The next day the village head called for an assembly at his place to introduce wale now known as Hua Leito the villagers alongside some special announcements he had for the villagers, Hua Leias he is now known left the village square after the village head finished his announcements and head straight for the 'pasta shop' to get his meal.
He then went to the pseudo school after eating of which he made a recount, he was introduced to within the village to learn their language this time he wants to learn and learn fast so he adopted the method of which he once used at the L.A.S.U. university to quickly get his grade back to 'normal' when he was in an academic slump back then.
His 'normal' was something around 4+ C.G.P.A in his final year back then from less than 2 points in his 100 level, he reckoned that if he use this method to learn, provided that he is not doing any other work which will distract him it will be a fast tracked learning experience, and he's got some learning to do.
Paper was real pricy it worth one of those bronze/brass looking coins not the copper ones and I've seen people use the copper coins to get a sizable meal which in fact I figured that on a normal day making as much as 20 copper coins was a thing of extreme joy for the laborers.
There were lots and lots of paper stack bought for me by 'muscle guy' well then I think I'll stop calling people by their formulated nickname after he learned their language, he'd got to the school.
When he arrived there, he was greeted by the same lady of yesterday 'muscle guy's bae' he thought.
He was then introduced to the class of students there each fairly old, around 14-16 years of age from the well off families within the village, all learning how to write their native language scripts here at school, they all stood up from their cross-legged position and greeted me perfunctorily.
Their greeting style was it was like liu kang in mortal combat which I immediately copied and I greeted back, of course I memorized that so as not to commit a social faux pax in the future for that could be slowly detrimental to my stay you know.
They all sat down there I met my first problem, the problem was how to sit cross legged like them, oh shit, I muttered, the woman looked at me askance, I shrugged and pointed to an empty space at the back where someone could still sit.
She looked at the area which I pointed got the gist and motioned to me which was a signal to go and sit down, of course I obliged, but when I sat she got confused about my strange sitting pose so as to drive the story home I mimicked the others by trying the crossed legged style, of which I failed spectacularly at.
The whole class bursts into giggles as I slumped showing my ineptitude in sitting cross-legged, the lady therefore quiet the kids down with a glare and continued the class as normal of which I learnt nothing that day.
After the day was over at school, the woman brought me to the person I tagged the librarian and explained some things to him, of which he gave me such a measured look that I thought he must have once been a carpenter, you know 'with their measure twice cut once' motto. They completed their conversation then the lady and I both left the man's building
I was walking down the street deep in thought on the whole thing that happened at school, I bumped into a person, well I might as well bumped into a brick wall, she was holding a locket or something which fell down.
We both looked into each other's eyes, she was wide eyed and I was dumbstruck, firstly I thought I collided with a building secondly what's with the extreme sense of déjà vu that I'm feeling then she moved forward and gently laid her hands on my shoulder,
Her grip was really strong, I could feel the place she held slightly hurting, what's with the strength now huh but each time I look into her eyes a strong sense of familiarity emerges from seemingly nowhere, then I did the school taught greetings of which I was stopped promptly and then got flabbergasted when she kowtowed to me mumbling something and is that tears I see in her eyes?.
Uh, I must have made her cry by mistakenly hitting her pricy locket to the ground, so I picked it dusted it on the edge of my clothe and gave it to her with the warmest smile that I could muster, she took it from me and again kowtowed.
Ok, making her cry by hitting the locket unto the ground, probably but that doesn't explain the kowtows so I took her to the 'restaurant' to get a good meal, it took her quite a while to know that I am unable to communicate in the native language.
Then I took her to the training centre in the village where I am sure to meet 'muscle guy' there we waited and shortly I was not disappointed, he showed up and then gave me a strange look, he then laughed and said something of which the girl with me seemed to take personally and said something back rather waspishly.
XIAO XIAO'S POV
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The nerve of this beefy guy, how dare he make fun of master, she thought angry about the way, Wei hao treats Hua Lei casually, my master is so generous deigning to even treat you as peers humph left to me I'll simply suggest that master buy up your village and everything in it including the people in it for good measure.
This of course will be seen as wrong by my master anyways, ever magnanimous as he is, how dare he recommend a maid from this backwaters of a place to my master and expects him to agree with the first rabble offered huh.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She got so worked up that she was red in the face huffing, if not for me deliberately sealing my cultivation to pass off as a mere mortal I would have casually slap this guy to death but caution makes it so that I have to conceal myself
Now that I'm with master I can't ruin his plan because of my pettiness now can I?, so I'll spare you this one time she thought to herself while glaring red-faced at wei hao, Wei hao simply laughed it off in a mild manner,
Then did the woman beside him spoke up, she told her about all that has happened to Hua Leiat school and his learning struggles to how he just even started learning the 'proper sitting posture,' did it got this bad she was shocked about the sequela of his LIFE-DEATH DECEPTION plan.
Seems he really did lost everything the exception of which is the bag and me, anyways he somehow survived good with me so the next thing on the agenda will be to bring him up to speed and fast, to do so we'll first teach him how to speak the imperial tongue first then we can now proceed, to the script, but it will take about a year or two to get him to speak the imperial tongue fairly and then another one or two years to get an initial mastery of the imperial scripts.
