The Legendary Janitor

Chapter 46: The "Ce" suo (Restroom)

As Di Tou walked away, Fatty Lu waved enthusiastically, before plopping back down onto the ground and resuming his bored look after Di Tou was out of sight.

Di Tou on the other hand, didn't actually particularly need to use the restroom. Instead he went to see if there was a place for waste disposal by the restroom. After all, it made sense that if there was a public restroom, the place for the excess sh*t and trash to be removed too shouldn't be too far right?

Although this was a little bit far from home, one option was surely better than none.

Heading over to the restroom, Di Tou was instantly hit with the putrid smell.

The restroom was just a small enclosed space and was built in the form of a squatting toilet.

So essentially, a hole in the ground, that was used to collect waste. Scouting around a little, Di Tou didn't happen to find a trash disposal area, although he did find out where the waste in this toilet went…

This was an old fashioned toilet, which typically disposed of the waste in one of two ways, first the waste was used to make fertilizer, so the waste was collected in what was essentially just a big pit before being collected and reused, the other was a bit more graphic.

So for any readers with an easily upset stomach, I recommend skipping the next paragraph or two. (No really, you'll regret this.)

Anyways, the word for restroom in Chinese is "ce suo" and the word we need to pay attention here is "ce" which also happens to be the character for pigsty. The reason for this connection is simple, the "ce suo" or restroom in some places lead directly to the pigsty, and the human waste was used as food for the pigs. In this case, this public restroom happened to be of this sort, and so the waste was directed towards a nearby pigsty, which was why Di Tou could smell the scent from so far away. Even at the moment, Di Tou could see a pig rolling around in the pigsty while eating…

Remembering what he had for lunch, Di Tou suddenly started feeling a lot worse then he already did coming upon this revelation, but on the bright side he did find a spot near the pigsty that he saw someone emptying their chamberpot into, so it seemed like he had figured out where to empty out his chamberpot.

Of course, like the well it would be better if he could find somewhere closer to his home, as it was already bad enough walking for a couple of minutes carrying water, as for carrying his waste…

That tested Di Tou's bottomline for his shame quite a bit. After all, as a self-respecting young man, he already felt a bit uncomfortable when people were aware that he was taking a sh*t, much less watching him, or staring at him as he carried his waste around. But at the very least that was one less thing he had to ask Fu Hao Xin in the morning.

"It's okay, it's okay… Better that a stranger gives you weird looks then someone you know questioning you. It's better this way… It's better…"

Having achieved the part of the objective that he had come up with on the spot, and getting a flamestick along the way, Di Tou felt relatively satisfied and started walking back towards his residence.

In the meantime the sun had fully set, and the street started lighting up. Most of the shops that had their own buildings also had their own colorful lanterns that they used to light their area up, while alongside the street glowing orbs were hung up every here and there at a regular distance, seemingly like they belonged more to the street than any specific shops.

Looking at the orbs that looked like pearls while operating like a light bulb, Di Tou couldn't help but feel a little in awe. As backwards as… some amenities happened to be, in other ways this place just as if not more advanced then the 21st century.

Not too long later, Di Tou arrived back at his residence, which was now complexly dark.

As his street wasn't one of the shopping streets, it wasn't quite as well lit, whereas the lighting pearls had been spread out every 10 meters or so on the street he had been in earlier, there was perhaps only one every twenty or so meters here.

It wasn't quite perfectly illuminated, but it was enough to see the street before him. If he had a chance, he would have to try to get one for himself. If they were so common, they shouldn't be too expensive right?

Shaking his head, Di Tou headed inside the residence.

Fumbling around in the dark for a moment, Di Tou pulled out the flame stick he had gotten from Fatty Lu earlier in the evening, and played around with a bit before quickly figuring out the mechanism that allowed it to light up.

Now illuminated with the small flame the stick provided, Di Tou readjusted his eyes to the light before heading over to the table where he had left the candles earlier in the day when he had needed to use the buckets to fetch water.

Lighting one, Di Tou recapped the flame stick before using the candle as his light source to head over to the writing desk.

Using the sheet of paper he had written on earlier in regards to things he needed to buy, Di Tou spent another fifteen or so minutes jotting down the things he had thought of over the course of day, as well as anything else he could think of that would possibly be useful.

Towards the end, he couldn't think of anything anymore, but still sat there just trying to figure out if he was missing anything.

"Ah, whatever. It's good enough for now. I can worry about it more in the morning."

Putting down the charcoal stick, Di Tou got up and stretched. It had been a surprisingly long day, now there was only one more thing to do before sleeping.

Di Tou looked at the cup of wine.