72. Selling cute big and small baobeis, super cheap!

Not long after, the older freed mortals arrived—the teenagers and the adults. While some headed into the kitchen to help and do something with their hands, most of them sat down to eat.

Sun Fuyu eventually had to leave, but Wen Zhihao stayed. Firstly, there were other people around to help look after the children. And secondly—there were other people around to entertain the children.

After checking and updating the calming stones that Sun Fuyu had previously given to the older mortals, Wen Zhihao took the opportunity to talk to Old Tang about his flying cart idea. Old Tang helpfully informed him that there was a carpenter in one of the nearby towns, so Wen Zhihao went off, found said carpenter, and placed an order immediately.

On the way back, he dropped off his long-overdue monthly talisman quota and picked up his instructions and allowance for the next month.

When he returned to the kitchens, he gave the kids, and anyone else who wanted to listen, a mini reading lesson which turned into a lesson for the other staff too. Since trying to teach traditional characters was too much for Wen Zhihao, he had started off with pinyin instead, like how he had started learning to read back in elementary…

“But doesn’t that mean they’ll have to learn two sets of characters?” one of the literate staff asked.

Cough, Wen Zhihao definitely needed to enrol the kids in a formal class.

After releasing the children to play again, Wen Zhihao went to inspect the fruit trees.

Instead of playing with the others, Xiao Bai followed him like a little tail as he checked all the trees and injected them with a little more qi. In the end, Wen Zhihao picked up the light-as-a-feather Xiao Bai, carrying him with one arm against his hip.1

“Does Xiao Bai like mangoes?” Wen Zhihao asked, pointing to a yellowish-green underripe mango.

“Man-goes?”

“Does Xiao Bai like durian?”

“Du-ri-an?”

“Does Xiao Bai like banana?”

“Ba-na-na-na?” Xiao Bai’s brows creased as he tried his best to think if he liked these unknown things or not.

Wen Zhihao rubbed Xiao Bai’s head, grinning guiltily at his teasing. “En, in the future, Xiao Bai can taste all these fruits. Then Xiao Bai can tell me ‘like or not’. ”

Xiao Bai nodded with a serious expression. “Yes, Uncle.”

“Xiao Bai is so good! Hungry yet? We can ask Grandma to prepare whatever you like for lunch!”

“Xiao Bai will eat anything,” Xiao Bai said seriously in his milky little voice.

Wen Zhihao poked Xiao Bai’s soft cheek. “Xiao Bai is very good, but Grandma would also be happy if you have a favourite. But it’s okay, Uncle will tell you the names of the new foods and you can think about it.”

Xiao Bai puffed out his cheek that was being poked. “Yes, Uncle.”

Wen Zhihao smiled. He carried Xiao Bai to the kitchen, calling out warmly, “Grandmmaaaaaa, when is lunch going to be ready?”

After lunch was had, Wen Zhihao took the children and a couple of others to the demonic cats’ enclosure.

The children and teenagers and adults had only encountered the big cats, as they were the only ones Huang Jialing had taken along to the safe house. So today, Wen Zhihao took them into the small kittens’ enclosure.

“You have to be nice to them, okay?” Wen Zhihao said. “Or else the big cats will get you,” he added, pointing to the two large cats that were half-sleeping. “Now, here is a butterfly talisman, and here is a bubble talisman…”

These kittens were not scared of the new humans at all. Many of them bravely approached the new humans, meowing for attention, which they subsequently received.

One kid, named Ruan Lanxi, laid down on the ground, her face right up against a kitten. “Little baobei!” she called out.

“Meow!”

Ruan Lanxi giggled. “Little baobei mao2⁓”

“Meeeooww⁓”

Wen Zhihao took out some bedding and laid it all about. He sat down next to one of the sleeping big cats. “Don’t play for too long, go to sleep if you’re tired, okay?” Of course, Wen Zhihao was definitely tired. He yawned, stretched, and laid down.

Soon, the yawns spread across the enclosure as human and demonic beast alike padded over to Wen Zhihao and the bedding and laid down to nap too.

When Zhou Sheng came by—in his disguise of grey robes—he saw Wen Zhihao and the ‘victims’ of his aura. Big cats and big Wen Zhihao, little cats and little mortals, all of them were peacefully sleeping.

Huang Jialing spotted Zhou Sheng by the enclosure.

“They won’t wake up for a while yet,” Huang Jialing said drily. “Come, have some tea.”

