Casual Boasting, A Promising Student

The seven emotions: joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, and desire. The six desires: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and thought. Or perhaps joy, anger, sorrow, fear, worry, terror, and shock.

There was simply too much that could be said about all this.

After all, he was a successor of the nation who had received nine years of compulsory education.

As Wu Chu spoke with great assurance, Little Moon Spirit was impressed despite not really understanding.

Although she did not fully understand, Little Moon Spirit felt that it made perfect sense.

Thus, Wu Chu's identity as a "senior" became even more firmly established in Little Moon Spirit's heart. Then Wu Chu showed her how to make bamboo-joint shrimp soup, adding some ginger he had found in the flower field. This made Little Moon Spirit yearn even more for the Culinary Dao Wu Chu had described.

For a sprite who had never encountered cooked food before, her first taste of food different from raw meat was naturally an impact someone like Wu Chu could never understand.

The only thing was, the little girl harbored quite a bit of resentment toward the pair of chopsticks in her hands.

Even though she was a sprite, using such a tool for the first time still left her rather flustered. She dearly wanted to throw them to the ground and just use her hands.

The little sprite Yibao giggled at the sight.

Although Little Moon Spirit using her slender jade-like fingers to grab food would not have looked ugly to Wu Chu, it ultimately did not fit his aesthetic standards.

How could a little sprite who looked like a fairy eat by grabbing food with her hands?

It was far too damaging to her image.

Wu Chu gave a light cough, smiled, and extended the chopsticks in his hand. "Don't underestimate this little pair of chopsticks. They contain quite a lot of meaning. Ordinary chopsticks are seven inches and six tenths long, representing mankind's seven emotions and six desires—the things I told you about earlier. They remind us to learn to control our emotions and restrain our own desires."

"The top of the chopsticks is square while the bottom is round, representing the round heavens and square earth. And when we pick up food, see? Between movement and stillness, they also represent Yin and Yang. A lone Yin cannot endure, and solitary Yang cannot thrive. Only when Yin and Yang embrace each other can they become perfectly whole."

Little Moon Spirit listened with her mouth agape, once again impressed despite not understanding.

At that moment, another stream of Merit Power descended, landing on Wu Chu and the pair of bamboo chopsticks in his hand. Two golden patterns wound around the previously ordinary chopsticks, instantly making them extraordinary.

This left both Wu Chu and Yueling dumbfounded once more.

Yueling thought, Senior A Chu, and you still say you aren't a senior?!

Yibao had originally been rolling her eyes inwardly, thinking this could only fool an innocent little sprite like Little Moon Spirit. But when she saw that Merit Power, she was stunned as well.

Could even Lord Heavenly Dao have been fooled by him?

"Brother A Chu, you're amazing!" Little Moon Spirit practically worshipped him.

Thus, with a pair of chopsticks and a bamboo bowl, little Yueling once again imitated Wu Chu's expression as he narrowed his eyes and savored the emperor-level enjoyment brought by supreme delicacies.

Seeing that look on her face, Wu Chu felt his appetite grow even stronger.

"Oh, right, Yueling. It's spring now. Did you see any bamboo shoots growing in that bamboo forest you visited? Those can be eaten! It's a pity we don't have an iron wok, otherwise we could make a dish of fresh shrimp, shredded meat, and stir-fried bamboo shoots..."

Little Moon Spirit's eyes lit up. "What is an iron wok? How would one make it?"

"Making one requires smelting iron. Those fragments of magical treasures you have would work too, but I have no way to melt and forge them into molten iron before reshaping them..."

"Brother A Chu, you're being modest again!"

"..."

Wu Chu thought, How am I supposed to make her believe that I really am just an ordinary person?

"Ahem, Little Moon Spirit, does the cultivation art you practice include fire techniques? Can you control fire?"

Little Moon Spirit shook her head. "I cultivate water arts. They are incompatible with fire arts."

"Forget it. We'll figure it out when we get the chance!" Wu Chu felt that the task of forging an iron wok would ultimately have to fall on him, since he knew how to control fire.

It was just that the spiritual power within him was truly...

Sigh!

Hard to put into words!

After enjoying a meal of boiled shrimp, Wu Chu had Yueling help him make a toilet.

The principles behind a toilet were not actually difficult. He understood them well enough, but making one himself would clearly be asking too much. After all, he could not even chop through much of the wood, let alone hollow out its interior and create several curved passages.

But with Little Moon Spirit helping, it became much easier.

