Chapter 22: Absurdity

Previously, Li You had only complained about not getting a full meal, but now he thought further ahead; he wanted more people to have full meals, at least letting Yu Zhengchun, Xiao Juzi, and other children eat proper meals.

These past two days, Li You had indeed been seriously thinking of a way, but helplessly, he truly could not come up with one.

Every day his stomach was very hungry, especially since he gave away more than half of his own food every day to a group of children like Song Baishun and Juzi.

"For these five days, no one has paid any attention to me... why exactly?"

Li You frowned; at first he thought Wu Zhuge was easy to fool, but the facts were clear right there: it was not that simple.

"Those who have survived until now are all cunning people... ah, could I be a pawn in the magical duel between these two old schemers?"

Li You thought and thought, and only this one possibility remained, but what game these two were playing, he did not know, so how could he break the stalemate?

"Should I use Cao Er as a breakthrough point? If all else fails, should I first attach myself to Cao Er?"

But since the incident with Tian Si, Cao Er, intimidated by Wu Zhuge's attitude, had temporarily no designs on Li You, yet remained neither cold nor warm, ignoring him completely.

After thinking for a long time, he was still at a loss, but he knew that when the enemy situation was unclear, the best course was to hold one's position; what was needed most now was patient waiting, waiting for an opportunity to stand out and demonstrate value!

Currently, the good thing was that he could move freely in Nanshan.

Although nutrition was poor, he still insisted on getting up before dawn to run and train under gravity, then taking Xiao Juzi and others to nearby hilltops to search for and collect some medicinal herbs; surviving in Nanzhai first as a Physician was the only thing he could do for now.

Getting up today, he clearly felt soreness and weakness between his bones, and his teeth were soft; he knew this was due to severe lack of nutrition, where was even a trace of innate divine strength left?

If he had faced Tian Si recently, who would live and who would die was truly hard to say.

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

But in the nearby river, not to mention fish, even tadpoles had been eaten clean; birds did exist in the mountain forests, but each was as cunning as a glass monkey, running away at the sight of a person from far away; not to mention catching one, not even a single feather could be picked up.

As for insects, never mind; in the sky of September, it was already terribly cold, and the insects had long since vanished without a trace.

"A History of Chinese Famines" mentions that during the Ming Dynasty, in merely over two hundred years of rule, a total of 1,011 natural disasters erupted; "The Cambridge History of China" also emphasizes the fierce famines of the late Ming, with the saying "Nine Abysses."

Therefore, when joking about ancient famines, the claim that starving people were foolish for not catching fish and shrimp, not catching birds and snakes to fill their stomachs, but instead insisted on selling their children, drinking poison to quench thirst, chewing on grass roots, gnawing tree bark, and eating mud.

Such arguments actually fundamentally failed to understand the blood and tears behind the eight characters "a thousand li of barren earth, corpses filling the roads," and were no different from Emperor Hui of Jin's question, "Why not eat meat porridge?"

"Crack, crack, crack..."

Not far away, in the mine, the sound of whips echoed continuously; that was the sound of whips striking the mine laborers.

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

Now there were few patients left in the side room, only Qi Jingkun with the heaviest injuries; while the conditions of Xiang Ying, Lv Yi, and Dang Suosheng had stabilized, at least without inflammation or fever, but nutrition was insufficient, 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 pus; 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 absolutely nothing about internal injuries; since he was helpless, he could only rely on Heaven; relying on him was useless anyway.

"Li Xianggong!"

"Li Xianggong!"

As soon as Li You entered, Lv Yi, Xiang Ying, and Dang Suosheng struggled to rise and respectfully performed the high-crossed-hand salute.

"Stop troubling yourselves; rest well!"

Recently, Li You had grown somewhat impatient with their repeated salutes, and had almost blurted out that he was an impostor pretending to be a scholar.

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

Li You quickly cleaned the wounds of the two, which moved them deeply from start to finish; after all, such days had continued for three days straight.

Especially Xiang Ying, a mine laborer like a slave; being able to stay in the side room to recover safely was all due to Li You's favor; otherwise, he would have long been dragged away to force labor.

