Chapter One: The Opportunity

  He laid the cloth package his mother had carefully sewn for him neatly on the grass beside him, lay down and gazed at the white clouds drifting across the sky, lost in thought.

  "Everyone else has paid up, now it's just me left, but... sigh, how can I bring it up with Dad?"

  Er Dan muttered to himself, thinking about the old teacher in the village who had urged him to pay his tuition fees today. He felt a sense of helplessness in his heart, knowing that he couldn't afford to pay the fees. After all, he was more aware than anyone else of his family's situation. To make matters worse, he had borrowed money from his stingy grandfather to pay the previous semester's tuition and still hadn't paid him back yet.

  Ergou's real name is not Ergou, but Yang Chen. He is 13 years old this year. Because he has an older brother, villagers and friends call him Ergou when they are outside. Over time, until now, whether at home or outside, people all call Yang Chen Ergou.

  Although Yang Chen had always disliked this title, everyone else called him that, and he could only accept it by default.

  The situation at Yang Chen's home was very poor, so poor that even the usual three meals a day had to be reduced to two meals, and sometimes there was only one meal. If they wanted to eat something with oil in it, they probably had to wait until Chinese New Year.

  This also made 13-year-old Yang Chen look gentle and weak, but this revealed a scholarly temperament.

  "Bookworm, shall we go to the stream and catch some fish?" A pretty, ponytailed girl of about 10 years old, wearing a patchwork outfit, ran over panting, and smiled slightly at Yang Chen who was staring blankly.

  The boy glanced at the girl, then got up, straightened his clothes, shouldered the cloth bundle that had been placed aside, and said: "Girl, I'm not going. You all go ahead! I still have to go home and review my lessons."

  Ya Tou listened to Er Dan's words, her expression slightly displeased, and said discontentedly: "Stupid, can't you play with me for a while?"

  The second egg shook his head and immediately ignored the little girl, turning around and walking towards the direction of the village house.

  The little girl looked at Yang Chen and left directly, stomping her small foot in dissatisfaction, muttering to herself: "What a bookworm! Someone wants to play with me but I don't want to! Hmph!" Then the little girl walked away in another direction, still huffing with anger.

  Egg's father stood in the courtyard, put down the axe in his hand, and said to Egg who walked in through the open door: "Egg, did you understand everything I taught today?"

  Er Dan nodded and responded with a few words, then walked directly into his own room. He didn't know how to bring up the topic of tuition fees with his father.

  The father of Er Dan looked at Er Dan's appearance, sighed and said to Er Dan's mother who was walking out of the kitchen with dishes: "Is the money ready? Although Er Dan didn't tell us, we also know that it's time to pay tuition!"

  The mother of Er Dan listened to the words of Er Dan's father, with a worried look on her face, she sighed and put the dishes on the table, saying: "Eldest just went out to find work, took away 5 copper coins, now there are only 7 copper coins left at home, still short of 3 copper coins, it's really not enough!"

  The tuition for Er Ya's private school was 10 copper coins per semester.

  The father of Er Dan sighed and said: "I'll go to Er Bo's house to take a look, see if I can borrow three more copper plates."

  "We still owe Second Uncle 30 copper coins, now we don't even know how to repay it!" Er Dan's mother sat down on one side, and as she spoke, the corners of her eyes were already moist.

  "Alright, stop crying. No matter what, I'm going to give it a try!" Er Dan's father said with a bitter face: "Besides, Er Dan is only 13 years old, we can't let him do manual labor yet! Moreover, other families' children are all studying, we can't let others look down on our Er Dan!"

  After finishing speaking, he put down the axe in his hand and walked out with a worried face, without even thinking about the food on the table.

  The walls of the Er Gou's house were all made of rotten mud and thatched with straw, and due to years of disrepair, cracks had appeared on the walls. The conversation between Er Gou's parents in the courtyard also passed through these two fine cracks and entered Er Gou's ears without a word being missed.

  Two eggs clutched in his fists, he said with a determined face: "I won't read books anymore! I won't read books anymore!"

  In Er Dan's mind, the image of his grandfather's stingy face kept emerging, along with the mocking gazes of Er Nai and Er Shu. This ignited a nameless anger in Er Dan's simple heart.

  "Mother!" Er Dan shouted, pushing open the door to his room and rushing in front of his mother. With a face full of grief and indignation, he said: "Mother! I'll go get Father back, we won't borrow money from them anymore! I'm not going to school anymore!"

  As soon as he finished speaking, the two eggs turned around and ran towards the outside.

  The mother's face turned stern and she suddenly stood up, directly facing Er Dan and shouting: "You stand still for me!"

  Ergou listened to his mother's words and hastily turned around, saying urgently: "Mom, if I don't go, Dad will go to Er Ye's house!"

