Chapter 3- Junkyard Classroom, Trash Heap Hospital

“Killing God? What’s God?”

God is the principle that says the world exists, life exists, the universe, the sun, moon, stars, devas and devils dancing in the infinite void, cultivators summoning the wind and rain with a flip of their hand, swords that can cut iron like mud and mud that can bring life to millions- all of that exists because someone made it exist, and it is therefore right and good if that same person gives kids cancer.

“I don’t understand.”

Grandpa Jun sighed. Me either. Stick with saving the world. It’s not much less complicated, but people tend to take it better when you say it out loud.

“And… you are going to save the world?”

No. You are.

“Really?”

It will be hard. Very hard. But I believe in you. After all, you are used to doing very hard things.

Tian nodded. He was used to doing very hard things. Some days, just moving was very hard. Accepting the way his burn scars would pull and tear and weep when he tried to do his exercises was hard. Feeding yourself, that was very hard. Making clothes was hard. Staying dry in the rainy season, staying cool in the hot season, all hard. Even the bugs could be hard to deal with, though he noticed they really didn’t like biting him.

“Can we save the world from the dump?”

Hahaha! Oh Grandson, you have so many amazing things to see and do. We won’t always be in this dump. But while we are weak, it’s a good place to hide out and get stronger.

“It is?”

It is. You know what the scariest thing in the world is? People. They are also some of the best things, but you don’t get the good without the bad. People are very scary, and right now, they are very hostile to you. That means they will attack you on sight.

Tian nodded. They did that.

The poor bastards think… you know what? Not relevant right now. The point is that people will avoid this place and you aren’t likely to suffer unreasonable accidents. The Dump is practically the safest place you could be!

“Unreasonable accidents? What does that mean?”

If you jump on a pile of trash and something slips out from underneath your foot and you fall and hurt yourself, that’s a reasonable accident. Sitting quietly under a pile of garbage and getting struck by some cultivator’s Thousand Refinement Ten Thousand Deaths Arrow of Supreme Annihilation which he only threw into the air as a joke- that would be an unreasonable accident.

“I understand. What’s an arrow? And all that? And a cultivator?”

Homeschooling was already on the to-do list. But first- games!

“Games?”

Fun things you can do to make yourself stronger, faster, smarter, more agile, all that good stuff! Trace out what I tell you to draw in the dirt.

Tian followed Grandpa Jun’s instructions, and drew ten circles in the dirt. Grandpa was very particular about where they went.

Alright, now we need to mark each circle with special signs. First go to the leftmost circle and draw a straight line up and down. Then in the next circle-

Grandpa went through all ten. Congratulations, you have just written out the numbers one through ten. You will learn them well as we play the game.

“What’s the game?”

I call a number, and when I do, you jump onto that circle. Easy, right? But the trick is that we sing a song while you jump, and if you forget the song or jump into the wrong circle, you lose and we have to start over. You win if you can get to the end of the song without missing a jump.

“Is this really fun?”

You bet! Let me teach you the song.

It was a silly little song. It was only one short verse with a chorus, all about colors. Tian quickly agreed that it was a fun game, and smiled when Grandpa told him that there were more verses they could sing.

Grandpa Jun knew lots of fun songs and games. There was the dinner game- when the two hunted for food in the trash and then Tian had to find the best not-food things to eat with it. It was a shocking feast- a thousand different flavors to try. The only time Grandpa Jin scolded Tian was when the boy wanted to eat a bit of painted wood.

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“But why Grandpa?”

Because I already fixed your nervous system once, and I’m damned if I’m wasting my thimbleful of energy on fixing it again. No more lead in your diet, you hear me? None!

Other than that scolding, dinners were a lot more fun and a lot more delicious. Then there was building snares and traps. Grandpa knew so many ways to build snares and traps it boggled the mind. He taught Tian how to read the faint game trails that ran through the dump. How to catch fat rats and chubby birds. Tian thought he was already a junkyard predator. Grandpa Jun showed him how to be a much better one.

You should take pride in hunting Tian. You are pitting your whole life against your prey’s. But never let them linger. See how that rat is screaming in pain? Grab a rock and bash its brains out. Safer for you, and kinder for the rat. You can’t eat cruelty, but it can sure eat you.

The games were all really fun too- games about counting, about colors, about how to read strange shapes called ‘characters’ or the stories hidden in the blurry dots of light in the night sky. After it rained, there was the fun “Where does the water go?” investigation, trying to figure out why the puddles in the shade lasted longer than the puddles in the sun, and why some bits of pottery could hold water for days, but others absorbed it all.

Another constant was “Elbows, Knees and Toes,” where Tian would make dots on bits of rotting wood or piles of cloth, then hit it with his elbows, knees or… not actually his toes, but his feet or his shin. Then grandpa combined that with the circle jumping game, and things got very, very complicated, but always very, very fun. He was never bored with Grandpa Jun and all his fun games. Although they did hurt.

“Grandpa, when we do these games, all the crinkly bits of skin pull. It really hurts.”

I know. I’m sorry about that. But you are going to learn that being able to work and fight through the pain is the greatest thing about these games. It will save your life over and over again.

“It will?”

It will. And even if it hurts, aren’t you still having fun?