The Unruly Immortals

As the bloodsucking locusts neared his shoe, Li Huowang lifted his foot and stomped a locust dead right beside him, then looked at the young Yang boy in front of him with a rare hint of pity.

"Do these things often suck your blood?"

"We're tending the paddy fields; having leeches is just inevitable with the water buffaloes around. As long as it's not a water snake, it's fine. The leeches sucking blood isn't a big deal, we have hands to pull them off."

"But it's troublesome if they attach to the buffalo since the buffalo don't have hands to remove them. They're just left to have their blood sucked by these creatures. That's why they're called 'buffalo leeches'."

Li Huowang stared at the young Yang boy's youthful face, considering how if this child were in the future world, he would probably only be in sixth grade. Yet here, he had already taken up the role of an adult.

After pondering for a moment, Li Huowang patted him on the shoulder, "Stop tilling the fields. At your age, you should be in a private school learning to read, not working in the fields. Leave this work to the tenant farmers."

Once Li Huowang issued his order, Niuxin Village soon had a new teacher.

Even though Niuxin Village was remote, as long as there was enough silver, finding an unqualified scholar to teach was easy.

This was not only for Young Yang but also for Li Sui, who was attending the private school. She followed Li Huowang's instructions to listen and not speak, quietly paying attention to the teacher's lessons.

Besides them, anyone who was idle would eavesdrop by the window, as if listening in could somehow allow them to earn more.

Even Top Scholar Lv brought his grandson, not yet a year old, suggesting he could benefit from the scholar's aura, which might make it easier for him to become a top scholar in the future.

Seeing this, Li Huowang decided to simply open the doors. From then on, anyone in the village who wanted to listen could come into the private school, considering it a benefit to the people of Niuxin Village.

Watching everyone diligently listening in the private school, a faint smile appeared on Li Huowang's face, and even his previously gloomy mood improved significantly.

"What are you smiling about?" Bai Lingmiao asked in surprise, standing beside him.

"Look how nice this is. No matter how many hardships we experienced on the road, life is steadily improving. Isn't this what they all want?"

Bai Lingmiao reached over and interlocked her skeletal fingers with his, leaning slightly towards him.

"Yes, life will keep getting better. That's why, in the future, no matter what you encounter, never think of death. There will always come a day when it's all in the past."

The teacher inside was instructing his pupils on various matters. "These particles 'zhi', 'huo', 'zhe', and 'ye' are of no use to you all; I don't expect you to qualify as scholars. Just learn the practical stuff, like reading and counting!"

"Once you master these skills, you'll have a valuable trade and will never go hungry! Today, let's start with counting rods!" With that, the teacher held up a container of chopsticks high in the air.

"There are eleven hours in a day!" He picked eleven chopsticks out of the container and laid them on the ground.

"For example, if a peddler comes to your village to sell his goods, and the journey takes five hours," the teacher withdrew five chopsticks from the eleven laid out. "How many hours does he have left to sell his wares and sleep?"

"Hm?" Li Huowang's expression turned a bit sour.

Sensing the change in Li Huowang's expression, Bai Lingmiao asked curiously, "What's wrong? Isn't the teacher quite good?"

"A day has twenty-four hours, with each hour being two modern hours, so there should clearly be twelve hours in a day. I have no idea where his 'eleven hours' came from."

"This man can't even understand the simplest concept of time, no wonder he couldn't qualify as a scholar. I'll find an excuse to dismiss him; it's better than letting him lead these children astray," Li Huowang replied.

Hearing Li Huowang say this, Bai Lingmiao's fair eyes revealed a trace of doubt. "Li Huowang, what on earth are you talking about? A day is indeed eleven hours long. Where are you getting this idea of twelve hours in a day from?"

"What?!" Li Huowang felt as if his brain had been violently struck by something, buzzing incessantly.

At first, he looked at Bai Lingmiao in shock and, once he received her affirmative response, he immediately rushed into the private school and demanded from the teaching craftsman, "Is there really only eleven hours in a day?"

"Nonsense, if it's not eleven hours, how many could it be? Do you have a better idea?" The teaching craftsman felt quite dissatisfied with this man who suddenly burst in, disrupting his teaching and wrapped in white cloth from head to toe.

Li Huowang, with a face full of shock, turned around and looked at the pairs of eyes behind him, asking them all, "A day only has eleven hours?!"

Yang Xiaowai was very puzzled by Li Huowang's shock. "Yes, Brother Li, isn't a day always eleven hours long? What's so strange about that?"

"Only eleven hours? That means there are only twenty-two hours in a day here? Where have the missing two hours gone?"

In an instant, Li Huowang felt a surreal sense about this world.

Bai Lingmiao, with a slight frown on her brow, walked into the private school and took his hand, leading him outside. "What on earth is going on with you? Isn't it normal to have only eleven hours in a day?"

"No, it's still not right," Li Huowang calmed himself down; he decided to search for the answer himself, "Miaomiao, does the village have anything to keep time? Bring it all out; I need it."

"Timekeeping? Would a water clock do? That's all the Bai Family has."

"Yes!"

Soon, three large interconnected barrels, arranged from highest to lowest, were placed in front of Li Huowang. The topmost barrel was filled with water, dripping drop by drop through a small pipe into the second barrel.

Each drop fell almost exactly at one second intervals, and Li Huowang, not quite trusting even the tool, deliberately counted in his heart to be sure.

Regardless, the answer Li Huowang finally came up with was indeed that a day consisted of eleven hours.

Although there was some deviation in the calculation, it could not possibly be off by an entire two hours.

Li Huowang, who hadn't slept all night, ultimately accepted the reality that there were truly only twenty-two hours in a day in this world.

Rubbing the sore corners of his eyes with the back of his hand, Li Huowang muttered to himself, "So that's how it is. So the reason why I always seemed to oversleep in the past was because there were two hours missing from the day?"

Ever since he came out of Qingfeng Taoist Temple, he either overslept or felt like his sleep was insufficient. It seems now that the problem was with time itself.

Bai Lingmiao, standing behind him, had deep concern in her eyes. "Li Huowang, what madness are you spouting now?"

Li Huowang accepted this twenty-two-hour day setting much faster than he had imagined. Since even the world itself was mad, it only made sense for the time to be abnormal as well.

He stood up and gently hugged Bai Lingmiao, "Speaking of which, when we were at Qingfeng Taoist Temple, was a day also eleven hours long?"

"Of course it was."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Do I need to tell you that? How was I supposed to know you didn't even understand this?"

While the two were talking, in the distance, Zhuge Yuan, listening with the expressionless face of an Oblivion Path cultivator basking in the thrill of disaster, whispered smugly, "See? This is the confusion of Xinsu! Isn't this educational?"