"Hey! Senior Brother Liu, are you refining pills again?" Li Xiaoya called out loudly, long accustomed to this situation.
"Mm! Today we'll discuss the twenty-third chapter of the Dao Scripture. Read it through first, then copy it out once to practice your calligraphy," Liu Hang's calm voice sounded beside Li Xiaoya's ear.
"All right!" Without another word, Li Xiaoya sat at one of the outer tables, picked up a book titled the Dao Scripture, and turned to the twenty-third chapter. It read:
Speak little, and follow nature.
Thus a whirling wind does not last all morning,
Nor a sudden downpour all day.
Who brings these about?
Heaven and earth-even heaven and earth cannot sustain them long,
How much less can man?
Thus those who devote themselves to the Dao,
Those of the Dao become one with the Dao,
Those of virtue become one with virtue,
Those of loss become one with loss.
Those who become one with the Dao,
The Dao gladly receives;
Those who become one with virtue,
Virtue gladly receives;
Those who become one with loss,
Loss, too, gladly receives.
Where trust is insufficient,
There will be distrust.
Li Xiaoya read aloud as he went. Whenever he found a character he did not recognize, he dipped his brush in ink and wrote it on a sheet of white paper. He also wrote down characters whose meanings he did not understand. This was the study method Liu Hang had taught him. Though Li Xiaoya did not know how extensive Liu Hang's knowledge was, his teaching methods were far better than those of the private-school teachers Li Xiaoya had seen in Treasure Immortal Town. First, he had Li Xiaoya preview and copy out the material they would cover, then note down anything he did not understand. Next, the student