Chapter 7: The Decline of the County School

  One of the side courtyards of the county school was a library, and the gatehouse was an old servant who had checked Yang Yun's identity documents. He muttered a few rules: "The books in the library cannot be taken away, they can only be read inside. There is a well in the courtyard, but you need to bring your own water cup, however, it is not allowed to bring it into the library. At dusk, the library closes and everyone must leave."

  Yang Yun entered the library, which was actually two rooms inside and outside. The inner room had several rows of bookshelves storing books, while the outer room had some tables and chairs where one could sit and read.

  Yang Yun roughly browsed through it and couldn't help but shake his head secretly. This library was somewhat old and worn out, with only a few hundred books stored inside, and many of them were duplicates.

  There aren't many people reading outside, including myself, there are only four of us. They all look like they come from poor families. This isn't surprising, people from good families would naturally go to the academy, where the collection of books is far superior to this place, and there are also teachers who have passed the imperial examination to explain and teach, the conditions here are much worse.

  Yang Yun picked up two books and sat down in the outer room, concentrating on reading them.

  Unlike ordinary people, Yang Yunxian would first quickly flip through the book, using his Moonlight Spirit Eye ability to scan the contents, and then silently ponder their meaning. When he reached a critical point, he would flip back to the specific chapter to carefully savor it, and once he understood the general idea seven or eight parts out of ten, he would start reading from the beginning again to see which parts he had forgotten or overlooked.

  In this way, two books were finished and an afternoon had passed. The library closes at dusk and no one is allowed to stay inside at night. Yang Yun looked around and found that there were already five people in the room. A new arrival was tall and thin with a square face, but his eyes darted back and forth, not looking like a scholar at all.

  Yang Yun looked at him twice, and this person took the initiative to come over, with a smile all over his face, asking: "Is this brother coming here for the first time? What should I call you?"

  Yang Yun cupped his hands and replied: "I am Yang Yun, I just arrived from Wangshan Town today. How should I address you, brother? Do you often come to this library?"

  "It's actually Brother Yang, I'm Du Longfei, my home is in the county town. This county library is my favorite place to come. Everyone else knows me, if you want to read any book just tell me and I'll help you find it."

  "Then thank you, Brother Du." Yang Yun smiled faintly.

  At this time, the old runner shouted in the courtyard, "The hour of You has arrived——"

  Everyone closed their books and those who knew each other said goodbye as they left the study room.

  Yang Yun noticed that Du Longfei had given a signal to one of the students who came to read books, and the two of them slipped into an alleyway one after another. Yang Yun thought for a moment, shook his head, and left on his own.

  ×××

  Half a month has passed in the blink of an eye. Yang Yun reads books at the county school library during the day and practices the Moon Flower True Classic in his own room at night. The windows of the house just happen to allow moonlight to shine through in the first half of the night, which is very suitable for practice.

  Moonlight is actually a kind of heavenly and earthly spiritual energy, the moon from rising to mid-sky is the most abundant, other times not only weaken, but also not very pure, not suitable for the cultivation of Moon Flower True Scripture.

  The last wisp of moonlight disappeared from the window at the same time as Yang Yun also withdrew his power.

  "Now I have sixteen apertures in my head, only the last Baihui acupoint is left. This acupoint is the final total pass, once the practice of the second layer of Yuehua true energy is successful, it will be done." Yang Yun thought silently to himself.

  "After the second layer is cultivated, my reading speed will definitely increase greatly. At that time, the books in the book library may not be able to keep up." Yang Yun had already discovered that the books in the county school's library were extremely incomplete, with only a few hundred volumes in total, including duplicates. What was even more frustrating was that many of the books had missing pages and damage, and those sets of books, Yang Yun couldn't find a single complete set, either the first volume was missing, or the last volume was missing, or there was only one volume out of several."

  It turns out that there are not many complete and readable books in the library, and those complete books are often the most basic ones like "Analects of Confucius". Yang Yun was able to pass the imperial examination and become a scholar because his foundation was solid. What is urgently needed now are actually those incomplete books.

  "It seems that we still have to think of a way from Du Longfei." Yang Yun had known for some time that Du Longfei could get his hands on many books, and many poor students bought them from him at about half the market price.

  It's still a long time before dawn, and Yang Yun doesn't feel sleepy at all. The second layer of the Moonlight True Classic hasn't been practiced yet, but the benefits are already gradually appearing, after cultivating, Yang Yun feels refreshed and invigorated, just like he had a good sleep.

  "Unfortunately, the Moon Flower True Classic only has two levels of cultivation. It seems that I will have to change my technique later." Yang Yun sighed softly.

  It's still more stable to cultivate the "Bi Shui True Formula", which is the main method of Yang Yun's previous life, from condensing the acupoints to the completion of the yuan Shen and even the realm of crossing the tribulation and ascending to immortality.

  Although he can only recall the part before the foundation building period now, it is very likely that the contents of the later exercises will be recalled after his cultivation has improved.

  But after waking up from the dream, Yang Yun always subconsciously avoided practicing the Bi Shui True Classic, just like a road that had already been walked to the end, and the scenery on the road had all been seen before, so it was no longer interesting to walk through it again.

  "The Secret of the Azure Water" requires cultivation at sea to make rapid progress, but Yang Yun doesn't want to stay at sea for long in this life, which is also a point of hesitation. In his previous life, he was able to cultivate to the Heavenly Tribulation stage with great luck, but it's not like picking up his original technique would definitely allow him to reach the same level again. Moreover, "The Secret of the Azure Water" ultimately didn't help Yang Yun pass the Great Heavenly Tribulation.

  Yang Yun carefully pondered the Moon Flower Scripture and suddenly gained a new understanding.

  "I originally thought that the Moon Flower Scripture might be a foundational part of some cultivation technique, but now it seems more likely to have been created by someone from the martial world. The creator must have had an extraordinary gift to sense the moon's aura. This scripture has a limited scope and focuses too much on increasing the power of one's true energy, wasting too much effort on irrelevant acupoints. While this approach may produce dense and powerful energy, it is actually detrimental to achieving enlightenment through cultivation."

  "Now it seems that when I was practicing the first layer, I cut off twelve acupoints, which turned out to be a good thing. A person's time and energy are limited, if they follow the original cultivation method, it would probably take forty or fifty years to reach the peak of the first realm's tenth layer. Cultivating the Tao is about competing with heaven, how can one afford to spend so much time on just this one realm of condensing acupoints? With forty or fifty years of effort, one could have already broken through to the foundation-building period, and by then would have undergone a complete transformation. No matter how powerful a martial artist's true energy is, they would still be reduced to ashes with a single move, just like what happened in the dream where I obtained the Moon Flower True Classic."

  Yang Yun repeatedly deduced the changes in the sequel to the Moon Flower True Classic, but creating a new technique wasn't that easy. After a long time of deduction, there was little progress, but it was confirmed that omitting many key points during the first layer of cultivation was a good thing, which could save time and make the true energy cultivated more pure, beneficial for future breakthroughs.