Early the next morning, after finishing his morning lessons, Yan Liqiang did not go to the archery range for training as usual. Instead, he put on a set of clean clothes, tidied himself up, and went to the back mountain of the archery range alone.
The mountain behind the archery range in Luyuan is a forbidden area. Except for a few specific servants in the archery range, ordinary people are forbidden to enter the area behind the mountain at will. The reason is nothing else but that there are a few people with special identities living there.
Those people, with special identities and great abilities, lived in seclusion in the Deer Garden. Even Eunuch Liu had to show courtesy to them. The reason for this was nothing else but that when the Emperor was practicing martial arts and archery in the Deer Garden, those people were right beside him to instruct him. They were considered his teachers.
Yan Liqiang didn't know why those people lived in seclusion in the back mountain of Luyuan, nor did he know their names. Yan Liqiang didn't even know how many such people were living in seclusion in the back mountain of the archery field. But Yan Liqiang knew one thing, that is, he seemed to be very lucky.
Being able to learn skills from these people is something that money cannot necessarily buy, but after meeting Eunuch Liu yesterday, Eunuch Liu gave him two bronze medals and told him that as long as he had the two bronze medals, he could go to the back mountain of the archery range to find the people living in seclusion there and learn the corresponding skills.
The two bronze plates that Eunuch Liu gave to Yan Liqiang looked very ordinary. Each of them was only half the size of a palm and was full of a sense of time. One of the bronze plates was engraved with a war bow and a word "Ji", and the other was engraved with a long spear and a word "Li". Eunuch Liu told Yan Liqiang that with the bronze plate engraved with the word "Ji", he could go to the back mountain to find the old man surnamed Ji to learn bow and archery, and with the bronze plate engraved with the word "Li", he could go to the old man surnamed Li to learn spearmanship. As long as he saw the two old men, he would take out the bronze plates and the two old men would teach him the skills. As for whether Yan Liqiang could learn it, it depended on Yan Liqiang's own ability and understanding.
As for why Eunuch Liu gave him such a precious opportunity, Yan Liqiang also asked it yesterday, and Eunuch Liu told him that because he felt that Yan Liqiang was a promising talent and wanted to help Yan Liqiang, he gave Yan Liqiang this opportunity.
Yan Liqiang could not find any fault with what Eunuch Liu said. Yan Liqiang also regarded the two bronze medals given to him by Eunuch Liu as some kind of privilege as the manager of Luyuan, so he did not think much about it.
So, this morning, Yan Liqiang came to the back mountain of the archery range with the bronze plaque engraved with the word "Li" in his arms. He wanted to see what he could learn.
Eunuch Liu had already told Yan Liqiang about the terrain of the back mountain yesterday. Although the back mountain was quiet, there were still well-maintained gravel roads leading to many places. Yan Liqiang followed the gravel path and, after leaving his residence, arrived at a quiet place in the back mountain of the archery field in just over ten minutes.
A waterfall, one or two meters wide, flows down from a mountain stream in the back mountain along the steep rocks on both sides. It is not high, only more than 30 meters. The water flow of the waterfall is not turbulent, nor does it have the momentum of a galloping horse. From a distance, it looks like a curtain of water hanging down. When the mountain wind blows, the water droplets of the falling waterfall are blown into mist, which falls like rain, making it hazy.
The waterfall rushing down from above formed a green pool, and next to the pool was a thatched house.
The thatched hut was half collapsed, and one side of the wall seemed to be about to collapse, but it was casually supported by a few wooden sticks. There seemed to be a fence in the yard of the thatched hut, and a small vegetable patch was opened up inside the fence, but the vegetable patch was a bit deserted. The dandelions in it grew about one meter high, mixed with a bunch of foxtail grass, leeks, onions and other things. Two broken hoes and two broken wooden barrels were thrown in the middle of the weeds, and a cat had made a nest in the broken wooden barrel.
If he had not seen such a scene in Deer Park, Yan Liqiang would most likely have thought that the person living here was a beggar, not some great hermit.
Yan Liqiang came to the thatched cottage and looked around. He thought that it was just like what Liu Gonggong said. This should be the place. He cleared his throat and was about to speak when an impatient and rough voice came from the cottage, "Get out if you have nothing to do. Don't come here and disturb my sleep..."
Yan Liqiang looked at the sun that had jumped onto the thatched roof and said nothing more. Instead, he took out the inconspicuous bronze plate and said loudly to the thatched house according to what Eunuch Liu had taught him, "I have a bronze plate here. Elder Li, please give me some advice!"
After saying this, Yan Liqiang stood outside the fence and waited quietly.
After five minutes, the door of the shabby hut was finally creaked open from the inside. Then an old man in rags, with a straw rope tied around his waist and a head of messy white hair like a bird's nest, walked out. He strode directly to Yan Liqiang and snatched the bronze medal from Yan Liqiang's hand without saying a word. After carefully identifying it, he put the bronze medal in his arms and looked at Yan Liqiang up and down through the gaps in his messy white hair with a pair of sparkling eyes, "Are you the one who wants to learn spearmanship?"
"yes!"
"May I have your name?"
"Yan Liqiang!"
"Your last name is Yan?" The old man seemed a little strange.
"Um!"
"Well, then I will tell you the rules of learning gunmanship from me. I am only responsible for teaching, and I will only say everything once. If you can learn it, do it, and understand it, then it is your ability. If you can't do it or understand it after I say it, then you'd better get out as soon as possible!" The old man said to Yan Liqiang fiercely.
"I know!" Yan Liqiang nodded calmly.
"If you want to learn from me, you have to pass the basic spearmanship and practice to level three. Have you passed the basic spearmanship? If not, go practice..."
"I have mastered the basic gun skills..." Yan Liqiang said calmly.
“Did you pass it?” The old man looked at Yan Liqiang seriously again, then pointed to a stone mill as big as an ox on the edge of a pine forest a few hundred meters away, and said, “See that hillside over there? When can you roll that stone mill from the foot of the hill to the top of the hill without any tools and only rely on your own hands, and put the stone mill on the top of the hill, then come back to me. If you are accidentally killed by that stone mill, then you will have bad luck…” After saying this, the old man stopped looking at Yan Liqiang and yawned, then returned to his thatched cottage without saying another word to Yan Liqiang…
Yan Liqiang looked at the stone mill in the distance, and without saying anything, he walked straight over.
The stone mill was surrounded by weeds, and a layer of moss had grown underneath, pressing a shallow pit half a foot deep into the ground. It seemed that it had been there for a long time without being moved. In front of the stone mill was a hillside about five or six hundred meters long. The hillside was littered with large and small rocks and ditches, and not an inch of the ground was flat. Seeing the hillside, Yan Liqiang remembered the Hero's Slope that he had climbed with a group of off-road vehicle enthusiasts in his previous life. Such a hillside was a huge test of the performance of off-road vehicles, but the old man surnamed Li wanted him to use his bare hands to roll the big stone mill from the bottom of the hillside to the top of the hill.
Yan Liqiang pushed the stone mill with his hands to test its weight and found that it weighed just over two tons. This weight was exactly the same as the weight of a Wrangler, which was quite a coincidence.
It is basically impossible for an ordinary person to push such a large stone mill from the foot of the mountain to the top. Even on flat ground, if one is not a strong man, it is extremely difficult for a person to push such a rough stone mill for hundreds of meters, not to mention pushing it up the mountain on this rugged mountain road. Perhaps even if one trains for a lifetime, it is impossible to have such strength.
Looking at the top of the hillside, and then at the big stone mill in front of him, Yan Liqiang laughed...
(End of this chapter)