Chapter 160 - 115: Entering the Dao Through Calligraphy, New Entry

Chapter 160: Chapter 115: Entering the Dao Through Calligraphy, New Entry

"The second way is to break through the shackles of one’s own thinking and create a new style of calligraphy, just like I did." Qin Shoucheng’s gaze swept over the crowd. "However, studying the calligraphy of predecessors requires their authentic works. In the current Great Saint Dynasty, I am the only one who relies on the second way." His voice carried a tone of arrogance as he spoke. "Therefore, you are quite lucky to be able to copy my authentic works."

He had the capital to be arrogant. This was the fundamental reason why he could hold the position of Doctor at the Imperial College. Zheng script was a writing style he had created himself.

"Now, let’s begin copying," he said, glancing at the students below. His eyes landed on Qin Wanyue.

At this moment, Qin Wanyue was grinding ink. Once finished, she smiled and handed the ink to Zeng Anmin. "Here you go, Quan Fu."

"Thank you, Wanyue." Zeng Anmin grinned. Without being overly polite, he took the ink she had prepared. Grinding ink was a task that the Little Fatty Crown Prince usually did in the past.

"PHEW."

Qin Shoucheng pressed his lips tightly together, then simply turned his head away to look outside the hall. Stepping out, he stood by the railing, leaning against it as he took several deep breaths.

Back in the hall, Zeng Anmin’s expression turned slightly serious after hearing Qin Shoucheng’s words.

The Illusion Array Examination was fast approaching, and he urgently needed to improve his strength as a Confucian Cultivator. After entering Enlightenment through the art of Archery last time, he hadn’t relied on that experience to condense a Fifth Grade Dharma Aspect. Instead, he had only condensed the Cyan Bow Dharma Aspect.

Mr. Tian, who taught Archery, said that he might need to attain Enlightenment in another one of the Six Arts, condensing two of them to break through to the Fifth Grade, just like the Saints of the past.

During this period, he had been trying various Six Arts. He had already tried Music Theory, but he couldn’t take it in at all; it might even put him to sleep. As for Charioteering... he hadn’t even looked into it yet. Right now, only Calligraphy was left to try.

Under his father’s tyrannical authority, his predecessor had built some foundation in calligraphy. Although he had transmigrated here, he had also seen many authentic works by calligraphers in his past life. He even had an authentic piece by Mr. Qi Gong in his home.

However, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he could attain Enlightenment in this world just by copying the calligraphy from his past life. If he couldn’t attain Enlightenment, he just couldn’t. Even if he could write a completely different style of calligraphy, it would only have a superficial appearance. Writing it out would only make people laugh. Therefore, he observed Qin Shoucheng’s authentic work with extreme focus.

"PHEW."

Zeng Anmin gently dipped his fountain pen into the ink. His gaze fixed on the character "Zhen" written by Qin Shoucheng in front of him. After pondering for a moment, he slowly began to write.

Before long, a large "Zhen" character was written. However... although the shape was similar, it lacked the spirit.

"When you put pen to paper, you must adjust your state of mind and not think about anything else," Qin Wanyue said, pursing her lips into a smile at Zeng Anmin. "Copying my father’s Zheng script requires you to hold respect for all livelihoods between heaven and earth, as well as reverence for the unparalleled knowledge of past Saints."

"Hmm." Zeng Anmin frowned deeply and closed his eyes.

He couldn’t muster any respect for Qin Shoucheng’s writing. In fact, he couldn’t muster respect for any of the past sages of this world. He simply couldn’t enter a state of deep meditation quickly.

His thoughts slowly drifted away. Bit by bit, dusty memories from his past life drifted through his mind. What floated through his mind were the past sages of his previous life.

From Yu the Great taming the flood and passing by his home three times without entering, to the three meetings between Confucius and Laozi that laid down five thousand years of profound Chinese thought.

From Fan Zhongyan’s "be the first to worry about the world’s troubles and the last to rejoice in its happiness," to Zhang Zai’s "Four Sentences of Hengqu."

From Saint Wang Yangming’s Unity of Knowledge and Action, to the blood-red journey of the modern era for the people.

From Wang Xizhi’s Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion, to a certain naive Emperor’s Slender Gold script.

From Cang Jie to the modern Mr. Qi Gong.

Pictures appeared in his mind like a slideshow. He frowned deeply, his thoughts in a mess. From an outsider’s perspective, the hand Zeng Anmin used to hold the fountain pen was trembling slightly.

Finally, Zeng Anmin saw an image. It was a waterfront reflecting the lights of thousands of homes from his past life.

He thought, "I have a sword named the Sword of Ten Thousand Homes’ Lights!"

He felt as if a raging fire was burning in his heart!

The next moment, Zeng Anmin suddenly opened his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he controlled the fountain pen in his hand and slowly swept it across the rice paper.

"An."

"Min."

Two characters, each written in a completely different handwriting. The first character, "An," imitated Qin Shoucheng’s Zheng script. The character "Min," however, was written in imitation of cursive script from his past life.

He had only learned this one font in his past life. His understanding of cursive script was very shallow, only scratching the surface.

Wild Grass.

A very domineering name.

In his past life, it was created by the Sage of Cursive Script, Zhang Xu. The reason Zeng Anmin was willing to learn it in his past life was simply because he thought it looked cool. After all, being cool was a lifelong pursuit.

Then, after studying it for two years, he set it aside.

It was difficult. Too difficult.

Wild Grass could be said to be the most difficult to learn among all calligraphy styles. It looked like someone randomly drawing two strokes like ghost talismans, but that wasn’t the case at all. Every single stroke was ten times harder than normal calligraphy! Before learning cursive script, one had to be able to write regular script well to even be qualified. Therefore, he had given up after only two years of learning.

However, today, he seemed to have a new understanding of calligraphy. He felt that the handwriting of Wild Grass perfectly suited his personality.