Chapter 13 Unfinished Work

The sun shone through the hole in the sundial, leaving a dark gray dot on the marble clock face; this dot moved with time until it crossed three carved fine lines and slid out of the edge of the sundial, indicating that time had passed twelve hours of daytime and night was falling.

Morse blew a breath to clear the few debris on the stone sculpture. The statue of Perseus with a broken hand and a missing face was undergoing a grand transformation. Now its body was not only much smaller, but also seemed to be wearing a cloth robe; the statue's face was hazy, with long hair draped over its shoulders, and a circle of undetailed decorative ornaments on its forehead that was difficult to distinguish.

An unconscious groan that came with the awakening of a creature floated up from below.

Perturabo staggered and grabbed the cushion to pull himself up.

His eyes were still looking at a meaningless virtual point, and there was still a golden-red fire reflected in the ice-blue iris that burned unextinguished.

Then the boy blinked, and his consciousness returned to reality from the false space constructed by psychic energy. Because he was uncomfortable lying on the ground for a long time, his feet slipped and fell into the seat.

Morse waved his hand and let the small stone statue carved by Perturabo fly in front of the boy: "Your unfinished work, you're welcome."

Perturabo grabbed the stone statue and put it aside. Judging from his eager movements and slightly changing expression, he was very reluctant to let this thing see the light of day again.

He turned his head and looked at Morse. His open mouth indicated that some words were brewing, but something prevented him from speaking, perhaps the conflict between him and Morse, or his self-esteem.

"If you go to the window, face the sun, and open your mouth, then others will know two things." Morse said.

"What?"

"First, you have something to say now." He carefully moved the chisel to the statue's hand, imagining what kind of action this person should use, "Second, time."

Perturabo's confusion came and went quickly. It seemed that after a high-intensity teaching, his thinking speed was improved.

"You are comparing my face to a sundial," Perturabo said unhappily. "The nose is the needle of the sundial, the mouth is the face of the sundial, and the teeth are the scales."

"Precise and wise, good boy," Morse smiled, stopping his work, and pushed the stone sculpture as tall as a person to the side as easily as pushing away foam, and talked to Perturabo face to face.

Starting from the current time, he chose to start with food: "First of all, I don't know where to eat dinner."

"Yeah."

Perturabo tried to be serious, but no one in the world could really discuss the pros and cons of salted olives and fresh cherries when talking about dinner with the seriousness of commanding a battle formation, so the boy chose to change the subject abruptly.

He raised his chin slightly: "Morse, I'm ready for tomorrow's trial."

"Oh, good luck." Morse said calmly.

This answer obviously did not satisfy Perturabo. The boy fell into his own overly deep and complicated thoughts for the umpteenth time, staring at him for a long time without speaking. Morse waited for a while, thinking that he had completed all the etiquette of the conversation, and let the stone sculpture float back in front of him, continuing to think about the picture structure of the hand.

Perturabo was inexplicably anxious: "Morse!"

"Hmm?"

"You..." Perturabo took a breath, stood up from his seat, and stepped on the floor with his sandals with every step when he walked, even though the floor would not be damaged by it.

He walked to the side of Morse and appeared in Morse's sight. "I debated with them before."

Morse admitted that he was happy in his heart, and he replied in a statement: "Oh, I know."

"I refuted them." Perturabo's pronunciation on the words "they" and "refuted" was particularly clear, and even the most hearing-impaired elderly could hear his stressed words.

"Yes." Morse said.

Perturabo used his eyes as a round chisel to gouge Morse hard, and returned to his beloved chair angrily.

Ten minutes later, when Morse was about to continue to repair his statue with a sharp weapon, the boy suddenly spoke loudly, trying to complete his small revenge by scaring people.

The boy said: "You see, I rely on my own thinking and logic, not the innate knowledge that has fallen into the mist of loss, and the innate ability you took away. It seems that I am still not an ordinary person."

Morse was not surprised that Perturabo found a breakthrough here.

To be fair, when he drew his knife and ran to chop the Ax man, Morse accepted that Perturabo, this child, had a little bit of bright spot that could not cover up the flaws - it is better to say that the boy finally showed the little personal characteristics that should shine in the soul of every mortal, and like every child of the same age, he was eager to show it off to adults.

"And I have learned all the forging knowledge you provided me." Perturabo said viciously, "Tomorrow I will prove myself in front of Lokos."

Morse wiped the wrong scratches from the surface of the statue with his finger, and his tone was as calm as drinking water: "What do you want to say, Perturabo?"

Perturabo was stuck.

"If you don't speak, I will think you are wasting your saliva and talking nonsense again."

"Don't you have a moment to stop your wasted saliva sarcasm?"

"My sarcasm will automatically select and move towards the object that should be ridiculed."

Perturabo walked aside angrily again, grabbed his unfinished stone statue, and threw it at Morse, as if he was eager to try.

Morse smiled at him, and he immediately cancelled his secret moves and quickly threw the statue back on the table. His face turned red because of the clear sound of the statue hitting the stone wall.

"I didn't..." His tongue and his will fought fiercely.

Morse shook his head, and a smaller chisel flew towards him. "Heh."

This immoral ridicule once again pierced Perturabo's persistence.

"Morse!" He continued to torture the floor back and forth with his steps, "Didn't my performance surprise you and break your stubbornness? Didn't my argument refute your white slander? Can you still say that I have nothing but talent? You..."

He took a deep breath, which made people worry whether he would bring all the dust floating in the air into the lungs for circulation, "Can't you comment on how I did?"

"You did a good job and performed very well. Perturabo, you are a good boy." Morse said.

Perturabo's face looked like someone had splashed red berry juice on his head: "You, Morse, you must be... mocking me, trying to please me! What, what did you say?"

Morse used a little psychic energy, for no reason, just to form a layer of ice to help Perturabo cool down. "Yeah, yeah, you're happy, I see."

"I'm not happy."

"Then I'm not happy." Morse waved his hand, and the frost turned into water, then evaporated and disappeared. "But I think you finally see that if you want a reward, you have to speak directly. You can't be naive to think that I have the patience to guess your unfathomable child's psychology, right?"

"Morse!"

"I'm not humiliating you, I'm just saving our time." Morse said calmly, and he finally chose to make a sword-holding posture for the statue, which meant that he needed to make up some materials.

"You...you have nothing to do, you're extremely idle, what's the point of saving time?"

"Because I made a plan before, I'll leave tomorrow when you finish the trial." Morse said easily.

"Where to?" Perturabo blurted out.