Setting Oneself Straight and Understanding the Heart, Grasping Principles and Saving the World

Ye Fu smiled and shook his head. "It's all right, it's all right. Let me talk to Hu Lan."

"Please, sir."

Ye Fu stood with his hands behind his back and looked at Hu Lan from a distance. Smiling, he asked, "May I ask, young heroine, you keep saying you want to save all the people under heaven, the common folk. How, then, should the world be saved?"

Hu Lan's eyes lit up. She dropped her unreasonable manner, stood straight, and spoke in a clear voice. "I wish to learn a sword art that can cut down the wicked thoughts of all the countless cultivators under heaven and subdue the desire of all manner of demons to devour people." She took a step forward and raised her head. "Just like that!"

Ye Fu smiled warmly and took a step forward, stirring up a gentle breeze. "Then where will you go to learn this sword art that slays demons and subdues fiends?"

"In this vast world, there must be a sword art that I, Hu Lan, can learn." Hu Lan did not take a single step back.

Ye Fu continued forward. "Your heart is higher than the heavens, and you wish to save all the people under heaven. But do they need you to save them?"

Hu Lan was slightly taken aback.

Ye Fu continued, "You say the people under heaven are mired in mud, but when I look at the world, I see it brimming with life. Where is there any sign of mud? You haven't even left Black Stone City, so how can you know even three parts of the world?"

Hu Lan opened her mouth to speak, but the words reached her lips and would not come out.

"You keep saying reading is useless, but do you know the true meaning of reading? The true meaning of books? You keep talking about learning the sword, but how can you know the True Intention of the sword? With what you've learned, you can't even see all of Black Stone City, so how can you speak of the world? When all is said and done, your heart is merely higher than the heavens."

"You're talking nonsense!" Hu Lan's face flushed red, but how could she hope to win an argument against Ye Fu, a man who had come from the keyboard age?

"The great masters of Confucianism each founded a school of their own, and no one in the world dares say reading is useless, yet you alone dare say it. If you were a sword immortal who rode the nine heavens, that would be one thing, but you're only a little girl without the strength to truss a chicken. What grounds have you to say reading is useless?"

Hu Lan pointed at Ye Fu, but could not get a single word out. If it came down to reasoning alone, she could not beat him. But the little girl was clever and quick-witted. She took two deep breaths, gave a cold laugh, and said, "I don't care how flowery your words are. I'm not going to read, and I am going to learn the sword!"

Ye Fu froze, then immediately gave a speechless laugh. This little rascal is a stubborn one. He narrowed his eyes, crouched down, and said softly, "Hu Lan, have you heard a saying?"

"What saying?"

"It goes, a swordsman who dislikes reading is not a good Daoist."

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"Think of it this way: if you read your fill of poetry and books and knew the words of the sages under heaven, then, after you learned the sword and slew a demon, you could freely compose a poem on the spot, letting everyone under heaven know of you, Sword Immortal Hu. And if every word you spoke in a duel had an edge, you could make sure your opponent would never dare call you a barbaric girl who knows nothing but fighting."

Hu Lan's eyes darted about, and color slowly rose in them.

Ye Fu continued, "You say reading is useless, but how can you know that in ancient times there was the Master, whose single phrase, 'The Master said,' could make all the ghosts and gods under heaven weep in terror? And there was the sword immortal Li Taibai: wine entered his sorrowful heart, seven parts became moonlight, and the remaining three were breathed out as Sword Qi; one utterance from his eloquent lips was half the flourishing Tang. And then there was Master Zhu, who dared declare, 'Where there are no human desires, all is heavenly principle,' laying down rules for the world. And there was the forebear who ushered in a golden age, who called out to the magnificent rivers and mountains, and alone amid the boundless expanse led the way, daring to forbid all the demons under heaven from speaking."

As Hu Lan listened, her eyes grew wider and wider. She stared at Ye Fu in a daze, the longing in her eyes for the towering figures of that golden age he described almost bursting forth. Whether it was "The Master said," "the sword immortal Li Taibai," "laying down rules for the world," or "forbidding all the demons under heaven from speaking," every one of them held an immense attraction for her, each striking right at the reason she wanted to learn the sword.

Her tone softened considerably. "I've looked through all the books, big and small, in Black Stone City, but I've never seen any of what you said. Why do you know about it?"

Ye Fu stood, turned, and walked beneath the signboard of the Three Flavors Study. He gazed at the four large characters for a moment, then turned around and said with a soft laugh, "That's because you haven't studied enough."

In that instant, Hu Lan thought she saw the spotless, upright Mr. Ye before her, his boundless righteous bearing soaring straight into the clouds.

After a long daze, she stepped forward one step at a time and said, word by word, "Your student Hu Lan pays her respects, sir."

A gentle breeze blew past, bringing Ye Fu a student who would one day surely shake the world. In high spirits, he strode into the courtyard, leaving behind a stunned Hu Zhifu, a thoughtful Qu Hongxiao, and Qin Sanyue, whose eyes were clear.

Chapter 26: Setting Oneself Straight and Understanding the Heart, Grasping Principles and Saving the World

As for what kind of child Hu Lan truly was, Ye Fu could not judge a person in a few words, but for now, she seemed very clever.

Hu Zhifu had business at his inn to attend to, so he left after telling Ye Fu a few things about Hu Lan.

After entering the courtyard, Hu Lan kept staring at the pear tree. She could not understand why it was blooming in the third month. Since she did not understand, she asked outright, "Sir, why is this pear tree blooming in the third month?"

Ye Fu smiled. "Because it wants to."

"What?" Hu Lan did not quite understand.

Ye Fu did not explain further and introduced her to the people in the courtyard. He pointed at Qin Sanyue and said to Hu Lan, "Her name is Qin Sanyue. She's..." For a moment, Ye Fu did not know how to describe Qin Sanyue's position at the Three Flavors Study.

After some thought, he said, "She's my employee."

"Employee? What's that?" Employee was a modern term from Earth, so Hu Lan naturally did not quite understand it.

"That's a little hard to explain. In any case, she's older than you, so you can just call her Sister Sanyue."

Hu Lan's eyes darted around, her black pupils glinting. She blinked and asked with a grin, "Was Qin Sanyue given that name in this very third month?"

Ye Fu was taken aback, then smiled. "That little head of yours works pretty well."

He turned and pointed at Qu Hongxiao. "Her name is Qu Hongxiao. She's my first student-"

Before Ye Fu could finish, Hu Lan put her hands behind her back, leaned forward slightly, and called to Qu Hongxiao, "Greetings, eldest senior sister!"

Qu Hongxiao looked at Hu Lan for a while before nodding. Even faced with a quirky little girl like Hu Lan, she remained as tranquil as still water.