Qiu Ling looked at the book and hurriedly stuffed it back into Jing Yi's hands. This was his chance! "Ah, don't worry about that, my love. I'll teach you!"
Jing Yi observed Qiu Ling's sparkling eyes and had a bad premonition. He really wanted to learn how to read and write but he suddenly felt that he might want to find another teacher. His fiance had obviously planned something fishy.
Qiu Ling naturally saw his hesitation. He hurriedly grabbed his shoulders and tried to look serious. "My love, think of it this way: I could just read this manual to you but what about later? When you're learning how to do that alchemy-thing you'll probably need to read, too. What will you do then?"
Jing Yi sighed. Qiu Ling was right. How could he become an Alchemist if he didn't even know how to read? Considering what they had seen when they looked around the Alchemy division earlier that was something he definitely had to know.
"Alright. Teach me."
Qiu Ling nodded eagerly and took out a scroll of paper, some ink, and a brush and sat down to work. Jing Yi lifted his brows. His fiance seemed extremely motivated to work. Maybe he had worried without reason?
Qiu Ling wrote down three characters with great concentration before carefully blowing the ink dry and turning around to Jing Yi with the scroll in his hand. His expression clearly said 'Look! Aren't I the most awesome fiance you could ever find? I put in so much effort into this. Tell me I did great!'
Jing Yi smiled. "Alright. What does it mean?"
Qiu Ling reciprocated his smile and pointed at the first character. "This means 'I'. This one means 'love'." Qiu Ling's finger proceeded to the next character and finally stopped at the third one. "And the last one means 'you'." Qiu Ling smiled happily and showed off the scroll.
Jing Yi put a hand to his brow and sighed. His misgivings really had come true.
Qiu Ling stood up and came over to sit next to Jing Yi. "Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you think those three characters are pretty important? You'll definitely need them."
Jing Yi only smiled. At the very least, Qiu Ling had written down three characters. It would probably be for the best if he just indulged him for a while and learned how to write these three characters first. It was better than nothing.
He stood up, went over to the table and sat down while picking up the brush. "Let me have a look at that." He nodded at the scroll in Qiu Ling's hands. His fiance came over obediently and put the scroll down in front of him while taking out another piece of paper.
Jing Yi dipped the tip of the brush into the ink and started copying the characters stroke by stroke. Halfway through, Qiu Ling sat down next to him and observed excitedly. Finally, Jing Yi put down the brush.
Qiu Ling immediately gripped his hands. "You did well, my love. Now, how about we practice reading?"
Jing Yi nearly laughed out loud. He raised a hand and stroked Qiu Ling's cheek. "No need to practice. I think I already know what this means." He leaned forward and kissed Qiu Ling's lips. "I love you", he whispered.
Qiu Ling beamed. Teaching his beloved how to read and write didn't seem like such a bad idea. Now that he had gotten his way it was probably time to get serious, though. After all, it couldn't be that the son of heaven's mortal reincarnation was unable to read or write.
Qiu Ling fetched the cultivation manual from the bed and opened the first page. "It might be better to start with easy words but I guess you won't have much use for them. So how about practicing with the words inside this thing?"
Jing Yi nodded. He was grateful that Qiu Ling truly intended to help him and wasn't just using this to his own advantage.
"Let's see …" Qiu Ling skimmed the text. He had no idea whatsoever what human cultivation was about. It seemed that this part of the text was only a general introduction of some sort, though.
He picked out one of the characters and copied it onto the scroll. "This one means 'heaven'."
"Heaven." Jing Yi took the brush from Qiu Ling's hands and copied the word.
He looked at the different strokes and tried to memorize them. It wasn't that easy though. He had never had much to do with characters. Disregarding the names written on the plaques about the gates of some estates in the capital he probably hadn't seen any at all. Being asked to memorize several of them so suddenly he wasn't able to adapt.
Jing Yi sighed. He put down the brush and studied the characters some more. "This won't be easy."
Qiu Ling nodded and silently put a hand on Jing Yi's shoulder. "It won't. But we've got a lot of time and I'll teach you whatever you want. So don't feel pressured. It's not like you'd have to be able to write perfectly tomorrow." He kissed Jing Yi's cheek, picked up the brush and handed it to him again. "Just try again. The more you practice the easier it'll get."
Jing Yi smiled and pulled himself together. His fiance was taking this rather seriously. He couldn't disappoint him. "You're right."
The two of them continued with their practice until the sky outside grew dark. Qiu Ling put away the brash and paper and hugged Jing Yi to his chest. "Alright, that's enough for today. Let's continue tomorrow."
Jing Yi yawned and snuggled up to Qiu Ling. He, too, thought that it was time to stop. "Considering that I was completely illiterate this morning I've learned a lot. It's just that … If we continue at this pace, then it'll probably take years until I'm able to read the manual the Grandmaster gave me."
Qiu Ling couldn't disagree. Even after working some hours Jing Yi was only able to recognize ten characters. Considering how complicated the cultivation manual was it would really need several years to learn enough words to even understand the gist of it. "Well, just because you're slowly learning how to read now you don't have to do everything by yourself. I can still read it to you."
Jing Yi lifted his brows. "You want to read the whole manual to me?"
Qiu Ling shrugged. "Why not?"
"Well, it'll take a lot of time. And you'd be pretty busy with teaching me how to read and write already. Wouldn't that be too much? When would you have the time for your own practice then?"
Qiu Ling just smiled. "I don't think there's much they can teach me here anyway. So, isn't it better to spend some time with my fiance? And do something useful?"
Jing Yi somehow felt like the last question had only been added for his sake. Well, whatever. As long as Qiu Ling was happy it should be alright.