Well she knew that it will be much shorter because she had faith in her master's learning prowess, well hopefully the last technique he pulled off won't addle his brain and turn him into a dunce once and for all, ok then we'll stick to your plan.
WEI HAO'S POV
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Well I was right about his young master issue of this guy, now his original maid found him, it seems that what happened to him must have made his memory impaired, but I do not know what could happen to a person to have done this type of damage to him poor fella.
The uppity girl and my mu'er went to discuss on how to get this hua lei's ability to speak back in short order, hopefully they quickly get things in order since I and mu'er has a place to go.
The day he came to the village that he was settled in by me, I had a discussion with my shifu at the dojo explaining my suspicions to him and my speculations but the only reply was for me to 'know what I'm doing' and not to get myself over involved with him
After my master and I discussed in the dojo, I decided that being friendly but keeping him at arm's length will be the best, that's why I haven't done much other than the first day he came to the village. done discussing the fate of our dear 'young master' mu'er signaled me and we vacated the area leaving them to each other
**************
Hua Lei simply stood there watching as they discussed about him probably determining his fate, the feeling of not having a modicum of control was gnawing at him which all boiled down to a burning desire to 'master this friggin language'.
The following 40 weeks was 'rigorous' he managed to learn simple words and their meaning at first and then started experimenting on stringing them together which was fun for the villagers especially when he downright 'butchered' the language, by pronouncing some things too literarily.
For example, when he introduced himself as 'HEI REN' when drunk with rice wine in a bachelor's gathering on the eve of Wei Hao's wedding and 'Dark Fox' when entertaining the kids by playing some kiddies game at the village school and so-on.
Well in less than a year he gained an initial mastery in the language, this also qualify him for phase two which is to learn how to read and write the imperial scripts. this was a bit tricky because it was not like the English or Yoruba language where you string letters to form words
There he learned the nuances of the script, by first learning what words they correlate to, treating that phase like the learning of ABC made him tide through the learning process fairly fast then there comes the monster part breaking the words down and forming characters that will pass on the meaning of what you are trying to say.
I'll like to call the above statement as simplification in imperial scripting, of course this was taken by the librarian who I later learned that he is called Luo Chang or 'the Scholar' as his nickname. it was a cumbersome task which took him some three years to gain some mastery on.
So was the short of Wale who got isekaied at the age of 23, learned the local language at the age of 24 relearned how to write at the age of 25 mastered it at the age of 28 and fully took upon himself the name Hua Lei and the nickname 'the Dark Fox' well because it seems cool enough, and people just will not stop calling me that and yup, the kids started it.
while I was 25 years when I got a hang of the language I took martial lessons from the dojo master whom I had once misrecognized as Wei hao's pal, his regimen was strict and stressful, but not as stressful as I thought it should be instinctively.
A year after my training regimen I qualified to be part of the village guards and sometimes we also go to hunt some wild games the herbivore brings good meat and the carnivores well good pelts that's pricy and sometimes meat but dangerous to hunt.
The dojo's shifu I later knew his name as Luo Fu with the nickname 'the tiger hunter' this was given to him by his team mates when he hunted down a tiger and wrestled it to the death barehanded and brewed tiger bone wine out of its bones rumor has it that he still has some of the wine in his cellar still sealed, ageing.
This name will then stick with him to the jiang hu where he acquired some modicum of fame before, being forcibly 'retired' by some sect brat who had backings, it was when I heard his story that I knew that the scholar was also once powerful, even more so than his junior brother but low key.
He also decided to retire due to the same debacle, he took revenge for his younger brother's sake, due to his cultivation been hamstrung by some 'uppity brat' and suddenly a sect elder was on his ass, this was where he and his brother hid away from sect influences to slowly recover.
He sometimes comes to the dojo to teach the art of meditation, calming one's mind, splicing and studying the nuances of techniques etc, all of these it took in readily, and now I could comfortably sit in 'perfect' lotus position and meditate for 2 hours straight.
Though I still could not wrap my head around the idea of someone being strong enough to jack a boulder weighing a ton with an arm, one thing I know for sure is that the village chief is rumored to have once battled a 'vicious beast and survived the battle, as for the beast it's skull is probably in the trophy room.
I took in Luo Fu's physical training like an empty barrel taking in water before I clocked 28,nowthings got a bit off, for example I might be in the middle of my training montage only to see my self- proclaimed, almost 'bossy' maid looking at me eyes seemingly shining while I was training "excuse me seems a golden imperial coin is growing on my forehead" I couldn't help but jab.
Then she will look away face blushing or sometimes with a somewhat sad face, well I won't poke around it's her cross to carry whenever she deems it fit for me to know she will let me know, after all everyone has their own cross to carry.
Another good news Mr Wei Hao and Mrs Wei Mu as known now, birthed a cute baby boy after some years of being married to each other this called for a celebration, well didn't have much to give just a silver imperial coin to the boy's name will do right?. the party ended on a high note just had to be dragged back home, to bed by Xiao Xiao that evening.