  "Bang!"

  A loud slapping sound came from Er Dan's face, and immediately five fingerprints appeared clearly on his cheek.

  The mother's face turned furious, and she yelled at Er Dan like a madwoman: "What did you just say? If you dare to tell me one more time that you don't want to read books, I'll break your legs!"

  Ergou covered his face with his hands, his face flushed red, and tears flowed from his eyes as he hung his head in silence. He wasn't crying because of the pain on his face, but because seeing his mother's appearance pained him deeply.

  Ergou's mother looked at Ergou and burst into tears, squatting down on the ground, constantly flowing with sad tears.

  Ergou looked at his mother's appearance, and suddenly burst into tears. He knelt down on the ground, crawled to his mother's side, hugged her legs, and cried: "Mother! Don't cry, I will study hard! I will definitely study hard!"

  Ergou's mother looked up at her 13-year-old son, who was very sensible, and sobbed: "Ergou, if you don't study, what will our family do in the future? Do you know why your brother didn't go to private school from the beginning? It's because we were poor and could only afford one person. Your brother gave up studying for your sake, and now you're saying such unfilial things. How can your brother and us live with this? If you don't study, how will you make a good life for yourself in the future? How will you hold your head high?"

  Deep-rooted ideas have influenced every single person in this Yang family village, everyone knows that if you don't read books, you can only farm in the village, and your future prospects will be very bleak! Therefore, every family in the village hopes that their children can achieve academic success, come back to take an imperial examination, even if it's just a Xiucai, it's considered glorious for the ancestors!

  To know that nowadays in Yangjia Village, the old man in the private school is a Xiucai by origin, and now has extremely high prestige in the village, even the village head must look up to him with respect.

  Ergou listened to his mother's words, remained silent for a moment, and firmly said: "Mother, don't worry, I will study hard and make those who look down on us know my strength. I'll make them regret it!"

  As he spoke, Er Dan's small hands clenched into fists, causing his sharp fingernails to pierce directly into his palms, and fresh blood flowed out. However, this pain was nothing compared to the ache in Er Dan's heart.

  The mother's face slightly improved, but when she saw the fresh blood flowing from Er Dan's hands, her face changed instantly and she exclaimed: "Er Dan, what happened to you! Wait for me, I'll go find something to bandage you!" As she spoke, Er Dan's mother rushed into the house in a hurry.

  "Does it still hurt, Ergou?" Ergou's mother washed the wound on his palm with water and then bandaged it with a piece of cloth, looking at him with concern.

  Although his hands were very painful, he was afraid of worrying his mother, so he shook his head with a nonchalant expression and said it didn't hurt at all.

  The mother of Er Dan looked at Er Dan's appearance, smiled bitterly and said with a gentle face: "Foolish child! Can't you not hurt? You've lost so much blood."

  "I'm back, what's wrong with you, Ergou?" Ergou's father pushed open the door and walked in, looking at his son whose hands were wrapped in cloth, on which faint bloodstains could still be seen. His eyebrows furrowed slightly.

  Er Dan hastily put his hands behind his back and said somewhat nervously: "N-nothing."

  The mother of Er Dan saw that Er Dan's father had no joy on his face and knew that this time borrowing money was probably a failure, so she quickly changed the subject and said: "Okay, let's eat first! Let's talk after dinner."

  While eating, Er Dan hastily ate a few mouthfuls of rice and then quickly ran to his room, afraid that his father would ask him about the injury on his hand. He didn't want to worry his father at this time.

  Egg's father watched as Egg walked into the house, put down the bowl and chopsticks in his hand, sighed, and said: "Second Uncle, no matter what, he is unwilling to lend us money again."

  The mother of two eggs sighed and said with a worried face: "What can we do? We are still short of 3 copper plates!"

  The father of the two eggs had a worried look on his face, shook his head and said: "Or else, let's sell the land at home! Didn't Old Li say last time that he would take 50 copper plates? In this way, after we sell it, we can also repay the money to Second Uncle's house."

  "But what about in the future? Our whole family depends on that one mu of land for food!"

  "It can only be like this for now, I just went to ask and Old Li will be able to gather the money together to send it to us tomorrow. At that time, we'll go to the village chief's place to sign and stamp." The father of Er Dan had a look of helplessness on his face, after all, this was the only method he could think of.

  The mother of Er Dan nodded, furrowed her brow, sighed and said: "It can only be like this for now, we'll talk about the future later!"

  Two eggs in the house were bright red, their eyes full of blood, muttering to themselves: "I must have skills in the future, I absolutely cannot let Dad and Mom suffer!"

  The next morning, Er Dan's father followed Lao Li to the village chief's place to go through the handover procedures. Er Dan also got up early and went to the private school.

