"The various dangers of the immortal path—the most perilous of all is restlessness."
"Anxiety from stagnant cultivation, resentment from watching others break through."
Zhang Miaoyu stood with her hands behind her back, facing Zhou Ping and Ye Wanzhou, who sat quietly before her. Her tone was gentle as she taught.
The outer sect was now developing vigorously, its numbers having doubled—though you could still count them on two fingers.
Fortunately, they had moved past the one-on-one intensive tutoring model.
Zhang Miaoyu basically only provided cultivation guidance to them, but the number of times she answered their questions wasn't high. For one, Zhou Ping's cultivation was still in the early stage, and cultivation itself was monotonous—repeating the same thing over and over.
Before reaching the next realm or encountering a problem, it was basically free-range training, with only occasional sparring sessions.
Zhou Ping was devoted to pill refinement, which wasn't Zhang Miaoyu's specialty. He mostly went to the Tianyan Sect's pill peak to study, and fortunately, their sect master's face was big enough that just mentioning his name got him quite detailed training.
Because of this, Zhang Miaoyu didn't have many opportunities for sparring practice either.
Zhang Miaoyu hadn't really experienced the actual feeling of teaching disciples.
As the outer sect elder teaching disciples, most of her time was spent acting as Li Yingling's little secretary.
The job wasn't bad, but the title of outer sect elder was somewhat undeserved.
Fortunately, Ye Wanzhou was completely different.
She really let Zhang Miaoyu experience what it felt like to be an outer sect elder teaching a disciple.
Although the first step wasn't teaching Ye Wanzhou cultivation, but teaching her to read.
Zhou Ping had been taught to read by Cui Hao earlier. Although Cui Hao had been driven to despair, he had actually taught well, and by the time Zhou Ping reached Zhang Miaoyu, he was already enlightened and basically didn't need much teaching.
Although there were illiterate cultivators in the cultivation world, they either eventually learned to read or willingly remained bottom-tier cultivators.
Zhang Miaoyu herself had been illiterate back then, and had later found a teacher to study bitterly.
Ye Wanzhou was also smart and not dull—at least Zhang Miaoyu thought so. Many things only needed to be taught twice before she grasped them.
Zhang Miaoyu stood and looked at the two:
"The path of cultivation is long and arduous. Only by holding to your original heart can you reach the peak."
This was morning lesson content, without any practical teaching.
It was based on Li Yingling's teaching policy for outer sect disciples—you could be weak, but you couldn't be bad.
Every few days, Zhang Miaoyu would hold special morning lessons on these topics.
The actual effect was unknown for now, but doing something was better than doing nothing.
With those words, the morning lesson concluded.
Zhou Ping and Ye Wanzhou stood up together and bowed to Zhang Miaoyu:
"Thank you for your teachings, Elder."
Zhang Miaoyu nodded gently and was about to dismiss the morning lesson and call Ye Wanzhou for instruction when she saw their sect master walking in with Cui Hao, chatting and laughing from the entrance.
"Sect Master." Zhang Miaoyu stepped forward two paces and quickly bowed.
Chu Xingchen nodded slightly: "No need for such formality."
Zhou Ping was fairly familiar with Chu Xingchen, after all—his pill initiation had been guided by Chu Xingchen, although he had nearly been discouraged by his sect master's formidable pill refinement skills.
He also stood and bowed: "Greetings, Sect Master."
Ye Wanzhou's expression was slightly nervous. She bowed first, then raised her eyes to look at Chu Xingchen.
Although Zhang Miaoyu always said everyone in the sect was easy to get along with, she understood one principle—where there are people, there will be conflict.
If there wasn't, it just meant there weren't enough people.
Like now, the outer sect had only three people including the elder and disciples.
Could they really take root on such a vast immortal mountain, especially with such a simple sect?
After all, all the breathtaking sights outside the sect gates made Ye Wanzhou find it hard to believe, and she had seen quite a few disciples wearing the same uniform outside the gates—the numbers were definitely not small.
Chu Xingchen smiled and nodded, his gaze naturally turning to Ye Wanzhou, whose skin was still slightly dark:
"You must be the new outer sect disciple?"
Ye Wanzhou immediately replied:
"This disciple is."
"Your aptitude is quite good. Cultivate well." Chu Xingchen took out several protective spiritual treasures from his space ring. "Although you're in the outer sect, you're still part of the sect. If you're bullied, you can go to anyone—don't just keep it bottled up inside."
Standing beside his master, Cui Hao nodded in strong agreement:
"We cultivators endure bitter cultivation—not just to pursue the great dao, but also to protect our own!"
"Huh?" Ye Wanzhou looked at Cui Hao, who spoke with such confidence.
How was this different from what the elder taught?
Chu Xingchen's gaze also turned calmly.
Cui Hao quickly coughed and corrected himself:
"I mean, to protect the people we want to protect."
Ye Wanzhou quickly nodded in agreement. Under Zhang Miaoyu's signal, she accepted the defensive spiritual treasures from Chu Xingchen, while also marveling at Cui Hao's quick change of words—truly a cultivator, speaking so cleverly.
Zhou Ping's expression remained calm as ever.
As Cui Hao's neighbor, every time Cui Hao had nothing to do and pulled him to drink, those casual conversations were explosive.
Cui Hao's specialty was chatting from the heavens to the sea, every word like thunder.
Occasionally when Li Xingtian joined the drinking and listening, even someone who was usually expressionless would make a grimace and shake his head repeatedly.
At first, Zhou Ping barely dared to respond, but eventually he could treat Cui Hao's nonsense as a snack to go with his drinks.
After experiencing it enough, he got used to it.
Chu Xingchen also chatted casually with Ye Wanzhou and asked about Zhou Ping's recent situation.
Zhou Ping responded naturally, his expression relaxed—after all, aside from being careful with pills, their sect master was fine in every other way.
Perhaps Zhou Ping's demeanor also influenced Ye Wanzhou.
The atmosphere was quite pleasant.
Not to mention there was Cui Hao, who never let a conversation drop.
After just a bit of chatting and learning about Ye Wanzhou's life experiences, Cui Hooked his arm around Zhou Ping's shoulder naturally and started chatting with Ye Wanzhou about how to cast nets and catch fish.
As Cui Hao explained the techniques, he quoted classics and cited precedents, as if he had truly been fishing by the river for over ten years.
He even described fish-selling techniques in more detail, even explaining how to work with boatmen to raise fish prices vividly.
Just by listening, Chu Xingchen understood that at least half of Cui Hao's so-called quoting classics was nonsense to fool people.
But it was enough to leave Ye Wanzhou staring in amazement.
She could only think that immortals truly had experienced everything.
Cui Hao got more and more excited, quickly entering stand-up comedy mode.
Ye Wanzhou sensed something was off but still listened attentively, occasionally asking questions.
Relationships could perhaps be drawn close through exactly this kind of casual chatting.
Ye Wanzhou's expression was no longer tense as before.
Seeing this, Chu Xingchen let Cui Hao continue his performance.
Just as Cui Hao was getting into it,
Chen Baiqing walked in from outside.
The moment Cui Hao saw Chen Baiqing's figure, his mouth full of nonsense instantly froze.
Among all the people in the sect,
aside from his own master, only this Third Senior Sister could precisely handle Cui Hao.
Even Eldest Senior Sister had moments when Cui Hao could confuse her.
Only Third Senior Sister had never missed, never let him off.
She belonged in the category of Cui Hao's natural enemy.
Chen Baiqing looked puzzled at Cui Hao, who seemed like he'd been grabbed by the neck, and said directly:
"Keep going. I'm not here for you."
"Oh… oh…"
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