I return to my house with three new additions. While Wuchen and Xialan are calmer, A’meng looks like a very excitable child. And of course, there’s some slight expansion. Some part of the mountain was raised again and even some unused space that maybe can be used for later. Then there is a separate small extension on the side of a normal sized house.

  “You are to live over there. Make yourself at home.” I point at their new accomodation

  As for me, I sensed the old man was in the gazebo so I immediately went there. He is already sitting, waiting for me. His emotional halo is neutral. Unreadable. I sat across him

  “So what’s the deal with this Xialan?” I press my hands gently on the table, expecting some answers

  “Think it's better if you don’t know. She’s more trouble than she is worth.” He folds his arms

  “And she lives beside my house. Think I deserve some answers.” He extends his divine sense to my house

  “Why is the youngest prince of Xian in your house?” He suddenly asks, seemingly more surprised on this end

  “Well, he volunteered to be my servant. I am surprised about that myself. He didn’t lie so why not.”

  “Son,” He calls me son and not Danxing like he usually does, “One does not need to lie to hide something.” He said quite seriously

  “Fine, I will probe him again later. Does his presence complicate things?” I make the mental note on his advice and to further question Wuchen later

  The old man’s mouth crinkle up and down but ultimately not saying anything.

  “I will take it as a maybe. So who is she anyway?”

  “I can’t say. Part of the favor.”

  “But I can still guess right? Look at me. Look at me. You don’t need to answer.” The old man humors my effort

  “She a bastard of some noble or royal family?” I asked the most cliche possibility. No reaction, facial or emotional.

  “Legitimate child?” I whisper

  His face doesn’t react. But there’s a brief uptick in his emotion. I opened my mouth in surprise. This is so much worse. But it can still go downhill even more. I don’t really want to but I still need to ask.

  “Abducted?” I hissed the worst possible scenario

  The old man doesn’t answer. Both of us stared at each other for a long time. No sound other than the wind and the waterfall. The old man finally throws his hand up.

  “Maybe.” He said genuinely unsure

  “Fuck me!” I slam my hand on the table, realizing I am roped into some sort of conspiracy

  “That’s a strange and inappropriate idiom.”

  “Alright fine, what’s my part in this scheme and do I get anything?” This ain’t my first rodeo, but I don’t expect to be roped into a criminal scheme so soon.

  “You don’t need to do anything and you don’t get anything.”

  “That’s not quite fair isn’t it.”

  “The idea is just to hide her here for a while. I’m sure you already noticed that I am quite a bigshot and now there’s you. Nobody would spare her a glance with both of us around and maybe with the prince, she is going to be more obscure.” He explains the situation

  “But you are not forced to do this right? You get some favor as I recall” He nods

  “But now I realize this scheme on my own. Can you like… fleece the dude?” He suddenly snorts and chuckles, caught off guard by my suggestion

  “Just so you know, I hate working for free.” I joke as the tension eases

  But then someone arrives. Immediately me and the old man quieted down. Su Xialan, the very topic of the discussion, arrives. Carrying a tray of tea. She put two cups on the table, bowed, then leave. Both of us remain quiet. Only after she is out of my peripheral vision do we continue.

  “By the way, what does the work for outer disciple servants usually entails?” I have no idea on this end

  “Whatever the master or inner disciples told them to do. Also varies on where they are. But here in this peak, the jobs are at most tending to the spiritual herb garden, cooking, cleaning, chopping wood, the usual servant work. Also bed companion.” He explains and sips his tea. Humming in approval for the tea

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I ask about the last one, drinking my own tea, which just tastes like sugarless tea. I don’t know why the old man likes it.

  “Not exactly illegal. Shunned perhaps, if it is master and disciple. But if between inner and outer disciple then no one will be against it.”

  “Damn. Reminds me of university life.”

  "That idiom of yours, what does it mean exactly?” The old man suddenly switched the topic

  The question caught me off guard. Opening my mouth to answer before immediately closing it. My hands rubbing each other as I think.

  “It’s eh—, you know. Being put in a terrible situation.” I try to explain

  “How does it tie to fuck though?”

