A Verdant Field of Ramie

Cooking dragon liver was much faster than cooking dragon tongue. Tender, fresh dragon liver would not cook through the instant it touched boiling water, but it did not need nearly as long as dragon tongue simmered in a covered pot.

"Little Moon Spirit, watch the fire. The wind is strong up here; it's blowing the flames crooked." Wu Chu put Little Moon Spirit, his handy helper, to work. She saw nothing wrong with it and obediently did as told.

"Brother A Chu, is this enough? Isn't it too simple?"

"You don't understand, do you? Have you forgotten what I once said? The finest ingredients often require only the simplest cooking methods. It may look simple, but this is how you lock in the nutrients of the dragon liver. Besides, if dragon liver is cooked too long, it affects its tender texture. Boiling it briefly like this and taking it out right away is the best method."

Wu Chu had applied the method for swishing pork liver in hot broth to dragon liver, speaking with such solemn conviction that it was as though he had eaten dragon liver before.

Judging by Little Moon Spirit's expression, she actually believed him. She wore a look that said, 'Brother A Chu is amazing,' her demeanor devout and earnest.

After all, in her eyes, Wu Chu had always been a senior figure. Though sometimes, the things this senior did left her somewhat unable to understand.

But when she thought of Wu Chu's "Ordinary Illness," there was no need to find it strange.

By the time the two of them had finished sharing that piece of dragon liver, more than a month had passed.

The structures that needed to be built atop the tree had also been mostly completed.

Four pavilions of varying sizes stood in the four directions atop the tree, utterly unmoved no matter how the fierce winds blew. Leaning against the railing of the west-facing pavilion and looking out, one could take in nearly the entire great lake, even seeing large fish leap from the water in the distance.

Looking down, they could see the Red Giant Fish by the shore below. It seemed to have spotted the figures atop the tree and raised its head to look up, then danced and leaped through the lake.

Wu Chu had Little Moon Spirit dig up some Lotus Blossoms and plant them in the garden pond. While she was at it, she picked out several particularly attractive lake fish from the great lake to keep there. He also had her retrieve that cluster of Wild Mountain Ginseng she had once ravaged and transplant it into the garden.

The soil in the garden had been brought back by Little Moon Spirit. She said it was fertile soil rich in earth spirit power, exceptionally suitable for cultivation, and that it could usually be watered with the Primordial One-Qi Pure Spirit Spring.

This reminded Wu Chu of the legendary Nine-Heavens Resting Soil. Nuwa had used this divine substance when she created humankind. Unfortunately, it was far too mythical a thing for him.

As for everything else, Little Moon Spirit could choose according to her own preferences. Wu Chu could not think of anything suitable to plant for the time being. After all, he had no idea whether those gorgeous exotic flowers and herbs were poisonous, so Little Moon Spirit would have to identify and select them.

If this were not the Primordial World, Wu Chu would have thought his life was already perfect, aside from the flaw of wearing animal hides.

But he had no better solution. Little Moon Spirit's outfit was entirely conjured with her magical power. He could hardly ask her to conjure one for him too, could he? Maintaining it would require Little Moon Spirit to continuously expend magical power.

He had once asked Little Moon Spirit whether Purple Jade Mountain had creatures like silkworms, and the answer had been no. Even if there had been silk, he would not have known how to weave cloth or tailor clothes, but wasn't there Little Moon Spirit, this little fairy?

Although this little fairy did not know artifact refinement and could not cut clouds into robes or weave rosy mists into fabric, weaving cloth from silk should not have been a problem.

As for using spider silk, Wu Chu had heard that it could be used as a raw material for bulletproof vests, but he had no knowledge in that area whatsoever. He had never seen how to remove the stickiness from spider silk, so he could not even ask Yibao to reconstruct it for him.

Thus, he could only set his sights on plant fibers.

Ramie clothes were still better than animal hides, weren't they? Judging by the current temperature, Wu Chu was certain that when summer arrived, temperatures reaching forty or fifty degrees Celsius would not be the least bit surprising.

Wearing animal-hide clothing through the height of summer would simply be torture.

He already liked going bare-chested now. His once flawless jade-white skin had turned bronze, making him look incomparably strong and fit.

But this appearance was quite far from the immortal he had imagined. Though he was not an immortal yet, wasn't that already his goal?

So, once he had some free time, he invited Little Moon Spirit to go sightseeing with him.

Come to think of it, after coming to the Primordial World for so long, the farthest place he had ever gone was that slope where the Azure Dragon's corpse hung.

Although Purple Jade Mountain encompassed hundreds of millions of square kilometers of land and mountains, Wu Chu, who considered himself half its master, had never once inspected his own territory.

That was because he feared accidentally encountering some poisonous creature and dying on the spot.

But with Little Moon Spirit accompanying him, Wu Chu did not mind going out for a look around.

Yet the sights they saw along the way disappointed Wu Chu somewhat.

There were no strange peaks and treacherous ravines of an immortal realm, no towering mountains, no cascading springs and waterfalls shrouded in immortal mist, no spiritual herbs growing everywhere. There were only collapsed mountains and lofty peaks, broken trees and shattered stones, along with a few giant trees fortunate enough to have escaped disaster, standing sparsely amid the gentle ridges.

Still, Wu Chu felt that his luck was not bad at all, for he found a patch of Ramie beside a bamboo grove on the far shore of the great lake. There were even caterpillars on the leaves of the Ramie.

The Ramie plants were quite large. Their broad ovate leaves were even as big as washbasins, but Wu Chu felt sure he had not mistaken them. His hometown had them too, and women of his grandmother's generation used to gather the bark of this Ramie to make aprons.

Though the fabric was rough, it would definitely be much better if the raw materials were processed more finely. At the very least, it would be countless times cooler than animal-hide clothing.

In fact, this plant had always been an excellent choice for hemp garments. Most hemp clothes made in ancient times had been woven from this type of fiber.

Although Wu Chu did not know how to build a loom, Little Moon Spirit was here. He could just have this little fairy weave it by hand. With the abilities of a Celestial Immortal, it should not be a problem.

Seeing the smile on Wu Chu's face, Little Moon Spirit asked, "Brother A Chu, what is it?"

Standing atop a cloud, Wu Chu laughed heartily. With one hand on his hip, he pointed at the field of Ramie with the other. "Little Moon Spirit, come on, let's go over there..."

"Over there? There is no treasure there!" Little Moon Spirit frowned in confusion. The moment her two silkworm-like brows wriggled, Wu Chu was utterly charmed.

"Haha, to me, this field of Ramie is treasure!" Wu Chu smugly showed off. "Little Moon Spirit, do you know what that thing is used for?"

Little Moon Spirit's eyes lit up. "Th-this can be eaten? How does it taste? Is it delicious?"

"..."