“Swish!”
Zhao Yingzhi swung the demon sword, and it slashed out a white ray, sweeping towards the faceless girl porcelain figurine in front of her.
“Clang!”
A series of crisp sounds rang out, and the row of porcelain figurines was cleaved in half at the waist, falling to the ground.
“Crash! Crash! Crash!”
The falling porcelain figurines shattered into pieces.
Zhao Yingzhi maintained her sword-wielding posture and said coldly, “What is perfection?”
Zhou Yanze’s face changed drastically, looking at his painstaking creations being destroyed in disbelief, and instantly became furious. His entire body was filled with an explosive eerie power that filled the room.
His face became grotesque, his head turning into a large porcelain jar-like head, and he screamed angrily, “You dare… you dare…”
Zhao Yingzhi turned around, fearlessly saying, “Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but your works are trash!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Zhou Yanze trembled all over, looking at Zhao Yingzhi in disbelief.
His works… were called trash?
His proud artistic vision was trash?
Zhou Yanze seemed to have been struck by a thunderbolt, his mind going blank.
Zhao Yingzhi calmly said, “In my eyes, they’re just piles of trash porcelain, with no value whatsoever.”
Zhou Yanze felt like he had been struck by a heavy blow, his large porcelain jar-like face turning an extremely depressed shade.
“Not only that, but those flashy porcelain pieces outside are also worthless trash!” Zhao Yingzhi continued.
After the heavy blow, another devastating strike!
Zhou Yanze was in a daze, his face no longer showing anger and savagery, but instead self-doubt and the feeling of being unrecognized. It was as if he had received a great blow, and his spirit had been crushed.
Zhao Yingzhi didn’t understand why the pottery shop owner suddenly became like this.
She had just said those things according to what Li Ran had taught her.
Li Ran had told her to destroy the figurines and then call the works trash in order to complete the task.
Standing on someone else’s turf, pointing at their work and calling it trash was practically like seeking death.
Zhao Yingzhi had even prepared herself to fight the pottery shop owner.
But now, that owner was standing there in a daze, repeatedly muttering, “I’m trash, I’m trash!” as he gazed at the broken porcelain figurines on the floor.
Zhao Yingzhi slowly backed out of the room and hurried back to Li Ran’s side.
“Do you have the ability of foresight?” Zhao Yingzhi looked at Li Ran in disbelief.
The shock Li Ran had given her first appeared when he saved her before, and she had suspected back then that he had some kind of foresight or prophetic ability.
This time, Li Ran had once again displayed that mysterious, uncanny ability to predict things, how could she not be amazed?
It was as if everything was under Li Ran's control.
Who could have thought that the task with the pottery shop owner would be done this way?
It simply defied all logic!
Li Ran did not explain, instead, he continued seriously working on the piece of clay in his hands that could hardly be called a pottery blank.
To Zhao Yingzhi, it looked like a lump of…
At that moment, Zhou Yanze walked out of the room, his face looking terrible. His head looked like a sickly expression-filled porcelain jar. He walked over to Zhao Yingzhi and asked, “What do you consider perfect pottery?”
Upon hearing this, Zhao Yingzhi froze for a moment. This was yet another question she couldn’t answer.
She thought the task was over, but she hadn’t heard the notification that the task was complete.
A sudden idea came to her, and she pointed at the lump of clay in Li Ran’s hand and said, “That’s my version of the perfect piece.”
Li Ran: “???”
He looked down at the lump of clay in his hand. It couldn’t even be called a blank; it should be called a lump of mud.
What did he know about making pottery blanks? He was just playing with mud.
Although he had accepted the task of creating a perfect porcelain piece, he had already come up with a corresponding plan through the hints, so he was just playing with mud.
Zhao Yingzhi's gesture made him completely stunned.
He didn’t even know what kind of thing he had made, and yet Zhao Yingzhi said it was her perfect piece?
Zhou Yanze’s gaze also turned towards them. When he saw the lump of mud in Li Ran’s hand, his brow immediately furrowed.
That lump… was the perfect piece?
Zhao Yingzhi quickly explained, “That’s an unshaped pottery blank. As long as I want, it can become the perfect one in my mind!”
When Zhou Yanze heard this, it was as if he had been struck by a sudden insight, and he muttered in a daze, “Is it because it’s unshaped that makes it perfect?”
“Perfection isn’t a definition. Everyone has their own idea of perfection. A beggar on the side of the road wants a table of food, a blind person’s perfection is to see light, a deaf person’s perfection is sound. Perfection is different in everyone’s heart.”
Zhao Yingzhi turned around and pointed at the room where the figurines had been destroyed, saying, “If even you can’t clearly define the perfection in your heart, then to others, your works are nothing but a pile of trash.”
Li Ran was about to give her a big thumbs-up after hearing this.
Zhou Yanze seemed to be lost in a trance, muttering to himself with a sagging head, “Yeah, if I don’t even consider that perfect, then how could there be a perfect work?”
Li Ran held the lump of mud in his hand. It resembled a wild beehive or something from the "Aoli Ji" series. If you said it was beautiful, it could still be somewhat tolerable; if you said it was ugly, it also wasn’t completely bad.
“This is also my version of perfection!” Li Ran said with a faint smile.
At that moment, both Li Ran and Zhao Yingzhi heard the notification sound of completing the task.
[Task Completed: Create a perfect porcelain piece]
[Rewards: Eerie Power +150, Points +1500, Special Item 1]
“Thanks to you, my task is also complete,” Li Ran said, giving a thumbs up.
Zhao Yingzhi pouted and said, “So you were pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, huh? Didn’t you teach me this?”
Li Ran awkwardly smiled, then went to the nearby washroom to wash his hands.
The pottery shop task was completed, but Li Ran still had something to do.
At this moment, Zhou Yanze returned to his human form, his heart fully enlightened.
There was no such thing as perfection.
Everyone’s idea of perfection was different.
It turned out that the perfection he had been seeking had already been lost when that girl left.
He looked at the [Dance Sky Yarn] figurine at the door. Suddenly, the girl with a smiling face appeared in his mind’s eye.
“Yanze, let me dance for you.”
“I thought you could only play the violin.”
“Hmph, don’t underestimate me.”
The girl’s slender waist swirled with the sky-colored dance yarn, as if a graceful butterfly was fluttering.
“Yanze, I want you to remember my most beautiful form.”
“Zhou Yanze, you will always be the most perfect in my heart.”
The girl danced gracefully, and every time she turned, her eyes were full of him.
Zhou Yanze curled up in the corner of the wall, like a child, already crying uncontrollably.
His heart was empty…
“Hopefully, the perfect her in his heart can awaken his heart of repentance!” Li Ran’s voice grew colder.
As the sound faded, the lost cries also abruptly stopped.
“You’re here.”
The girl with the dance sky yarn jogged over, reaching out her hand to grab his hand.
“Zhou Yanze, we can be together forever.”
(End of this chapter)