Shitou shook off his sluggishness and followed Han Cheng outside, still looking somewhat listless.
“Still thinking about flying?”
As they stepped out, Han Cheng asked straightforwardly.
Shitou was no longer the same person he was a few years ago; when this topic came up, he no longer felt embarrassed. Instead, he felt quite aggrieved when Han Cheng brought it up.
The emotions that had been suppressed for so long suddenly surged up, and his eyes turned red, almost spilling over with tears.
It seemed that this issue had a considerable impact on the child.
“Divine Child, can people fly?”
With tears welling up in his eyes, Shitou asked the question that had troubled him countless times.
After asking, he looked anxiously at Han Cheng, filled with anticipation and fear of receiving bad news.
Han Cheng nodded vigorously, speaking without much hesitation, his voice resolute.
This was what Han Cheng thought to himself; he worried that if he said it out loud, the child wouldn’t be able to withstand the disappointment.
After receiving a positive response from Han Cheng, Shitou’s eyes instantly lit up.
However, the spark of hope faded quickly.
“Then… why can’t I fly?”
This was indeed a perplexing problem.
But Han Cheng was no longer troubled by it, as he had already thought of a solution when drinking the snake soup.
“You just haven’t found the right method.”
Han Cheng said with a smile.
“Does the Divine Child have a way?”
Shitou instinctively inquired, his eyes sparkling as he looked at Han Cheng, almost excitedly glowing.
Han Cheng felt a bit guilty under Shitou’s eager gaze.
However, it was not the right time to say he had no solutions; otherwise, the child’s faith would surely collapse.
Though he felt a bit uncertain inside, he maintained a calm exterior, and Han Cheng clearly provided his answer without any hesitation.
Shitou’s eyes widened in astonishment, filled with joy and disbelief.
A slap on his head was the punishment for doubting the Divine Child.
Despite the slap, Shitou felt like he could fly with joy.
The more casually Han Cheng acted, the more Shitou believed that the Divine Child truly had a way to make people fly.
Han Cheng walked to the side, with Shitou, now excited to the point of stumbling, following closely behind him.
Instead of heading to the room where he stored furs as Shitou expected, Han Cheng stopped before a cluster of bamboo by the window and reached up to retrieve something.
He took down the snake skin he had peeled off not long ago.
Ignoring Shitou’s somewhat puzzled expression, Han Cheng fetched an iron knife from the tribe and asked Shitou to hold onto one end of the snakeskin while he pulled on the other.
Once it was straightened out, Han Cheng held the knife with the blade facing up and smoothly sliced along the part Shitou held onto.
It was pretty fluid, producing a faint ‘shh’ sound.
After cutting through the snake skin, Han Cheng took a segment about fifteen centimeters long, roughly in an irregular square shape.
Next, he gathered some needles and thread, and around the perimeter of this piece of snakeskin, he threaded long strands of hemp spaced about two centimeters apart.
The hemp thread was chosen to be as fine as possible.
Once this was done, he gathered all the threads together and attached a small pottery shard to the end. At this point, the tool for flying was completely prepared.
Indeed, this was a small parachute.
With a glimmer of hope, Shitou stared blankly at the object in Han Cheng's hands.
This… something roughly the size of a bowl could fly?
Han Cheng pretended not to notice Shitou's expression and walked outside alone.
Han Cheng casually picked up a small pottery and threw it upward with all his might. The piece spun and ascended, reaching a certain height before plummeting back down.
“Now, check this out.”
Han Cheng called to Shitou, who was watching intently. He then forcefully tossed the makeshift parachute into the air.
After rising about five or six meters, the parachute descended, carrying the pottery piece. Initially, it fell quickly, but as the strings of the parachute loosened and it opened up, the descent slowed significantly.
In Shitou's astonished gaze, the pottery piece and the parachute wobbled downwards.
Just then, a gust of wind blew, lifting the descending parachute slightly and carrying it about ten meters before it finally touched the ground.
Han Cheng secretly admired the timing of the wind.
Before he could go and pick it up, Shitou, who had been momentarily stunned, suddenly seemed to wake up from a dream. He dashed over, carefully picking it up in his hands.
He looked at the parachute, then back at the smiling Han Cheng, his face filled with wonder.
Seeing this, Han Cheng secretly breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed he had successfully impressed Shitou.
He walked over, speaking with encouragement.
Shitou nodded vigorously, carefully folding the snake-skin parachute like Han Cheng had done before, then wrapping it with string.
After finishing these preparations, he threw it into the air with all his strength.
Under his watchful gaze, the parachute soared upward, spun a few times in the air, then quickly opened up and swayed gently as it fell.
Shitou’s face was increasingly filled with delight.
He hurried over quickly to retrieve the parachute, throwing it into the air again, wholly absorbed in his newfound joy. His previous listlessness completely vanished.
After a while, however, Shitou's excitement abruptly faded as he suddenly realized something serious.
The device made by the Divine Child could slow the descent of heavy objects but couldn’t make them fly upwards. It could only rise briefly in the presence of wind before coming back down.
Moreover, it only worked when something was already falling from the sky; that was the only way it could take effect.
This raised a new problem.
How could one get up into the sky in the first place?
Seeing that Shitou's mental block had been cleared, Han Cheng, preparing to leave and continue digging a pit for the flowerbed, paused mid-step and turned to look at Shitou.
He sized him up, top to bottom.
No wonder many ancient rulers favored policies to keep the common folk ignorant; having smart people below them made things incredibly difficult.
Trying to trick someone had become a challenging endeavor.
It seemed he needed to think of ways to make a lantern!
However, crafting such a thing now would pose quite a challenge.