Chapter 53: Maze Formation

“Put your pants on. Are you not embarrassed enough already?” my father shouted from the side. He probably wanted to hit me, but seeing me like this he could not bring himself to do it.

I endured the pain and pulled my pants back up. That burning sensation was still there, and even the waistband rubbing against it hurt. But I still had to stand properly, because Old Man Jiang was still here to lecture me.

“Look at this paper. It is obvious the red ink marks are different, and the handwriting is different too. I will not say more about the rest. Wait a moment. Go get a writing brush. Write 50 copies of your name on this table, do you hear me?” Old Man Jiang said.

My heart ached bitterly. Not only had I been beaten, I still had to do punishment writing?

Fifty names. That would be how many characters?

“If you do not finish, you are not allowed to eat. I must tell you this. If you had directly brought me your poorly scored paper today, you would only have been beaten ten times and then made to copy fifty times. If you could honestly tell me you would work harder in the future and let me see your attitude, then you might not even be beaten, only made to copy fifty times. But why are you being beaten like this? First, because of cheating. Second, because you dare not face your mistakes. What kind of behavior is cheating? It is a flaw in character. People with flawed character may enjoy temporary luck, but in the end they will pay the price. As for not facing mistakes, that is not being willing to bear karma. What you plant as cause, you must bear as effect. Just like you did not study properly, you must accept poor exam results. If you do not accept it and try to escape, things will only become worse. Just like you took fifty bamboo strikes, you must now copy your name 50 times.”

Old Man Jiang spoke to me slowly, word by word.

His words were not profound. He simply wanted me to understand the reasoning. The beating I received was the “effect” I had created myself. Because cheating was the “bad action” in between, the consequence became even more severe.

In the end, my father did not hit me after all. I honestly wrote Chen Chengyi on the stone table with a writing brush.

At this moment, Su Rou’s parents came over, leading Su Rou with them. It was simple. Su Rou had also been caught changing his scores.

Joking aside, Su Rou’s mother was a very sharp person. She kept the household accounts more carefully than anyone else. After dinner, she casually checked Su Rou’s test paper and immediately noticed something was wrong. The scores did not match.

Looking closer, the ink color of the score was off. And so Su Rou was exposed. Under the threat of not being allowed to eat, my brave Red Army soldier comrade betrayed me, and the whole family came to report the situation.

My father’s anger was stirred up again. He did not hit me, but he scolded me thoroughly. My master was even more direct, saying that improper conduct required an extra fifty copies of punishment writing.

In my heart, I cursed Su Rou’s entire ancestry. You Su Rou, what was the point? You had to change 81 to 87. You were looking for excitement, and ended up getting yourself beaten a bit worse, and dragged me into it again.

Damn it.

After that, my behavior was placed under a strict restriction by Old Man Jiang. The first rule was no cheating. The second was honesty. The third was not to harm others for personal gain. The fourth was that all actions must have principles. I could set my own bottom line, but it must not be evil, and I could not act entirely selfishly.

Old Man Jiang said, “You are someone who is going to cultivate the Daoist way. I do not care about others, but anyone cultivating under me must first establish virtue. Virtue is the foundation. Without virtue, a person is like a house without a foundation. Even if one day you rise to the heavens, you will still fall.”

I did not fully understand these words, but I was afraid of being punished, so I obeyed.

In addition, there was another decision that nearly moved me to tears. From now on, my exam results would be judged according to Liu Chunyan. In every subject, I could not score more than ten points lower than her. Otherwise, heh heh…

In my opinion, I could only reliably meet or exceed that standard in physical education. The rest…

I cursed inwardly and finally marked Liu Chunyan as my first enemy in life.

Three days after this incident, I went up the mountain. I finally went up the mountain. Ever since Old Man Jiang returned, from the day he said he would take me as a disciple until now, I, Chen Chengyi, was finally formally entering the sect.

This could not be blamed on Old Man Jiang, nor on me. Who could have predicted so many things would happen since his return? There was still some hungry ghost tomb in the market town even now.

Entering the sect required choosing an auspicious day. Old Man Jiang did not care much about such things. He believed fate was fixed and could not be changed. But when it came to formally entering the sect, he was unusually serious and did not ignore tradition.

After finishing his work that day, he came to tell my father the date, but ended up catching me in the act of changing my exam paper. It could also be considered a moral lesson before entering the sect.

The initiation ceremony would take place on the mountain. Old Man Jiang said he had a temporary cultivation residence there, built many years ago after he first came to this area, and gradually improved over time.

After returning this time, he tidied it up a little, and it could be used for the initiation ceremony.

“This time I will just take San Wa Er up the mountain. I will send him back at night. From tonight onward, he will stay at my place after school every day. He will come home on Saturdays and Sundays. During weekdays, you can also come up the mountain to see him. I will tell you how to get there.” These were Old Man Jiang’s words to my family before taking me up the mountain.

At that time, my mother was in tears. My father and both of my sisters did not look happy either. They could not bear to part with me.

Fortunately, my eldest sister’s cheerful personality helped ease the mood. She said, “The mountain is right behind our village. It is so close. If we miss him, we can go see him every day. Some junior high students even live at school. Just treat it like he is staying at school.”

With that, my parents felt much better and happily sent me and Old Man Jiang off, all the way to the foot of the mountain.

Next, Old Man Jiang took me up. There was a main path over the mountain, though it could not really be called a main road, just a relatively clear trail. It only served for crossing the mountain and could not traverse the entire range.

As mentioned before, these mountains were not high, but they were continuous. Typical Sichuan hills terrain.

We walked along that path for a while before Old Man Jiang led me onto a more hidden trail. The road was already difficult to walk, but he moved effortlessly.

After about ten minutes, at a fork where the path curved downward, Old Man Jiang suddenly turned upward instead, and there was unexpectedly another faint trail.

Ordinary people would never expect such a path to exist in this terrain.

After less than five minutes along that hidden path, I saw a lush bamboo forest. Unlike the gloomy bamboo forest near the graveyard, this one felt fresh and elegant, giving people a very comfortable feeling.

“Bamboo is hollow by nature, which makes it ideal for gathering qi and nurturing yin environments. In a peaceful and harmonious setting, it can also form a calm ‘formation’,” Old Man Jiang said casually.

I nodded, gaining a new understanding of bamboo. It turned out that the same thing could have completely different effects and outcomes depending on its environment.

This meant that what mattered was not the object itself, but the intention of the person using it.

A bamboo forest could be turned by someone with ill intent into a place that nurtures yin energy, or by someone with good intent into a place for peaceful cultivation.

The mountain wind blew, carrying the scent of plants. At that moment, I also heard the sound of flowing water, and without realizing it, I felt cool, comfortable, and calm.

Just as we were about to enter the bamboo forest, Old Man Jiang’s expression suddenly became serious.

“San Wa Er, pay attention to how you walk in this bamboo forest. If you get lost later, I will not be responsible. You can just spend the night here.”

I protested loudly, “Master, I am not useless. It is just a bamboo forest. How could I not get out?”

Old Man Jiang glanced at me and said, “There are some small formations set up in this bamboo forest. If I do not teach you how to walk through it, you really will not be able to get in, unless you stumble in by luck.”

“Formation?” I truly knew nothing about such things. To me it just looked like a bamboo forest. How could some formation really stop people?

“It is not anything too mysterious. To break it, you could just cut down all the bamboo here. Daoist cultivation values quiet practice, so setting up a formation is only to prevent disturbance or accidental entry. Since you are going to be my disciple, you will learn formations in the future. For now, just follow me properly. It is simple and easy to remember.”

After speaking, Old Man Jiang walked into the bamboo forest first.