Ye Xiaxuan thought for a long time before finally realizing what set Su Yi apart most from other young people.
Whenever Su Yi spoke, he seemed as unruffled as still water. He clearly looked so young, yet he gave off an air of someone old beyond his years.
Most importantly, he looked refined and easygoing, yet a casual remark from him could always make someone so angry they wanted to hit him.
Calm down!
Calm down!
Ye Xiaxuan stared at Su Yi, tugged at the corners of her mouth, and forced a smile, squeezing a few words out between her teeth. "What instructions do you have for me, Master?"
Su Yi put away his phone, slowly stood up, and said, "Stay here and watch the fire. I'll go prepare a welcoming gift for you."
A welcoming gift?
Ye Xiaxuan had thought Su Yi was the rather aloof sort, even sharp-tongued and mean. She hadn't expected that becoming his disciple would come with a welcoming gift.
Su Yi's old house had three bedrooms, two living rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms served as his study.
Before coming down from Sword-Washing Mountain, Su Yi had asked Jiang Changfeng to bring down some things he had left on the mountain.
While Su Yi was away from home, Jiang Changfeng had already had someone pack them into a chest and place it in the easternmost room.
It went without saying that any single item taken from that chest would be a rare treasure.
Even the chest itself was made entirely of golden-thread nanmu wood, exquisitely crafted and carved with mountains, rivers, plants, strange beasts, and exotic flowers.
Su Yi had carved all these designs himself when he was bored. Even in the age when gods and demons roamed unchecked, tossing it out would have been enough to make countless mighty experts fight until their heads split to seize it.
After all, everything Su Yi carved contained insights into the Heavenly Dao.
Su Yi opened the chest, took out some of its contents, and arranged them.
Besides some paintings and calligraphy he had created in the past, there were a box of tea, three small jars of aged wine, more than a dozen rare, sole surviving books, the Four Treasures of the Study, and the tea set he used to drink from.
Su Yi had always liked reading and enjoyed writing a little when he had nothing to do. There was also a stack of blank xuan paper from the Republican era in the chest.
His old servant Jiang Changfeng really did understand him well.
Su Yi picked up a painting and slowly unrolled it, revealing a vividly rendered woman in a qipao.
The woman's eyes and brows were wonderfully animated. Though she was merely a figure in a painting, her glances sparkled with life, as though she might step out of the paper the very next moment.
The strangest thing was that this woman looked almost exactly like Lin Yiyun.
Su Yi's paintings had all reached the realm of spiritual resonance. If someone with profound cultivation was fortunate enough to see one, they might even achieve a breakthrough. But if ordinary people saw these paintings, they would likely remain trapped within them, unable to free themselves for the rest of their lives, until they died of old age.
Jiang Changfeng had only ever kept these paintings and calligraphy safe for Su Yi, never daring to open them and look at them casually. This, too, was something Su Yi had instructed before falling asleep.
After looking for a while, Su Yi put away the painting and took out a stack of xuan paper, placing it on the desk.
"Su Yi... Master, the water's boiling." Ye Xiaxuan came to the study and knocked on the door. It was open, and seeing Su Yi putting things on the desk, she wondered what welcoming gift he could give her.
Su Yi merely placed some treasured, sole surviving books and the Four Treasures of the Study on the desk, then said without turning around, "Come in."
He was also wondering what exactly he should give Ye Xiaxuan.
He had originally intended to write a medical classic for her, but there were quite a few things in his chest. He might as well ask her what she wanted.
Ye Xiaxuan hesitated briefly but entered the room anyway. After all, being alone in a room with a man made her a little nervous.
"Didn't you want to study medicine?" Standing before the desk, Su Yi said, "I happen to have two medical texts here. See if you want them. If not, I can write one just for you."
"What medical texts?" Ye Xiaxuan came from a family of medical practitioners, and the Ye Family was now both wealthy and influential. She had read no fewer than a thousand medical books since childhood, and her family owned every one available on the market. Hearing that Su Yi wanted to give her medical texts, she was rather unimpressed.
As for his offer to write one himself, that was even less worth mentioning. After all, given Su Yi's age, anything he could write would most likely amount to a summary of some medical texts.
Su Yi took two scrolls of bamboo slips out of the chest, opened one, and glanced at it. "Bian Que's homework? Hmm, do you want it?"
He thought back. Bian Que could just barely be considered his student, having studied under him for half a month. These two bamboo scrolls were homework Bian Que had sent to his residence in his later years. Su Yi had found them reasonably satisfactory after reading them and had tossed them aside.
Something like this seemed rather unsuitable as a welcoming gift.
"Bian Que's homework?" Ye Xiaxuan looked utterly stunned. What sort of figure was Bian Que? And what on earth was this about his homework?
"You can take a look first. If you don't like it, I'll just write another one. I've got plenty of free time anyway!" As he spoke, Su Yi handed the bamboo scroll to Ye Xiaxuan.
Somewhat curious, Ye Xiaxuan opened the bamboo scroll, took a look, and froze.
This...
Could this be the lost Bian Que's Inner Canon?
Ye Xiaxuan drew a deep breath, her eyes fixed on the bamboo slips, unable to look away.
The bamboo slips were so perfectly preserved, the characters carved into them clearly legible, and Su Yi actually called this Bian Que's homework?
The contents of the bamboo slips had already drawn Ye Xiaxuan in, leaving her deeply shaken. Their insights into certain difficult and unusual illnesses were quite distinctive, and the treatments were unheard of. But upon careful consideration, these treatments should all have remarkable effects; it was just that some of the guiding medicinal ingredients had already vanished.
"What do you think?" Seeing her staring blankly, Su Yi asked casually. If Ye Xiaxuan wasn't satisfied, he would have her grind ink for him. Anything he wrote himself would certainly be ten thousand times more accomplished than Bian Que's work.
Ye Xiaxuan came back to her senses and stared at the other bamboo scroll on the desk, stammering slightly as she asked, "Don't tell me that's Bian Que's Outer Canon?"
Bian Que's Inner Canon and Bian Que's Outer Canon had long been lost, yet now Su Yi was holding these two bamboo scrolls and asking whether she wanted them. It was simply too staggering.
Su Yi opened the other bamboo scroll, gave it a brief glance, and said, "It should be." Then he handed it straight to Ye Xiaxuan.
Ye Xiaxuan's hands trembled a little as she accepted the bamboo scroll. She had already read some of Bian Que's Inner Canon, and having studied medicine since childhood, she could naturally distinguish genuine content from falsehood. If this was the Outer Classic, it would fill a gap in the history of human medicine.
"Take these two scrolls home and have a look first. You should be able to learn something." A wave of laziness had come over Su Yi, and he no longer particularly felt like writing. These two scrolls alone should be enough to keep Ye Xiaxuan studying for a while.
Ye Xiaxuan carefully placed Bian Que's Inner Canon on the desk and opened the other scroll, nearly stunned senseless by what she saw. This really was Bian Que's Outer Canon!
To produce both bamboo scrolls at once, and even give them to her-it was simply too incredible.