Chapter 155: The Power of the Scroll
Translator: Noodletown Translated Editor: Noodletown Translated
Hao Ren was stunned at this sequence of events.
“Su Han, I will die at your hands… I can’t even sketch a picture of chicken pecking rice…” Seeing everyone turning to look at him, Hao Ren panicked.
Su Han just stood there waiting for him.
“Come on! Go up!” Huang Xujie was the first to yell.
Then, the other guys followed suit and yelled jeering encouragements.
“Uncle, you go up and draw a picture of chicken pecking rice!” Zhao Yanzi who was behind him urged as if she could read his mind.
“Whatever! I’ll try to draw a picture of chicken pecking rice! Anyway, I’ll be notorious after this at least.”
Hao Ren forced himself to go forward to the painting table.
Su Han stepped aside and handed the brush to Hao Ren.
The two pretty girls in ancient Chinese dresses stepped up and spread out another piece of rice paper that was more than half a meter long.
Feeling hundreds of pairs of eyes on him, Hao Ren was nervous. He whispered to Su Han, “What are you doing?”
Then, the lights went off like before, and a spotlight illuminated Hao Ren and Su Han in front of the desk.
“Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. When I say one element, you must use this element. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. If I tell you one, you must use one-tenth of your strength, so on and so forth,” Su Han whispered.
Then, she stepped to one side to grind ink for Hao Ren.
“Ay!” the guys yelled indignantly, jealous of Hao Ren as the great beauty Su Han was grinding ink for him personally.
“Calm down and concentrate. Recall Qin Shaoyang’s hand movements when he drew the painting. Do you remember each stroke?” Su Han asked.
They whispered to each other in front of the desk, at least half a meter away from the crowd. Therefore, no one could hear them.
“Yes I do.” Hao Ren nodded. He had a great memory, to begin with, and he could remember everything he had seen after breaking through to the third level of the Spirit Concentration Scroll.
“Metal, six!” Su Han said.
Hao Ren activated the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll and a pure yet weak metal elemental sword energy shot out of his fingertip before traveling into the tip of the brush.
Swoos.h.!.+ The ink went with the movement of Hao Ren’s wrist before splas.h.i.+ng onto the rice paper and forming a dragon-shaped mountain!
“Good use of essence!” Su Han praised silently.
However, the students who were watching couldn’t see anything special about it. They thought Hao Ren was just imitating Qin Shaoyang’s movement, and they booed at him slightly.
However, the influential artists were slightly shocked, thinking, “What a sharp stroke!”
“The second stroke; water, seven!”
Hao Ren copied Qin Shaoyang’s second stroke from memory, and the brush splashed the ink several centimeters above the rice paper.
The force of the water elements threw the ink drops out continuously.
Whoos.h.!.+ A big surging river appeared! It looked misty and lively!
“Smooth!” The influential artists, especially the masters who focused on traditional Chinese paintings, froze.
“Everything in the world is made from the five elements. The third stroke; wood, three!” Su Han said.
The brush in Hao Ren’s hand began to make dots like crazy.
“Fire, two!”
Little black drops appeared like the stars in the night sky.
“Earth, eight!”
“Water, four!”
“Metal, nine! From top to bottom, be deep and powerful!”
Metal elements were sharp and lethal! Wood elements represented life! Water elements combined firmness and flexibility! Fire elements could lit up the world! And earth elements were so thick that they could carry everything!
The five elements in Hao Ren’s body took turns as Su Han issued instructions and lightly ground the ink.
The audience watched Hao Ren move with smooth strokes while Su Han stood beside him elegantly.
“What a perfect couple in the spotlight!” This thought appeared in everyone’s mind.
“Su Han, I can’t do it anymore!” Hao Ren said, feeling that the five elemental essences in his body were depleting.
The continuous transitions and conversions of the five elements were quite energy consuming. Besides, he had to infuse the five elemental sword energies into the brush before each stroke, which was exhausting on its own.
After all, he now only had a cultivation value of 0.35, and he had been continuously releasing sword energies with the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll for more than ten minutes!
Big drops of sweat flowed down his face, and his arm that was holding the brush was shaking slightly.
“Water, seven!” Abruptly, Su Han put down the ink stick and stood behind Hao Ren. With her right hand holding onto Hao Ren’s right hand, she whispered into Hao Ren’s ear.
Hao Ren felt a surge of pure water elemental essence entering his body through his arm, and he immediately absorbed it with the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll before releasing it.
He splashed three big drops of ink, and they formed three weirdly-shaped rocks on the mountain.
“Wood, five! Convert it by yourself!” Su Han injected a surge of pure metal and water elemental essences into Hao Ren’s arm.
Hao Ren took a deep breath and circulated the Light Splitting Sword Shadow Scroll at a great speed, converting these essences into the wood elements. The light ink gave the painting a sense of liveliness.
Hook, crack, rub, point, dye! The techniques of the landscape painting were demonstrated through the five elemental essences.
Meanwhile, people gasped at the scene! Su Han was holding onto Hao Ren’s hand intimately while they painted together!
Feeling Su Han’s warmth beside him and hearing the whisper in his ear, Hao Ren took another deep breath, and several sailing boats appeared on the big river.
“Hao Ren and Su Han are indeed intimate.” Xie Yujia looked at them sadly.
Swoos.h.!.+ Hao Ren and Su Han both lifted their arms with the brush, and a streak of rainbow appeared at the top of the painting. It was finished.
The two pretty girls stepped forward and gently lifted the rice paper up.
“Looking up at the high mountain and walking on the wide road! Excellent! Excellent!” The white-haired Vice President of the Chinese Artists a.s.sociation applauded.
After his comments, other people began to understand the spirits expressed in the painting.
The highest level of landscape paintings valued not the techniques but the spirit and meaning! They were the most critical in landscape paintings.
Compared with Qin Shaoyang’s painting and calligraphy, the landscape painting drawn together by Su Han and Hao Ren was better in its portrayal of the spirit.
The surging river and rolling clouds depicted the spirits of valley and mountains.
High mountains were there for one to look up and admire, and the wide road was there for one to explore.
The spirit expressed in this landscape painting was Su Han’s response to Qin Shaoyang.
“The road ahead is long, and I won’t stop exploring and searching.”
Qin Shaoyang’s face turned pale, and his body shook all over. The sharp rejection Su Han gave him through the painting was one reason for his reaction, but the more important reason was the sight of Su Han and Hao Ren drawing the painting together with their bodies touching!
“I didn’t know Hao Ren was such a great painter,” standing beside Xie Yujia, Ma Lina said in surprise.
And Zhou Liren and his buddies standing in the crowd were all stupefied, thinking Hao Ren had disguised himself so well that they thought he could only draw something like a chicken pecking rice.
Zhao Yanzi put her fingers on her lips while she studied the masterly drawn landscape painting. She turned to ask Zhao Hongyu, “Did… Hao Ren really draw it?”
“Yeah.” Zhao Hongyu smiled. “Now you think he’s quite das.h.i.+ng, right?”
“Humph! Not at all!” After a moment of consideration, Zhao Yanzi turned her head away.