Su Yi told Su Xuezhen to go away, and he did, without turning back once.
Their mentor-and-apprentice relationship broke from then on, and they became strangers.
Later on, Su Xuezhen’s work naturally passed the second round. Like previously mentioned, all apprentices of famous mentors could pass the second round. Back then, there were much fewer people who signed up — not even over ten thousand people. This was why, back then, the face-to-face was the last round, and there was no free-write round.
Su Xuezhen got eliminated in the face-to-face round, and he was top 32 in the entire national exhibit.
To a youngster who was only 22 years old, this ranking was already really good. The contestants who were ranked above him were all older than him.
Su Xuezhen, indeed, had skills and abilities.
Through his outstanding performance at that calligraphy exhibit, Su Xuezhen started to become famous. He was a very aspirational but collected person, so he did not let this small accomplishment get to his head.
Without Su Yi’s mentoring, he taught himself and studied others’ work, repeating this day after day. He finally got payback for his hard work, and he got hired by the local Gudu government and became a government worker. From then on, his life became better and better, as if he had a cheating system. Now, he had long stopped working for the government. He was earning so much money being a calligraphist and the principal of his academy.
And Fang Huaiyuan gradually stopped being so interested in studying calligraphy because of this. He was more leaning towards treating calligraphy as a hobby and he wanted to focus on his actual job. It was probably why outstanding people were outstanding at everything, not just their specialty. In 30 years, he conquered all of his challenges and finally became the principal of Capital University.
After Su Yi finished the story, he straightforwardly ate a hypotensive drug to calm himself down,
“I told you these things because I want you to pay attention to Su Xuezhen tomorrow, in case he tries to obstruct you.”
Liu Man nodded, her appreciation filled her heart.
She felt pity for Principal Fang. During summer, she would often visit Professor Su’s house to practice her calligraphy, and she would often meet Principal Fang. She had already discovered that Principal Fang rarely writes. Before, she felt curious. Wasn’t Principal Fang one of Professor Su’s apprentices? However, he did seem quite uninterested in calligraphy; besides, she didn’t hear about any famous work coming from Principal Fang. As the principal, he could at least write words on plaques for academic buildings and gyms. Nonetheless, Principal Fang never did that.
The younger disciple he cared so much about back then returned his care with backstabbing. It completely broke Principal Fang down.
If Su Xuezhen didn’t replace his work that year, perhaps Principal Fang would already have become a calligraphist.
His selfish actions completely changed the two people’s lives.
After returning to her room, Liu Man searched up Su Xuezhen on Baidu and examined the description of his past life. She also looked at his work. To be honest, his clerical script was great, and Liu Man’s work was bad when compared to his. She admitted that she couldn’t be compared to him.
And when the description was elaborating on his relationship with Su Yi, the phrasing was: “Mr. Su temporarily received some education from the calligraphist, Mr. Su Yi,” The sentence completely avoided his embarrassing history and did not mention a single word of how he was disowned. He even took advantage of Su Yi’s reputation to make himself look better.
On the second day, the Nation Calligraphy exhibit, both opened at the Gudu Exhibition and the Capital Art Center. Three hundred outstanding works that passed the second round were exhibited, and the exhibit was open to the public for free.
The 200 exhibit contestants that had their works on paper were sorted into 20 groups according to their different fonts. The people who wrote with the same font were put into the same group. The judges were going to choose forty outstanding authors within twenty days, and these forty people were going to fight against the twenty carving contestants from the Capital Art Center for the top ten ranks.
Liu Man had already known beforehand that she would be sorted into the eighth group, and she knew that her round would be during the afternoon.
But she and Professor Su had promised each other to go visit the exhibit during the morning, for this was really why Professor Su made her join the exhibit — to learn from the works of other authors. Learning from examples was also an important part of learning calligraphy.
Liu Man changed into her hanfu, “Xiama”, in her room. Xiama was a dress made fully from ramie, and the pattern of the ramie was very clear. The color of the dress was the original ramie color, a kind of yellowish-white. In Liu Man’s past life, this kind of material was named the “summer fabric”, since the fabric felt light and cool.
Compared to the first five sets of hanfu that Liu Man had worn before, “Xiama” was more on the low-profile side. It was more natural and casual for her to wear “Xiama”, the style it gave off felt like an “Ancient Forest”.
She tied up her hair with a single hairpin, and she did not wear any makeup. Like what Zhong Jiangnan wanted to see, she was austere and simple all over, not wearing any flaunty accessories.
Liu Man packed up and waited for Su Yi in the hotel lobby.
Everyone in the hotel had their eyes glued onto her.
Just by standing there, she was already a ray of sunshine.
Su Yi walked out of the elevator and saw Liu Man’s elegant and calm silhouette. He called her name.
Liu Man turned her head and smiled at him.
Su Yi had almost lived past one century, and it wasn’t until today when he finally understood what “The smile that charms all make the concubines lose their glow.” meant.
TL’s Note: This was a Chinese saying used to describe how attractive Royal Concubine Yang, one of the prettiest royal concubines histories has ever seen, was. In this context, it is used for describing Liu Man’s beauty.
“What’s going on today? You look extra nice today.”
The eighty-year-old elder did not care about anyone’s appearance; as long as one wasn’t naked, appearances did not matter to him. However, Liu Man, today, really made his eyes glow.
TL Note: As Puppxteer, I have noticed that this sentence structure makes the old dude seem like a pervert. But I swear on Sydney’s life that he isn’t.
Liu Man lowered her head to pull on her dress, “It must be because of this hanfu.”
“Oh? Is there anything special about it?” Su Yi understood the Han dynasty’s history, but he didn’t know a lot about their clothing.
So on their way to the exhibit, Liu Man gave a detailed lesson to Professor Su about Zhong Jiangna’s hanfu.
When they got to the exhibit center, they followed the people who treated calligraphy as a hobby into the exhibit. Two hundred pieces, with different content and different fonts, that were either horizontal or vertical, were framed and hung up on the white wall. They looked very astonishing and stylish. A place like the exhibition had walls that were ten meters high. The place looked very empty and large, making even the crowd inside look tiny.
Su Yi randomly looked at a few pieces that were nearest to the entrance, as he commented, “All of the contestants this time are pretty skillful.”
Liu Man also thought everyone did a great job. After all, if they could be chosen from more than eighty thousand pieces, these contestants must all be outstanding; none of them would be just mediocre.
“Are you feeling a bit nervous?” Su Yi smiled and asked.
“No,” Not only did she not feel nervous, but she also felt excited. She already felt very honored that her work could get hung up and presented here. This was a recognition of her work, and it was also a reward for her teachers, Madam Xu and Professor Su.
The association was probably afraid that the visitors would get tired of these pieces, so every work was hung according to their fonts and there were different fonts in between. For example, if the previous one was a cursive script, then the next piece would either be the official script or the clerical script. There were exactly 200 works, filling all the walls. It took Liu Man a long while before she was able to find her piece.
“As one keeps a pure mind like a mirror, one would feel free and flexible.” The large words hung high on the wall. Liu Man’s regular script was like her character, refreshing and elegant; therefore, it was not, at all, suppressed by those large works with hundreds of words nearby but rather prominent.
Translated by: Sydney
Edited by: Yutong/Puppxteer
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