  “You know the more terrible word for fuck right?” The gears turning and the old man simply said ‘oh’

  “Why don't you know this anyway? ‘I fuck your mom’ is still an insult here too right?”

  “The insult, yes. But not how you use it in your idiom.”

  “Why not?”

  “Its extremely inappropriate. The insinuation. No man should have ever used it.” Every sentence uttered faster than the last

  “Is it because the fact that men cannot be bottom?” I recall a random trivia that I read

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  “What!?”

  “Hmm?”

  Finally a pause. The conversation made a leap too far.

  “Why are we talking about this?” The old man finally speaks

  “I don’t know, you started it.” He closes his eyes and rubs his temple

  “I forbid you from using that idiom again. Don’t shame yourself with the insinuation the idiom brings. It might attract the wrong crowd.” The last part he said more seriously.

  “I will try.” After thinking about it, it is wise to stop using the idiom. Especially the last part, I don’t know if the people here will take it literally or not. But the wrong crowd? Maybe he doesn’t want me to be known as gay which I am not. Then both of us finished our tea

  “You know, you still haven’t told me the significance of our surname.” I address the elephant in the room

  “Ah yes that.” The old man fished out a red token and a paper from his storage ring

  “Do this sect mission and I will tell you everything about our surname.” He then said

  I pick the paper, only the left half. I look at him in confusion as I pick the second half to which he just shrugs. I read the mission briefing. I reread the first part, then look at the old man.

  “Isn’t this describing me?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What should I do? Turn myself in?”

  “What you should do is resolve your… existence. We know you somehow make your current body and its materials must come from somewhere. This is also a good opportunity for you to find out what exactly transpired and how you came to be like you are now. You don’t need to worry too much, you are an inner disciple of the Tianhe sect. One would think twice to mess with you and mortal kingdoms have no authority over you.” He reassures me and tell me what to do

  I nod and continue reading down. About dealing with some calamity. Two entire provinces have all their people gone without a trace.

  “You seem to be overestimating my capabilities.” I said plainly

  “Nonsense. This should be very easy for you. Based on what I heard from Zhaoxia.” He said somewhat proudly

  “Any hints? And what does this red token mean?” I pick the red token, on it is marked the chinese symbol of heaven

  “Nothing much, most probably it is the work of the remnant of Yōugǔ sect (幽骨|Nether Bone). They got exterminated during the last war and this should just be the last remnants. They use and refine corpses, that's all. Nothing special.” He tells me my most probable enemy

  “Necromancers, of course.”

  “As for the red token. It's a… sign of acceptable difficulty”

  “Riiight. Should I practice this ‘One does not need to lie to hide something’ with you now?”

  “You doubting me? How dare you! I’m your father!”

  “Is it easy?”

  “Why are you critical with me and not with those outer disciples?" He complaints

  “Normal?”

  He stopped himself but it was too late. I already notice another brief uptick in emotion.

  “So it means hard difficulty.”

  “Yes. It is hard. Now how do you do it?” He asks how I am guessing, leaning forward in smile and interest

  “If I want to be coy I can just say party trick. Which is not a lie as I learn a bit of it. But I can read people’s emotions as this… halo on their heads. Various colors mean some emotions, I don’t know which color represents what exactly but I haven't been outright wrong in guessing yet. But with the three additions, I should get some more accurate estimations after some questions.”

  “Fascinating. Records of soul arts cultivators are quite scarce in the mortal realm as usually this kind of arts are best practiced in Nascent Soul stage. What you claim is not too far from what I have heard” He nods, pleased with my talent

  “Oh, I also can taste lies. Though I’m not in a hurry to know what kind of lies give what taste. It can be overwhelming. This Su Xialan is not her real name, I know because it tastes very bitter in my mouth. Also maybe what made me quickly accept this Wuchen as he did not lie.” I added.

  Making more mental notes on what I need to find out. What the color means in emotions. What Wuchen might hide from me. And so on.

  “Good good. You are realizing your own biases and learning. Now get ready for your mission. Come to think of it, I forgot to give you a storage ring.” He fished out another ring

  “I already have one!” I said with a grin, showing my own. “Got it after winning a bet.”

  “Haha!” He let out a genuine laugh. “But this one should be better.”

