After Xu Fengnian told the ox-rider to shut up, he was about to have the fellow fetch some paper from the thatched cottage. His experiences on the mountain required a letter to Xu Xiao. If Princess Suizhu of golden branches and jade leaves had come to Beiliang’s Wudang out of childish impulse, there was no need for excessive concern—it was merely adding new grudges to old enmity. Xu Fengnian had so many lice he didn’t fear the itch. In any case, he’d most likely never visit that majestic capital in this lifetime. But if certain individuals or a small clique had instigated this, he absolutely couldn’t take it lightly. Never mind that Xu Xiao held the highest ministerial position with unlimited glory—who knew when dark clouds might press upon the city and storms suddenly arrive? When dealing with people, two types were most fearsome: the supremely intelligent, and the fools who thought themselves clever. And that place had the most of both types.

Just as Xu Fengnian was about to order this Patriarch Uncle around, a strange phenomenon erupted.

The enormous waterfall plunging straight down exploded apart!

Waves surged forward like wild horses escaped from their reins. Both Xu Fengnian and Hong Xixiang became drowned rats. Xu Fengnian paid no mind to this drenching, his eyes fixed on the scene atop the great stone at the center of White Elephant Pool outside the waterfall. In that fleeting gap, he could vaguely see Wang Xiaoping, the sword-obsessed master whose Wudang seniority matched the sect leader’s, standing proudly, his peachwood sword Shen Shu pointed directly into the cave. This single sword was incomparably domineering, giving the Crown Prince a show of force. Wang Xiaoping, who’d kept silent for over ten years, truly didn’t speak a word, departing with floating grace. Coming dashingly, leaving dashingly—just like when Xu Fengnian had wandered in exile years ago, seeing how those young knight-errants all liked to act: noses pointed at the sky, arrogant to the core. Crossing rivers, they wouldn’t take the ferry boats available, insisting on skimming across the water. The problem was—if you’re going to skim, fine, but don’t splash water everywhere, soaking the common people on the boats! If the Crown Prince encountered this again in Beiliang, forget cheers and rewards—he’d definitely drag these bastards out for a beating, soak them in the water for several months, see if they’d still dare show off.

Baffled, Xu Fengnian glared at Hong Xixiang, who’d suffered collateral damage. The latter said with an innocent expression: “Little martial brother Wang was born in the year of the ox, so he has this stubborn temperament. He practiced sword here before—probably quite annoyed. Crown Prince, you’re a magnanimous man—don’t stoop to little martial brother Wang’s level. When he practices sword, he might become the new sword god in the future. If the Crown Prince achieves the realm’s foremost blade as easily as reaching into a bag, it would be a splendid tale for Wudang.”

Xu Fengnian ordered irritably: “Go to the cottage and fetch me some paper and ink.”

Hong Xixiang scurried off to move things.

Xu Fengnian opened the food box and had just picked up the bowl, preparing to use chopsticks to take a bite of dried bamboo shoots, when he spat a mouthful of fresh blood into the bowl. White and red mixed together. Xu Fengnian exhaled deeply. Wudang’s medicinal pills were truly extraordinary. Having expelled the clotted blood, his energy channels [stolen content]felt much smoother. Xu Fengnian expressionlessly swallowed a bowl of rice, chewing slowly and carefully. After finishing the bowl, it wasn’t Hong Xixiang who brought the items, but Jiang Ni, who’d never set foot on Hanging Immortal Cliff before. She held in her hands an ancient inkstone and several sheets of green sandalwood xuan paper. The palm-sized ancient inkstone had a frightening origin. Western Chu had a Jiang Taiyi who loved neither kingdoms nor beauties but only brush and ink—Jiang Ni’s imperial uncle. He’d ranked this ancient inkstone second among the realm’s ancient inkstones. It was the finest of fire-mud inkstones, its texture outstanding—warm in winter without freezing, cool in summer without drying. It could store ink for years without decay. Jiang Taiyi, noble imperial uncle of a kingdom, still couldn’t bear to use it. But having fallen into Xu Fengnian’s hands, it was put to use every ten days or so. Moreover, he insisted Jiang Ni grind the ink with her delicate hands beside him. Because Jiang Ni hated him to the bone—this was indeed perfectly reasonable.

