I have Immortality In The Cultivation World

Chapter 516: Chapter 379 Epiphyllum Treasure Tome

“Water, water…”

Zhou Yi moaned unconsciously, feeling his lips moistened, and he swallowed a few times without thinking.

The medicinal decoction slid down his throat and into his stomach.

A warmth spread through his organs and circulated through his limbs, his originally weak body regaining some strength.

He opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the copper lamp on the ceiling, and standing before him was an old man with a pale face and no beard.

A sharp pain in his lower body brought Zhou Yi’s groggy consciousness back to full alertness, and he finally realized where he was.

The Directorate of Palace Attendants!

In other words, the agency mentioned by common folk that managed the eunuchs.

Zhou Yi was born into a farming family in Wannian County, and after a severe drought last year left them without a harvest, his sister starved to death. To keep his elder brother alive, his parents sold him to the palace to become a eunuch.

During the day of the castration, he fainted from fear and pain.

“Awake?”

The old man’s voice was shrill, “Tomorrow, follow them and go to the Eastern Residence to learn to read. Don’t be lazy; if you learn slowly, there won’t be any food for you!”

Having said that, he left with his medicine box.

In the ten years since his birth, Zhou Yi had never left his village. Being alone in a strange environment, he was filled with fear.

Curling up in the quilt, he quietly observed the room’s interior.

The room was about two zhang in area, larger than both the main hall and inner room of his home combined, neatly built with blue bricks—far more presentable than the earth-walled homes in his village, not to mention the red painted window frames and wooden beams.

Looking at it this way, being a eunuch wasn’t too bad!

Zhou Yi was still young and unaware of matters between men and women; he only thought living in comfort and having enough to eat, and being warm under the quilt made the loss of his testicles seem insignificant.

There were three empty beds beside him, with quilts thrown about as if someone had rushed out of bed in a hurry.

After lying down for a long while, Zhou Yi’s heart gradually settled, and he drifted into a drowsy sleep.

In his dreams, he saw his parents, their dark faces calling out to him, but frustratingly he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Zhou Yi, anxious and sweating, tried with all his might to listen, to understand…

“Wake up, wake up.”

The shrill voice resonated in his ears, and Zhou Yi opened his eyes to see a wrinkled-faced eunuch looking at him.

“It’s time for breakfast, if you’re late you’ll only get to drink watery porridge.”

Zhou Yi recalled what the senior eunuch had instructed the day before and asked, “After eating, are we going to the Eastern Residence to learn to read?”

The eunuch replied, “Newcomers learn to read, our household practices martial arts. My name is Xiao Xi, what’s yours?”

“Zhou Yi.”

Zhou Yi answered softly. His name had been given by the village scholar, meaning to live a simple and easy life, but things had turned out quite contrary.

Bearing the acute pain, he got out of bed and followed Xiao Xi to the Eastern Residence.

Accompanying them were two other eunuchs named Xiao Zheng and Xiao Yuan, both with sullen faces that didn’t look approachable.

Xiao Xi was outgoing, and he chattered non-stop on the way, giving Zhou Yi a rough understanding of the Directorate of Palace Attendants.

The Directorate of Palace Attendants oversaw all eunuchs, divided into twelve offices according to different functions. The most powerful was the Si Lijian, responsible for personally attending to the Emperor.

Next was the Valued Palace Attendants, Zhou Yi’s assigned department.

If the Si Lijian were the civil officials among the eunuchs, then the Valued Palace Attendants were the military officers, practicing the palace’s martial arts tomes and responsible for the security of the Inner Palace.

The rest, like the Imperial Horse Attendants, the Shangshan Attendants, and the Superintendent Attendants, were eunuchs assigned menial tasks, belonging to the lowest level within the palace.

Xiao Xi aspired, “My ambition is to become like Eunuch Hai, guarding His Majesty’s side with great renown!”

Zhou Yi hummed and hawed in support, discreetly remembering his parents’ teachings to speak less and make fewer mistakes when away from home, and to listen and learn more.

The Eastern Residence.

It wasn’t the name of a palace, but rather what the eunuchs’ living quarters, known as “straight rooms,” were called. This particular Residence was located on the eastern side of the palace.

Following Xiao Xi’s guidance, Zhou Yi first went to the study to report his name, received an identity plaque, and then headed to the dining hall to eat.

Because he arrived late, there was only white rice porridge left, but he still drank three large bowls.

