Chapter 37

For the new home, the little creature was very curious. To her, many things in the human world were so fresh that she had to touch everything.

A stone ink slab caught her attention. She walked over, climbed onto it, and looked around. Unintentionally, she fell into the ink pool and came out completely black.

Tang Jie burst out laughing. The little creature got a bit angry, shook her head, and in the next moment, the entire room was filled with ink.

"…Alright, you win!" Looking at the room covered in ink, Tang Jie, speechless, picked up the little one from the ink slab. Just as he was about to get water to wash her, he saw her wave her hand, and all the ink on her body disappeared, leaving only a white, tender, and cute little face, grinning at Tang Jie.

"Although your combat skills are a bit lacking, you have quite a few tricks up your sleeve." Tang Jie stroked her cheek and smiled, "You make all sorts of sounds, so from now on, I'll call you Yi Yi. Is that okay?"

Hearing that she had a name, the little creature excitedly did a somersault and then nodded repeatedly.

"Alright, stay here and be good." Tang Jie said as he went out.

"Yi yi ya ya!" Seeing Tang Jie about to leave, Yi Yi called out anxiously.

Tang Jie laughed and said, "Don't worry, I'm not leaving. I'm just going to make you a nest. I guess you don't like staying in the flower pot all the time."

A moment later, Tang Jie came back with a large piece of wood. He hollowed out the wood, stuffed it with cotton, and sewed a small pillow and a small blanket. He then hung a curtain at the entrance, turning it into a small wooden house.

Patting the blanket, Tang Jie said, "There you go. From now on, this is your nest. You can sleep here when there's nothing to do, and when I'm not around, you can play in the room, but you can't go out randomly. If someone comes, you have to turn into a flower and stay in the pot, so no one finds you, got it?"

The little one nodded and transformed into a small white flower, standing quietly in the pot.

"That's it!" Tang Jie laughed.

In the next moment, the little creature had transformed back into human form and pounced into Tang Jie's arms, showing affection.

After playing for a while, the little one seemed a bit tired and fell asleep in Tang Jie's palm. Tang Jie carefully placed her in the small house and covered her with the blanket.

Then, Tang Jie sat alone by the bed, reflecting on what had happened. When he first met the little creature, Tang Jie was only thinking about getting her. But once he had her, he realized that with her appearance, many troubles might follow.

After carefully considering the possible problems, Tang Jie began to plan in his mind, gradually forming an idea. Seeing that it was getting late, he looked at the peacefully sleeping little one and softly said, "Good night," before going to sleep himself.

The next morning, Tang Jie got up early. After taking care of the garden, he found some old tree roots and started carving with a small knife. After removing the excess branches and leaves, he began to carve the tree roots.

A servant, curious, asked what Tang Jie was doing, and he replied that it was root carving.

Having attracted attention with gardening for a long time, Wei Tianchong's interest in gardening was not as high as before. Now, Tang Jie planned to attract Wei Tianchong's attention again with root carving.

However, the most important thing was that with the name of root carving, Tang Jie could bring a large amount of wood into his room, thus effectively concealing the nest he made for the little creature, making it less conspicuous. Although Tang Jie's room rarely had guests, he still had to be cautious of unexpected events, and this would also help him when he entered school in the future.

Once he went to the academy, Tang Jie would no longer be a gardener, which meant he would lose his position of expertise. Therefore, Tang Jie had to find a new path for himself.

Root carving was a good choice. This skill could be used anywhere, and a few pieces of wood were all the materials needed.

If done well, it could earn some money to supplement household expenses. If done moderately, it could be given as a gift—people with a special skill were always more likely to be popular.

Moreover, root carving also had practical value in cultivation. In the cultivation world, there was a miscellaneous skill called puppetry, which involved creating puppets and combining them with array formations to form combat-capable mechanisms, requiring carving skills.

In fact, art always had practical value in cultivation. Whether it was calligraphy, painting, music, or carving, there was always a place for them in the cultivation world.

For example, Xu Muyang could draw a horse with just a few strokes and bring it to life with a spell, demonstrating his exquisite painting skills.

If someone couldn't even draw a horse properly, the result would be a donkey, and even if it came to life, it would just be a joke.

As for calligraphy, it was essential for drawing talismans. If the characters were crooked and appeared out of nowhere, a grimacing "kill" character would likely make people laugh before it could take effect.

Therefore, in the academies of the major cultivation sects, in addition to basic cultivation techniques, content related to music, chess, calligraphy, and painting also existed and had practical significance—there were all kinds of people in the cultivation world, but no illiterates.

During the year Tang Jie spent in the Wei family, he practiced calligraphy and painting in his spare time, not aiming for extraordinary skill, but at least to be neat and presentable. It was said that some students in the academy couldn't graduate because their liberal arts were too poor.

