For these past two days, Li You had indeed been seriously thinking of a way, but unfortunately, he really hadn't come up with one.

His stomach was hungry every day, especially since he gave away more than half of his own food every day to the group of children including Song Baishun and Tangerine.

"No one has paid any attention to me for these five days... why on earth is that?"

Li You furrowed his brows; at first, he thought Wu Zhuge was quite easy to fool, but the facts were clear—it wasn't that simple.

"Those who can survive until now are all cunning old foxes... oh, could it be that I am just a chess piece in the power struggle between these two old schemers?"

Li You thought it over and over, and this was the only possibility; yet he didn't even know what game the two of them were playing, so how was he supposed to break the deadlock?

"Should I use Cao Er as a breakthrough point, or if that doesn't work, just attach myself to Cao Er for now?"

But ever since the incident with Tian Si, Cao Er, intimidated by Wu Zhuge's attitude, had no immediate designs on Li You, though he remained cold, indifferent, and ignored him.

After thinking for a long time, he was still at a loss, but he knew that when the enemy's situation was unclear, the best course of action was to remain still; what was needed most now was patience, waiting for an opportunity to stand out and prove his worth!

The relatively good thing for now was that he could move freely in Nanshan.

Although his nutrition was poor, he still insisted on waking up before dawn to run and do gravity training, and then he would take Little Tangerine and the others to search for and collect some medicinal herbs on nearby hills; hiding in Nanzhai and acting as a Physician was the only thing he could do for now.

Waking up today, he clearly felt soreness and weakness in his bones, and his teeth felt soft; he knew this was due to a severe lack of nutrition—where was there any trace of his innate divine strength?

If he were to face Tian Si recently, it would be hard to say who would live and who would die.

He had also thought about catching fish or birds, even catching insects would do.

But in the nearby river, let alone fish, even tadpoles had been eaten clean; there were indeed birds in the mountains and forests, but every one of them was as clever as a glass monkey, running away the moment they saw a person from afar—let alone catching them, he couldn't even find a single bird feather.

As for insects, don't even mention it; it was September, yet it was already bitterly cold, and the insects had long since vanished.

"History of Disasters in China" mentions that during the Ming Dynasty, in its mere two hundred years of rule, a total of 1011 natural disasters occurred; "Harvard History of Imperial China" also emphasizes the severity of the disasters at the end of the Ming Dynasty, with the term "Nine Abysses."

Therefore, it is a joke to say that when ancient famines occurred, the victims were stupid for not catching fish, shrimp, birds, or snakes to satisfy their hunger, instead choosing to sell their children and wives, drinking poison to quench thirst by chewing grass roots, gnawing on tree bark, and eating mud.

Such an argument actually fails to understand the blood and tears behind the eight characters "a thousand miles of barren land, corpses filling the roads," and is no different from Emperor Hui of Jin's "Why don't they eat minced meat?"

"Snap, snap, snap..."

The sound of whips echoed continuously from the nearby mine; it was the sound of whipping the miners.

Li You got up, sighed, and walked toward the side room of the courtyard.

Nowadays, there were not many patients left in the side room, only Qi Jingkun, who had more serious injuries, while the conditions of Xiang Ying, Lu Yi, and Dang Suosheng had all stabilized; at least they were not inflamed or feverish, it was just that their nutrition couldn't keep up, so their wounds were healing slowly.

Qi Jingkun was still in a semi-conscious state, occasionally running a fever, and his wound showed signs of festering; Li You even suspected that when the sharp stone pierced him, it might have injured his spleen.

As long as it was an internal injury, Li You was actually relieved, because he knew nothing about internal injuries; since he was helpless, he would just have to rely on Heaven—relying on himself was not reliable either.

"Mr. Li!"

"Mr. Li!"

As soon as Li You entered, Lu Yi, Xiang Ying, and Dang Suosheng struggled to get up and respectfully performed a cupped-hand salute.

"Don't exert yourselves, rest well!"

Li You had grown somewhat impatient with them repeatedly saluting him recently, and he almost blurted out that he was a fake scholar.

Just as Li You entered, Yu Zhengchun had already brought in hot water.

Li You quickly cleaned the wounds for the two of them, which moved them deeply from beginning to end; after all, this had been going on for three consecutive days.

Especially for Xiang Ying, a miner who was like a slave, being able to stay in the side room to recover in peace was all thanks to Li You's influence; otherwise, he would have long been dragged away to work by force.

