Bearing the blue sky

Chapter 316 The Old Man, the Sea, and the Fish

"Reverse Scale!"

When Xiao Qinglong's voice rang out on the lakeshore, it carried a completely different quality from before.

It was no longer the relaxed tone of casual conversation, but a compressed voice, like an echo coming from the depths of the sea.

His figure did not change significantly, but Zhu Ge could sense that the flow of the surrounding air was changing, as if an invisible river was redefining its course around him.

Zhu Ge neither retreated nor made a move hastily.

He stood still, gripping the Purgatory Star Staff, feeling the changing airflow.

The wind was lower than before, as if something was pressing down on its edges, preventing it from passing smoothly through the willow branches on the bank as before.

Xiao Qinglong's right hand remained hanging at his side, not raised, but Zhu Ge noticed a slight adjustment in the position of his fingers.

The fingertips, which were originally hanging down naturally, curled slightly inward, as if gathering something.

Then the attack arrived.

It didn't come from a specific direction; rather, it seemed to appear simultaneously around Zhu Ge.

An invisible pressure closed in on him from all directions, not as if he were being pushed, but more like a shrinking bubble, slowly squeezing the surrounding space towards him.

The pressure carried a uniform, continuous sense of propulsion, like being enveloped by a slow but undeniable current of water at the bottom of the sea—not intense, but inescapable nonetheless.

Zhu Ge sidestepped the first wave of pressure, but the second wave followed closely behind, getting even closer to his shoulder and back than the first.

Instead of resisting head-on, he used the force of the pressure to slide a few steps to the side and back, creating some distance between himself and the pressure.

The pressure didn't dissipate immediately after he left; it was like a disturbed surface of water, with ripples slowly spreading outwards.

The lingering pressure hovered above the sand for quite some time before completely dissipating.

Zhu Ge stood still, feeling the receding ripples as if confirming their direction.

He didn't rush to get close to the little green dragon again, but first let his breathing return to normal.

"Was that just now the complete form of your 'reverse scale'?" Zhu Ge asked.

"No." The little green dragon shook its head: "A complete Reverse Scale will have a larger range and last longer, but if used on land, it will easily make too much of a mess of the surrounding ground."

"What about in the water?" Zhu Ge asked curiously.

"In water, it can cover the entire lake surface."

Zhu Ge didn't reply, but imagined the scene in her mind for a moment, then gripped the Purgatory Star Staff tightly again: "Then I'll try again."

"it is good."

This time, Zhu Ge did not use the conventional starting stance. Instead, he lowered the stick even further than before, almost touching the ground.

He took a step forward, not rushing to speed up, but maintaining a relatively slow pace, as if waiting for that pressure to reappear.

When that invisible pressure began to close in from all sides, he did not dodge to the side as he had done before, but continued forward, keeping the staff in front of him and maintaining his chosen direction of travel.

The pressure, upon contact with the stick, was like water hitting a tilted plank; some of it slid down the surface of the stick to the sides.

The other part continued forward, meeting Zhu Ge's direction head-on, like two streams of water flowing in different directions converging in a river, briefly stalemated.

"Your perception of that pressure is clearer than before," the little green dragon exclaimed.

"Because I just tried it once," Zhu Ge said with a smile, "I could feel where it started to thicken."

He didn't stop, but continued to push forward, keeping the stick at a stable angle.

After the pressure was diverted to both sides of the stick, the remaining thrust was gradually weakening, as if some of it had been consumed by the continuous forward movement.

When he took his fifth step, the pressure had become thinner than before, as if it had been peeled away layer by layer, and finally dissipated completely when he was still two steps away from the little green dragon.

He stopped in his tracks, not moving forward, but simply standing still: "It's broken."

"It's broken." Little Azure Dragon nodded. "But when you took the fourth step, the angle of the staff was a little off. If it had been off by a little more, you might not have been able to reach the fifth step."

"I felt it," Zhu Ge said with a smile. "During the fourth step, the pressure increased from the left side."

He returned to the starting point, readjusted his breathing, and then moved forward again.

