The next day, Zhou Zishu left the abandoned courtyard with Zhang Chengling--of course, bringing an uninvited shadow with the surname of Wen along with them. Zhou Zishu was planning to pay another visit to the Pingan Bank to check in on the progress of what he'd asked them to investigate the last time, so that he could gain a better understanding on things. It afforded him to stuff information into Zhang Chengling's empty head, so that he didn’t just dumbly practice gongfu and do nothing else.

Zhang Chengling discovered very quickly that learning from this cheap shifu of his was extremely painful: he only cared about reciting a whole bunch of tongue-twisting and complex mantras, uncaring of whether others could understand him or memorise them, and treated that as imparting knowledge to Zhang Chengling. To give this practice a better-sounding name, it was “a shifu’s responsibility to accept disciples, and a person’s own responsibility to cultivate knowledge.”

Zhang Chengling felt that Zhou-shifu’s expectations were too high, higher than the halfway point up a mountain; amid the fog and clouds, his head was even more muddled, his eyes rolling back in his head as he falteringly recited the mantras. Zhou Zishu was very annoyed by his dumb look, and swatted him on the back of his head, scolding, “Are you reciting formulas, or hanging yourself?”

Zhang Chengling knew he was stupid; not daring to talk back, he gazed at him with a wronged expression, and so Zhou Zishu asked, "What?"

Zhang Chengling said, "Shifu, I don't understand."

Zhou Zishu inhaled deeply, feeling that since he had accepted Zhang Chengling calling him "Shifu", logically, he should have some patience with him. And so he suppressed his temper, slowed his speech, and asked with what he felt was great patience, "Which part of it do you not understand?"

Zhang Chengling glanced at him, lowered his head silently, and mumbled, "All of it…"

Without a word, Zhou Zishu relocated his gaze to look somewhere else. He held it in for a long while, but finally could not hold it in any longer. "Kid, is that thing on top of your neck a head, or a chamberpot?!"

Off to one side, Wen Kexing was enjoying the show; witnessing this situation, he went up to pull them apart, actively imagining himself to be the kind father beside a strict mother. Half-pleased with himself and half-smug, he told Zhou Zishu merrily, “That's enough, do you know how to teach your disciple? Even the smartest disciple will turn dumb with how much you reprimand him.”

Zhou Zishu said, "Why would I not know how to? I single-handedly taught my shidi all he knew."

Wen Kexing's eyes widened slightly, and he asked, curious, "So what did you do when your shidi couldn't recite the mantras, or get the technique right?"