Seeing Jiang Ni, Xu Fengnian still had her grind the ancient inkstone. He selected the finest Guandong rabbit hair brush, patiently waiting for the ink to become uniform under Princess Taiping’s slender hands, emanating fire-mud’s characteristic reddish glow. Only then did he take up the brush to write, recording in minute detail everything about today’s encounter with Princess Suizhu. Xu Fengnian’s small regular script was most outstanding. The ancients said: learning calligraphy begins with regular script; writing characters must start with large characters. Large characters should follow the methods of Yan’s bones and Liu’s sinews. Medium regular script should copy Ouyang. Only finally should one condense to mosquito-fly small script, learning Zhong and Wang. This was ancient instruction. Scholars throughout the realm mostly proceeded step-by-step in this manner. But under Li Yishan’s teaching, Xu Fengnian did the opposite, beginning with small script, following the remnant tracks of small seal and ancient clerical scripts. If he couldn’t write small script well, he wasn’t allowed to touch anything else. If discovered doing so, he’d get beaten with the green gourd wine vessel. Among contemporary calligraphy masters, only an old monk from Two Zen Temples whose single-minded devotion to wine produced calligraphy that entered Li Yishan’s discerning eye, being called “when this monk writes drunk, beneath his brush is only the Vajra’s furious glare, never the Bodhisattva’s lowered brow.” Thus the Crown Prince’s characters rarely displayed ingratiating charm—all were filled with slaughtering flames.

Speaking of it, among Xu Xiao’s two daughters and two sons, only Xu Fengnian’s calligraphy was presentable. Needless to say about Xu Longxiang—he couldn’t recognize a single character as large as a bushel. Xu Zhihu could be considered mediocre. Even the astonishingly talented Xu Weixiong was pitiable in this regard. Though her poetry and prose could be called unrivaled in the current age, this matter of calligraphy—even Xu Xiao couldn’t muster the shamelessness to call it good. The family letters Xu Weixiong sent back to Beiliang were extremely few. This might be the reason.

Xu Fengnian blew dry the last few drops of ink, folded the letter paper. Who would deliver the letter became a problem. He didn’t want to send this secret letter through Wudang Daoist hands. As for people from the Prince of Beiliang’s palace, this Western Chu imperial bloodline beside him—never mind that she was worlds apart from trusted confidants—her frail small frame also wasn’t suitable for delivering letters. There was no guarantee that deranged death warrior assassins wouldn’t endlessly wait like hunters by tree stumps around Wudang. The Beiliang soldiers at the mountain’s base had all “escorted” Princess Suizhu’s party of three away. Could he really call upon several Wudang masters to make the trip together? Xu Fengnian sighed mournfully. Fine, he’d have to use his ultimate trump card. Going out, he used Embroidered Winter to cut a small section of green bamboo, stuffed the family letter inside, put two fingers to his lips and whistled, summoning that azure-white luan down from high above Wudang’s peak. He bound it to the talons with cloth. The six-year phoenix spread its wings and flew, instantly disappearing from sight.

Xu Fengnian came to the edge of White Elephant Pool, gazing at the deep pool’s rippling light and that great stone jutting out perilously like a dragon’s horn.

Jiang Ni, who’d been standing behind Xu Fengnian the entire time, said harshly: “I want to go down the mountain.”

Xu Fengnian frowned: “You won’t even tend the vegetable garden anymore? Let that little plot go to waste?”

She repeated rigidly: “I want to go down the mountain!”

Xu Fengnian said irritably: “Let me make this clear—the moment you descend, [unauthorized copy]I’ll trample it flat.”

Unexpectedly, Jiang Ni remained completely unmoved. “As you wish.”

Xu Fengnian was completely at a loss. His heart stirring, he smiled: “If you want to descend, then descend. The feet are on your own body—I can’t very well bind you. But before going down the mountain, come help me with one matter. As payment, I’ll give you this fire-mud inkstone you’re holding. How about it?”

Without a word, Jiang Ni threw the ancient inkstone in her hand into White Elephant Pool.