Tang Jie didn't want to fail to graduate because of poor handwriting.

As for the current root carving, Tang Jie was considering it for future puppetry studies and to integrate his array knowledge.

Array theory was a broad field of study. Besides military formations and mountain-guarding formations, alchemy, artifact creation, and puppet mechanisms almost all required array knowledge, though the directions and characteristics varied.

Xu Muyang was mainly skilled in large-scale formations, but the principles were similar, and Tang Jie could learn and study on his own.

Tang Jie had no interest in puppetry, but the basic carving skills were the only thing related to gardening. Other skills like calligraphy and painting were unrelated to gardening, and if he tried to do them during work hours, the Wei family would not praise him for his ambition.

Additionally, puppetry and modern technology were somewhat similar in form, representing more development potential for Tang Jie in this area.

Although he didn't know root carving now, he still had two years before entering the academy, which was enough time to master the skill.

The new skill indeed attracted Wei Tianchong's attention again—Xiqia World had stone carvings, but root carving was rare.

Watching Tang Jie manipulate the tree trunk with its roots, creating various shapes, Wei Tianchong found it very interesting and picked up an old tree root to learn.

Tang Jie taught him how to handle the tree roots.

Unlike stone carving, root carving required higher material selection standards. Carvers needed to skillfully use the natural shape of the material, emphasizing "three parts human effort, seven parts natural." True root carvings pursued strange and unique shapes. Tree roots growing in the plains, with abundant nutrients and rapid growth, had loose wood fibers and could not form unique shapes. Only roots growing in harsh environments, such as in the shade, on cliffs, or in rock crevices, and surviving through lightning strikes, fires, ant erosion, rock pressure, human trampling, and knife cuts, due to lack of sunlight, soil, and nutrients, grew slowly and deformed. Additionally, before carving, the material needed various treatments.

However, Tang Jie pursued practicality rather than art, so he didn't need to pay attention to these aspects. In his eyes, root carving was "seven parts human effort, three parts natural."

Art pursued strange and unique shapes and rich imagination, while puppetry pursued realistic and lifelike forms and reserved space for array carving. The two were similar in form but different in essence.

But no matter which one, it wasn't easy to do.

Carving itself was a highly comprehensive art, requiring strong carving skills, artistic appreciation, and a certain foundation in painting.

Tang Jie's artistic talent was clearly limited, and he didn't meet any of these conditions. After looking at a piece of wood for a long time, he finally managed to carve a small wooden figure, with a head taking up more than a third of the body and two thin, short legs made of roots. It looked ugly no matter how you looked at it. If this thing were activated with an array, it would likely be a deformed creature, probably falling over after a few steps.

Tang Jie could only sigh helplessly, comforting himself that at least he had a preference for array theory. He couldn't expect to be good at everything, but this plan seemed to be failing. Some plans, no matter how well thought out, lacked effective execution.

Looking back, he saw that Young Master Wei Tianchong was carving like a pro, quickly cutting a piece of tree root with a disc-shaped protrusion. Before long, a small turtle appeared in his hand. Although the turtle had some flaws, it was at least structurally complete and didn't look too deformed.

Tang Jie was stunned, "Did you learn this before?"

Surprised, he even forgot to call him "Young Master."

"No, this is my first time. It's quite interesting," Wei Tianchong admired his work.

"Genius..." Tang Jie groaned weakly.

He never imagined that Wei Tianchong would have this talent.

——————————————

From that day on, Wei Tianchong followed Tang Jie to play with root carving every day.

Unlike Tang Jie, who was "favored by array theory," this young master genuinely loved carving, fully fitting the saying that love brings talent.

Initially, Wei Tianchong was a bit worried that his mother would scold him for playing and losing focus, but after hearing from Tang Jie that it was also a foundation of cultivation, he immersed himself in root carving without hesitation.

Sure enough, when his mother heard about it, she specially consulted Master Lu Ling. After confirming it was true, she only said, "Don't neglect other classes," and didn't interfere with her son anymore.

To her, it didn't matter which path her son took in cultivation, as long as he had his own pursuit and worked hard for it. Therefore, she appreciated Tang Jie even more.

Anyone who could help her child improve was a good person!

However, Tang Jie's mood became increasingly depressed over time.

As the time spent carving together increased, Wei Tianchong's skills in root carving improved rapidly. Initially, he could only carve small wooden trinkets, but in just a few months, he was already carving large tree trunks into human-sized figures.

A few months later, Wei Tianchong completed his first large-scale wooden carving—a fierce white tiger with a black stripe, carved vividly.

Tang Jie had no doubt that if equipped with the right array, it would become a real man-eating tiger.

Watching Wei Tianchong proudly display his first large-scale work in the flower garden, adorned with petals, Tang Jie quietly crushed the small wooden doll in his hand, shaped like a big-headed child.

His heart was broken.