Chapter 385 – Doing a Favor for Teacher (1)
Ye Zhen felt that there was nothing for her to complain about. It was she herself who had chosen to enter the Imperial Physicians’ Courtyard. Therefore, she had also expected the difficulties she was going to face on her path as an imperial physician. Anyway, she could endure it for the time being. Besides, when the time arrived, when she really couldn’t bear with it anymore, then she could still reconsider it.
Huangfu Chen looked down at her and frowned. Initially, he had thought that he would hear her complain and see her unwilling expression. However, he found that her peach blossom eyes and jade face only had a bright smile without the slightest bit of resentment at all, which made her look even more attractive and radiant in his eyes.
“Even if you get used to the life of an imperial physician, it shouldn’t be like this.” Huangfu Chen stated. “Does Imperial Physician Qi know you’re drying medicine here?”
“Imperial Physician Qi is detoxifying my eldest brother back at home.” Ye Zhen said with a smile, “Anyhow, I haven’t had the time to learn divination from you recently, Teacher. But I have been practicing what you have taught me last time.”
Huangfu Chen smiled and said, “If you want to learn, then naturally I am willing to teach. In any case, I have nothing to do at the moment, so I’ll tell you about the difference between each divination symbol while you’re drying the medicine.”
However, as expected, Ye Zhen felt somewhat embarra.s.sed. “But Teacher, the sun is very strong here… How can I let you teach me here?”
“You, as a little girl, are able to dry the medicines here. Am I not even as good as you?” Huangfu Chen asked.
“That’s not what I mean, Teacher.” Ye Zhen wore a helpless smile.
No longer arguing with her, Huangfu Chen looked at the herbs piled outside the medicine storehouse and asked, “Are these all moved out by you?”
“No, there is a eunuch who helped me carry it out just now, but he left.” The eunuch was called Xiao Baozi, and though he looked very plump, he was very warm-hearted. He had helped her a lot by bringing many of the herbs out for her. But when he was about to help her dry the medicine, he was called away by Gao Xueping.
Huangfu Chen came over and lifted a bag of herbs and said, “In the end, who is it that arranged you to do these things? How can you, a mere little girl, carry all these herbs?”
Ye Zhen just smiled and said, “It can be done just by moving it little by little. Not tiring at all.”
“Very well. In that case, let me tell you something about the eight divinatory trigrams to the 64 hexagrams from the Book of Changes. If you can learn to read the divinatory diagram from the Book of Changes, then you can learn the divination skills on your own,” he said. He had indeed taught her how to divine, however, it was useless to know how to do it without being able to read the divinatory diagram from the Book of Changes. Hence, now, he was taking the chance to teach her how to read it.
She nodded her head in understanding as she spread the herbs on the ground to bask under the sun. She had a very good memory, so even if Huangfu Chen only said it once, she could still remember it clearly. “I tried to use yarrow stalks divination, but there is still some deviation in the calculation. Why is this so, Teacher?”
Huangfu Chen smiled and said, “That’s because you can’t read the divinatory diagram.” Then, he began to talk about the divinatory diagram and how to look at it. “At first, there were only eight trigrams, namely, the Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dou. Each of these eight trigrams is made of three parallel lines, either whole lines or broken, with the whole lines representing solid Yang lines and the broken lines, Yin lines. Among them, except for the Qian trigram that is formed by three whole lines and Kun Trigram that is formed by three broken lines, the other six trigrams are arranged in a combination of broken Yin lines and solid Yang lines that combine together… For example, the divinatory diagrams include those that form three connected lines at Qian (☰), sixth cut at Kun (☷), facing upward basin at Zhen (☳), overflowed cup at Gen (☶), empty center at Li (☲), full center at Kan (☵), cut lines on top at Dou (☱), cut lines below Xun (☴). As for the 64 Trigrams in the Book of Changes, they were deduced by Ji Chang, the Marquis of Xibo. The Eight Trigrams overlapped with each other, thus giving rise to today’s 64 Trigrams. The Eight Trigrams that originally only had three strokes to it overlapped with another Eight Trigrams, creating 64 Trigrams and caused the initial three parallel lines to transform into six parallel lines.”
Huangfu Chen stopped explaining for a while and looked at Ye Zhen who was seriously listening to him. He then asked, “Can you understand my explanation so far?”
Ye Zhen nodded. “I can understand your explanation, Teacher. You can continue.”
Like he had thought before, this little girl was indeed very talented. In fact, learning divination was actually quite a dry and dull task. In other words, it was a boring and bleak subject. And most people had to read books for a long time to understand it. However, this little girl was able to understand the subject after simply listening to it. If she was not talented, then what was she?