They moved to a room with large windows facing the enclosures. Huang Jialing served some light spiritual green tea and they passed the time talking about Zhou Sheng’s ‘work’ with the slave traders and how his collaboration with the other sects was going.

They never strayed to other topics. Zhou Sheng didn’t care. Huang Jialing had never been cruel to him; but she had never helped him either, just like the rest of the masses.

Eventually, Huang Jialing put her cup of tea down and said, “Wen Zhihao should be awake now.”

Zhou Sheng also put down his teacup. “Thank you, Cultivator Huang.”

Zhou Sheng strode to the smaller of the demonic cats’ enclosure and let himself in. “Hello, Disciple Wen!” he called out.

While the mortals and cats had gotten up, Wen Zhihao was still sitting down on soft blankets.

Huang Jialing followed in a more sedate pace. She helped the mortals out of the enclosure and led them to the bathrooms.

Wen Zhihao blearily rubbed his eyes. “Ah, Cultivator Zhou,” he greeted with a yawn. He looked up from his seated position. “Hungry?”

Zhou Sheng huffed slightly. “I know when I need to eat,” he said drily, but his heart was nonetheless touched. He sat down on the edge of the bedding and picked up a small demonic beast that headbutted him and placed it in his lap.

Wen Zhihao raised an eyebrow. “You do look a little more ashen than usual,” he said.

“I may have fought with some senior members in my sect,” Zhou Sheng said with a shrug. “But I’m fine.” He couldn’t speak for those senior members though, who weren’t senior to him any longer.

Wen Zhihao silently took out one of the many food boxes Aunty Liu had given him. “Eat.”

“I can’t reject your food, can I?” Zhou Sheng said with a roll of his eyes. “Actually, I came here for a reason.”

He put the food box to the side and took out a metallic ring. “I found a crafting cultivator. Your description was a little vague for her, but this is what she came up with.”

Zhou Sheng showed how the ‘copier’ ring worked. First, the ring was placed around a writing implement. By pressing the right little symbol, the ring resized itself snugly around the implement. Then, Zhou Sheng pressed another symbol and drew some meaningless symbols on the paper, then pressed another symbol. During this phase, the ring was recording the movement information. Then, he placed the writing implement and ring over a fresh sheet of paper and pressed the fourth symbol and let go of the pen. The ring moved by itself, making the pen write!

When it finished, it stopped and hovered above the paper. Zhou Sheng plucked the pen from the air and looked at Wen Zhihao. “This is to your specifications. It can hold a brush and copy any shapes you  draw yourself.”

Wen Zhihao stroked his hairless chin. “Quite good.”

It would be great if he could get this device and set it to write talismans while he slept or looked after the kids. However...he couldn’t do that with this magical ring.

An anxiousness grew in Zhou Sheng’s stomach at Wen Zhihao’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong with the ring, thank you, Zhou Sheng,” Wen Zhihao reassured him. He smiled sheepishly. “Aiya, there are more things I want it to do that are beyond what I told you.”

Rather than relaxing, Zhou Sheng grew tenser. “Tell me.”

“It would be great if it could be paired with another mechanism that could switch out new paper and make it draw the same symbol again. Hm, for the ink situation, it should be enough to simply make a large brush pen with a bigger ink reservoir…”

Seeing Zhou Sheng’s creased brow, Wen Zhihao tried it from another direction. “Imagine something like...an automated copier. Let’s say I want to write one hundred light-creating talismans. Rather than writing it all myself, this device would write it for me. All I need to do is infuse the ink with qi and give it enough talisman-writing paper beforehand.”

Wen Zhihao took out a brush pen and paper and sketched a boxy printer. “Paper goes in here, the device prints—I mean writes it—and the paper goes out, and a new piece of paper goes in…”

Zhou Sheng’s eyes brightened with understanding. “Wen Zhihao, this kind of automated copier is quite unique.” He felt a new appreciation for Wen Zhihao. First the calming aura and stones, and now this. Oh, and his suggestion for dealing with the slave traders wasn’t too bad either...

Wen Zhihao really didn’t want this kind of praise though. Printers were found in most offices and schools and even many homes! They’re very cheap and the companies made money off consumers by selling expensive ink.

“Is it? I’ve seen something similar before...in a dream…” Wen Zhihao hedged.

“I’ll go back and tell the crafting cultivator,” Zhou Sheng said.