  I take his storage ring. Which have a darker red color. Inside is already a thousand spirit stones, and a small pile of copper, silver, and gold coins. Also I somehow know that this one has more space and is more secure.

  “Nice. Thank you.”

  After that is just small talk. Of how I get the ring and the spirit stones. The bet, the fight with Ye Guxuan. And so on and so on. After the old man left, I also put my other books into the dark red ring. Noticing that I am not exhausted after the long talk with him like I always have with others. It felt refreshing. Now then, I should do something about that barbaric outhouse.

  I push myself off the table. Walking towards the great enemy. My desire for proper sanitation will be achieved. First thing first, I move towards the waterfall. I need something to store the water. Following the instruction of elemental control, I put a stone wedge on the top of the waterfall, diverting a portion of the water. Then for the water storage. I looked around and see A’meng doing nothing.

  “A’meng. Get over here.” Surprising him but he came as asked.

  “Stand still.” He immediately stiffed, fear flaring.

  Then I project a line on top of his head. The boy is barely half my height. Then I expand the line width into a floating platform. I lifted the boy and made him stand on the platform. Made another line on top of his head which is now level with my shoulder. Height. As for the width.

  “Stiffen your entire body.” Then I lift him off and turn him horizontally

  Again I made a line on top of his head, moving him to the side and made another line. Alright. The water storage is now 2 A’meng long and 2 A’meng tall. I put him down. I linked the farthest horizontal line and made a line to the height. Like a pendulum, I swing it to the other side and from that side to the last side. Now the lines formed a pretty big open top cube. Then I raise a rock cube from the ground, the diverted water from the waterfall now falls to the water storage. Made a little inlet to one side so the excess flowed back to the small stream. Now then, the pipes. I create small aqueducts like rock pillars with the rock pipes on top, connecting it to the water storage then moving around the edges to the back of the outhouse. Opening the outhouse, I use my earth elemental control to throw the wooden squat box out. Replacing it with a much better smoothed rock sitting stool. Then making a small water storage for flushing. The mechanism on top is only a push and hold button, which in turn pushes the rock cylinder holding the water in the storage. The cylinder has inlets which allow the flow of the water down. Then making sure the water flows down is using the S like piping.

  Satisfied with the first part, now the outflow. I raise a block of the ground. I use my foot, still transformed into a human foot with the shoes. Marking the length on the block. After that I raise the ground block by block at the length of 2 of my foot length. Starting from the outhouse. I made rock piping. Connecting it block by block. To the gap between the two houses. Noticing that A’meng, Wuchen, and Xialan watched from the side with interest. I continue the piping work through the middle of the two houses, ending at the edge of the still empty garden. Now the septic tank, I simply lift the entire garden up. Making a flat rock base, then pillars the height of A’meng. After that I surround the base and pillar with rock like grates before finally pushing all the blocks down. All the wastes should be useful for the garden. Jobs done. Finally, hundreds of hours of block survival games is worth it. Also because I almost became a plumber of course. But deciding otherwise after a short watch on what kind of mess I will be dealing with. Now I don’t know how long the piping and everything will last with just plain shaped rocks but it should be doable for a while. Then excited clapping sounds from A’meng. While the two royals followed along after him.

  “Follow me all of you. This should be much better than that dry barbaric outhouse.” I went to the now acceptable outhouse with in a great stride

  Legs fully kicking front, enjoying some good proper work. I open the outhouse door.

  “Now, you just need to do your thing. Then push and hold this button.” I use the button and the water from the water storage flows from the sides and down through the pipes.

  To my annoyance, they did not react as much as I had hoped. There are some signs that they are impressed but they did not voice it. Raised eyebrows and what not. But no one speaks. Oh fuck it, they will enjoy the wonder of modern plumbing sooner or later. Or is it that plumbing already exists here? But then why the crime of making a dry outhouse?

  “Now then, return to whatever you were doing previously.” As they disperse I finally felt the need to use the toilet after days of not having it. Must be nice if this cultivation also reduces the need to use the toilet. I closed the door but then I saw it.

  Oh no.

  Oh fuck!

  Everything’s gone!