Chapter 54: The Flat Peaches, Can They Be Eaten?

At some unknown moment, the Stone Monkey had also arrived outside the Water Curtain Cave.

With wide eyes and intense concentration, he watched his elder brother practice the staff techniques under the night sky, over and over again.

In the moonlight, Shi Yu was seen flipping and leaping through the night sky, the long staff in his hand tracing fierce, sharp trajectories in the air.

"Thud!!"

With his movements finished, Shi Yu pulled back his staff and stood upright, the tip of the staff driving heavily into the rock.

Deprived of external force, the water tornado collapsed with a deafening roar.

It transformed into countless tiny droplets, surging and scattering like a flash flood, sparkling with crystalline brilliance beneath the moonlight.

Amidst the rushing torrent, the figure of a youth holding a staff gradually came into focus.

"Elder brother is truly magnificent," the Stone Monkey could not help but clap his hands in admiration.

Hearing the voice, the handsome youth slowly turned around.

He raised his sword-like brows: "Xiao Kong, weren't you drunk? When did you wake up?"

The Stone Monkey chuckled, scratched his body, and leaped before Shi Yu.

"Actually, I woke up the moment you moved my body, Elder Brother."

"Then, through the cracks in my eyes, I saw you pick up the staff and go outside. Out of curiosity, I followed you out."

"Elder brother, the staff technique you just performed... is that the second form of that martial art?"

Shi Yu nodded: "Indeed. This move is called Sweeping the Dust with a Windstorm."

Following that, he meticulously explained the mental cultivation insights and subtleties of the stance to the Great Sage once more.

A moment later, looking at the Stone Monkey's glowing eyes, Shi Yu asked, "Have you already learned it?"

The Stone Monkey squirmed slightly and nodded.

Shi Yu tilted his head back and let out a long sigh; by comparison, his own aptitude was truly dull.

It had taken him a full week to master the second form of the Heavenly Gang Universe Staff, yet the Great Sage had simply watched a half-baked demonstration from the side and already grasped its essence.

The youth gave a soft sigh of mixed emotions, then unhesitatingly used the Enlightenment Jade Slip to copy the technique straight from the Great Sage.

Whatever the Great Sage knew, he knew as well; they were two parts of a whole.

After pondering for a moment, he said, "I have another movement technique here, called [Stellar Void-Treading]."

"Are you willing to learn it?"

At that moment, Shi Yu felt as though he were coaxing a little child into eating candy.

"Willing, willing!" Upon hearing this, the Stone Monkey's eyes instantly lit up, and he nodded eagerly like a pounding pestle.

"Very well, then I shall teach it to you together."

"This movement technique has a total of nine levels, each containing the profound mysteries of stellar motion."

"Today, I will teach you the first level."

Thus, on that night as dark as ink and starlit like a sparkling river,

Shi Yu's staff and movement techniques achieved major breakthroughs, driven by the Great Sage's diligent practice.

He contentedly stroked the Stone Monkey's furry head; there was no bond greater than this between sworn brothers.

...

After their cultivation session, the two brothers sat atop the mountain peak, facing the sea under the moonlight.

Beside them, several more wine bowls had appeared, having completely cleared out the freshly brewed fruit wine stored in the Water Curtain Cave over the years.

After finishing the wine, Shi Yu grew rather curious: "Xiao Kong, didn't drinking this wine increase your strength at all?"

He asked this because, after drinking the wine himself, both his divine soul and physical constitution had been steadily growing.

Yet the Great Sage's divine soul and physical stats had remained entirely unchanged.

They were still at level 1200 and level 1500, just as they had been years ago.

"Not at all. Drinking wine can increase strength?" The Stone Monkey looked puzzled.

Shi Yu lowered his head in thought, figuring that the Great Sage's level was simply too high while the grade of this fruit wine was too low, rendering it completely ineffective for him.

It seemed that if the Great Sage was to truly elevate himself, he would still have to wait more than three hundred years until he became a disciple of Patriarch Bodhi.

And beyond that...

Shi Yu froze for a long while before abruptly raising his head to gaze at the firmament.

There were quite a few good things up in those heavens!

The flat peaches of the Peach Garden and the Nine-Turn Golden Pills of Taishang Laojun!