She didn’t want this ancient inkstone sullied by the person before her. The reason she cared so intensely about it—to the point it had become her inner demon—wasn’t only because it symbolized a relic of Western Chu’s former prosperous glory. There was also a secret she’d hidden deep. In the Prince of Beiliang’s palace, she dared openly show hatred toward only two people. Besides Xu Fengnian at the top of the list, there was that Xu Weixiong who had no flaws except her calligraphy and appearance. Back when her assassination attempt in bed had failed, Xu Fengnian had merely slapped her once and uttered some harsh words. But Xu Weixiong had rushed back from thousands of miles away at Shangyin Academy to throw her down a well. The well water didn’t reach a person’s height—couldn’t drown anyone—yet was pitch black. That woman with the most venomous heart under heaven had added insult to injury by covering the well with stone slabs, leaving her in the well bottom for a full three days and nights. After emerging from the well, she’d learned by chance that Xu Weixiong’s calligraphy was terrible. So Jiang Ni began self-study and bitter practice. No brush, no inkstone? No matter. Tree branches served as brushes. Rainwater, snowwater—all rootless waters could serve as ink. Her brush practice and copying before age five had already blurred in memory. Practicing later, Jiang Ni only vented the emotions in her heart. A single stroke could write several characters. Often the ground would end up covered in bizarrely strange writing, running completely counter to contemporary calligraphic orthodoxy.

Xu Fengnian glanced at the sky’s color, saying: “I’ll call you again tonight.”

Without asking what for, Jiang Ni went to crouch before the thatched cottage, taking a last few looks at the vegetable garden. One could see that though her mouth was stubborn, her heart held some reluctance to part.

Xu Fengnian called out: “Ox-rider, get out here.”

The young Patriarch Uncle indeed scurried out.

Xu Fengnian was accustomed to this bird-person’s mysterious comings and goings, saying: “Go prepare some wine and meat, a large awl for writing plaques—if that won’t do, even a broom will work—and a bucket of ink. Right away.”

Hong Xixiang wondered: “What’s the Crown Prince doing?”

Xu Fengnian smiled: “Practicing calligraphy.”

Hong Xixiang said in alarm: “You’re not planning to write on the walls of Purple Sun Temple?”

Xu Fengnian consoled him kindly: “This Crown Prince wouldn’t do something so tasteless.”

Hong Xixiang said uncertainly: “Truly?”

Xu Fengnian rewarded him with the word “scram.”

Besides seeking his own fortune, Hong Xixiang also prayed for Purple Sun Temple’s fortune. May this Crown Prince not create any monstrous trouble. These past days, which of Purple Sun Temple’s hundred-some Daoists hadn’t been terrified? Reportedly, the presiding true master couldn’t sleep well every night, daily going to eldest martial brother to pour out his grievances, begging him to please invite that demon king who might stir up wind and waves at any moment to go elsewhere. Xu Fengnian waited half a shichen. Once Hong Xixiang had carried over the items, he returned to behind the waterfall to rest and recuperate. ​Read on Jormuntl​The ox-rider had brought a pot of fragrant rice wine, two pounds of cooked beef, a gigantic awl-brush half a man’s height, and a bucket of ink. Very complete.

Xu Fengnian truly didn’t know what this ox-rider did all day long. If not running errands delivering food, he’d be staring blankly by the water, or else herding and riding his ox. How was this cultivating the Heavenly Dao? If cultivating the Heavenly Dao was this pleasant and relaxed, even Xu Fengnian wanted to practice it.

The fifteenth moon was perfectly round.

Hanging in the sky like a great silver platter, walking at night required no lantern. Xu Fengnian had originally wanted to use the luminous pearl to light the way—unnecessary. He called upon Jiang Ni, who’d been staying in the vegetable garden like a mud figure, to walk together toward the mountain peak.

Purple Sun Temple escaped calamity. Poor Taiqing Palace, first among Wudang’s thirty-six palaces, was about to suffer disaster.

“Night’s hue like tiny insects, mountain’s form like reclining ox. Bright moon like silk cocoon, wrapping me and Jiang Ni.”