  The day passed quietly and uneventfully, and before I knew it, it was already afternoon, the time for private school to let out.

  "Yang Chen, wait a minute." The old master of the private school, with furrowed eyebrows, called out to Er Dan, who was about to leave.

  He furrowed his brow, stopped in his tracks, and slowly turned around to look at the miserly old man standing before him, who was already over seventy years old. A wave of disgust welled up inside him.

  "Old Master." Er Dan shouted respectfully despite his intense dislike for him.

  The old man nodded and said in a calm tone: "Yang Chen, I told you about paying the tuition fee yesterday. Did you bring the money today?"

  His face suddenly turned bright red and he said awkwardly: "I... I... will hand it in soon."

  "Well, that's best. You'd better hurry home now!" The old man waved his hand and immediately turned around to head towards the inner room, clearly not wanting to waste any more words on Yang Chen, this poor and white-haired young man.

  He clenched his fists tightly and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, then turned around and walked away.

  He didn't go home directly, but instead walked towards the small hill behind the village. This was a place he often came to.

  After arriving here, the two eggs, as usual, neatly placed their cloth bags beside them, sat down, and looked up at the white clouds floating in the sky.

  Suddenly, Er Dan was stunned, and saw that in the sky above, there was actually a person who flew directly past his eyes.

  "Immortal?" Er Dan muttered to himself, suddenly sat up, and looked in the direction that person flew away.

  The person flying in the sky didn't fly very far before landing directly in a small forest not far from the second egg.

  The second egg looked at the person falling down, hurriedly got up, vigilantly glanced around, frowned, gritted his teeth, and ran directly into the forest.

  Curious!

  At the age of two eggs, he was full of curiosity about the outside world, especially when he heard the blind man from the east of the village talk about the immortals all day long. This made him extremely curious about the immortals, and his curiosity drove him to go and see if that person was really an immortal.

  The two eggs carefully ran towards the forest, this forest he had been many times before, even with his eyes closed he could find the way.

  Not long after, Egg 2 arrived at the place where that person had fallen. He cautiously leaned against a large tree and looked inside.

  All that could be seen was a figure in black robes sitting cross-legged on the empty ground not far away, whose face couldn't be made out. From time to time, he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, which had already dyed his pitch-black robe red.

  "Who!" The man in black robes suddenly turned his head towards the big tree where Er Dan was hiding, and roared with a murderous aura: "Come out for me!"

  Ergou listened to Hei Pao Ren's words and trembled all over, shrinking back a little but didn't leave.

  Pfft!

  Hei Pao, due to his earlier outburst of anger, suffered a surge of qi and blood attacking his heart, and spat out another mouthful of fresh blood. He then fell directly to the ground, panting heavily.

  "You... you... are you okay?!" Er Dan stretched out his head, took a fearful glance at the black-robed man, and his voice was filled with trembles.

  The black-robed man looked up and down at Yang Chen, and a greedy look suddenly appeared in his eyes. He thought to himself: Heaven won't destroy me, heaven won't destroy me! This child actually has a spiritual root, although it's just a fake spiritual root, but after all, it's still a spiritual root. If I absorb his blood, I will definitely be able to recover some of my true energy. However, this child is extremely cautious, and I must trick him into coming closer to me.

  The man in black robes let out a deep breath, covering up the greed in his eyes, and beckoned to Yang Chen with his hand, saying: "You... come over here... I won't harm you..."

  Ergou still being a child, listened to the black-robed man's words, shook his head, and retreated another step with fear. However, after a moment, the curiosity in his heart drove him to walk over cautiously.

  "You... you... I'll go get someone for you... wait for me!" Er Dan walked to a distance of about five steps from the black-robed man, stopped and looked at the black-robed man's pale face, still spitting out fresh blood.

  The man in black laughed again, spat out a mouthful of blood, and looked at Er Gou with a weak face, saying: "No... no need! WaWa, you and I met by chance, now I'm exhausted, I'm afraid I won't last long. I want you to promise me one thing!"

  Er Dan was simple and honest, listening to the black-robed man's words, he nodded and said: "Whatever you have to say, just say it! I'll agree with you!"

  The man in black spat out a mouthful of blood again, smiled and said: "Come closer and I'll tell you!"

  The second egg nodded and took another step forward towards the black-robed man.

  But at this moment, the black-robed man's face turned ruthless and greedy, his eyes gleaming with avarice as he reached out with his right hand to grab Yang Chen's head...

  Yang Chen was just a simple and honest farm boy, who would have thought that the black-robed man in front of him would actually try to poison him, he was so scared that his soul flew out of his body.

  It's too late to talk about it now!

