Fang Yun continued to eat, Yang Yuhuan said: "General Zhang sent a Demon Tortoise egg, it was already pickled when it was delivered, and it can be cooked for you to eat in seven days. The person who delivered it instructed that it should be eaten over five days, and not too much each day."

 

"Okay. Tell me what's been happening at home these days." Fang Yun said.

 

Yang Yuhuan happily talked about the trivial matters at home.

 

After a while, the maid was almost falling asleep, looking at Fang Yun with a blank face, not understanding how he could keep listening. She couldn't figure it out, so she jumped onto Fang Yun's lap and took a nap.

 

The old lady Jiang on the side secretly thought that Yang Yuhuan was lucky. Fang Yun, with his high status, was willing to spend time listening to Yang Yuhuan talk, which was very considerate. The couple would surely be harmonious and loving in the future.

 

After finishing his meal, Fang Yun said: "Come, I'll teach you how to read."

 

"Okay." Yang Yuhuan was even more delighted.

 

After teaching Yang Yuhuan how to read, Fang Yun returned to his study to practice writing.

 

Fang Yun once again copied Liu Gongquan's "Inscription of the Divine Strategy Army", and found that he had already made a start, and had made progress in the first realm of "Sound of the Falling Pen". He could now learn from various styles, and then apply what he learned to improve his calligraphy.

 

"The Yan style of the four major regular script styles is dignified, masculine, and thick. If Yan Zhenqing existed in the Holy Origin Mainland, learning his regular script would naturally be excellent. But there is no such person in the Holy Origin Mainland. If people think that I created the Yan style, it would be inappropriate. Poetry can have geniuses, but the spirit of calligraphy cannot be innate. The Zhao style is beautiful but too close to running script. Since I started with the Liu style, and the Liu style draws on the strengths of the Ou style, the next step is to learn Ouyang Xun's Ou style, and then learn the Yan style or Zhao style. After mastering regular script and running script, I can write cursive script. Even if I write quickly, the speed of writing cursive script is still faster than regular script."

 

Fang Yun did not immediately copy Ouyang Xun's characters, but first read and memorized Ouyang Xun's calligraphy theory, including "Teaching Secrets", "Eight Secrets", "On the Use of the Brush", etc., on calligraphy education. Ouyang Xun is the first among the four major families of regular script.

 

After learning Ouyang Xun's calligraphy theory, Fang Yun found that it seemed to be used for teaching students. He memorized it again and began to copy Ouyang Xun's "Nine Palace", also known as "Inscription of the Li Quan of the Nine Palace".

 

After a while, the doorman came in and said from outside the door: "Master, there are several Presented Scholars visiting, all from prestigious families."

 

Fang Yun put down his pen and pondered.

 

"Stepping on The Path of the Saints should strive for every second. If I spend time socializing with these people, my progress will slow down. However, even if I am obsessed with The Path of the Saints, I cannot completely ignore social etiquette. For example, those high-ranking Demon Clan, although they are not stupid, their character and emotional intelligence are unbearable, often impulsive and reckless."

 

Fang Yun pondered for a moment and asked: "Which literary meeting is the most famous in June?"

 

The doorman, a native of Yu Huan Prefecture and a veteran Child Scholar specially arranged by the military, immediately said: "There are no major festivals in June, so there are no major poetry meetings. However, the Liqiu Literary Meeting on the first day of July and the Qixi Literary Meeting on the seventh day of July are more important. The Qixi Literary Meeting every year is the most grand, comparable to the Dragon Boat Festival."

 

Fang Yun thought that the longer he could postpone, the better, so he said: "You can tell them that I am not feeling well and it is inconvenient to see guests or go out recently. However, I will participate in the Qixi Literary Meeting and talk about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl with the literati of Yu Huan Prefecture."

 

"Yes, master." The doorman turned and left.