In his village, only Steward Liu’s family ate rice porridge. The rest mixed coarse rice with wild vegetables, and not in quantities enough to satisfy hunger. When hungry, they would drink cold water.

The last time Zhou Yi had a satisfying meal was three years ago during New Year’s Eve.

Coming to the study, he found a spot near the corner, quietly waiting for the tutor to begin the lesson.

Most of the seats in the study were occupied, with children around ten years of age; some were lively and fidgeting, others whispering with acquaintances.

When the tutor pushed the door open, the study instantly quieted down.

“Open ‘Shuowen Jiezi’ and follow me in reading!” @@novelbin@@

There were several old books on the desk, read by countless people before, and Zhou Yi recognized the character “文,” mimicking the movements of the person next to him to turn to the first page.

“One is the beginning of numbers…”

The tutor was an elderly eunuch with hair white as a crane and skin like chicken skin, trembling as he walked as if he could fall at any moment, yet his reading voice was extremely loud, reaching the ears of all the servants clearly.

Not all the servants’ voices were high-pitched; if they entered the palace after reaching adulthood, they retained a normal male voice.

Zhou Yi followed the tutor in recitation, striving to remember the pronunciation and form of each character, not caring if the stroke order was correct as long as it matched what was on the page.

This kind of force-fed character recognition quickly led to a headache.

The tutor ignored this and repeatedly read the first three pages, leaving homework when class was dismissed at noon.

“Recite them one by one tomorrow morning; those who cannot will be punished by standing and going hungry!”

Having said that, he left the study without caring whether the servants had fully learned the characters or not.

For the sake of food, Zhou Yi endured his headache and recited each character, asking his neighbors for help with the ones he didn’t know.

At around ten years old, they were not difficult to converse with, but they too didn’t recognize all the words, and even if they did, they weren’t sure if they were correct.

“Just keep reciting what you’ve committed to memory!”

Zhou Yi read on until the skies dimmed and returned to his room where the other three servants had not yet returned.

It was around the hour of Si when the trio, including Xiao Xi, came back.

Zhou Yi mustered up the courage to ask how to read the characters he didn’t know and, after learning them, continued to recite until late into the night, not knowing at what point he fell asleep.

The next day.

During the homework check, Zhou Yi stuttered through his recitation, resulting in over a dozen mistakes.

In the span of that day, he ate only once; he stood as punishment in the study for both lunch and dinner.

The sensation of hunger was unpleasant, especially after having experienced full meals, and Zhou Yi resolved to put more effort into learning the characters.

From then on.

His days were spent between sleep, the kitchen, and the study; he was punished with standing and hunger sporadically throughout the first half of the year, but in the latter half, as he recognized more characters, he could easily read three pages fluently.

During this period, many new servants arrived to learn character recognition in other studies.

Zhou Yi secretly took note, with roughly a group arriving each month, and forty or fifty people being assigned to the palace service.

“That’s four or five hundred people a year, and in ten years, that’s four or five thousand, and that’s only in the palace service. There must be tons of servants being supported for nothing in the palace!”

“They might as well save that money, buy some more land, and harvest more grain…”

In Zhou Yi’s simple understanding, the Emperor was like a large landowner, no different from Steward Liu in the village, except he plowed the fields with a silver ploughshare and turned the soil with a golden hoe.

That day.

He took his usual seat by the window.

Zhou Yi flipped through the pages of Shuowen Jiezi; the tutor said that reviewing the old would lead to new knowledge, and that reading a book a hundred times would reveal its meaning, so he, not considering himself smart, decided to act on the wise man’s words.

The tutor came in, his hands empty, not carrying any books.

“I have taught you for a year, and you’ve all been diligent; most of you can recognize the characters. Today, I will teach you the supreme martial arts of the palace!”

As he spoke,

He took up a charcoal pencil and wrote four large characters on the wall.

“Epiphyllum Treasure Tome!”

Zhou Yi murmured the name and, recalling the annotations in Shuowen Jiezi, understood that an epiphyllum was a strange flower blossoming only at night, wilting and withering at a rapid pace.

“Like the morning dew on an epiphyllum, a moment’s splendid splendor!”

The tutor’s murky eyes flashed with clarity as he spoke slowly.

“The cultivation of the Epiphyllum Treasure Tome progress is extremely fast, far exceeding ordinary martial arts by tenfold. Remember to cultivate diligently; in the future, you will be assigned different domains based on your strength.”

“Those with lesser strength will patrol, enduring hardship and exhaustion, while those strong will be close protectors, and gaining favor from superiors could lead to promotion…”