Journey to the West: Treasure Vase of the Great Dao

"Stop! I opened this mountain, I planted these trees, if you want to pass through here, what's the next line again?" A voice suddenly appeared at the side of the road.

"Leave behind some silver for the road." Lu Yu instinctively continued the phrase. Looking around, it turned out to be a Big Black Donkey speaking human language, imitating the act of robbery.

"Exactly, exactly, that's the line!" The Big Black Donkey was delighted. He had heard the storyteller say that as long as he recited these words, the foolish humans would obediently offer up fine wine and riches, but after waiting for half a day he didn't see any action from the person opposite him.

"Damn swindler, Lao Hei ought to eat you for deceiving me!" Seeing that Lu Yu did not prostrate and offer up riches as he had imagined, the Big Black Donkey grumbled discontentedly.

"What are you looking at? Hurry up and offer your valuables, or Lao Hei will swallow you whole!" The Big Black Donkey said, quite annoyed.

"Alright then, please, Black Lord, swallow me whole. If I so much as frown, I'm not a man!" Lu Yu got into the spirit of play and decided to tease the Big Black Donkey properly.

The Big Black Donkey was taken aback. He truly hadn't expected someone to actually let him devour them, thinking to himself: Could this be one of those simpletons mentioned by the storyteller?

Then he thought again, he had asked me to eat him, so I can't blame myself. Besides, I haven't yet tasted the flavor of human flesh.

With this thought, he made up his mind, opened his big mouth, and went for the scholar before him, but the expected crisp crunch did not happen. His teeth seemed to have bitten into steel, and with a pop, a shiny white tooth broke out from his mouth.

The Big Black Donkey immediately rolled around the ground in pain, muttering as he did, "Could it be that the storyteller didn't deceive me, and that all scholars are Star Immortals descended to earth, not to be eaten?"

Lu Yu, watching the treasure-like Big Black Donkey in front of him, also found it amusing. Clearly, this Donkey Demon had been bamboozled by some storyteller from who knows where.

"How is it? Does human flesh taste good?" Lu Yu asked in a mocking tone.

"How would I know without tasting it? Come here and let me bite you again, and I'll find out," he replied.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Sure, sure, but I think it wouldn't be good manners to be eaten headfirst. How about I stretch out my arm for you to have a bite?"

"Good idea, maybe you just naturally have a hard head. Quickly, extend your arm and let me take a bite."

Lu Yu held out his lily-white arm, dangling it enticingly in front of the Big Black Donkey, who took a bite at it—then another tooth got knocked out.

"No more, no more, I won't eat you, Scholar, you're just too strange, are you made of iron or steel?" The Big Black Donkey realized something was amiss and said as he started to run away.

Gently grabbing his tail, Lu Yu said with a smile, "That won't do. Today, you must eat me, and if you can't, don't think about leaving."

The Big Black Donkey struggled violently but found that Lu Yu's hand was like an iron clamp, firmly holding him back, and he immediately sensed trouble. At his wit's end, he tried kicking hard, only to feel like he had struck stone; his hoof was in terrible pain, but the scholar seemed unchanged.

"Since you can't eat me, I'm sorry, but now I'll have to eat you." Lu Yu said, showing his pearly white teeth with a smile.

Seeing this, the Big Black Donkey was immediately scared out of his wits, and Lu Yu's handsome smiling face looked like a terrifying demon in his eyes. Shaking his big donkey head, he said, "I'm just an old black donkey, the meat would taste awful."

"I've heard it said: Dragon meat in the sky, donkey meat on the ground. I might not have the chance to taste dragon, but trying donkey isn't out of the question."

Big Black Donkey inwardly lamented his ill fortune, thinking that he had just prepared to open his stall when he encountered this disaster. Now that it opened its mouth to eat him, he didn't know what to do.

However, the potential of living beings is boundless; one never truly knows how strong they are until they reach the brink of extinction.

The usually foolish Big Black Donkey suddenly had a burst of brilliance at this moment, and he shouted, "Storyteller, you didn't leave!"

This shout successfully diverted Lu Yu's attention. Mainly because Lu Yu was extremely interested in the storyteller who had transformed an ordinary demon into its present state—a true oddball.

Seeing that he had succeeded in shifting the attention, Big Black Donkey couldn't care about the pain and with a fierce struggle, left his tail in Lu Yu's hand, then bolted straight for his home.

Lu Yu looked at the bloodied donkey tail in his hand with a mixture of laughter and tears. How small-hearted could Big Black Donkey be? Just a scare had reduced him to this state.

He wasn't in a hurry. Capturing a whiff of Big Black Donkey's scent in the air, he followed the trail at a leisurely pace.

Big Black Donkey was fleeing in a panic, running in a way he had never done even before he developed sentience, due to his lazy nature. In no time, he reached his cave dwelling.

It was a natural cave dwelling with a spring inside. Big Black Donkey had stumbled upon this treasure by chance. Drinking from the spring had gradually granted him mana, and he gained sentience, becoming a legend among demons.

While drinking water from the spring's eye, he said, "Damn Scholar, daring to pull off Black Lord's tail. One day, I'll hang you in the air and pluck your hairs out one by one."

Imagining himself plucking Lu Yu's hair one strand at a time and picturing Lu Yu's screams, he cheered up and snorted, "Humph! Let him grind grain for Black Lord then. If he doesn't do well, he won't get anything to eat."

"Oh! Whom does Black Lord plan to make grind grain, and even withhold their meal?" A mocking voice reached Big Black Donkey's ears.

"Of course, it's that damn Scholar!" blurted out Big Black Donkey.

Only after he said this did he belatedly realize something was amiss. There should be no one else in the cave dwelling. From where did that voice come, and why did it sound so familiar?

Lifting his massive donkey head from the side of the spring, he saw a smiling Lu Yu standing beside him, eyeing his body with an amused look.

"What do you want to do? You shouldn't bully donkeys like this." There was a note of fear in Big Black Donkey's voice, like a young girl being bullied.

But Lu Yu didn't respond to him, instead, he looked around carefully, assessing the cave dwelling's environment.

The dwelling was quite simple: an open space of about three hundred square meters. The ceiling, made of some kind of stone, emitted a soft white light. The ground was covered with fresh green grass that looked quite pleasing. At the deep end of the dwelling was the spring's eye, with water slowly bubbling forth.

"What a nascent Cave Heaven and Blessed Earth; you really waste natural resources, you dull-witted creature. If this Blessed Land's nascent form is not carefully nurtured, I fear the spiritual energy will one day be exhausted and it will degrade into the mundane!" lamented Lu Yu.