Wen Zhihao handed him the sketch. “Who is this crafting cultivator? Do I know them?”

“Her name is Li Fanghua,” Zhou Sheng said.

Wen Zhihao barely knew the names of the people in his own sect, let alone people from other sects. “I don’t have many spiritual stones, but maybe she’ll like a few of my talismans and a calming stone or too.” He tipped out a small pile of items on the bedding between them. “Give them to Li Fanghua.”

“En.” Zhou Sheng placed the items into his spatial device.

“Aiya, don’t forget the food box.”

Zhou Sheng placed the food box into his spatial device as well. It was nice, the feeling of being forced to care about himself...

After that, Zhou Sheng stayed a little longer as Wen Zhihao introduced him to all the non-cultivators.

“You must thank Uncle Zhou, he is the driving force behind everything,” Wen Zhihao said.

Zhou Sheng felt it was a very novel experience to have small children say ‘thank you’ to him while gripping Wen Zhihao’s robes with one hand. Zhou Sheng crouched down to their height. “Am I that scary?”

He laughed when one little girl nodded her head.

“Very honest,” Zhou Sheng said.

“Very good,” Wen Zhihao added, patting little Ruan Lanxi’s head.

Zhou Sheng didn’t want to stay for dinner though, citing that he wanted to go see Li Fanghua before heading back to ‘work’.

After Zhou Sheng left, Wen Zhihao looked into the distance. Ah, he left too.

The entire time Zhou Sheng was here, Lin Yijun had hidden his aura and watched. However, Wen Zhihao was too much of an expert at spotting the ‘missing gap’ in the qi that was Lin Yijun-shaped.

I feel like I really need a better shorthand for the “older freed mortals”. Also, did you know that in Vietnamese, the word for cat is "mèo" aka meow (=^･ω･^=)

Chinese has a logographic/morphemic writing system, where characters typically represent meanings. Whereas English is a syllabic/phonemic/(morpho-phonemic) writing system. The phonemic part means the characters typically represent sounds (phonemes) but also the same symbol can be said in different ways that isn't reflected in the word (tomayto vs tomarto). In my opinion, a phonemic writing system is easier for native-speaking beginners, but it also has a lot of ambiguity...

72. Selling cute big and small baobeis, super cheap!

Not long after, the older freed mortals arrived—the teenagers and the adults. While some headed into the kitchen to help and do something with their hands, most of them sat down to eat.

Sun Fuyu eventually had to leave, but Wen Zhihao stayed. Firstly, there were other people around to help look after the children. And secondly—there were other people around to entertain the children.

After checking and updating the calming stones that Sun Fuyu had previously given to the older mortals, Wen Zhihao took the opportunity to talk to Old Tang about his flying cart idea. Old Tang helpfully informed him that there was a carpenter in one of the nearby towns, so Wen Zhihao went off, found said carpenter, and placed an order immediately.

On the way back, he dropped off his long-overdue monthly talisman quota and picked up his instructions and allowance for the next month.

When he returned to the kitchens, he gave the kids, and anyone else who wanted to listen, a mini reading lesson which turned into a lesson for the other staff too. Since trying to teach traditional characters was too much for Wen Zhihao, he had started off with pinyin instead, like how he had started learning to read back in elementary…

“But doesn’t that mean they’ll have to learn two sets of characters?” one of the literate staff asked.

Cough, Wen Zhihao definitely needed to enrol the kids in a formal class.

After releasing the children to play again, Wen Zhihao went to inspect the fruit trees.

Instead of playing with the others, Xiao Bai followed him like a little tail as he checked all the trees and injected them with a little more qi. In the end, Wen Zhihao picked up the light-as-a-feather Xiao Bai, carrying him with one arm against his hip.1

“Does Xiao Bai like mangoes?” Wen Zhihao asked, pointing to a yellowish-green underripe mango.

“Man-goes?”

“Does Xiao Bai like durian?”

“Du-ri-an?”

“Does Xiao Bai like banana?”

“Ba-na-na-na?” Xiao Bai’s brows creased as he tried his best to think if he liked these unknown things or not.

Wen Zhihao rubbed Xiao Bai’s head, grinning guiltily at his teasing. “En, in the future, Xiao Bai can taste all these fruits. Then Xiao Bai can tell me ‘like or not’. ”

Xiao Bai nodded with a serious expression. “Yes, Uncle.”

