Chapter 48: 47 I Know My Own Life

47 I Know My Own Life

"Knock Sword complete."

"Will you Ask Sword to perfect the Sword Manual?"

Hm?

Finished, yet not finished?

Tang Zhao felt puzzled in his heart, thinking: Knock Sword, Ask Sword? Knock and ask, knock and ask—isn't knocking just asking? Could it be taking the meaning of "strike" from the character for knock? Did the Glasses just give the sword a beating?

His gaze involuntarily flickered back and forth between the two terms, and the Glasses, being quite understanding, actually provided annotations.

"Knock Sword: to knock and inquire of the sword."

This explanation was as good as saying nothing.

"Ask Sword: to interrogate the Sword Guest."

Tang Zhao suddenly realized; Ask Sword meant whether he should take the initiative to ask the Sword Guest...

Sword Guest? That old man?

Tang Zhao felt a slight tremor in his heart—a Sword Guest. Ever since he began learning Sword Art, he had long known that Sword Guests were transcendent, extraordinary experts with unfathomable power, but he had never actually met a confirmed one.

Xing Ji should be one; he could create Art Tools and possessed formidable strength, but he had never explicitly stated it, so in the end, it wasn't officially certified. That judge was also powerful and mysterious, but his identity was even more elusive. Si Liyu had explicitly stated he was not one.

The only person he had met who explicitly claimed to be a Sword Guest was that old man.

Tang Zhao felt slightly disappointed. A Sword Guest not only represented power, but the two characters themselves were also very cool. He had long assumed they must be peerless figures as elegant and unrestrained as the Sword Immortals in stories, capable of taking a head from a thousand miles away. Even Xing Ji's image barely qualified; how was this old man presentable?

However, it wasn't as if being eccentric meant one wasn't powerful. How could someone who built a Blessed Land and Heavenly Grotto inside a Time Jar not be a master?

But, where was this person's sword?

Tang Zhao recalled carefully, but he hadn't seen a sword. There was none beside the old man, nor any decoration on the walls. Where was the sword?

Wasn't it said that the sword is with the person, and the sword never leaves the hand?

"Will you Ask Sword?"

"Ask."

"Please Ask Sword to perfect the Sword Manual."

So, it was asking me to do the asking?

Tang Zhao was stunned for a moment, caught between laughter and tears.

It seemed... reasonable?

Object to object, person to person. Outsiders couldn't even see the Glasses, so was he supposed to expect the Glasses to jump down and open a mouth to ask?

But... Tang Zhao didn't know how to ask?

Ask what? How to ask?

Furthermore, having finally escaped, was he supposed to go back and conduct an interview or something?

Just as Tang Zhao was hesitating, he suddenly heard a clattering sound from inside, as if things were being knocked over.

After a moment of hesitation, Tang Zhao turned back.

The main hall was in a mess. A screen had fallen over, glass was shattered all over the floor, and the remaining tables, chairs, curio cabinets, and potted plants had all toppled. The once-tidy hall was now impossible to walk through.

In the middle of a pile of Fragments, the fat old man was sitting on the ground, beating his chest and stamping his feet, wailing loudly.

Tang Zhao was startled. Having no younger siblings or nephews, he had never seen anyone cry so miserably and was momentarily at a loss.

He approached hesitantly. The fat old man noticed his return, paused, reached up to his face as if to wipe away tears, then suddenly collapsed, lying on the ground, tearing at his beard, and shouted: "Who told you to come back? Get out, get out!"

Tang Zhao felt he was acting like a rascal, but he wasn't just wailing dryly; he was shedding tears and sobbing, and even if he were acting like a rascal, there was some genuine emotion in it.

Moreover, he was a Sword Guest expert, the Master of this Blessed Land and Heavenly Grotto, while Tang Zhao was just a youth who had learned martial arts for only a few days and had nothing to his name. What could he possibly extort from him?

It was just that Tang Zhao was truly unskilled at dealing with such things. He twisted his fingers on his clothes and said: "Senior, you... what is wrong?"

The old man pounded the ground with both hands and said: "Get out, get out! If you weren't going to stay, why did you come back? Don't worry about me, just let me die here alone!"

Tang Zhao squatted down and said: "That... do you not want me to leave?"

The old man opened his eyes slightly. His eyebrows and hair blocked his face, and with the snot and tears, one couldn't even see the black and white of his Eye Beads, let alone his expression. He sobbed: "Whether you leave or not, what does it have to do with me?"

Tang Zhao felt this old man wasn't simply mentally ill; there was a pattern to it, just like a child. He used the same tone one would use to coax a child: "Stop crying first, I'll stay with you for a while, okay?"

He opened his mouth, but swallowed the word "good boy" at the end; he felt it was just too much.

After much persuasion, the old man's crying gradually ceased.

There was no intact furniture left in sight. Tang Zhao dragged a grand armchair from the other side of the hall and had him sit down. The chair was covered with thick, soft cushions, and the old man looked like he was wrapped up inside it, almost like a Time Jar.

A Time Jar?

Tang Zhao suppressed a laugh, thinking to himself: The object resembles its Master.

Behind the main hall was a pool, with basins, towels, combs, and soap-locust pods placed nearby. Tang Zhao brought over water to wipe his face. The fat old man sat motionless, tilting his head back and letting him wipe.

Tang Zhao busied himself for a while, not even knowing why he was doing it, but it just felt like the natural thing to do. He asked: "Are you feeling better?"

The fat old man grunted: "I'm hungry, I want to eat something."