 

Fang Yun was distracted for a moment, then continued to lower his head to practice writing. After writing a part of "Nine Palace", he began to read the classics of All the Saints. He read hard all the time.

 

At night, Fang Yun felt tired, took a short rest, and slowly recalled the process of climbing the Book Mountain in his mind.

 

"Qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting are the four friends of literati. I originally didn't want to study deeply, but the test in the illusion made me realize that although these are not The Path of the Saints, they each have their own merits like poetry. The human race did not value poetry in the past, but now they have to. The same is true for qin, chess, and painting. Besides, I got the guidance of 'Wen Xiang' in the illusion. I am already familiar with the classics and strategies, and now I just need to keep writing to accumulate experience. I can spare some time to learn painting."

 

"Chess requires playing against others, which is the most time-consuming. Qin and painting can be learned. I will start with painting in the near future. If my talent is still okay, I will paint some. If not, then forget it. Painting is divided into freehand and meticulous styles. In the Holy Origin Mainland, meticulous painting can stimulate the energy of heaven and earth, so I naturally have to learn meticulous painting. However, if I become a Great Scholar and return to simplicity, and understand the 'profound meaning in simple words', then I can also incorporate it into freehand painting."

 

Thinking of "profound meaning in simple words", Fang Yun couldn't help but think of the "Flying Page Empty Boat".

“`"The Great Scholar can turn a piece of paper into a flying boat just by writing the character 'cano'. It's truly miraculous. However, the profound meaning in simple words, though powerful, has its flaws. Firstly, it needs to be extracted from the true text of the Great Scholar. Writing it separately requires a strong force to bear, because it is not just a character, but contains the thoughts of the Great Scholar. I wonder when I will be able to use the profound meaning in simple words, to kill with a single character, to destroy a city with a single piece of writing."

 

Fang Yun recalled how others had described Li Wenying wielding the true text of the Great Scholar to break into the battlefield of the Yangtze River, with each character flying into the sky, it was terrifying. A thought struck him, and he remembered that there was a fragment of the Great Scholar's true text, "The Peach Blossom Spring", in the Book of Heaven and Earth. Although it was a fragment, it must contain profound meaning in simple words.

 

So he closed his eyes, his mind entered the Book of Heaven and Earth, and immediately saw a page of the golden fragment of "The Peach Blossom Spring" appear in front of him, with ninety-one characters in total.

 

Fang Yun looked at Tao Yuanming's original work, recited it over and over again, and finally his gaze fell on the character "boat" in the phrase "abandoned the boat and went through the entrance".

 

A ship is larger than a boat. If a Great Scholar can make a boat fly by writing the character 'cano', writing the character 'boat' would be even more extraordinary.

 

Fang Yun stared at the character 'boat', trying to communicate with it with his thoughts, to extract this character. Time slowly passed, and after a quarter of an hour, the character 'boat' on the true text of the Great Scholar suddenly moved slightly, as if it was about to fly out of the paper.

 

However, Fang Yun's talent was like a bursting river, pouring crazily into the character 'boat'. In the blink of an eye, his two talents were exhausted.

 

Fang Yun was taken aback and quickly stopped extracting the true text. The character 'boat' immediately returned to the fragment, but it seemed to be brighter than the other characters. He quickly left the Book of Heaven and Earth, entered the Palace of Literature, and saw that his two talents had been exhausted and were slowly recovering under the influence of the Heart of Literature.

 

"It's just that my talent is exhausted, but I'm not injured. It seems that my strength is too low. I shouldn't try to use techniques like the profound meaning in simple words or anything more advanced."

 

Fang Yun wanted to continue reading, but his talent was exhausted and his energy was insufficient, so he had to sleep.

 

Early the next morning, Zhao Hongzhuang, dressed as a scholar, hurried to Fang's residence.

 

Fang Yun and Yang Yuhuan were eating breakfast, looking surprised at this handsome "young master". The maid didn't care at all, her small paws tightly holding a duck neck, eating it with relish, making slight slurping noises from time to time, not letting go of even the smallest piece of meat, leaving only clean bones, reminding people of the skill of a butcher.