Following Wu Chu's instructions and on-site guidance, Little Moon Spirit only ruined three pieces of Purple Jade Spiritwood before a completely purple toilet, lustrous as jade, appeared.

Then they made a water tank and connected it to the toilet with a pipe.

As for the water in the tank, he could use his water-control technique to draw it from the lake. That was not difficult. He could just refill it after every flush.

Even Wu Chu's clumsy water-control technique was sufficient for that.

"Brother A Chu, what is this thing for?"

Little Moon Spirit looked at Wu Chu in confusion.

At that moment, Wu Chu was installing the toilet inside the latrine, then connecting it to the cesspit with a bamboo pipe.

"Ahem, this is a place for relieving oneself. Come to think of it, how did Little Moon Spirit deal with personal hygiene in the past?" Wu Chu asked her a rather "private" question.

Little Moon Spirit blinked and thought for a long while before coming back to herself somewhat shyly. Finally, she said, "Since I learned to consume qi, I have never had such troubles again."

Sure enough, in this world, fairies did not need to use the toilet.

Wu Chu smiled. "Then I'm truly sorry, but after eating so much food today, you'll definitely need to deal with a personal hygiene issue later. How would you handle it then? You can't just find some random place, squat down, and take care of it on the spot, can you? That would be far too shameless. This thing will let you deal with such annoying troubles in great comfort."

As he spoke, Wu Chu demonstrated how to use the toilet.

At the end, he casually boasted out of habit, "Of course, that is merely how this thing is used. We should focus on its creation process and understand its transformations. Everything in the world can, through our ingenious ideas, be changed into another form and put to our use..."

Sure enough, when he explained how to use the toilet, Little Moon Spirit's expression had been quite calm. But after he added that casual boast, things immediately changed. Little Moon Spirit was once again impressed despite not understanding, then silently fell into deep thought.

Yueling thought, Senior A Chu is using this toilet to impart the Dao to me! Sigh! Senior A Chu is simply too modest. He is obviously so incredible, so why does he keep saying he is ordinary?

Only Yibao rolled her eyes at Wu Chu in speechless exasperation, as if she wanted to say, Master, does your conscience not hurt for fooling such an innocent little sprite?

Wu Chu simply ignored Yibao.

But at that moment, another stream of Merit Power descended upon the toilet, Wu Chu, and Little Moon Spirit.

Wu Chu no longer knew what to say.

He felt that perhaps he had created the beginning of a civilized society!

Only in that way could Wu Chu understand why Heavenly Dao had bestowed Merit Power upon a toilet.

At this point, Yibao was too powerless to complain, while Yueling once again worshipped him wholeheartedly.

After installing the toilet, Wu Chu carried over several logs and had Yueling use the Spirit Prime Sword to split them into thick wooden planks three inches thick. Then he used bamboo nails to fasten the planks onto two logs, nailing them into three wooden walls that enclosed the latrine.

At the front, they made a wooden door a little over half a person's height.

Once the latrine project was finished, Wu Chu breathed a sigh of relief. Then he picked up A Qiu, the Little Wolf Cub who had been watching nearby with his tail wagging, placed him on the toilet, and said, "From now on, you must use the latrine here too. You are not allowed to defecate wherever you please outside. Understand?"

The Little Wolf Cub wagged his tail and stared at him like a Husky, clearly not understanding.

So Little Moon Spirit acted as a translator once again.

After that, Wu Chu began directing Little Moon Spirit, his tiny little tool helper, to cut the octopus tentacle she had carried back into strips a meter long and several inches wide, then lay them out on a root of Purple Jade Spiritwood to dry.

Little Moon Spirit asked Wu Chu in confusion, "Brother A Chu, why are we doing this? Will drying the meat make it more delicious?"

Wu Chu coughed lightly. "Not exactly. Octopus can be eaten raw in one way, and dried in another. I was thinking that once the month... that is, after night falls, I might get hungry and need something to eat. So we need to make some jerky to store away, since the nights here are very long..."

"Drying it? You mean extracting the water from the meat?"

"Yes, you could understand it that way!"

"That's easy!"

Little Moon Spirit waved her small hand. Moisture visibly seeped from the strips of octopus meat, thread by thread, gathering above them into a stream.

Wu Chu smacked his lips, smiled at Yueling as she looked at him, gave her a thumbs-up, and said, "Little Moon Spirit is amazing! I only mentioned it briefly, yet you already know how to draw inferences and adapt it."

Little Moon Spirit giggled. "That's because Brother A Chu teaches so well!"

"Haha... A promising student indeed, a promising student indeed!"