Tang Zhao said: "I saw some snacks on the cabinet over there, shall I get you some?"

The fat old man shook his head: "No, I'm tired of snacks. I want to eat fruit."

Tang Zhao said: "Where is the fruit kept?"

The fat old man said: "There's no fruit here, I want to eat things from the outside."

Tang Zhao's heart stirred, and he said: "I definitely didn't bring any fruit, but if you really want to eat, I can go outside and get some for you."

The fat old man reached out and grabbed Tang Zhao: "You are not allowed to go. What food do you have on you?"

Tang Zhao thought: How would I have food on me? He felt around his body and, to his surprise, actually found a handful of candies.

That was something a squinting young girl had given him a long time ago.

Later, Tang Zhao ate a few of them off and on, and there were still a few pieces left. He picked out a few candies and said, "Will these do?"

The fat old man snatched them up and stuffed them into his mouth; it was so sweet that his eyes curved into crescents, and he mumbled, "Delicious! You brat, you're actually quite kind. If you don't want to call me Ancestor, you can call me Great Uncle. You can eat the snacks over there as you please."

Tang Zhao repeated it once; calling someone "Great Uncle" required emphasis on the first character, as it was for addressing an elder older than one's own father. If one placed the stress on the second character, it sounded a bit like calling someone a "whoremonger."

He thought to himself: Looking at how you cry and laugh, throw tantrums, and are greedy for sweets, you should be the one calling me Great Uncle.

After all, this old man was old enough to be Tang Zhao's grandfather and then some; he had already lowered his generation enough, surely he couldn't wait for him to lower it to his own elder brother's generation?

Tang Zhao moved a large box of snacks down from the cabinet, opened it, and picked out a piece of flaky pastry to eat. He felt it was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, fragrant and sweet, and his own eyes curved into crescents as he chatted idly, "Great Uncle, what is your honorable surname?"

The fat old man said, "This old man's surname is Ping, Ping Jiangqiu."

Very good, isn't this where the Ask begins?

Tang Zhao said, "A high song and a flagon of wine, one man alone fishing in an autumn river. Truly the demeanor of a hermit outside the world."

The fat old man hummed, "This old man's name is just ill-omened; it really fulfilled the prophecy."

After a few times, Tang Zhao already knew he did not like Silence and enjoyed being coaxed by people; in fact, he was someone who preferred activity over stillness, definitely not a hermit in the general sense. Moreover, he might have become a bit neurotic from staying in the Time Jar, his behavior far different from ordinary people, so he asked, "Great Uncle Ping, I feel that although this place is good, it is just a bit desolate. Why don't you go out for a walk?"

Ping Jiangqiu rolled his eyes and said, "Cannot go out. There are too many bad people outside."

Tang Zhao thought this was not bad, and said, "There are bad people and good people in the world, this is unavoidable. But you have great Supernatural Power, ordinary bad people shouldn't be able to harm you, right?"

Ping Jiangqiu's expression changed slightly, and even through his beard and eyebrows, he revealed a bit of fear, saying, "You don't know a damn thing! There are so many bad people in the world! Not only are they many, but each one has great Supernatural Power and is elusive; you can't escape them anywhere. You say you hide, but they turn the world upside down looking for you, chasing you to the heavens and into the earth. You want to outlast them, but once one batch dies, there are new bad people, and it never ends. In heaven and on earth, throughout the ages, there has never been a safe place."

Tang Zhao thought: So you were scared into the Time Jar and don't dare to come out? Isn't that too cowardly?

Although he also felt the wind and frost of the outside world and often felt pain and suffering, having walked this path, there were ultimately still some people worth facing and some things worth doing.

Although his little boat also wanted a harbor, it wasn't to the point of being too scared to go out to sea.

But people are different; who knows what this old man before him has experienced?

He asked again, "Since you don't like going out, why don't you call people in? There must be good people, right? At the very least, having a cat or a dog could also alleviate the Silence, right?"

Ping Jiangqiu sighed and said, "Do you think it is desolate here? I built this room to be warm and comfortable; why did you feel it was desolate the moment you came in?"

These words struck Tang Zhao's heart: Although this hall was exquisite and elegant, the style was not one of cold, refined detachment; the colors were gentle and carried warmth, using mostly red and yellow, appearing warm and soft, and the incense burned was also very sweet, yet he still felt it was desolate the moment he entered.

Could it be...

"Too quiet? And also..."

"No vitality?"

He suddenly realized that there wasn't even a blade of grass or a flower in the room; the bonsai were all gemstone bonsai. Outside there were mountains and water, but no trees, and there were no birds between the sky and water; he imagined there were no fish in that clear, transparent water either.

Ping Jiangqiu said gloomily, "It seems you have discovered it too; there are no living things here except for me. I do not store any living things inside this sword."

Tang Zhao let out an "Oh," and immediately followed up in shock, "That's not right, how did I get in?"

Ping Jiangqiu said, "I specifically let you in. This is also a Dharma Artifact I recently obtained; only by relying on this object could I let you in. Otherwise, just protecting you would require a great deal of my origin power to maintain."

Tang Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, thinking: People outside can't get in, and you are too cowardly to go out; no wonder you can only huddle here, crying alone in the Silence.

Suddenly, he wondered, "You said sword? Where is the sword? Storing... could it be?"

Ping Jiangqiu said, "Didn't you see it? You've been moving my sword around all the way from the prison."

Tang Zhao said in astonishment, "That Time Jar is your sword?"