 

Zhao Hongzhuang said as he walked, "You should stay at home these days."

 

"What's going on?" Fang Yun asked.

 

"In three days, the literati of the Jing Kingdom will cross the river and come to Yuhai City to have a literary duel with our literati. I was originally going to go to the Jing Kingdom, but now I can't."

 

Fang Yun's face darkened when he heard about the literary duel. If the Dragon Boat Festival was a literary competition between the two countries, then the literary duel was different.

 

Literary duels, like literary competitions, are legitimate means for literati from all countries, and are also rules recognized by the Holy Academy. Many literati with grudges use literary duels to settle their disputes.

 

Literary competitions are just exchanges and basically won't hurt people, but literary duels are different. They either compare war poetry, or compete in talent impact, or collide with the Courage to Write. They are very dangerous and often result in deaths.

 

"Are they coming because of the Book Mountain?" Fang Yun asked.

 

Zhao Hongzhuang sighed lightly and said, "Think about it, the Jing Kingdom has been suppressing our literary reputation for seventeen consecutive years. They won't let it go easily after suddenly losing at this year's Dragon Boat Festival and wasting seventeen years of effort. As far as I know, after the Jing Kingdom lost at the Dragon Boat Festival, they wanted to send people to our country for a literary duel. However, they originally planned to wait until the Qixi Festival to come, first suppress our Yuhai Prefecture literati at the Qixi Festival, and then have a literary duel to completely suppress the literary reputation we gained at the Dragon Boat Festival."

 

"The thousand-year peace agreement has ended, and the Demon Barbarians are watching closely. Can't they wait to kill each other?" Fang Yun was filled with anger.

 

Zhao Hongzhuang said helplessly, "The grudges between the two countries are too deep. Just the royal families of the two countries have killed hundreds of people in each other's hands, not to mention the noble families. Since literary competitions, literary duels, and literary wars are all rules of the Holy Academy, if they want to use them, we can't stop them."

 

Fang Yun couldn't help but think of that world, where even though technology was highly developed, and welfare, education, culture, and living standards were much higher than in this era, war still existed. Even if there was no real war between many countries, they still stirred up conflicts in other countries, using military equipment, public opinion, trade, finance, and other aspects to wage war without gunpowder, which was very similar to literary competitions and duels.

 

"You're right, such things can never be avoided." Fang Yun said.

 

Zhao Hongzhuang said with a look of gratitude and pride, "However, the direct reason is that you won the first place in the Book Mountain, and the people of the Jing Kingdom and the Wu Kingdom performed very poorly in this Book Mountain. Therefore, the Eastern Saint decided to halve the items of the Holy Academy originally given to the Jing Kingdom and the Wu Kingdom, and give the reduced items to our country. This has made the items our country received from the Holy Academy this year ten times that of last year!"

 

"Did our country receive so little before?" Fang Yun asked.

"Yes, our Jing Kingdom is one of the weakest nations, having suffered repeated defeats, we naturally can't compete with powerful nations like Wu Nation and Qing Nation."

 

Fang Yun then said, "Since this situation arose because of me, is Qing Nation's main target me this time?"

 

"Yes. You've just become an Accomplished Scholar, you don't know The War Poetry, and your talent is unstable, they will certainly use literary battles to strike at you!"

 

Fang Yun knew that his knowledge of The War Poetry had been sealed off, and as for the solidity of his talent, even the Semi-Saints probably didn't know, so Zhao Hongzhuang was naturally worried.

 

"Thank you for reminding me." Fang Yun smiled as he looked into Zhao Hongzhuang's clear eyes.

 

Zhao Hongzhuang said seriously, "This is what I should do. If I didn't come to remind you, I would be letting down Jing Kingdom and the human race." (To be continued.)