Chapter 2- Gourmet in the Garbage

“Is shaking the world a good thing Grandpa? Tian Zihao doesn’t know.” The boy looked around trying to find Grandpa in the heaps of rags, rotting food and broken pottery. “Grandpa, where are you? Tian can hear you and feel your hugs, but can’t see you.”

Ah, you can just call yourself “I,” you aren’t a baby any more. As for where I am, I’m on your finger. Have you ever noticed a tiny ridge of bone just above the knuckle where the finger joins the palm? That bone ring is where I live. You can think of me as a sort of ghost or spirit.

“Oh! What’s a ghost?”

I have a feeling I’m going to be answering a lot of “What” and “Why” questions in the near future.

The little boy nodded.

I promise to explain… well… everything I can. But I really, REALLY, don’t want you to die, which means that we have to make you stronger. And healthier. The Sunnyvale Retirement Community Calisthenics Routine For Active Senior Living has kept you alive so far, but the sheer quantity of environmental toxins it’s clearing out means that you have a brand new bone marrow cancer to go with the pancreatic cancer and leukemia. You have so few functioning nephrons left I can count them individually, and that fungal infection in your lungs is only biding its time, not gone. And those are just the more immediately fatal problems.

Tian could hear Grandpa sigh. There was a squeeze on his shoulder, and he instinctively put his mutilated hand over it.

Worse, you don’t have a spirit root, dao bone, double pupils or any kind of special meridians. In fact, some of your meridians aren’t just broken, they are gone entirely. Like you were born without them.

“Is that bad?”

Let us say that your life is a miracle, and that luck comes in two flavors. Let’s get to it, I only have a tiny bit of energy to work with here. Almost nobody comes into the dump, right?

“Yes, Grandpa. The people come and throw big buckets of garbage into the boxes at the edge of the dump, then the boxes walk in and dump themselves out.”

This was a reasonably accurate description. Giant dumpsters crawled about on hundreds of tiny legs, ignoring the animal life of the dump. Life that included the newly named Tian Zihao.

Good, good. This seems like the dumping ground for local mortals, not cultivators, so the odds of running into something really heinous should be minimal. I’m afraid that given the tiny amount of energy I have saved up and your… difficult… starting conditions, I can only provide you another bull- another very minor method for preserving your life and strengthening your body. It can’t make any really major physical changes, never mind the meridians and all that, but at least it can get you healthy-ish.

“You won’t vanish again, will you Grandpa Jun?”

Not this time, I think. Last time I had to immediately save your life and that was expensive. Don’t worry about that for now. Let’s focus on making you healthy!

“Yes, Grandpa!”

This is called the GVNRRCH Municipal Sanitation-

“Grandpa? I’m sorry, but there was a strange sound. I didn’t hear you.”

Hah. Foolish of me. This is a method used by… garbage collectors? In a far, far away place? This was how they stayed healthy and strong. More stretching and breathing, but this time, we are focusing on your digestion and then the rest of your internal organs. Let’s call it Gourmet. That’s a nice name for it that won’t get my energy stolen.

Tian felt a finger gently tap his forehead, and he suddenly knew. There was a certain way of posing your arms, swinging them down, then up again, holding your breath for the lunge forward, three quick inhales for the leg raise and stomp. It was all there and waiting for him. He just had to practice.

Oh you utter scumbag, it’s not even a cultivation art. Tian, I guessed wrong. Your true destiny is simply outrageous, and I’m getting killed for every little thing. Listen, stay away from the other humans, you hear me? Stay away! I’m going quiet for a while, but I’ll still be here with you. Practice well, and start with dirt under old piles. The faster you heal yourself, the faster I can talk again. You’ll see. I’m so proud of you, Tian. You are going to soar.

“Grandpa Jun?” Tian looked around then looked down at his left hand. He traced the base of his thin index finger with his thumb, not minding the ragged stumps where the other fingers should have been. He couldn’t remember a time when he had them. He had Grandpa here, with him. In that little ridge of bone just above the knuckle. Grandpa Jun might not talk much, but Tian was never alone.

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Things might hurt. He might be hungry. He might be scared. But he could always feel Grandpa Jun’s warmth. And that was enough.

He got started on the exercises. These came fairly easily. The poses weren’t too strange, the breathing patterns were odd but not awful and even things like contracting certain muscles in a certain order was finicky, not hard. The only problem was, after running through a single set, his stomach growled.

Tian took a long look at what he now knew was called a wolf, and dragged it away from his little nest in the rubbish heaps. If Grandpa said it couldn’t be eaten, then it couldn’t be eaten. He would bury it where other animals couldn’t eat it either, and find food along the way.

Tian didn’t get far before he remembered Grandpa saying- “Start with the dirt under old piles.” Start… what? Start why? He changed his destination. He knew a great place to both bury the wolf and find old dirt.

The trash heaps were a mix of rotting food, scraps of wood, broken pottery, bits of paper and cloth and bone. There was never anything intact. No iron pipes, no old chairs or a now unwanted book. Never any intact clothes. Only things that were ruined past any reasonable use. Now there would be a sick wolf buried under the heaps. It seemed right to Tian.

Tian had been watching the people outside the dump his whole life. They wore things to protect their feet, and wrapped cloth around their upper body and legs. When the rain came, they covered their shoulders with capes made of straw and wore big straw hats. The animals had their coats too. Even this wolf did. So he imitated them.