At this moment, looking at Li You's meticulous manner, he was moved to tears and sobbed, "Li Xianggong, this boy's ancestral grave is truly emitting green smoke; I have encountered a living Bodhisattva like you. Your great kindness and virtue, I will never forget even in eight lifetimes!"

Li You nodded slightly; it was not that he did not believe, but similar words Xiang Ying had already said many times.

Qi Jingkun came from a merchant family; originally his family had some wealth, but later their home was destroyed by the "Yao Huang Bandits," forcing him to follow Cao Er.

He was already one who spoke little among the mountain bandits, but even now, from his eyes, one could see his gratitude toward Li You; it seemed that if Li You gave an order, he would do it without hesitation.

Finally, Li You treated his wound again and helped him swallow some powder made from ground Tianqi; whether he would live or die could only be left to fate.

After finishing these tasks, Li You hurried outside; at the entrance of the small courtyard, a row of small heads, dark and indistinct, were already sitting on stones waiting for him.

Because these past two days, he had begun teaching the children; at this time, introductory books were mostly "Youxue Qionglin," "Thousand Character Classic," "Three Character Classic," and "Disciples' Rules."

As for the illustrated "Newly Compiled Four-Character Rhymes with Pictures and Text," those were introductory reading materials for wealthy gentry families.

"Youxue Qionglin," "Thousand Character Classic," and "Three Character Classic"—relying on the original body's memory, Li You actually remembered most of them.

But such unclassified, unsystematic introductory teaching made Li You feel it was still too difficult; following the memory of his past life, he made appropriate modifications...

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

On a simple wooden board made with the help of Wa Qingyun, Li You wrote with coal slag while leading the children in reading, and at the same time, while explaining, he focused on guiding them in the radicals of Chinese characters.

Chinese character radicals are defined from the perspective of application function, while components are defined from the perspective of character formation structure.

Since the characters of this time were not yet the simplified characters of later generations, their pictographic representations were particularly obvious; although the script style was somewhat complex and unfavorable for writing and communication, logically it was more coherent.

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

"Heaven is dark, 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 Great Ming was the Nanjing dialect; yes, it was the Nanjing dialect.

Zhu Yuanzhang was from Fengyang; after the "Hongwu Zhengyun" was implemented, even though Zhu Di later moved the capital to Beijing, a large group of Nanjing nobles moved with him; although by the middle to late stage northern dialects had merged in, the Nanjing dialect system remained the official language of Great Ming.

As for the Mandarin of later generations, it was solidly a northern dialect, a language formed by great ethnic fusion on the basis of the Nanjing official speech; it was not that it was a language "barbarized" by the Hu.

To say that it borrowed some Manchu vocabulary is possible, but certain words are not necessarily Manchu; after all, Manchu itself borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from other northeastern languages, and even Russian vocabulary, such as "hushi," "moji," "badebu," "shaqima"...

"Heaven is dark, Earth is yellow; the universe is vast and desolate."

The children read with extreme piety, their voices particularly loud; even the youngest, Juzi, was sitting upright with his back straight, his small black face tightly set, his mouth opening with meticulous care.

Li You nodded and continued leading the reading: "Sun and moon wax and wane; stars and constellations are arranged."

At this moment, as his gaze swept across, he discovered two extra children in the crowd; he had an impression of these two children; they were a girl and a boy from the kitchen helping cook, following Lady Xing; one was called Xiao Niang, the other Da Niu.

"Sun and moon wax and wane; stars and constellations are arranged..."

The sound of reading was clear and resonant, filling the ears; especially the children's voices were crisp and pleasant; though not loud, accompanied by the morning sunlight, they echoed throughout Nanshan.

This was a sound Longmen Stronghold had never heard in countless days and nights; whether sliding into the ears of the mine laborers or rippling through the minds of the mountain bandits, the rich Han rhymes, rising and falling, made everyone pause for a moment, all turning their heads in unison to look toward the courtyard on the north side...

Niu Jinku, who had just come on patrol, seemed stunned by this sound: How many years had it been since the chaotic times? He rarely heard such reading in a village or a town, yet he never expected to hear it today inside a mountain bandit's old nest; truly absurd.