"Uh..."
"What is this?!"
Professor Hu looked at the verdant bamboo strip Shen Le was holding in both hands, then at Shen Le's eager yet slightly nervous face, and suddenly felt a headache coming on.
His gaze moved over the lacquer marks and ink traces on the bamboo strip's surface. Then he looked at Shen Le again, pressed his right thumb to his temple, and rubbed it once, then again.
"Don't tell me this thing used to be bamboo you pulled out of the Dragon Palace..."
Shen Le grinned broadly and nodded repeatedly. Seeing that expression, Professor Hu's head did not merely hurt anymore; even his stomach started aching.
"...Are you saying that you used magic to revive bamboo that had been cut down hundreds of years ago, soaked underwater until its cell walls were nearly disintegrating, and completely devoid of life—and made it grow into living bamboo again?!"
"Professor, you're brilliant!"
Shen Le gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Professor Hu practically wanted to grab the bamboo strip and smack him over the head with it a few times.
"Brilliant? Brilliant my foot! If you can do that, why don't you go be Guanyin? Why don't you sprinkle some divine nectar and save the ginseng fruit tree?!"
"Because, because..." Shen Le's eyes began darting around.
"Because I don't want to turn from a man into a woman?"
I can't keep talking nonsense with this brat. The more we talk, the angrier I get, and the higher my blood pressure goes. Professor Hu swallowed back a mouthful of blood and sighed deeply.
"So what do you want to do now? Use this method to restore all the bamboo slips?"
"It would be great if they could all be restored, but..."
"But what? What's so great about it?!" Professor Hu lost his