“Xiao Bai is so good! Hungry yet? We can ask Grandma to prepare whatever you like for lunch!”

“Xiao Bai will eat anything,” Xiao Bai said seriously in his milky little voice.

Wen Zhihao poked Xiao Bai’s soft cheek. “Xiao Bai is very good, but Grandma would also be happy if you have a favourite. But it’s okay, Uncle will tell you the names of the new foods and you can think about it.”

Xiao Bai puffed out his cheek that was being poked. “Yes, Uncle.”

Wen Zhihao smiled. He carried Xiao Bai to the kitchen, calling out warmly, “Grandmmaaaaaa, when is lunch going to be ready?”

After lunch was had, Wen Zhihao took the children and a couple of others to the demonic cats’ enclosure.

The children and teenagers and adults had only encountered the big cats, as they were the only ones Huang Jialing had taken along to the safe house. So today, Wen Zhihao took them into the small kittens’ enclosure.

“You have to be nice to them, okay?” Wen Zhihao said. “Or else the big cats will get you,” he added, pointing to the two large cats that were half-sleeping. “Now, here is a butterfly talisman, and here is a bubble talisman…”

These kittens were not scared of the new humans at all. Many of them bravely approached the new humans, meowing for attention, which they subsequently received.

One kid, named Ruan Lanxi, laid down on the ground, her face right up against a kitten. “Little baobei!” she called out.

“Meow!”

Ruan Lanxi giggled. “Little baobei mao2⁓”

“Meeeooww⁓”

Wen Zhihao took out some bedding and laid it all about. He sat down next to one of the sleeping big cats. “Don’t play for too long, go to sleep if you’re tired, okay?” Of course, Wen Zhihao was definitely tired. He yawned, stretched, and laid down.

Soon, the yawns spread across the enclosure as human and demonic beast alike padded over to Wen Zhihao and the bedding and laid down to nap too.

When Zhou Sheng came by—in his disguise of grey robes—he saw Wen Zhihao and the ‘victims’ of his aura. Big cats and big Wen Zhihao, little cats and little mortals, all of them were peacefully sleeping.

Huang Jialing spotted Zhou Sheng by the enclosure.

“They won’t wake up for a while yet,” Huang Jialing said drily. “Come, have some tea.”

They moved to a room with large windows facing the enclosures. Huang Jialing served some light spiritual green tea and they passed the time talking about Zhou Sheng’s ‘work’ with the slave traders and how his collaboration with the other sects was going.

They never strayed to other topics. Zhou Sheng didn’t care. Huang Jialing had never been cruel to him; but she had never helped him either, just like the rest of the masses.

Eventually, Huang Jialing put her cup of tea down and said, “Wen Zhihao should be awake now.”

Zhou Sheng also put down his teacup. “Thank you, Cultivator Huang.”

Zhou Sheng strode to the smaller of the demonic cats’ enclosure and let himself in. “Hello, Disciple Wen!” he called out.

While the mortals and cats had gotten up, Wen Zhihao was still sitting down on soft blankets.

Huang Jialing followed in a more sedate pace. She helped the mortals out of the enclosure and led them to the bathrooms.

Wen Zhihao blearily rubbed his eyes. “Ah, Cultivator Zhou,” he greeted with a yawn. He looked up from his seated position. “Hungry?”

Zhou Sheng huffed slightly. “I know when I need to eat,” he said drily, but his heart was nonetheless touched. He sat down on the edge of the bedding and picked up a small demonic beast that headbutted him and placed it in his lap.

Wen Zhihao raised an eyebrow. “You do look a little more ashen than usual,” he said.

“I may have fought with some senior members in my sect,” Zhou Sheng said with a shrug. “But I’m fine.” He couldn’t speak for those senior members though, who weren’t senior to him any longer.

Wen Zhihao silently took out one of the many food boxes Aunty Liu had given him. “Eat.”

“I can’t reject your food, can I?” Zhou Sheng said with a roll of his eyes. “Actually, I came here for a reason.”

He put the food box to the side and took out a metallic ring. “I found a crafting cultivator. Your description was a little vague for her, but this is what she came up with.”

Zhou Sheng showed how the ‘copier’ ring worked. First, the ring was placed around a writing implement. By pressing the right little symbol, the ring resized itself snugly around the implement. Then, Zhou Sheng pressed another symbol and drew some meaningless symbols on the paper, then pressed another symbol. During this phase, the ring was recording the movement information. Then, he placed the writing implement and ring over a fresh sheet of paper and pressed the fourth symbol and let go of the pen. The ring moved by itself, making the pen write!