This time, he changed the angle of the stick when he took the third step, so that the pressure would flow more evenly to both sides when it came into contact with the surface of the stick.

He took five steps, then a sixth, before stopping.

"There's one more step than before."

"The fact that you've taken another step means that the period during which that pressure is in front of you is shortening."

Zhu Ge didn't rush to try again.

He first put the stick back at his waist, stood on the sand for a while to feel the air flow after the pressure had completely dissipated, then gripped the stick again and started again.

This time, he didn't focus entirely on that pressure.

Instead, it was simultaneously sensing the changes in the little green dragon's position and aura.

It's like learning to observe the location of rock strata in the water flow to confirm whether your judgment is accurate.

He moved forward several more times, stopping between four and six steps each time. The pressure he felt was lasting for a shorter period as he moved forward, as if it were being cut off piece by piece by his stride.

"That's about it," Little Azure Dragon sighed. "Your finishing touch should be placed in different sections, the first half with a slow pace, the second half with a fast pace, or vice versa. Let that pressure encounter a variable speed guiding surface before it touches your staff."

"It's like splitting a road into two parts," Zhu Ge summarized.

"Yes." Little Azure Dragon nodded in approval: "That's exactly what I mean."

Zhu Ge stood still, adjusted her breathing, and let the final intention stabilize within her body, as if confirming that it was already there.

Then he struck again, starting at a slower pace than before. As the pressure closed in from all sides, he slightly increased the speed of the staff halfway through his attack.

The guiding surface briefly changed its rhythm during the contact with the pressure, and the flow of that pressure layer showed a slight deflection at that moment, like encountering a stream of water that suddenly changed direction in a river.

He didn't stop, but continued to push forward?

The pressure did not converge again, but remained in a relatively dispersed state, as if its original convergence trend had been disrupted by two consecutive guidances at different speeds.

He walked the entire way and stopped two steps away from Xiao Qinglong. The pressure behind him slowly dissipated, like a blocked tributary finding its way again.

"This guidance session lasted longer than before," Zhu Ge said.

"Because that pressure needs more time to recombine when it encounters two different speeds of guidance. This time difference is enough for you to complete the rest of the journey."

Zhu Ge put the staff back at his waist: "If we can make it with three speeds in the future, this gap should be longer."

"Yes," said Xiao Qinglong, "but you have to make the two gear shifts stable enough before you think about the third one."

The sky grew darker, and the lake's luster changed from dark silver to grayish-white.

Liu Jianjian had emerged from behind the willow tree at some point, squatting on the edge of the sand, holding a willow branch she had just picked up, and drawing something on the ground.

The boat in the distance was still moored in the same spot. At some point, the True Lord of Extinction put down the lotus root bowl in his hand, took out a tin pot from somewhere, and was leaning against the edge of the boat looking this way.

Zhu Ge glanced at the sky: "Let's call it a day."

Little Green Dragon nodded naturally.

Zhu Ge then sincerely bowed and said, "Thank you for your guidance today, Senior Qinglong."

You should know that what just happened, though called a sparring match, was more like a teaching session.

Little Green Dragon is teaching Zhu Ge how to grasp the meaning of the destination.

"Come on, I've prepared some fine wine. Senior Azure Dragon, please enjoy a drink with True Monarch Annihilation!"

Sun Chuan returned home, utterly exhausted.

The path of learning is indeed arduous.

But I was tired yet happy.

Today, he has memorized almost the entirety of "The Old Man and the Sea".

-

When Sun Chuan pushed open the slightly loose wooden door, night had already completely enveloped the small town.

He didn't light a lamp, but walked to the corner of the wall in the dark by memory, sat down on the straw mat, and leaned his back against the wall that had been soaked by rain many times.

He didn't rush to lie down, but sat in the darkness, silently reciting the story he had heard during the day.

He had already heard that story three times.

The first time was at the entrance of a teahouse. The person reading the newspaper was reading very fast, and he missed some sentences before he could hear them clearly.

The second time was when he was practicing calligraphy in the backyard. Old Liu specially kept that issue of the newspaper so that he could read it at his own pace.