Xu Fengnian’s poetic inspiration burst forth. He spontaneously composed a clumsy five-character verse with irregular rhythm, smugly satisfied: “This poem is superb. Little mud figure, how does it compare to those moaning verses of Lingzhou scholars?”

Jiang Ni, who carried and bore almost all the heavy items, didn’t even offer a change of expression.

Xu Fengnian led Jiang Ni climbing the stairs, heading straight for Taiqing Palace atop Great Lotus Peak. There was a white jade plaza there, most suitable for wielding brush and splashing ink.

Who among refined scholars would dare take a large awl to write enormous characters before Wudang’s Taiqing Palace? Only the Crown Prince.

This was true grand-scale dissoluteness.

Doing evil in one’s hometown, knowing only how to bully men and dominate women, climbing walls to peek at red apricots all day—too petty and mean-spirited.

Arriving before Taiqing Palace, mountain wind brushing his face, his whole body refreshingly cool, Xu Fengnian had Jiang Ni place the items on the steps. He tore off and chewed a piece of beef, sitting to contemplate how to begin—regular script, running script, or the cursive he’d only practiced secretly? Futu Temple Stele, Huangzhou Cold Food Post, or Quick Draft Cursive?

Compared to the disciplined regular script, Xu Fengnian actually preferred cursive—unrestrained and free. But Li Yishan said his skill wasn’t sufficient, far from the naturally flowing realm. He forbade the Crown Prince from touching it—a regrettable matter.

The main hall roof of Taiqing Palace was laid with peacock-blue glazed tiles. The main ridge and diagonal ridges used yellow-green as the main colors for openwork carving, magnificent in atmosphere.

The great eaves flew upward—the renowned Great Geng-angle eaves known throughout the realm.

Xu Fengnian rose to grasp the large awl-brush, plunging it into the water bucket and shaking it. He still hadn’t decided what to write. When books are needed, one regrets reading too few; when characters must be written, one regrets laziness. The ancients truly didn’t deceive me. Xu Fengnian held the large brush, sighing again and again. Finally he decided to drink a few mouthfuls of wine first—borrowing the wine’s influence, perhaps he could write something good. Turning around, he froze. Jiang Ni had already tilted her head back to pour down a large mouthful of wine. Never having drunk before, her cheeks immediately flushed completely red, like the peach blossoms in Western ​Read on Jormuntl​Chu’s imperial palace. Rumor said the Western Chu emperor doted on Princess Taiping to the extreme. When the little princess asked how heavy all the courtyard’s peach blossoms were, the emperor had people pluck every peach blossom and weigh them pound by pound.

Xu Fengnian quietly sighed, inserting the large brush into the ink bucket. Today he’d originally wanted to see her calligraphy.

Though contemporary cursive had moved far from clerical-cursive, it remained what his master Li Yishan called “draft cursive,” far from reaching the realm Li Yishan praised: “rules completely abandoned, written to the end where characters aren’t recognized.” A handful of people in the world, like that strange monk from Two Zen Temples, could achieve what the scholar-gentleman Li Yishan described: “Sorrow and joy, separation and reunion, wealth and poverty, longing, intoxication, injustice, resentment—stirring within the heart, forming in the characters, thus one can harmonize with heaven and earth.”

He watched Jiang Ni sway unsteadily toward the large brush bucket.

Lifting it with both hands, she walked to the plaza’s center and began to write.

Only then did Xu Fengnian realize that when she smiled, the scenery was moving. When she was grief-stricken yet wouldn’t cry—even more moving.

The brush in her embrace moved like a great dragon.

As if ghosts and spirits guided the brush tip.

Two hundred forty-five characters Read on Jormuntl of wild cursive. A single stroke often contained five or six characters.

Beginning with: “Western Shu’s moon—mountains and rivers perish. Eastern Yue’s moon—mountains and rivers perish. At the great river’s head, the people suffer. At the great river’s tail, the people suffer.”

Ending with: “Jiang Ni vows to kill Xu Fengnian.”

She held the large brush, sitting near the character for “year,” her entire body covered in ink, staring blankly, tears streaming down her face.

Xu Fengnian sat on the highest step, murmuring to himself: “What a magnificent Moonlit Great Geng-Angle Oath to Kill.”