When it finished, it stopped and hovered above the paper. Zhou Sheng plucked the pen from the air and looked at Wen Zhihao. “This is to your specifications. It can hold a brush and copy any shapes you  draw yourself.”

Wen Zhihao stroked his hairless chin. “Quite good.”

It would be great if he could get this device and set it to write talismans while he slept or looked after the kids. However...he couldn’t do that with this magical ring.

An anxiousness grew in Zhou Sheng’s stomach at Wen Zhihao’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong with the ring, thank you, Zhou Sheng,” Wen Zhihao reassured him. He smiled sheepishly. “Aiya, there are more things I want it to do that are beyond what I told you.”

Rather than relaxing, Zhou Sheng grew tenser. “Tell me.”

“It would be great if it could be paired with another mechanism that could switch out new paper and make it draw the same symbol again. Hm, for the ink situation, it should be enough to simply make a large brush pen with a bigger ink reservoir…”

Seeing Zhou Sheng’s creased brow, Wen Zhihao tried it from another direction. “Imagine something like...an automated copier. Let’s say I want to write one hundred light-creating talismans. Rather than writing it all myself, this device would write it for me. All I need to do is infuse the ink with qi and give it enough talisman-writing paper beforehand.”

Wen Zhihao took out a brush pen and paper and sketched a boxy printer. “Paper goes in here, the device prints—I mean writes it—and the paper goes out, and a new piece of paper goes in…”

Zhou Sheng’s eyes brightened with understanding. “Wen Zhihao, this kind of automated copier is quite unique.” He felt a new appreciation for Wen Zhihao. First the calming aura and stones, and now this. Oh, and his suggestion for dealing with the slave traders wasn’t too bad either...

Wen Zhihao really didn’t want this kind of praise though. Printers were found in most offices and schools and even many homes! They’re very cheap and the companies made money off consumers by selling expensive ink.

“Is it? I’ve seen something similar before...in a dream…” Wen Zhihao hedged.

“I’ll go back and tell the crafting cultivator,” Zhou Sheng said.

Wen Zhihao handed him the sketch. “Who is this crafting cultivator? Do I know them?”

“Her name is Li Fanghua,” Zhou Sheng said.

Wen Zhihao barely knew the names of the people in his own sect, let alone people from other sects. “I don’t have many spiritual stones, but maybe she’ll like a few of my talismans and a calming stone or too.” He tipped out a small pile of items on the bedding between them. “Give them to Li Fanghua.”

“En.” Zhou Sheng placed the items into his spatial device.

“Aiya, don’t forget the food box.”

Zhou Sheng placed the food box into his spatial device as well. It was nice, the feeling of being forced to care about himself...

After that, Zhou Sheng stayed a little longer as Wen Zhihao introduced him to all the non-cultivators.

“You must thank Uncle Zhou, he is the driving force behind everything,” Wen Zhihao said.

Zhou Sheng felt it was a very novel experience to have small children say ‘thank you’ to him while gripping Wen Zhihao’s robes with one hand. Zhou Sheng crouched down to their height. “Am I that scary?”

He laughed when one little girl nodded her head.

“Very honest,” Zhou Sheng said.

“Very good,” Wen Zhihao added, patting little Ruan Lanxi’s head.

Zhou Sheng didn’t want to stay for dinner though, citing that he wanted to go see Li Fanghua before heading back to ‘work’.

After Zhou Sheng left, Wen Zhihao looked into the distance. Ah, he left too.

The entire time Zhou Sheng was here, Lin Yijun had hidden his aura and watched. However, Wen Zhihao was too much of an expert at spotting the ‘missing gap’ in the qi that was Lin Yijun-shaped.

I feel like I really need a better shorthand for the “older freed mortals”. Also, did you know that in Vietnamese, the word for cat is "mèo" aka meow (=^･ω･^=)

Chinese has a logographic/morphemic writing system, where characters typically represent meanings. Whereas English is a syllabic/phonemic/(morpho-phonemic) writing system. The phonemic part means the characters typically represent sounds (phonemes) but also the same symbol can be said in different ways that isn't reflected in the word (tomayto vs tomarto). In my opinion, a phonemic writing system is easier for native-speaking beginners, but it also has a lot of ambiguity...