Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra

It took half a day for most of the apprentices to find the martial arts manuals they wanted before departing.

Ye Qin remained until the very end, using the time to carefully consider which martial art he should choose.

Having never seen martial arts since he was a child, even after wandering around the Zhuqi County seat for half a year, he had only ever seen hurried-looking men of the jianghu. He had never seen them display any martial arts, so he had no idea what they were or what they were used for.

However, he had once heard the elders in his hometown of Mountain Gully Village say that, according to legend, the martial arts of the jianghu were incredibly powerful—capable of vaulting over roofs and scaling walls, tearing apart tigers and wolves, and achieving anything one could imagine.

Ye Qin thought for a long while before somewhat hesitantly voicing the kind of martial art he had in mind.

"This senior martial brother, is there a type of martial art that can keep my stamina high, help me endure hunger when there is no food, withstand the cold in winter, and go without water during a great drought?"

The young man was utterly stunned by Ye Qin's pathetic request. He had not expected Ye Qin to ask for such a "strange" technique. Other apprentices were all asking for ones with fierce power for fighting and brawling, or ones that allowed for great speed. Why did he want a technique for endurance, hunger, cold, and thirst?

The young man could not help but frown.

Endurance, hunger, cold, and thirst—these belonged to the category of internal energy cultivation; external martial arts could never achieve such things.

The young guard thought for a moment, walked over to the shelf containing basic internal energy manuals, and flipped through them. He picked out a few relevant manuals.

Drunken Man's Long Slumber Art: The incantations for this technique are great for enduring hunger; one could go ten days or half a month without eating. However, it requires drinking a lot of wine, and this kid likely has no money to buy it, making it very difficult to achieve anything.

Mysterious Origin Internal Classic: An offensive internal energy technique; it does not fit the requirements.

Body Nourishing Classic: Uh, this one seems like it could strengthen the physique; it should be able to handle labor, hunger, cold, and thirst.

The young guard took it down from the dust-covered shelf.

Having been stationed here for over a decade, he had flipped through the contents of every manual here and thus had some impression of it. However, a core disciple of the Herb Gathering Hall like him would never practice such a low-level internal energy manual; core disciples only practiced the highest-level internal energy techniques of the Herb Gathering Hall.

"This basic internal energy manual, the Body Nourishing Classic, is not bad. I don't know which small gang it was taken from, but the techniques inside can fully meet your requirements. Take it back and practice this internal energy well. If you can survive the herb gathering, in a dozen years or so, you might be able to make a name for yourself in our Herb Gathering Hall and be promoted to a medicine craftsman, apothecary, or something similar."

After taking the book down, the young guard casually flipped through the attached introduction to see its origins.

"Oh, the introduction says this technique was a family heirloom. Later, the family couldn't survive and was forced to sell it for money... This introduction also says that practicing it has the miraculous effect of strengthening the physique and prolonging life. Hmph, after practicing it, you'll probably just live a few years longer."

The young man's expression was cold as he explained the function of the manual and tossed it to Ye Qin. He mocked him inwardly, wondering what kind of small jianghu family would treat a low-level internal energy manual as a family heirloom.

What the young guard did not know was that the book did indeed come from a family, but it was not as simple as he imagined.

A thousand years ago, it was said that a mysterious and powerful family appeared within Ping Province. This family possessed a secret heirloom manual, and the family head relied on that very manual to dominate the one prefecture and eight counties of Ping Province.

The original name of this manual was the Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra, not the Body Nourishing Classic.

However, the fate of this family did not last. Over the course of a thousand years, it rose and fell twice before finally declining into obscurity.

According to the disciple of that family who sold the book, only someone with a special constitution could practice this manual. It was said that such a person might only appear once every few dozen generations among thousands of disciples. After the first family head died, hundreds of years passed before a descendant with the special constitution finally mastered the techniques within, bringing the family back to glory. But for the hundreds of years that followed, no one else could master it, and the family eventually withered away.

This mysterious family gradually became a legend within the Wu Kingdom's Ping Province.

The person who sold the book was the last male descendant of the family. Reduced to begging on the streets, he was forced to sell it for the meager price of ten gold coins to a mid-tier jianghu gang in Ping Province—the Carp Gang.

The Carp Gang had nearly a thousand members and made their living through river transport in Ping Province. Once they obtained the manual, they immediately organized their men to study it carefully, hoping to uncover its secrets. They repeatedly examined every page, every line of text, and every interlayer, attempting to find if the manual hid any treasures, treasure maps, or secret codes.