It took him most of the afternoon to read the story from beginning to end. He still couldn't recognize all the words, but he could understand the overall meaning.

The third time was tonight. On his way back, he walked while silently reciting the passages he had memorized, as if repeatedly confirming whether he had really memorized them.

He remembered that the old man had gone out to sea for eighty-four days without catching a single fish.

He remembered that when the old man set sail at dawn on the eighty-fifth day, his rowing posture was the same as always, as if he had not changed his movements because he had returned empty-handed after eighty-four days.

He remembered that after the fish took the bait, it didn't surface immediately, but swam in the deep water, dragging the old man's boat for a long time.

He remembered what the old man said when he encountered the shark on his way back: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

""

He silently recited those paragraphs again in the darkness.

The words remained clear in the darkness, unblurred by the light.

He remembered something Old Liu had said to him before he left: "This story isn't about fish."

He didn't ask what the story was about; he simply nodded, took the newspaper, and left.

Sitting in the darkness, he recalled that sentence and felt himself slowly approaching some nascent understanding.

It's like standing on the shore looking at the water in the distance, you can sense something moving underwater, but you can't see its outline clearly yet.

He lay down, put his arms behind his head, and looked at the area on the ceiling illuminated by the moonlight.

He wondered if the old man knew he might return empty-handed before he went out to sea.

Someone who has been at sea for so long should be used to this kind of thing by now.

But habit doesn't mean indifference. He wasn't sure what the difference was between the two, but he felt that the old man must have known before going to sea that this time might be the same as before.

He closed his eyes, and those sentences floated back into his mind.

He didn't deliberately analyze them; he just left them there, waiting for them to find a suitable place in his heart on their own.

The next afternoon, he appeared in the backyard of the teahouse on time.

Old Liu was sitting in that old bamboo chair.

The old book was on his lap, but this time he wasn't reading it; instead, he was looking at the top of the old locust tree in the yard.

"You memorized it?" Old Liu asked.

"I've memorized it." Sun Chuan nodded. "Some parts can be sung even more smoothly."

Old Liu offered no comment. He took a clean sheet of paper and a new charcoal pencil from the drawer of his wooden table and placed them on the table. "Then try writing it down. You don't have to write it all down. Just write the part you remember most clearly."

Sun Chuan sat down at the table, picked up the charcoal pencil, and wrote the sentence on the paper: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

He paused after writing the last word, as if to confirm that he had not made a mistake.

Then he raised his head and looked at Old Man Liu.

"You chose this sentence?" Old Liu asked.

"Um.

""

Why?

Sun Chuan thought for a while: "Because he said that when he encountered the shark. At that time, he already knew that the fish was doomed, but he didn't stop and kept rowing."

Old Liu didn't reply, his gaze fixed on the paper, as if confirming the sentence's placement on the page was appropriate. Then he said, "So, do you think he was talking to himself, or to the shark?"

Sun Chuan was silent for a moment: "I was saying it to myself."

"Why?" Old Liu asked, his eyes full of admiration.

"Because sharks can't understand," Sun Chuan pondered. "The sharks don't know what he's saying; he's speaking to himself."

Old Liu didn't comment, but simply folded the paper carefully, put it back in the drawer, and said, "The fact that you can understand this sentence already puts you ahead of many others."

Sun Chuan neither nodded nor shook his head.

He put the charcoal pencil back on the table and sat quietly, not asking what the sentence meant, as if he was waiting for that nascent understanding to slowly settle down over time.

The Old Man and the Sea?

No, it's about people and themselves.

Sun Chuan seemed to sense that the core of this story was resonating with him.

His life, his goals, his thoughts—even the food he couldn't chew—seemed to be working against him.

These are all "sharks".

The question is, why is this story "The Old Man and the Sea" and not "The Old Man and the Fish"?

Sun Chuan felt that he was about to understand something, but he was just missing a final touch.

He suddenly thought of the newspaper's founder.

"Why don't we go and ask Mr. Zhu Ge in person?"