  Just as the black-robed man's hand was about to grab Yang Chen's Tian Ling Gai, a cyan sword light suddenly shot down from the sky and stabbed directly into the top of the black-robed man's head.

  The man in black didn't even have time to let out a cry, his eyes lost their luster, and he slowly fell backwards.

  Two eggs were startled by the sudden change in front of them, and they hastily retreated backwards with their legs, staring blankly at the corpse of the black-robed man.

  Er Dan was just a farmer's child and had never seen a dead person before, so he stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do.

  Just as Er Dan was stunned, three figures suddenly fell from the sky and stood in front of Yang Chen.

  The three of them first glanced at the corpse in black robes, then turned around to look at Yang Chen who was still in a daze.

  "Master, fortunately we arrived in time. Otherwise, this child's life would have been lost at the hands of this demon!" The person standing beside him looked at Yang Chen, who was still in a daze, with a hint of relief.

  The one called Big Brother nodded and said, "This demon head has killed countless people. We've been chasing him for half a year, and today we finally got rid of this demon head!" Then he smiled kindly at Yang Chen and said, "Don't worry, kiddo, it's all over!"

  The two eggs only reacted now and immediately looked at the three people in front of them.

  Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the three were handsome young men, absolutely not over twenty-five years old, wearing identical green robes with a black and white Tai Chi pattern on their backs, each holding a three-inch Qingfeng sword, exuding an air of immortal elegance.

  The two eggs hastily scrambled to their feet, cautiously retreating a step backwards, and tentatively asked: "You... are you gods?"

  Although the three of them looked like handsome young men, their sudden descent from the sky earlier, combined with their attire, still deeply shocked Ergou.

  The senior brother smiled slightly and said, "We are not gods, we are just cultivators!" He then added, "However, in your eyes, we are also considered gods!"

  His eyes sparkled, and a brilliant idea flashed through his mind. He thought to himself: "There are actually immortals in this world! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I absolutely cannot miss! I must ask them to be my masters, so that after learning their skills, I can also let my parents live a good life."

  He immediately stopped hesitating and directly knelt down on the ground, kowtowing to the three of them three times in a row, saying: "Three immortal sirs, I beg you to accept me as your disciple!"

  Three people were stunned by Er Dan's words, and the eldest brother chuckled twice, with a green light flashing in his eyes. He looked up and down at Er Dan, nodded, and said: "I didn't expect you to really have a spiritual root, but it's just a pseudo-spiritual root. However, it also meets the standard of cultivating reality. As for whether we accept you or not, that's not for us to decide!"

  Spirit root, basically divided into three categories: heaven, earth and human. The lowest is the human spirit root. Each category is further divided into upper, middle and lower grades. The higher the grade of the spirit root, the faster the cultivator's cultivation speed will be. Conversely, without a spirit root, one cannot embark on the path of cultivation.

  The pseudo- spiritual root in the master's mouth is also a kind of spiritual root, it's just that this spiritual root is the worst, but it's still a spiritual root, enough to let people enter the path of cultivation, only the speed of cultivation, I'm afraid it's not as fast as a turtle crawling.

  To sum up, people with spiritual roots are one in ten thousand. Even pseudo-spiritual roots are not something ordinary people can possess.

  "Senior brother, since he has a spiritual root, let him try it out. It just so happens that the day of our Tian Dao Gate's annual disciple recruitment is approaching. Having a spiritual root means he has the qualifications to participate, whether he succeeds or not depends on himself!" The young man standing behind smiled kindly at Er Dan.

  The master nodded and immediately took out a small token from his bosom, handed it to Er Dan, saying: "Girl, you take this thing, on August 15th next month, which is the day of my Tian Dao Sect's recruitment, at that time you take this wooden signboard to go, naturally someone will arrange for you to participate in the test!"

  He took the wooden plaque as if he had obtained a treasure, and as soon as he held it in his hand, he suddenly felt refreshed and invigorated, knowing without thinking that it was the good fortune brought by the wooden plaque.

  Immediately, he carefully looked up and saw that the wooden sign was about the size of a palm, extremely light, like a goose feather. On the surface of the wooden sign were carved three characters "Tian Dao Men", around which were some flying birds and running beasts. On the back of the wooden sign was carved an eight trigrams pattern.

  "Thank you..."

  Ergou's face lit up with joy, carefully putting it into his own bosom, and just about to thank the three people, but before he could finish speaking, Ergou found that the three people who were originally standing in front of him had already flown into the sky, carrying three red lights, and directly swept away into the distance.

  The two eggs immediately stood up and ran out with a happy face.

  Today is a great day for him, a fantastic day, although he was in a life-threatening situation just now, but he got an opportunity that is hard to come by, so it seems that everything is worth it!

  ——————

  Hey! Don't forget to collect, guys!