Learning through failure

Ren Zu has climbed the giant tree out of Ordinary Abyss, leaving his daughter Boundless Forest Samsara behind, and having become extraordinary he can no longer go back in. He sets out again to rescue her and his eldest child Verdant Great Sun, beginning his Road of Life. He meets the hairy man, leader of every hairy man alive. Unmatched among them at Gu refinement, the hairy man cannot tell a newly refined worm apart from failure Gu, and asks Ren Zu to test it, since Ren Zu’s own self Gu will keep him from losing himself if it fails. Ren Zu agrees, wanting the worm for himself if it proves success Gu, hoping to use it to bring his children back. ^{ch. 845}

Ren Zu touches the worm and wishes for his daughter’s return; it crumbles, a failure. Courage Gu, calling him a failure, abandons him and flies off. Rather than chase it, Ren Zu waits as the hairy man refines a second worm; it fails too, and faith Gu leaves the same way. A third attempt fails again, and as strength Gu starts to fly off calling him unworthy, self Gu darts out and bites a piece from it before it escapes. ^{ch. 845}

Self Gu explains that failure has value, since it grows by absorbing the failures it survives, and says its bite has given Ren Zu strength of his own. Watching this, the hairy man realizes success Gu is refined through failure itself, and every failed worm brings him closer to it. He rushes off to try again, leaving Ren Zu behind. ^{ch. 845}