Chapter 46: 45 Meeting the Time Jar Again

45 Meeting the Time Jar Again

In the narrow room, a person sat hunched over a desk, their face covered by a black-and-white mask; their gaze swept over through the mask, shining with imposing power.

The Judge!

Tang Zhao was both shocked and frightened, and immediately after, anger welled up.

"You..."

"You have a lot of nerve!"

The Judge let out a violent shout.

Tang Zhao was stunned again, then his anger flared up even more; he pointed at him and said, "Where did you crawl out from? What kind of madness is this?"

The Judge rose with a boom. He was tall, and the light from the lamp on the table cast a huge Shadow on the wall behind him, overwhelming and oppressive.

Tang Zhao swallowed hard, his angry expression gradually fading.

"Yesterday you swore on your life that the person I am looking for was in that Time Jar, didn't you?"

The Judge reached out and pointed. Only then did Tang Zhao notice there was an extra Time Jar in the room; that old pottery jar leaning against the table was almost taller than him.

This was naturally the large pottery jar that the Judge had retrieved from the Prison last night.

Tang Zhao was suspicious and said, "What? Yesterday I saw that this jar was unusual, so I told you. I only said what I saw; as for whether it is the person you are looking for, that is not something I can control."

The Judge said coldly, "Cunning words! 'Unusual,' you say? Come, come, take a look—" He reached out, opened the jar, and gave it a push. The jar fell to the ground and rolled.

Tang Zhao was startled; such a large jar made quite a commotion, not to mention he didn't want to see the situation inside the jar at all.

Fortunately, the jar itself was heavy; it only rolled twice after falling and stopped on the floor.

The mouth of the jar was facing Tang Zhao directly.

Tang Zhao didn't have time to turn his eyes away and saw it clearly at a glance.

He saw the bottom of the jar at a glance.

There was nothing in the jar, clean and empty, just like a warehouse that had been robbed ten times over.

Tang Zhao was stunned for a moment, lowered his head to look a few more times, and found it was indeed empty. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Has it been cleaned out?"

The Judge barked, "Cleaned out my foot! There was nothing in it to begin with! Come, come, touch it and see if there is a layer of dust inside."

Tang Zhao touched it with half-belief; his finger indeed gathered a smudge of dust. Looking at the bottom of the jar again, there was even a faint layer of cobwebs, which certainly couldn't have been formed in a day or two.

Hmm...

Tang Zhao pondered, "When you picked it up yesterday, didn't you notice the weight was wrong?"

The Judge said, "You're trying to shift the blame? At that time, in order to send you back, I didn't even check it carefully. I trusted you enough, didn't I? Is this how you repay me?"

Tang Zhao recalled that he really hadn't checked much last night. At the time, that air of indifference and being in total control was quite grand; who knew he would have this flustered and exasperated appearance now? He said, "Anyway, I did my best. If you think I'm useless, that's possible too. Isn't it normal that a random passerby you snatched off the road wouldn't be up to the task? Why don't you go hire another expert to look in the Prison?"

The Judge said, "They burned the Prison during the riot yesterday. Where am I supposed to look?"

Tang Zhao thought: Wasn't the riot planned by you? Isn't this just reaping what you sowed?

But this was hard to say. Although the Judge was reasonably polite to him, this person was actually an extremely high-level expert who could kill with a flick of a finger; Tang Zhao could not truly court death.

Fortunately, the Judge only grumbled and fumed for a while, then said, "Consider it my bad luck to have met a pitfall like you. You wasted a great opportunity of mine. Consider that thing I gave you yesterday as your profit; don't expect me to teach you any more skills!"

Tang Zhao thought: You still remember that? I never counted on you anyway. Adopting the attitude of sending off a plague god, he smiled and said, "I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare. Many thanks for your magnanimity, Senior."

The Judge had vented his anger and said huffily, "I'm so annoyed. You deal with this unlucky thing; I get annoyed just looking at it." After speaking, he pushed the window open and leaped out, disappearing into the night in an instant. Although he had arrived in a senseless manner, he certainly had the demeanor of a high-level expert who leaves no trace when he left.

Although Tang Zhao had been scolded for no reason, he was safe and sound. Confirming that the Judge had truly left, he breathed a sigh of relief. He only felt that this guy was inexplicable and it would be best never to see him again.

Turning his head, he saw the jar again.

Hiss—

A toothache.

This jar was too big, almost taller than himself. It couldn't be put on the table, it couldn't be kept under the bed; there was nowhere to put it and nowhere to hide it, especially since it was the same model as the one in the Prison, making it even harder to explain if seen by others.

That Judge had dumped a big problem on him, intending to disgust him.

The only plan now is to smash it to pieces and dispose of it, right?

First smash it into Fragments, pile them under the bed, and move them out bit by bit while practicing martial arts during the day, or just leave them hidden like that; after half a month, no one would be able to manage him.

There were no suitable tools in the room, but fortunately, the training ground outside was equipped with eighteen types of weapons. Most of those weapons were cast iron and of average quality; Disciples with any family background wouldn't choose them, so they were just placed there for atmosphere. Tang Zhao chose a sledgehammer; although it wasn't large, it could smash through iron armor when swung, so it was more than enough to hammer a pottery jar.

Carrying the sledgehammer, Tang Zhao cupped his hands and said, "Brother Jar, I see you have an ancient appearance and high seniority; perhaps you are even my senior, and the condensation of the hard work of predecessors, you should have enjoyed a long life. Alas, the student is forced by life and has to offend you. I hope you will be a national treasure in your next life, displayed on high shelves, enjoying peace and happiness forever. My apologies—"

"Clang!"

The sledgehammer felt like it had struck an iron plate and bounced back.

