Becoming a Disciple

Lin Er was also very unhappy with her current deskmate. He looked perfectly clean, but he liked to take off his shoes in class. Lin Er had spoken to him twice, and their homeroom teacher had too, but it was no use.

He was the sort who would take them off while attending class and doing his homework without anyone knowing when he'd done it. When the teacher called him out, his face would turn red, and he would look deeply ashamed.

But he couldn't keep his shoes on for even two class periods.

By now, Lin Er couldn't be bothered to say anything. Whenever she smelled it, she would secretly cast Scourgify.

Then, one time, she accidentally scoured his shoelaces away too. Lin Er silently put away her wand. Thank goodness, his shoes were still there.

Her young pen pal had a room of his own now, even if it was in the attic.

At least he could use the bedding Lin Er had sent him. His dad generally didn't come up there.

As for his mother, who seemed practically invisible, Lin Er didn't ask. She just sent him a small flashlight.

She'd bought it at the park. It came with batteries, and the light was pretty bright.

It felt like a long time had passed, but it had only been a little over a month. The two of them could already eat their fill and dress warmly, with snacks and fruit besides. Things were pretty good.

They were teaching each other their languages every day now, and the tape recorder was finally proving useful.

Lin Er heard her pen pal's voice. It was very young, with the slow, elegant cadence of a child imitating an adult.

Lin Er sent him her English textbook and asked him to record himself reading the vocabulary list at the back. In exchange, Lin Er recorded it too.

One English textbook: one of them used it to learn English, the other to learn Chinese.

Interested and willing to put in the time, Lin Er made rapid progress in English. Teacher Yang happened to hear her, and she became one of the students who led the morning reading sessions.

Lin Er had also tried using her phone to translate, but it was terrible. It could only translate a few words and short sentences. She'd also looked on Tieba, but had been too embarrassed to ask.

At the same time, she discovered that buying a phone was only the first step. Buying a SIM card was the real expense, because internet data was incredibly expensive: twenty yuan bought only 150 MB.

The connection was also very slow, and many websites wouldn't open at all.

Disappointed, Lin Er put it away. Even the games she could play were limited to offline ones.

She couldn't even harvest crops in the farm game.

As for reading novels, using mobile data to read them on a phone was too extravagant at this time. People downloaded them to a memory card and read them from there.

But her adult memories gave her the self-control to resist. She'd read more than enough novels in her previous life. If she didn't study in this life, she wouldn't get another chance.

It wasn't as though she had never regretted not studying hard back then. Now that she had returned to that time, how could she forget those regrets?

After giving herself a pep talk, Lin Er picked up her politics textbook and began memorizing it. A score of four hundred and something was still far too low.

She set her first goal after being reborn: for First High, charge!

Early Saturday morning, before it was even light, Grandma Lin shook Lin Er awake.

Still groggy, she looked out the window, then at Lin Huihui, who was grumbling and pulling her pillowcase over her eyes. "Grandma, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Aren't you going to your martial arts lesson?"

Grandma Lin tossed her a set of clean clothes, sounding annoyed.

It had taken a week of persuasion from Grandpa Lin before Grandma Lin had reluctantly agreed to let Lin Er take martial arts lessons.

They were so expensive: five hundred yuan a month, when the family's annual harvest brought in only five or six thousand.

But looking at the river snails in the courtyard, Grandma Lin had agreed in the end.

There were two things Lin Er had said that she agreed with: it wasn't safe for girls away from home, and the Lin sisters were bound to leave home to study someday.

The better the school, the farther away it would be. When the time came, no one but Lin Er herself would be able to protect her away from home.

The other thing was that she didn't necessarily have to achieve anything in martial arts. Getting into better shape and being able to run fast enough in a dangerous situation would be enough.

It was only because they'd earned a little money now. Otherwise, no matter how reasonable Lin Er's arguments were, Grandma Lin wouldn't have agreed.