Only after consuming these could the Great Sage undergo a further transformation and attain a diamond-like indestructible body.

And what Shi Yu thought of next was—did he have a chance to eat them too?!

It wasn't entirely impossible!

A few more or a few fewer flat peaches wouldn't affect the timeline of this world anyway.

When the Great Sage went to gorge on flat peaches, he could just save a few big ones and bring them down.

If he wasn't going to leave any for the Seven Fairies, he at least had to leave some for his elder brother!

Shi Yu suddenly grew excited. Although this matter wouldn't happen for several centuries, certain aspects of a child's education simply had to be instilled from an early age.

"Ahem, Xiao Kong, let me tell you another story today. How does that sound?"

"Okay, okay!"

"This story is called Kong Rong Yielding the Pears... oh wait, Kong Rong Yielding the Peaches."

Shi Yu began his earnest guidance.

"Once upon a time, there was a child of exceptional talent named Kong Rong."

"One day..."

After finishing his vivid and emotional storytelling, Shi Yu looked at the Stone Monkey with deep affection: "Now, suppose there are two peaches in front of you. Which one would you choose?"

The Stone Monkey looked down and said, "Elder Brother, there are no peaches in front of me."

"I'm saying, suppose..."

Shi Yu casually picked up two stones from the ground, one large and one small, and placed them between the two of them, signaling that these represented juicy, vibrant peaches.

"Then naturally, Elder Brother should pick first," the Stone Monkey's eyes rolled as he said with utmost modesty, "How could I presume to go first?"

"Hey, you're younger, so of course you should pick first."

"No, no, Elder Brother goes first."

"My younger brother goes first."

After going back and forth a few times, Shi Yu glared: "Are you going to pick or not?"

The Stone Monkey shrank his head back, his gaze darting back and forth between the two stones.

Then, with a snap, he snatched up the smaller stone.

Filled with immense gratification, Shi Yu nodded in praise: *The child is indeed teachable.*

"Good, good, good."

To reward his fine student, Shi Yu gestured for the Stone Monkey to go pluck a few peaches from the tree to cleanse their palates after drinking so much wine.

A few breaths later, the Stone Monkey bounded back holding three or four peaches.

Chomp by chomp, he munched on a large peach while handing one to Shi Yu.

"Elder Brother, eat."

Smiling broadly, just as Shi Yu reached out to take it, his gaze instantly froze.

The peach handed to him was noticeably a full circle smaller than the one the Stone Monkey was eating.

"This..."

Practice and theory truly had a vast gap!

At that moment, Shi Yu suddenly recalled the agonizing experience of teaching Bai Yue addition and subtraction within ten when she was a little girl.

"Three peaches plus three peaches make how many in total?"

"Six!"

"Good, and what is three plus three?"

And then he would watch little Bai Yue stretch out her two little hands and begin counting her fingers.

Beneath the moonlight,

Shi Yu tilted his head back and let out a long sigh.

"Why does Elder Brother keep sighing endlessly?"

"When you chose the stones just now, you picked the small one. Why, when it came to the peaches, did you grab the big one for yourself?"

The Stone Monkey blinked his innocent, wide eyes, looking deeply aggrieved.

"Those were just stones."

"But these are real peaches..."

Shi Yu felt a wave of darkness wash over his vision. What he said made so damn much sense that he was left utterly speechless.

"Elder Brother, if it were you, how would you choose?" the Stone Monkey asked out of curiosity.

"If I picked first, of course I would choose the small one."

Shi Yu patted his chest and declared righteously.

"Right!" The Stone Monkey muttered around bites of his succulent, juicy large peach, puckering his lips: "Isn't the one you're holding in your hand right now the small one?"

Shi Yu: "???"

What kind of divine plot twist was this?!

He stood stunned for a long while, momentarily choked for words.

Family education was truly too difficult to handle!

No wonder he had to be pinned beneath the Five Elements Mountain for five years just to smooth out his temperament; with a tongue this sharp, he simply couldn't win an argument...

Shi Yu took a deep breath, exhaled, and began building up his own mental resilience.

*Don't get angry, don't get angry.*

*This is the brother I gave birth to—no, the brother I adopted!*