Tang Zhao only felt his arm go numb, and the hammer almost flew away.

"What the hell?"

The pottery jar was perfectly fine, without a single crack.

Is this made of pottery?

I'm afraid even iron wouldn't be this hard!

Rubbing his arm, Tang Zhao steadied himself and looked closely. The jar seemed to grow even taller, and he said, "I said so, could I be wrong about things? If I said it was unusual, it is unusual! This is likely some dust-covered treasure, and now it belongs to me. As for that person who had eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai, let him regret it!"

After mocking that unwelcome guest slightly, Tang Zhao was still worried.

What dust-covered treasure? There wasn't even a shadow of one.

Even if the jar was unusual, so what?

Even if it was sturdier than iron armor, could one wear the jar onto the battlefield?

Although, with Tang Zhao's physique, it wasn't impossible.

It was just particularly sturdy and exceptionally difficult to deal with.

"This... could it be a Dharma Artifact or an Art Tool?"

Aside from the sword at Xing Ji's place, the most magical things Tang Zhao had seen were Dharma Artifacts, and it was said they were not restricted by form, so it wouldn't be strange to have a Vessel Artifact.

"Come, let me see what kind of thing you are."

He put on the Glasses.

Tang Zhao looked at the Time Jar, and a line of text flashed across the lenses.

"Sword: Unknown."

???

What kind of thing?

Tang Zhao suspected he had misread it, so he hurriedly circled halfway around to look from another direction.

"Sword: Unknown."

This time he saw it even more clearly; the words above had not changed in the slightest.

Could it be that a sword was hidden inside the Time Jar?

Tang Zhao found it hard to believe; the Judge had come specifically to hold him accountable, so the inside and outside of the Time Jar had naturally been turned over many times already—how could they have failed to notice a hidden sword?

Could it be that the sword was hidden inside the wall of the Time Jar?

He compared the thickness and dismissed this guess. It wouldn't fit; it wasn't even thick enough to lay flat.

This was a headache.

If this thing didn't take up so much space, Tang Zhao wouldn't have to be in such a rush to deal with it; he could just leave it and consider it later. But he was still in Black Spider Villa, and no matter how strange this Time Jar was, it looked exactly like the torture instruments in the Black Spider Villa dungeon. If any outsider saw it, he wouldn't be able to explain it even if he had a thousand mouths; he had to have a plan.

He checked it again to see if there were any oversights inside or out. His life was at stake; if there was truly nowhere to put it, never mind whether it was a sword or an axe, hook, or trident, even if it were a legendary treasure, he would have to smash it first.

There was nothing unusual on the outside, so Tang Zhao could only look inside.

The design of the Time Jar was such that a person could be stuffed inside. Tang Zhao was not yet fully grown, so he could even turn over if he climbed in, but he was truly reluctant and preferred to reach in and grope around.

The Time Jar was very deep; it was hard for his hand to reach the bottom, so he took an Art Tool Wooden Sword to probe.

He reached his hand in little by little until he reached his arm's base, and Tang Zhao carefully rotated the Wooden Sword.

Strange...

Although the Time Jar was deep, the length of the Wooden Sword plus his arm was enough; he should have reached the bottom with this probe, so why did it seem like he was going down forever without touching anything?

In this position, he couldn't see inside the Time Jar, so he had to twist left and right, probing in every direction, but he could never touch a boundary, as if what he had reached into wasn't a jar, but a bottomless pit.

Tang Zhao felt strange, but not particularly strange. Although this phenomenon was odd, considering the Time Jar must be a strange object, it was reasonable for such an anomaly to appear.

After feeling around, Tang Zhao couldn't grasp the trick and had to withdraw his hand.

As he reached out of the Time Jar, Tang Zhao suddenly froze, feeling that something was missing.

He spread his fingers; this time there was no "Disappearance" status interfering, and he immediately realized with a start:

My Art Tool—where did it go?

It had slipped from his hand and vanished without a sound!

He immediately turned back to look at the bottom of the Time Jar, but all he saw was the bottom of the jar and a layer of spiderwebs; it was empty and held nothing else.

Everything was as it had been.

He felt a bit creeped out. Could it be that a monster was hiding behind the spiderwebs in the Time Jar, and it had eaten his Art Tool in one bite while he wasn't paying attention?

If that monster's mouth were a little bigger, would it have swallowed his hand too?

The more he thought, the more terrifying it became, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Immediately after, he cursed himself: Why are you scaring yourself? No matter what, this Time Jar didn't grow a mouth on its skin, nor did it sprout four legs from the bottom; it was just an ordinary jar, what was there to be afraid of?

Hmm? What was there to be afraid of?

Anger rose from his heart, and malice grew from his guts. Tang Zhao said, "I don't believe it, what kind of prestige can a broken jar have? What if I just smash you to pieces?"

As he spoke, he stretched out both hands to grab the rim of the jar, lifted it over his head with both hands, and smashed it toward the ground.

Thud—

The Time Jar fell to the ground with a muffled sound and rolled to the wall before stopping.

It was completely unscathed.

Tang Zhao breathed rapidly and moved his numb arms. He had used all his strength in that last move, venting his Momentum, and now he felt calm and indifferent.

He held up a finger, gave a thumbs-up, and said, "I surrender. I can't do anything to you, Your Excellency; it seems I have lost. Wait a moment, I will go out and dig a dragon's lair to lay you to rest. When a fated person digs you up in the future, that will be the time for you to shock the world."

Suddenly, the mouth of the Time Jar moved and spat out an object.

Tang Zhao reached out and snatched it, grabbing a paper ball. He opened the paper ball, and two words were written on it:

"Please enter."