Regrettably, the Carp Gang spent decades of painstaking effort and exhausted their financial resources without gaining any discoveries from the book.

They even mobilized dozens of the most talented children in the entire Carp Gang to practice it, hoping to cultivate a batch of top-tier, peerless experts. But alas, not a single child achieved any results; when these children grew up, they were not even as good as ordinary jianghu folk.

The Carp Gang was then forced to believe that only those with a special constitution could practice this manual, and it was useless to ordinary people. As for what constituted a "special constitution," no one knew, because even the members of that original family did not know what it meant.

Because the Carp Gang's most talented children had spent over a decade practicing this "legendary manual," they missed the prime age for learning martial arts, causing the Carp Gang to lack a new generation of experts. They soon declined and were wiped out by other gangs.

This incident caused quite a stir. At the time, people in the jianghu jokingly called the manual the "legendary trash manual," as it had caused a respectable mid-tier gang of a thousand people to effectively cripple their own martial arts and sever their lineage.

The last gang leader of the Carp Gang was forced to sell all their manuals to survive. Thus, the manual passed through the hands of several small gangs. Eventually, it was traded for a single gold coin and ended up in the hands of the Medicine King Gang.

At that time, the Medicine King Gang was just rising in Ping Province; with a thousand members, it was a mid-tier gang.

The higher-ups of the Medicine King Gang had heard that this was an internal energy manual left behind by an ancient family from Ping Province eight or nine hundred years ago, so they bought it to see what was inside. They even used the Medicine King Gang's unique medicinal liquids to analyze it for hidden writing, but they still found nothing special hidden within.

The higher-ups of the Medicine King Gang studied the contents repeatedly and felt that labeling it the "legendary trash manual" was a bit unfair. They believed the book actually had some minor effects, such as strengthening the physique and prolonging life.

However, such effects were not what people in the jianghu pursued. People in the jianghu were only interested in peerless martial arts and powerful offensive or defensive capabilities.

Therefore, they added a note to the book: If one can practice this with perseverance for decades, it should have very good effects in strengthening the physique and prolonging life. However, it possesses none of the offensive or defensive power found in common internal energy techniques. Be cautious; do not practice it lightly!

Having learned from the Carp Gang's bitter lesson, the higher-ups of the Medicine King Gang did not mobilize their children to practice this "legendary" manual.

When the book was being analyzed with medicinal liquids, its old cover was damaged, so they replaced it with a new one.

On the new cover, the leader of the Medicine King Gang renamed it with a more appropriate title: Body Nourishing Classic. He classified it as the lowest-tier basic internal energy manual and stored it away in the library, gathering dust. As time passed, the manual was gradually forgotten.

In the hundred years that followed, the Medicine King Gang continued to grow and expand, eventually taking root in the Zhuqi County seat. This book, along with a large batch of other low-level external and internal martial arts manuals, was sent to the library of the Herb Gathering Hall in Zhuqi County. It sat in the manual room for decades, covered in dust, with almost no one knowing its true origins.

The young guard had flipped through it by chance, but he did not know its detailed history, nor did he know it was the legendary trash manual. He simply regarded it as a low-level internal energy manual from some nameless small family and handed it to Ye Qin. There were too many low-level internal energy manuals in the Herb Gathering Hall; the one Ye Qin took was just one of hundreds, nothing of great importance.

Ye Qin hurriedly took it, nodded gratefully in thanks, and left the manual room.

The young guard remained indifferent, his face expressionless. After Ye Qin left, several other equally cold young guards walked over, looking somewhat puzzled as they asked the lead guard.

"Senior Martial Brother, why did you give him the Body Nourishing Classic? He's just an herb gathering apprentice, climbing mountains and descending valleys every day. If he learns an internal energy technique with no offensive or defensive power, I'm afraid he won't be long for this world."

The lead guard walked out of the third-floor manual room and said coldly, "Since he specifically asked for such a strange internal energy technique that helps with endurance, hunger, cold, and thirst, why do you care so much? Our Herb Gathering Hall is not a charity. If he dies, he brought it upon himself; it has nothing to do with anyone else. Our hall loses so many people every year; one more won't make a difference. Stop gathering here and go back to the second floor to practice. Tomorrow, I will be testing your progress in martial arts!"

"Yes, Senior Martial Brother!"

The young guards dared not say more and hurriedly returned to the second floor.