Chapter 13 Unfinished Work
The sun shines in through the hole in the sundial, leaving a dark gray dot on the marble clock face; this dot moves with time until it crosses three engraved thin lines , sliding out of the edge of the sundial, indicating that time has passed twelve hours of daylight and night is falling.
Morse blew a breath to clean off some debris on the stone sculpture. The statue of Perseus, with its hands and face missing, is undergoing a grand transformation. Now its shape is not only much smaller, but it also looks like it is wearing a cloth robe. The statue's face is hazy, with long hair shawl, and a ring of unfinished hair on its forehead. The detailed embellishments are difficult to distinguish.
An unconscious moan that comes with a creature waking up floated upward from below.
Perturabo staggered, grabbing the chair cushion and pulling himself up.
His eyes were still looking at a meaningless point, and the golden-red fire was still reflected in the ice-blue irises and burned unquenched.
Then the boy blinked, and his consciousness returned to reality from the false space constructed by psychic energy. He felt uncomfortable after lying on the ground for a long time, and his feet slipped and fell into the seat.
Morse waved his hand and let the small stone statue that Perturabo had carved fly to the boy: "You're welcome for your unfinished work."
Perturabo grabbed it The stone statue was put aside. Judging from his eager movements and slightly changed expression, he seemed to be very unwilling to let this thing reappear.
He turned his head and looked at Morse. His open mouth indicated that some words were brewing, but some factors prevented him from speaking. Maybe it was the conflict between him and Morse, or maybe he of self-esteem.
"If you go to the window, face the sun, and open your mouth, there are two things someone can tell," Morse said.
"What?"
"First, you have something to say now." He carefully moved the chisel on the statue's hand, imagining what actions the person should use, " Second, time. "
Perturabo's confusion came and went quickly. It seemed that after a high-intensity teaching session, his thinking speed had 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."
"Precision and wisdom, good boy." Morse smiled, stopped what he was doing, pushed the stone sculpture as tall as a person to the side as easily as pushing away bubbles, and talked face to face with Perturabo.
Starting from the current time, he chose to start with food: "First of all, I don't know where to have dinner."
"Hmm."
Petula Beau tried to sound serious, but no one in the world could really discuss the merits of salty olives and fresh cherries over dinner with the same seriousness as commanding troops to confront each other, so the boy chose to change the subject abruptly.
He raised his chin slightly: "Morse, I am ready for tomorrow's trial."
"Oh, good luck to you," Morse said flatly.
This answer obviously did not satisfy Perturabo. For the umpteenth time, the boy fell into his own too deep and complicated thinking, staring at him without speaking for a long time. Morse waited for a while, thinking that he had completed all the content of the conversation etiquette, and then let the stone sculpture float back in front of him, and continued to think about the composition of the hand.
Perturabo was inexplicably anxious: "Morse!"
"Huh?"
"You..." Perturabo took a breath and said from Stand up from your seat and stamp the floor with your sandals with every step you take, even though the floor will not be harmed in any way.
He walked to Morse's side and appeared within Morse's sight. "I debated them before."
Morse admitted to being amused and replied in a declarative tone: "Oh, I know."
"I refuted them." Perturabo's enunciation of the words "they" and "refute" was especially clear, and even the most hearing-impaired old man could hear the accented words.
“Yes,” Morse said.
Using his eyes as a chisel, Perturabo gave Morse a hard look and returned to his beloved chair angrily.
Ten minutes later, when Morse was about to continue trimming his statue with a sharp weapon, the boy suddenly spoke loudly, trying to complete his little revenge by scaring people. The boy said: "You see, I relied on my own thinking and logic, rather than the innate knowledge that has fallen into the fog of loss, and the innate abilities that you took away. It seems that I am still no ordinary person."
Morse was not surprised that Perturabo found a breakthrough here.
To be fair, when he drew his knife and ran to kill the Akers, Morse accepted that the child Perturabo himself had a bright spot that could not outweigh the flaws - rather, the boy Finally, he showed the little bit of personal characteristics that should shine in every mortal soul, and like every child of the same age, he couldn't wait to show it off to adults.
“Furthermore, I have learned all the forging knowledge you provided me.” Perturabo said viciously, “Tomorrow I will prove myself in front of Lokos.”
Morse wiped away the erroneous scratches from the surface of the statue with a flick of his finger. His tone was as calm as drinking water: "What exactly do you want to say, Perturabo?"
Perturabo was stuck.
“If you don’t speak, I will think that you are wasting your saliva and talking nonsense again.”
“Can’t you stop your sarcastic waste of saliva for a moment?”
"My sarcasm automatically selects and goes to the target of sarcasm."
Perturabo walked aside angrily, grabbed his half-finished small stone statue, and threw it at Morse, seemingly eager to try.
Morse glanced at him with a smile, and he immediately canceled the small action in secret and quickly threw the stone statue back to the table. His face turned red because the collision sound between the stone statue and the stone wall was too clear.
"I didn't..." His tongue and his will fought fiercely.
Morse shook his head, and a smaller chisel flew towards him. "Ha."
This immoral ridicule broke through Perturabo's persistence again.
"Morse!" He continued to torment the floor with his steps. "Didn't my performance exceed your expectations and break your stubbornness? Haven't my arguments refuted your slander? Don't you still Can you say that I am useless except for my talent? You just..."
He took a deep breath, which made people worry that he would bring all the dust floating in the air into his lungs. "You can't comment. How did I do?"
"You did a great job, Perturabo, you're a good boy."
Perturabo's face looked as if someone had poured red berry juice on it: "You, Morse, you must be... laughing at me and trying to please me! What, what did you say?"< br>
Morse used a little psychic energy, not for any reason, just to form a layer of ice to help Perturabo cool down. "Yeah, yeah, you're happy, I know."
"I'm not happy."
"Then I'm not happy." Morse waved his hand, and the ice turned into water, then evaporated and disappeared. "But I think you finally figured out that if you want a reward, you have to speak directly. You don't naively think that I have the patience to figure out your unfathomable child psychology, right?"
"Morse!"
"I'm not humiliating you, I'm just saving our time." Morse said without any ups and downs, and he finally chose to make a holder for the statue. The posture of the sword means that he needs to replenish some materials.
"You...you have nothing to do and are extremely idle. What's the point of saving time?"
"Because I made a plan before. When you finish the trial tomorrow, I will leave." Morse said easily.
"Where?" Perturabo blurted out.
(End of this chapter)