Looking at Li You's meticulous manner, he was moved to tears and sobbed, "Mr. Li, this little one must have had smoke rising from his ancestral grave to have encountered a living Bodhisattva like you; I will never forget this great kindness for eight lifetimes!"

Li You nodded slightly; it wasn't that he didn't believe it, but Xiang Ying had already said similar things many times.

Qi Jingkun came from a merchant family and originally had a little wealth, but later his home was destroyed by the "Yao-Huang Bandits," and he was forced to follow Cao Er.

He was already a man of few words among the mountain bandits, but at this moment, one could see his gratitude toward Li You in his eyes, as if he would do whatever Li You ordered without hesitation.

Finally, Li You treated his wound again and helped him swallow some ground Panax notoginseng powder he had found; whether he could live or not would depend on Heaven's will.

After finishing these, Li You hurried outside; at the entrance of the small courtyard, little heads were huddled in the dark, already sitting on stones waiting for him.

Because for the past two days, he had started teaching the children; at this time, the enlightenment books were mostly "Juvenile Studies," "Thousand Character Classic," "Three Character Classic," and "Standards for Being a Good Pupil."

As for the illustrated "Newly Compiled Four-Character Phrases," those were enlightenment readers for wealthy gentry families.

Li You remembered most of "Juvenile Studies," "Thousand Character Classic," and "Three Character Classic" based on the original body's memories.

But such enlightenment, lacking categorization and systematic planning, still felt too difficult to Li You, so he made appropriate changes based on his memories from his previous life...

"Heaven, Earth, Man; You, Me, Him; Sun, Moon, Bright; Hand, Eye, Look; Small, Big, Sharp..."

On a simple wooden board that Wa Qingyun helped make, Li You wrote with coal dregs while leading the children to read, and at the same time, he explained and focused on guiding them through the radicals of the Chinese characters.

Chinese character radicals are defined from the perspective of application and function, while components are defined from the perspective of character construction and form.

Since the characters at this time were not the simplified ones of later generations, their pictographic representation was particularly obvious; although the strokes were more complex and less conducive to writing and communication, they were more logical.

After teaching these, Li You began to teach the children to read the "Thousand Character Classic"...

"The sky is black and the earth is yellow; the universe is vast and desolate."

Li You's Mandarin was not very standard, but at this time, the elegant language of the Great Ming was the Nanjing dialect—yes, it was Nanjing dialect.

Zhu Yuanzhang was from Fengyang, and after the promotion of the "Hongwu Correct Rhymes," even though Zhu Di later moved the capital to Beijing, a large group of Nanjing nobles followed; although Northern dialects had merged in by the mid-to-late period, the Nanjing dialect remained the official language of the Great Ming.

As for the Mandarin of later generations, it belongs to the authentic Northern dialect and is a language of great ethnic integration based on the Nanjing official language; it is not to say that it is a language "barbarized."

To say that it borrowed some Manchu vocabulary is possible, but it does not necessarily mean that certain words are definitely Manchu; after all, Manchu actually borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from other Northeast languages, and even Russian, such as "hushi," "moji," "bude," "sachima"...

"The sky is black and the earth is yellow; the universe is vast and desolate."

The children read with extreme piety, and their voices were particularly loud; even the youngest, Tangerine, was sitting upright, her little dark face tense, her mouth opening meticulously.

Li You nodded and continued to lead the reading: "The sun and moon wax and wane; the stars and constellations are spread out."

At this moment, as his gaze swept over, he discovered two more children in the crowd; he had an impression of these two children—they were the girl and boy who helped the kitchen staff follow the Xing family, one named Xiaoniang and the other named Daniu.

"The sun and moon wax and wane; the stars and constellations are spread out..."

The sound of reading was clear and melodious, especially the crisp voices of the children; it was very pleasant, and although not loud, it resonated throughout Nanshan, accompanied by the morning sun.

This was a sound that had never been heard in Longmen Shanzhai for many days and nights; whether it fell into the ears of the miners or rippled in the minds of the bandits, the rich, rhythmic Han cadence made everyone pause for a moment, standing still and turning their heads to look toward the northern courtyard...

Niu Jinku, who had just come to patrol, seemed stunned by this sound: for how many years had the world been in chaos? He had rarely heard such reading in a village or a town, yet he did not expect to hear it today in a bandit's den—it was truly absurd.