Once Lin Er was ready, Grandpa Lin was about to take her out without even eating breakfast.

Everything had been bought yesterday: a red envelope, a packet of tea, and a cut of meat.

The ceremony had been simplified and didn't count as a formal initiation, but Lin Er would still be calling him master and learning his skills, so they couldn't dispense with the proper courtesies.

When the motorcycle came over, Grandpa Lin saw Lin Er running over with her schoolbag on her back and instinctively reached out to take it.

Lin Er dodged him. "I'm old enough to carry it myself. It's not that heavy."

Grandpa Lin withdrew his hand and pointed at the waiting motorcycle. "Sit in the middle. It'll be hard to sit at the back with your schoolbag on."

Lin Er blinked. "Then I'll sit at the back!"

"She's got treasures in that schoolbag! She even has to hug it when she sleeps. Let her sit at the back herself!"

Grandma Lin came out of the house, locked the door, and got on the motorcycle with Grandpa Lin.

Lin Er was left a little dumbfounded. In the end, she carefully sat on the metal rack at the back of the motorcycle and held onto Grandma Lin's waist. By the time they'd bounced all the way into the city, her butt felt like it no longer belonged to her.

Her master's surname was Li, and he really was a grandfather who knew martial arts and looked after children at home.

There wasn't any martial arts school either. That was just his house.

Of the children from before, the eldest, Li Qiang, a second-year high school student, was his grandson. The rest were all his daughters' children, and all were inner disciples.

That meant Lin Er was the first outer disciple he had accepted.

After three bows and nine kowtows, presenting her disciple's card and offering tea, and starting to address him as Master, Lin Er became the junior sister. Above her were three senior brothers and sisters who were all younger than she was.

Of course, what she'd called out back then had also inspired the old man. By the time Lin Er came for the initiation, a martial arts school sign was already hanging at the entrance.

The five hundred yuan was the money in the red envelope, as well as the gift accompanying her disciple's card. As for the tuition afterward, Lin Er, as the first disciple accepted after the sign went up, was exempted.

After the initiation, Grandpa Lin and Grandma Lin headed home. Lin Er felt a little timid as she watched them leave.

Li Qiang must have noticed. He came over, put a hand on her head, and pushed her into the house.

"Well, well, well, don't tell me you're scared, Junior Sister. You haven't even started learning martial arts yet!"

She looked at his long legs, then at her own short frame, and all her timidity vanished.

"Don't touch my head! If I don't grow tall, are you going to make it up to me?"

"Sure, sure. When the time comes, I'll give you a few extra shoe inserts. They'll make you look taller for sure!"

Lin Er chased him into the backyard and discovered a whole different world. Unlike the city's concrete ground, the entire backyard was bare earth.

It was spacious, with plum blossom poles and sandbags on the right.

When Master Li saw the two of them come in, he gave a quiet cough.

Li Qiang hurriedly straightened up and stood obediently in front of him.

Lin Er hurriedly copied him.

"Xiao Er, now that you've become my disciple, it's time to start learning my martial art. But martial arts can't be mastered in a day. For your first lesson today, your senior brother will teach you etiquette and martial virtue."

With that, Master Li clasped his hands behind his back and slowly paced back to the front room.

Lin Er tilted her head and looked at Li Qiang, just in time to see him rolling his eyes. When he noticed her looking, he didn't stop. Instead, he lowered his head and shot her a sidelong glance.

"I knew it. It's always like this!"

Lin Er was full of questions, but unfortunately, Senior Brother Li Qiang, teaching on his master's behalf, had already settled into his role and offered no explanation.

"Come here. I'll teach you the etiquette of our martial art!"

Lin Er could at least take a hint. She hurried after him obediently.

The martial arts etiquette Senior Brother Xiao Qiang taught her was the fist-and-palm salute: the left hand formed a willow-leaf palm, with the thumb tucked in and the four fingers held together; the right hand formed a fist; the left palm covered the right fist; and both arms curved around to form a circle.